BReD: The Art of Vegan Sourdough and Beyond with Ed & Natasha Tatton

In this delectable episode, we dive into the world of plant-based baking with Ed Tatton, co-owner of the renowned vegan café and bakery, BReD, alongside his partner Natasha Tatton. Together, they share their remarkable journey towards adopting a vegan lifestyle and co-founding their bakery, which quickly became a culinary hotspot in Whistler.

Ed and Natasha also give us an exclusive sneak peek into their new project, the BReD cookbook. Titled "BReD: Sourdough Loaves, Small Breads, and Other Plant-Based Baking," the book is a treasure trove of knowledge and 100 delicious recipes for naturally leavened sourdough loaves, small breads, and earth-friendly baked goods. Discover the magic of vegan baking as they divulge their favorite recipes from the book, perfect for both experienced bakers and newcomers to the art.

If you're new to the world of baking, fear not! Ed & Natasha share some invaluable tips and tricks to help beginners embark on their own baking journey, ensuring that your creations turn out just as scrumptious as those from BReD. From the art of maintaining a sourdough starter to the intricacies of shaping and baking, you'll gain insights to boost your confidence in the kitchen.

But that's not all – Natasha also unveils the fascinating reason why professional bakers prefer to ditch cups when measuring ingredients. The pros know that precision matters, and they've got a secret to achieving that perfect bake every time.

Join us for an inspiring and mouthwatering conversation as we explore the Tattons' dedication to a vegan lifestyle, their success with BReD, and their invaluable insights into the world of plant-based baking. Get ready to roll up your sleeves, preheat your ovens, and embark on your very own vegan baking adventure.

Learn more about the book here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/704090/bred-by-ed-tatton-with-natasha-tatton/9780735244450

Buy on Amazon: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/0735244448?tag=prhca-20

Transcript

[00:17] Connor: Welcome back to the Who's Judging? Podcast. I'm your host Connor, and today we have two very special guests, Ed and Natasha Tatton from Bread by Ed, an awesome vegan bakery. How are you guys doing today?

[00:29] Natasha: We're doing great. Thanks, Connor. Thanks so much for having us today.

[00:32] Ed: Yeah, thanks for having us, Connor.

[00:34] Connor: Of course. Thanks for hopping on. So, before we talk about your incredible culinary creations, could you each share what prompted you to embrace veganism and the values that guide your choices today?

[00:48] Natasha: I think ultimately I discovered that the animal agriculture industry was incredibly cruel and causing a lot of suffering to animals, and I didn't want to participate in that any longer. And I saw that there's a connection between animals, land, sea and people. And if you harm one, you harm the entire ecosystem. And so by eliminating the suffering of other animals, it contributes to eliminating all suffering on the land and with people. And that's what keeps me vegan year after year. Probably never likely to stop being vegan for the rest of my life.

[01:30] Connor: That's awesome. That's a good way to look at it.

[01:34] Ed: We always ate like a heavy vegetarian diet, I would say. So it was a relatively easy transition for us both. Mine more from a health side. I have a heart condition, had a few operations in my sort of mid twenty s and in the hospital where everyone is hanging out and everything, it's just people in their seventy s and eighty s having triple heart by passes and other stents and all these sorts of things. And they were looking at me like, why is this young guy in? So it kind of all came from that really quite a selfish start to veganism. Like Natasha said, the more you learn, the more you educate yourself. For us now, we would never go back because why would you when there's such a bounty of amazing foods that you can eat without harming any animals?

[02:31] Connor: Right. And I think it's awesome that you stuck with veganism because I know a lot of people that go for health. They do have a hard time because it's easy to cheat because you're not doing it for the animals or an ethical reason.

[02:42] Ed: Totally. Yeah. I think once I started looking into it, like the dairy was an easy one because it's so much research into connection with heart conditions, high blood pressure, things like that, you don't really have to dive too deeply. But I think when it became more of a compassionate thing for animal welfare and calling myself an animal lover and an environmentalist, how can you call yourself an animal lover? You can't just love cats and dogs and then eat pigs and cows. They are all one and very similar to us.

[03:15] Connor: Right. Very selective animal love from some people.

[03:19] Ed: Yeah, exactly.

[03:21] Connor: So, Natasha, I saw you went vegetarian at a very young age. How did your early understanding of vegetarianism evolve? Over the years and ultimately lead to veganism.

[03:32] Natasha: I wasn't any kind of child prodigy or anything like that. I ultimately didn't enjoy chewing meat and so rejected meat and I was forced by adults around me to eat it. There's that traditional notion that we need meat to make us big and strong. And so the parenting was definitely focused on me eating everything on the plate.

[03:54] Connor: Right.

[03:55] Natasha: It took a few years of me not wanting to eat and chewing bits of meat for hours and not really wanting to swallow them before the adults in my life eventually said, okay, you're not going to eat it, so I'm going to stop forcing it because it was a painful experience for them as well, trying to make me eat it. So by about the age of seven, it was accepted that I didn't eat meat. And then other people started to label me and say, tell me I was vegetarian. But that said, even though it was nice to have that label because it communicates your food choices quickly, I don't believe that any of the parents or adults in my life were checking labels for things like gelatin or cared that much about the fact that I might not want to eat any animals at all. And I believe I was probably even fed fish fingers unknowingly and things. But as far as I was concerned, I wasn't eating meat and definitely nothing that looked like meat. And even eggs as well didn't like those. The only way I ever really ate eggs is if they were sort of hidden in pancakes or cakes, but not as a main thing like sunny side up and that kind of thing, like disgusting. I just think eggs always, they smell disgusting, they taste disgusting, they are disgusting in my opinion anyway. But that said, I think it's great that we have vegan alternatives that are cruelty free and give people those options these days because it seems like most people like or are conditioned to like eggs, meat and dairy. So it's fabulous. I'm very supportive of all of the vegan replacement foods that you can get.

[05:40] Connor: Right. They give people an easy stepping stone.

[05:43] Natasha: Yeah, it's not for me, I'm happy as they come. But for anyone that misses or thinks they're going to miss anything, then how wonderful that we've got such an array of amazing brands out there now and big corporate chains that are taking on board these trends and offering so many abundant products.

[06:04] Connor: Right. So what age or how far after that did you make the ethical mindset change?

[06:13] Natasha: When I was eleven years old, we had a documentary, a BBC documentary come to our school and they wanted to interview kids about animal testing. And we were interviewed, my class of about 30 children were interviewed for a TV show. And just the questions actually alerted me to what was really going on behind the scenes with medicines, pharmaceuticals, companies, and then there was a company in the UK called the Body Shop that were very new and they used to be very active with campaigns to rescue animals and save animals from laboratories. And we were like one of the first companies. I remember making a stand against that type of testing. And so that started my awareness of more animal suffering. And I definitely became more closely identified to that side of things as well, like what the animals went through, more than just I didn't like it, but more that there was suffering involved. But it wasn't until much later, in my late 20s, that I learned about factory farming, and that was very shocking to me. And then I started buying all the free range products, thinking that if I bought free range and organic and all those nice names, then I was doing a good bit like making an ethical choice. And it's a whole journey, isn't it? Because then eventually you realize that even those labels don't mean anything for the animals, to be honest. Like a free range chicken, it might have more space than a battery chicken, but really it's space and perhaps it still doesn't go outside. It could just have a bigger barn to run around in. And then I learned all sorts of other horrible things. Like sometimes free range chickens are more likely to die because they get caught up running around and they get caught in things, and then they can often die or just get pecked at by their other chickens around them. And it actually can be quite cruel as well. So when you start realizing that these labels don't mean much and they're regulated by the same people that hold the animals, then it kind of makes it all a bit meaningless. And the only way to make sure that you're making an ethical decision is to avoid the whole lot, in my opinion.

[08:27] Connor: Right. There's way too many different labels and things that don't really mean what they right.

[08:34] Natasha: That's right.

[08:35] Connor: All right, I'll let Ed talk for a little bit now. Can you take me through the journey and my viewers through the journey of how bread was born, the bakery, from the initial idea to becoming a popular vegan cafe and bakery?

[08:47] Ed: Yeah, for sure. I've worked in kitchen since I was 13 years old, so I've always had a passion. It's one of those childhood jobs, like some kids want to be a firefighter or an astronaut or something like that. My mum's got photos of me, like, baking with her little simple cakes to take to school since like four or five years old. So I've always enjoyed eating food mostly, definitely later in sort of my early teens, like making it for people and sharing it with friends and family and seeing their enjoyment. So, yeah, got a job at a little local restaurant when I was 13, started washing dishes and basic prep, went to culinary school, worked in fine dining kitchens. I knew that I wanted to be at the higher end. I had some really good mentors when I was younger, and they sort of always pushed me to work in the best places that you could. So later in your career you have that foundation of good cooking and sourcing all the ingredients correctly and being able to make everything from scratch. I found sourdough probably in my mid 20s. I've probably been making sourdough for about 15 years or so now.

[09:58] Connor: Wow.

[09:59] Ed: Mostly in restaurants and then bread. The concept of that basically came when we moved to Whistler. I worked in a farm to table restaurant as a sous chef, and they were making everything in house apart from the bread. They were outsourcing that, buying it from a local five star hotel. And I sort of started the sourdough program there. Just said, we can control stock. Like, we will have what we need instead of having too much or not enough, and it will be fresh, we can choose, we can use organic flowers. Started making it for friends and our yoga teacher at the time, she was running it's, a good friend of ours, Tina, was running a studio. Would take it to her and exchange sourdough for free yoga, which was a good exchange for both of us. Awesome trade, but obviously taking a freshly baked loaf of bread to a yoga studio, it was torture for the people there. They were kind of like smelling it during the practice, like, where can we get this from? And it was very organic. It just grew from that, really. People asking me, oh, I heard you're making bread. Where can we buy this? And at first I would just gift it to people. It was kind of getting back into that flow of making bread in a bigger quantity than just two loaves. And then together with Tash, we sort of came up with the idea to start this little Facebook business, use the kitchen that I was working in because they didn't open for lunchtime. So I could rent the space, make the bread in the morning, put it in the fridge, do my shift as the chef, and then the following morning come in and bake it, and everyone would come in and pick it up. It was between sort of 07:00 A.m. And 11:00 A.m. And it grew from there. It was very sort of underground bread club. Word of mouth. Started at 30 loaves. I remember thinking, I've never made 30 bread in my life, and quickly escalated. People, if something's good, they're going to tell their friends or their neighbor. And before we knew it, it was sort of 100 loaves every week, consistently.

[12:02] Connor: Wow.

[12:03] Ed: Always the same loaf. So it was like moving market research. I always say I didn't have to invest a lot of money and buy fancy equipment. The equipment was there. I had the support from the restaurant. And then as it grew. People were like, we don't want this just one day a week. We want to buy this multiple times. Or sometimes it would sell out because I would meet my capacity. So it was really the community. It was a community driven business, very grassroots. And again, sort of always continually talking to Tash. We were both vegan at that point. She was like, let's start a vegan sourdough bakery. No one's doing anything like that in the local area, even in BC. To be honest, we didn't know anyone.

[12:53] Natasha: In the world that was a vegan sourdough bakery.

[12:55] Ed: Yeah, we'd been to a lot of bakeries in our life, and especially, like in restaurants, there's always now a vegan option, but in bakeries, you may get one loaf of bread.

[13:06] Natasha: We went to California and did sort of it was kind of a vacation, casual market research. We went to all these phenomenal sourdough bakeries. There's a really famous one called Tartine, and, well, Chad has a few locations, but the original ones in Francisco. And we actually were walking down the street and just saw this huge lineup, and there was no sign on the building. It was just a black building and people lining up. And we kind of said, what are they lining up for? I wonder what that is. And then Ed said, oh, maybe that's Tartine actually sort of looks familiar. I've seen a photo of it in a cookbook or whatever. So we went and joined the line. We waited 45 minutes, I think.

[13:49] Ed: Wow.

[13:50] Natasha: Yeah. And you're taken through the pastry cases first, and I remember looking at everything. Oh, it all looks beautiful. And we asked the server, Is any of this vegan? And he said, oh, actually, there's only one thing in here that's vegan, and I know what it is because I'm vegan too. And I was like, oh, trust you then. So he found this one vegan pastry, but there was so much in there, and we thought, what a shame that the bread generally is inherently vegan sourdough. It's just flour, water, salt. We were so lucky that we managed to get, like, the last loaf of bread as well that day, which was an amazing loaf of bread that we'll always remember. But we thought, Why is it that the bread is inherently vegan, but none of the pastries are really just one thing? And if that had sold out, then there would have been nothing. So we thought, it's a shame there aren't any sourdough bakeries that are vegan. Okay. Ding, ding, ding. Light bulb moment. This is what we do have a.

[14:48] Connor: Bakery like this that's now you got the whole market.

[14:53] Natasha: Yeah, exactly.

[14:54] Ed: It's really nice to see more and more since we've been open through Instagram, you do see other sort of plant based bakeries. They're definitely becoming a lot more common. But I feel like sort of five, six years ago, seven years ago, when we started, it was very few and far between. So it's amazing to see that the.

[15:12] Natasha: Growth there since the pandemic, actually, a lot of people started baking at home and some people got really into it, like Ed had got into baking a few years before that, and they've gone on to open different micro bakeries all over the world. We've seen vegan sourdough bakeries popping up, which is really great, but I still think that we were one of the first. But we're very happy to see more follow suit.

[15:37] Connor: Right. Has anyone reached out to you guys saying that you inspired them to start one or to start baking more?

[15:42] Ed: Yeah, we do have. I mean, we're pretty active on Instagram, so we always sort of get messages and I try and sort of post tutorial videos to help people to make it more accessible. I feel like the more you can give, the more creativity you share, the more you actually get yourself where rather than holding it in and restraining it, your brain actually just limits itself, whereas if you just let it go, it creates more space to produce better ideas, and that's where comes in.

[16:18] Connor: So what led you to choose sourdough over all the other options?

[16:23] Ed: Fermentation. I love fermentation. Like I said, I have the chef background, like making sauerkraut and kimchi and obviously, coming from the UK, I love drinking beer. So just the natural fermentation. And really, that's the bread that we've been eating for thousands of years prior to sort of 80 years ago, when we sort of started commercially making baker's yeast and this quick bread that we know right before that, all bread was sourdough. So I love the sort of history of it and that it's actually a good thing to eat as part of our diet. It gives us protein, carbohydrates, if it's organic and fermented correctly, it's a really good thing for us to be eating.

[17:13] Connor: Right, so you guys said that it's inherently vegan. Why do you think most people, or a lot of bakeries don't keep it vegan?

[17:20] Natasha: Well, they do. I mean, most bakeries that are sourdough focused will just put flour, water, salt, but then there are some other variations, like an oat and honey bread is quite popular, but you could substitute the honey for maple syrup or something else. And then there's other types of bread like brioche, like we'll do vegan sourdough cinnamon buns and different types of sweet breads as well. And those are the ones where the vegan really comes into play, because traditionally you would use eggs, butter, cream, ingredients like that to kind of add to the dough. And we found that using plant milk or coconut milk, vegan butter egg substitutes like Flaxseed, Psyllium, Husk, these are other plants that we can use to mimic the effects of animal based ingredients. And it doesn't make them like, any more or less processed, really. They're just different products that can offer the same end result, like a decadent, fluffy brioche, and customers seem to love it, and most of them don't identify as vegan yet. So I believe that if you make your food with love and you choose the best ingredients you can, then it will taste good and people will want it again and again, no matter what they say, no matter what their political or religious prowess is. If you give something to somebody that's delicious, they want to eat it again. End of story.

[18:56] Connor: I definitely agree with that statement. So I was looking through your guys'site, and I think you guys kind of undersell yourself or sell yourself short by calling yourself a vegan bakery, because I saw you guys also offer gluten free options. You guys embrace zero waste efforts, and you guys also source locally as much as you can. So I love seeing bakeries and other shops that are more open and willing to accommodate people as well as being environmentally friendly.

[19:26] Natasha: Yeah, we're actually a B Corp certified business. B is benefit company, so it's a global network of companies using business as a force for good. And some of our things that we do are all of the things that you mentioned using compostable packaging, taking care of our staff, making sure they have adequate medical benefits and pension plans and things like that. And also we donate 1% of our revenue to animal and environmental causes. So to date, we've donated around $20,000 causes. We've planted close to 70,000 trees through one of our partner charities, Trees for the Future. That's through an initiative where we plant a tree for every coffee that we sell because we do have really nice espresso coffee because it goes quite well with treats. When people come to a bakery, they want to eat and drink that, you have a nice coffee program to accompany all your beverages, all your treats. Sorry. And I think we were the first cafe in town to use oat milk years ago. And I believe I like to think anyway, that we converted half the town to oat milk, and now it's just standard everywhere. And I think more than 50% of people go for oat milk over dairy anyway, so that's been a really positive thing. And we never charged extra for that. We always kept our prices competitive because ultimately we are mission driven to create a vegan world in a very nice way without forcing stuff on anyone, but just making it easy and accessible for them to make a plant based option.

[21:11] Connor: You guys beat the vegan tax, no. Surcharge on the other milks.

[21:15] Natasha: No.

[21:17] Connor: And going back to you talking about taking care of your employees, I saw you guys decided to close on Mondays and Tuesdays, is that correct?

[21:24] Ed: Yeah.

[21:25] Connor: And that was just to keep the staff well and happy and well rested, maybe.

[21:32] Ed: Yeah, it is a combination of that, but also we're in a ski town, so it is quite seasonal. Like, we get a lot of tourists coming through on the weekend, so that is a busier time for us. We're quite a small bakery, a small team, so it's kind of to make sure that everyone's rested. It's kind of nice. I've worked in restaurants when they do it and everyone comes back feeling more refreshed. We do actually open the bakery on Tuesday, but it's just for prep, obviously, to make everything for the Wednesday the following day because it's sourdough, it sort of takes a full day. So the bakery is actually making things six days a week. But yeah, we're open Wednesday to Sunday.

[22:12] Connor: Got it. So it's more of a win win for everyone involved then.

[22:16] Ed: Totally. Yeah. I mean, we like to like Natasha said, we like to sort of look after them with health benefits. It's not just for the managers, it's for the whole team to make know if they need some physio or some dental work, it's available for them. Because, again, I've worked for other companies and it's like, only if you get to this certain tier management or the owners get like an excessive amount, we treat ourselves how we want them to be treated as well.

[22:43] Connor: Right, that's awesome. Especially in a time where workers rights and everything is going pretty rampant right now. All right, I'd love to hear more, and I'm sure my listeners would, about how you guys source locally and how you built the relationships with the local suppliers.

[22:59] Ed: So, as I mentioned, prior to opening Bread, I was working as a sous chef. Our plan originally was just to be here in Whistler for six months and we've lived here for ten years. So before it was I was actually at the restaurant for five and a half years as the sous chef, and it was farm to table. So loads of local farmers, which meant that I got to a lot of them are harvesting the fields and then delivering it themselves. So it was really nice to develop those relationships with the farmers. And a lot of them are female run, which is amazing, owned and operated. Most of the staff are females. And then also, which is great, is you can talk to them about the following seasons, what's coming up, so you can plan your menu. And that was the great thing. Having the chef background. Are passionate about food, had the training and then could put that into the baked goods. So we always think about how it's going to be presented to the customer and what textures there's going to be. Making sure we're using seasonal produce because we don't want to be using strawberries in the middle of the winter unless we've made like a jam from the strawberries in the summer. We do a lot of preserving as well, making compots and jams and dehydrating things.

[24:16] Natasha: And we do a lot of trades with the farm as well, so they have all their farm hands out on the fields, picking everything, and we make lots of bread. And when they come to deliver all the produce, then we usually do an exchange bread. And it gets to a point where the farmers come back in the spring and they're like, oh, we've been harvesting for a couple of weeks, and the staff are wondering when I'm going to come and get the bread. So they've come to expect it now. And it's like a staff perk for them is that they get bread as well as vegetables to take home. And so I really like doing that with the local farmers because I feel like the farmers feed us and we feed the farmers. It's a nice little circular economy going on.

[24:58] Connor: Right. Definitely a good trade. Again, just like the yoga.

[25:01] Natasha: Yeah.

[25:03] Connor: All right, so now we get to move on to the star of the show, which is your awesome vegan cookbook coming out. It's called bread, sourdough loaves, small breads and other plant based baking. Can you guys tell me a little more about the book?

[25:17] Ed: Yeah, so we've written it with Penguin Canada, so huge publishing house. It was a real honor when they reached out to us and asked us if we'd be interested in writing a baking book. They'd done their research before they approached us. They'd actually heard us on a podcast and sort of looked at our social media and our website, and they were obviously impressed what they saw and said that there's a lot of vegan cookbooks out there, but not many in the sort of baking scene. They basically said that we'd have a year to write it 100 recipes based around sourdough but vegan baking. And we just got to work in sort of putting together a contents page to start with. About 50 of the half of the book is classic bakes that we've done at the bakery over the last few years. And then it also left it open for the other sort of 50 recipes for us to come up with. New breads, cakes, cookies, things to have with bread. We've got a gluten free chapter and a zero waste chapter. So it really sort of encapsulates sort of our ethos and what we stand for. For a lot of people that can't get to our bakery, they'll be able to recreate these things at home.

[26:38] Connor: Right. So certainly an exciting experience. I think the biggest thing I want to know is how do you choose just 100 recipes? How did you make those decisions on who makes the cut and who gets left out?

[26:50] Ed: Yeah, there was a lot of testing. 100 recipes when you first sort of talk about it, doesn't seem too much, but when you really get into it, especially with, like, vegan baking, it's not like I can just go on the internet and search things. A lot of these recipes, all of them pretty much are ours, are classics. Some of them might have taken twelve different attempts. I was making a puff pastry for a mushroom, walnut, lentil and herb sort of sausage roll style. But I wanted to make a relatively easy puff pastry where it combines a classic technique, but also a rough puff where you just grate the butter and it speeds the process up. So a lot of that was testing different butters to make sure you got that nice, crisp, fluffy pastry without it being sometimes when you use margarines, they melt too fast and it becomes quite greasy. So a lot of it was trial and error and testing and seeing what would work and making sure when the reader does it themselves that they have the best chance possible for it to come out and work.

[28:00] Connor: Right, so what are each of you guys what are some of your favorite ones that were included in the book?

[28:05] Natasha: Oh, there's so many good ones. I particularly like the miso chocolate babka recipe, the orange butter with the carrot hot cross buns that's very good at Easter time. I think about those often and look for Easter. And then there's some savory ones, like the sausage rolls that Ed just mentioned are really fun for a party or social gathering. It's nice to have some savory recipes in there as well, but all of them are so good. I think every single one is delicious.

[28:43] Ed: We got to try a lot of stuff, and so did our friends, obviously, being zero waste. They got a message every Monday when we were doing photo shoots. Like, you'd make a full recipe or double recipe, make sure you had lots to play around with for the photo shoot. So we'd either give it to friends or the hospital or people like that. So they got to sort of give us feedback as well. So we could always make tweaks, even after the photo shoot. As long as we had it looking nice, we'd be like, oh, it's a little bit too sweet. We could make these little adjustments. But I loved a lot of the breads. For me, it was writing a book that I would want to use at home. So, like, I mentioned all these different chapters, but I like even simple things like the NAN bread, like a garlic naan bread to a good curry, or like the Chai spice donut with cranberry. Just a big yeah, I love donuts.

[29:39] Connor: Who doesn't?

[29:41] Natasha: I mean, our storefront, it's very much focused half and half on bread and then, like, loaves that our locals will buy for their families. And some people in the area will come and stay in an apartment for their time here, like catered, self catering. So people buy bread to have that. But we also have a lot of gondola traffic of skiers going up the hill or bikers going up the mountain. So those people want, like, grab and go snacks. So we've got all of that in the book as well. But then, as ed. Said we wanted a book that was a bit more than just what we do at the bakery, but something that's really practical and can be used throughout the year at different times by home bakers and professionals. But we wanted a book that was a lot more than just what we do at the shop. So there's like desserts in there. And it was funny when we were doing the book photo shoots and we had to make all these big celebration cakes and huge pies like the pecan pie with sourdough crumbs. I'm saying that because it's like around the time of Thanksgiving now, all these types of things, and our friends would come and get the extras at the end of the photo and they'd be like, oh my God, I've never had this. Why don't you make this for the store? And it's like, well, because the customers that come in the store are getting on a gondola, they're not going to hold pecan pie with them.

[31:04] Connor: Right?

[31:06] Natasha: Some crazy ones definitely would, but they'd rather have a cinnamon bun they can shove in their pocket. And so it was kind of nice to do all these different other things that are a bit like we make at home or we make when we're seeing our family and friends, but we don't always get to make for our customers in the bakery. So it's anyone that's been to our bakery, it's what we do and lots more.

[31:30] Connor: Right. Was there anything that you guys made new while you were looking for the cookbook that you actually added to the bakery?

[31:38] Natasha: I mean, we're always in the menu, aren't we?

[31:41] Ed: Yeah, I'd say like cheesecakes. We did a lot more experiments like baked cheesecakes because our display counter is not refrigerated, so we always have to take that into it's. More baked items like Natasha mentioned, like cookies, cinnamon buns. We bake it all fresh every day as don't if there's anything left, it always gets donated to other businesses. Or to be honest, we just try and sell out every day. So we look at pre sales and just try and make the judgment. If you come at sort of an hour before closing, we might only have 20% of the menu left. And a lot of people appreciate that. They come in and say, good for you. This is great to see that you don't have an abundance of baked goods left. So it was kind of interesting to look at what will sit in the display and work for the customers. So we have been able to do some larger things, slice them up, cut them a bit differently to make them accessible to take away.

[32:38] Connor: Awesome. And now just another question. How does one sign up to be your guys'friend for when the next cookbook comes out and we have to try all the stuff?

[32:47] Natasha: Thanks for asking. Connor, hit us up on Instagram is our most active platform at Underscore Bread E-D-S underscore B-R-E-D. So it's bread without the A.

[33:00] Ed: Just slide into the DMs.

[33:01] Natasha: Slide into DMs. And also if you want to make something in the cookbook and tag us, then we'd really appreciate that. We want to see how we're inspiring everyone to make all these vegan baked, delicious creations and maybe people will adapt the recipes and it'd be interesting to see what other people do with them. We've already had a few because some of the recipes were released earlier by the publisher for sort of promotional reasons. Like Veg News have shared quite a few of our recipes and people have been sending us photos of their versions, which has been fun to see. So we want to see lots more of that. Otherwise, our website is edsbread.com edsbred.com. We have a newsletter that we send out once a week with updates, recipes, new products, events that we're doing, any other news that we've got going on. So that's a great way to stay in touch as well.

[34:03] Ed: Or just come and see us at the bakery. Of course, Whistler is an amazing place to come and visit. We're the classic story. We came for six months and we've lived here for ten years. So I recommend to all the listeners if they're into any sort of outdoors nature, whistler's got it all year round, so come and visit us at the bakery.

[34:25] Connor: That was a great pitch for Whistler. Might have to go get myself a ticket.

[34:30] Natasha: Have you skied before, Connor?

[34:32] Connor: Or Snowboarding? I snowboard.

[34:35] Ed: Awesome.

[34:35] Natasha: Yeah. And have you been to Whistler before?

[34:38] Connor: Not yet.

[34:40] Ed: Very good answer yet. Love that.

[34:44] Connor: This was my first pitch on, so.

[34:48] Natasha: Well, there's a great vegan bakery at the bottom of the mountain, so what more incentive do you need?

[34:54] Connor: That's interesting. What's the name of the bakery?

[34:56] Natasha: Bread. B-R-E-D? Yeah. Super simple. Everything's Bread. It just started like that because when Ed started making bread at home and then in the restaurant and then giving it to people, it wasn't a business then and people literally just called it was just that's what it was, he was the one making it. But then when we started to come up with the concept of opening a bakery, we went around and around loads of different names and we just kept coming back to the fact that everyone called it Ed's Bread. But Ed didn't want to call it Ed's Bread because a bit of a kind of cheesy connotation of like Luigi's Pizza or like, it can sound a bit cheap when you have someone's name, not always, but sometimes the fear was that it would sound tacky. Let's just call it bread. Spelled like Ed Bred. And so it was a portmanteau, it was a combination of Ed and Bread.

[35:53] Ed: And it's kind of stuck now and the instagram was like, I think bread's taken, so let's just stick with that.

[36:01] Natasha: But we're not inherent business people we've grown into that role, but originally and still today, we're just two passionate vegans on a mission. And so what we didn't realize was that really, you're supposed to do research into what URLs are available and what handles are available on social media, and you're supposed to come up with a name that's available. Bread, B-R-E-D is not available, and neither is the hashtag. So it ended up going back for Internet reasons, but the shop is just.

[36:37] Connor: Called Bread, B-R-E-D. Well, fortunately for you guys, when you have a good product, the name matters a little bit less. Clearly, word of mouth took you guys to the next level again and again.

[36:48] Natasha: Yeah. And the book is just called Bread. So bread made.

[36:53] Ed: I think if you just use good ingredients, we use as much organic as we can that comes through in the flavor and everything like that. We just use the best products we can. People always say, how many nuts are you using in that bowl? Or that cinnamon bun? I'm like, I use as much as I need to. I cost it out and charge what I need to because I don't want to just be putting a tiny amount of something in. We just make the best products we can, and people seem to love them, so it works.

[37:21] Natasha: I love them. Say, does the pecan bun just have pecans on the top? And I'm like, oh, no, it's loaded up. We don't want to be stingy with.

[37:32] Connor: A good you're like, what kind of cheap bakery do you think this is exactly?

[37:38] Natasha: No, we're trying to woo you to become vegan here. Good.

[37:42] Connor: Right. The taste of vegan food is what's going to get more people to go vegan for sure.

[37:47] Natasha: Definitely. And this is my vegan beef with a lot of options out there is that you either get passionate vegans with no culinary background who want to open a vegan cafe or make some vegan food product, but they don't. Always have the culinary knowledge to do so and execute it as they need to, or you get non vegan businesses making vegan products who are doing it because they want to address a trend. They don't want to lose out. They want to get people through the door. And also and this is a fact that a lot of people don't realize is when people go to somewhere like KFC that has a vegan option, what happens is you get groups of families or friends who come in and if they didn't have a vegan option for the one vegan in the group, that whole group might have gone somewhere else. So when these big chain companies bring in plant based options on their menu, on the one hand it's good because it's making plant based food more accessible. But what people don't realize is the sales of the meat products go up because the groups are coming in. So the group will go where the lowest common denominator needs to eat. So if you're a family got somebody with a dairy allergy or they're vegan or whatever, they'll have to go somewhere where that person's catered. But if everybody gets meat at the place, then they'll all eat meat and only the one person will eat vegan. Whereas it used to be that you'd just have to go to a vegan restaurant, probably, or a vegetarian restaurant, and then the whole group would end up eating plant based. And so it's just interesting to know that. And so I like to support the vegan businesses as much as I can. And I feel like they're more mission driven to carry on doing what they do.

[39:43] Connor: Right. It's definitely a hard balance because on one hand, you kind of want to see people supporting those options because if they don't and it fails, then other companies will be scared to start their own. But it's like you said, also when they sell the vegan product, there's nothing that says like, they're going to reinvest those profits into vegan items. So your money could still be going towards making more meat.

[40:05] Natasha: Yeah, that's right. And I think we all got excited like five years ago whenever it was that beyond meat and Impossible came out with these meat substitute burgers because it's like, oh great, now there's a meaty convincing burger. Maybe people will stop eating beef. No, they didn't. They didn't. There's more people eating beef than ever before. So why is that? And what we're finding now is like, the smaller independent brands, the vegan brands potentially that were making burgers are now going out of business because all the big corporations are making them much cheaper. And people are buying because what's affordable. They don't want to spend loads of money on an ethical vegan burger if they can get a cheap one at the supermarket. So it's a very complex issue, like with the whole vegan food world. But we want everybody to know that Ed and I are passionate vegans, vegan owned and operated bakery, vegan cookbook out now to share with the world and everyone, please go ahead and make all of our recipes right now.

[41:13] Ed: That would be awesome, actually, because there is a burger bun recipe in there.

[41:19] Connor: There we go.

[41:20] Natasha: Vegan burger bun. Because many burger buns are actually coated in egg wash to make them shiny.

[41:28] Connor: Dang it's everywhere. You can't escape it.

[41:32] Natasha: Yeah, if you see a shiny bun, it's usually got an egg wash on it. Something to be aware of.

[41:37] Connor: Yeah. That's a good tip for everybody here. All right, so for someone that's interested in buying your book that's new to baking, what are maybe one or two of the recipes that you would recommend them to start with?

[41:50] Ed: Yeah, there's some really good ones in there that aren't even baking. Maybe they're to have go and support your local bakery and make some dips and things like that. To have with that bread. Or in the gluten free section, there's a cake that you can make in it's. Gluten free cake, kind of Italian style. It's orange and almond cake. And it's all made in the food processor. So it's literally you blend up a whole orange. You literally just have to give it a wash, quarter it and throw the whole orange in there. Because the way that it's quite bitter from the outside of the orange with the zest and the rind, you get the juice as part of the wet ingredients and then a little bit of sugar. Balances it with ground almonds and a few other bits. So I love that cake. That's really simple. There's some really easy cookies in there that people can try out and then some more simple bread recipes once they get into at the beginning of the book, there's how to make your own starter and then maintain the starter. So we also have discard recipes like pancakes and waffles that you can use with the excess sourdough starter and then just try some simple bread recipes like the naan bread I mentioned earlier. Or there's a really good ficaccia recipe in there which is baked in a tray, so you don't have to do any sort of complex shaping or anything like that. We'll just get you used to handling dough and using the sourdough culture, and then hopefully people will just progress through the book and gain confidence in their baking and our recipes, and then they can try some of the more complex ones, like the cinnamon buns and things like that.

[43:31] Connor: You got to work up to the reward, right?

[43:34] Ed: Exactly. So it really is we did want to write a book that was for everyone, that it's not so advanced that it's scary. There's some really simple things in for the beginner baker, some things that are going to challenge you as you grow more like intermediate, and then things that you can show off to practice a couple of times and make for a friend's birthday or something like that.

[43:56] Connor: Awesome. So as a veteran baker like you, what are some of the bigger tips or more helpful tips that you would give to someone just starting to bake?

[44:05] Ed: I think the number one for me is getting yourself a set of digital scales. I know in America it's all about cups and everything like that. And we did a lot of research, and in the book there is the option to use cups. We did that as an extra option. But for us, it's really sort of that's going to hone in and make sure that every time you make it, it's exactly right and it just makes it easier as well. If you're doing baking with kids, you can put a bowl on the scale and tell them, okay, you got to get it to 100 grams. It'll be fun. But it would just mean that it's more inclusive and exciting for everyone and more guaranteed. What else would I say? I mean, with sourdough, definitely I could recommend a probe to check the water temperature is always helpful. Again, like when you're going through the process, maybe a little notepad to make sort of little notes on the temperature of the water and temperature outside. You can really geek out on sourdough. So there's a lot of things with that, I think, with more towards cakes and cookies. Don't give up. Sometimes we have to try a few different vegan butters or blocks to see which ones work, which ones you like. What would you say?

[45:28] Natasha: The whole book is packed full of tips. We did find a lot of testing with making vegan meringue, which we use on our lemon meringue tart. And what we found with that is you should be able to make meringue in the oven at a low temperature, but we didn't have very good results with that. We actually found if you do have access to a dehydrator, you'll get a much better result by using the dehydrator rather than the oven. Although, that said, maybe somebody out there has got a really fancy oven that basically functions like a dehydrator. I'm not sure, but in our experience, the dehydrator worked much better than the oven. And if you are going to make meringue, putting the mixing bowl into the freezer first and trying to make sure that all of your equipment is super cold before you even get started, that will make for a much better result. Because meringue is one of those things like sourdough. It's simple in theory, but it can be tricky to get it perfect in practice. And so, following those guidelines, dehydrator, very cold bowl, mixing bowl will help achieve the desired result there. But, yeah, the whole book is full of tips, really. I think on every recipe you'll find another little nugget of a little golden nugget to help you.

[46:51] Connor: That'll be very helpful. And going back to what Ed said, thank you for keeping it in cups and stuff, because we are very stubborn and we would not have converted or bought new things or anything. We are very passionate about our system.

[47:06] Natasha: And that's why we've done it. But we highly recommend the digital scale because this is the problem with cups. Connor, I'll say to you, here's the recipe. You need a cup of flour. Your cup of flour might be tightly packed and you might do the correct thing of leveling it off with a knife. But my cup of flour might be a whole heap and I might just be very willy nilly throwing it in the bowl. And the difference between our two cups could be quite substantial. So we could end up with very different results and wonder why it's gone wrong. So if you use the digital scale, and I say 100 grams of flour or whatever it is, then there's less room for error and more likely to get a perfect result. And if that hasn't convinced you, it's less dishes as well, because you're just putting it in the mixing bowl as you go, rather all out in another cup, you see.

[48:00] Ed: But Penguin having them on our side, they were like, you need cups. Want to sell the book? You need cups.

[48:06] Natasha: Bakers don't like cups. Professional bakers don't use cups. You don't go into a commercial kitchen and see bakers fiddling around with little cups. I'm sorry, guys, it's digital scales. They're not that expensive, really. They're very helpful once you get into it. Plus, if you've got different recipes, some might be in metric, some might be imperial. Well, who cares, Gail? You just change the mode. You don't have to think about it.

[48:31] Connor: There's a very good point. So, in essence, if you do use cups, there's nobody to blame but yourself.

[48:38] Natasha: Thank you, Connor. Thanks for saying it.

[48:41] Connor: You can't throw the cookbook, you can't bang it. It's definitely on you.

[48:44] Natasha: If you use cups and it doesn't go well, don't blame us.

[48:47] Connor: We told you. You told us right here. Professionals don't use cups.

[48:51] Natasha: They don't use cups, especially for bread. Like even Chad Robertson in his Tartine Sourdough book, which is one of the best selling sourdough books out there so far. He has grams in his book. So it's not just us saying it. This is the general consensus from the experts in the industry.

[49:13] Connor: Right. So this is definitely a big step for you guys with the cookbook. Obviously, you guys already have your social media that you share with, but how does it feel to extend your expertise and your creations to an even wider audience than before?

[49:26] Ed: Yeah, I think it's an amazing thing. Like I said, when a publisher like Penguin comes to you, you can't say no. It's like, huge opportunity. It's like a childhood dream for me being such a young chef in my early teens. You always dream about opening a restaurant or some sort of business. I'd say that writing a cookbook is up there with it, and so many people aren't on social media. It will just mean that our recipes hopefully will be used by all over the world and we'll be able to hopefully inspire more people to bake plant based vegan options.

[50:06] Connor: Yeah, that's awesome. Obviously at different scales. But I know exactly how you felt because Megan at your publishing one, she actually reached out to me, and I can't put my thumb on how she kind of came up with my podcast, but I do need to ask her about that. But yeah, I mean, I was like, I'm not going to turn down this opportunity.

[50:26] Natasha: Oh, thank you.

[50:27] Ed: It's good for both of us, then.

[50:29] Connor: Yes, it's been a good conversation so far. Think going beyond that. The release date is coming up pretty soon now, just a little over a month away.

[50:40] Ed: Yeah.

[50:42] Connor: As it approaches, what are some of the final preparations or exciting plans you guys have to celebrate the launch of the cookbook.

[50:49] Natasha: Well, we have some different book signings going on in our local area here in Whistler and we're sort of participating in a big food festival called Cornucopia in Whistler. And so we'll be giving away samples and selling our cookbook there. And also we're having a big launch party in the UK where we're originally from because we still have quite a following there and it's kind of our roots, so it's nice to be able to invite our family and friends along to that as well. So that will be happening in central London at TT Liquor so people can sign up to their newsletter for more details on that. And yeah, we're just going to have a big party there and see what's next. If anyone wants to invite us along to anything going on, then let us know in the DMs.

[51:44] Connor: That's very awesome. Oh, man. What would you guys actually moving on, you guys pitched Whistler already. Would you guys want to give your best pitch for the cookbook now? Maybe just a quick 32nd, 1 minute, however long you want.

[52:02] Ed: Yeah, totally. I mean, like we mentioned before, it's a book for everyone. Everyone eats plants. It's 100 recipes. It's called bread. But it's not just bread. There's so much more to it. There's gluten free options, there's cakes and cookies, things to eat with bread and on bread, and hopefully some new things that you've never seen in other cookbooks before.

[52:26] Natasha: What would you add everyday? Bakes treats, staples, celebrations? Any occasion. Sweet. Savory. This book really is something that you can dip in and out of throughout the year and keep coming back to this book. It's not just what's hot now kind of you get lots of cookbooks these days are like, make dinner in five minutes kind of thing. And you kind of open them up and then you find out, oh, it's not really five minutes because you actually have to prepare all these sauces first and all this. We don't have any snazzy tricks like that. This is what it is, what it says. If it's a birthday cake, it tells you how to make it, it's going to be guaranteed to be delicious. Every recipe tried and tested. Something that we hope will become part of every family kitchens library to be used by everybody.

[53:21] Connor: That's awesome. And it's out November 7, worldwide. Do you want to let everyone know exactly where the options they have to buy it at?

[53:30] Natasha: Anywhere you can buy books. So there's that really big website that sells books beginning with A. It's available there. If you don't like supporting them, we understand. Go to your local bookseller and ask them to order it in if they haven't already. Your local library as well will be able to order it in. Penguin Random House have a book page for us and it has a feature where you can type in your zip code and it will tell you your local bookstore so you can order it there. It's available wherever you can buy books or on our website@edsbread.com you can also find links to buy the book.

[54:09] Connor: Very awesome. Sounds very easy to get your hands on this.

[54:13] Natasha: So easy. Do it now.

[54:15] Connor: I think I saw there's a digital copy too, right?

[54:19] Natasha: Yeah, there's going to be like a Kindle version which is available as well. Also we have had people from more exotic places tell us that they haven't been able to find the book. But apparently if you go to Amazon.com, the American Amazon will ship it out to you anywhere in the world. You'll just have to pay extra shipping fees.

[54:41] Connor: Wow, that's very nice of them. So just two final questions that are less tailored about the book and just more in general. In your view, how can individuals best support and contribute to a world where veganism is not only widely accepted but also a cornerstone of ethical living?

[55:02] Ed: You want to go?

[55:03] Natasha: I think that every choice you make is a political statement and if you believe in the liberation of animals and giving them some rights to lead a happier life, a more natural life, then that's something to consider every time you're in a store. I have some tips for people like I like to do my shopping online because I'm very busy running a business, launching a cookbook, et cetera. And I like this because I'm not tempted by anything in the aisles. So having meal plans, sticking to your shopping list and going for those products and trying to avoid any other temptations is super key. But I found a lot of people stop being vegan because they're not surrounded by the right people. The community on them are not vegan and we are social creatures and peer pressure is a very big thing. I think that the peer pressure of being the strange person that's not joining in what everybody else is doing can be too much for people. So I'm not saying abandon your friends and family that you already have, but find more people who are vegan. And obviously online communities, there's a lot of those around, some of them are friendly. There's also a lot of in house vegan fighting and shaming that goes on. If you see any of that then just get out of those places. You don't need to be surrounded by people that are going to point the finger at everybody. We want to be encouraging and supporting each other and there are lots of lovely vegans out there. So maybe start like looking into your local Facebook group, put the name of your town like we have whistler vegans there's, probably know Colorado Vegans or wherever you're based. You can go check out that and just see they might have meetups and things like that. It's good to start finding vegan friends that are going through the same challenges that you might have. But what I would say is for us, it's so normal for us to be vegan. We know loads of vegans. And when we go to a restaurant and we see food that's not vegan, it doesn't even look like food to us. It just sees meat. And I'm like, where's the food? I'm looking for what I see as real food because the other stuff is just a distraction for me to get to the real food, which is the plants.

[57:29] Connor: Right. You just have to get through that phase where it's hard and there's the peer pressure. And once you get there, it's like you said, it really isn't hard. You don't see it as food anymore.

[57:38] Natasha: Yeah. And also a lot of people don't like the confrontation of going to a restaurant and saying, do you have anything vegan? And also, we always hate to ask people if, oh, you see this dish, can you make that vegan by taking off this and taking off that? And then it's like you're getting an incomplete dish. So when restaurants do have vegan options, it's nice to say like, oh, I came here because you had the vegan option. One of my friends even leaves little cards on the table saying thank you for the vegan options. We came here for them. And we'll actually leave them on the table in restaurants to try and keep encouraging them to provide them and letting them know that that's a draw. And they're turning away business if they don't have vegan options. So, I don't know, get comfortable with being that annoying vegan, but do it in a nice way, right.

[58:27] Connor: No, that's definitely a good idea, leaving the cards on the table.

[58:30] Natasha: Yeah, because then you don't even have to talk to them. You just leave a little card saying, thanks for offering the vegan option. I came here for that and I'll be back again and leave review as well. Leaving reviews a positive review because a lot of reviews out there are really negative. People are always happy to go online when they got something bad to say. But let's celebrate and let's be positive and let's show people that we appreciate the options that are available to us.

[58:54] Connor: Right. Especially coming from you two who run a bakery. I'm sure feedback is very important and very well accepted as valuable.

[59:03] Ed: Totally. And it'll bring new customers to that business looking for that option. So it brings more business their way.

[59:11] Connor: Awesome. I guess the thing I forgot to ask you earlier, actually, is have you guys had any experiences, which I'm sure you mentioned it before, where someone came in who wasn't vegan and they really enjoyed your stuff and maybe even turned vegan.

[59:24] Natasha: If, you know, we have had customers tell us like they almost are looking for our encouragement. Tell us like, I've been plant based for a week and stuff like that. Unfortunately, I don't know how many. Of them stick with it's. Like you mentioned earlier, Connor, when people go vegan for a health like, nobody sticks with health conscious decisions long term. We do it for we get bored. And then all of us, it's January, I'm going to go to the gym, I'm going to get a gym pass. And then it gets to March and you're like, I haven't been to the gym for a while, I'm still paying for that pass. We give up on health things very quickly and I definitely think the ethical reasons are much more ingrained for us to keep the habits up long term. So I have had customers tell me they're trying vegan or plant based. That's great. To be honest, when we serve customers in the shop, we don't get into big vegan discussions with people like them to know it's vegan, enjoy it and come back for it. And these days I don't have too many conversations with people about it. The first year we were new, it was a bit different. I remember four dairy farmers coming in, four women from New Zealand, and they ordered a walnut and raisin sourdough, packed that for them. And then they started having a conversation about coffee and we offered them which milk they would like and they were very angry that we didn't have dairy. And one of them pretty much spat her words in my face and said, you should have dairy. And I was like, wow, we've been open two days, are we really going to have like a big meltdown here? And my response was just the walnut and raisin sourdough for you today. It's literally just like, serve the person, get them out the shop, let's move on to the next person that's happy to be here. But I'm so happy to say that I haven't had anyone like that for a few years. And most people are embracing what we do and looking for it, actually.

[01:01:29] Connor: That's awesome because that could have been scary or worrisome thinking that that was going to continue to happen.

[01:01:35] Natasha: Yeah, it was.

[01:01:36] Ed: I think what happens more often now is people can't believe that everything's vegan because we don't have to write it on everything. We don't have to write vegan carrot cake. It just all is a lot of we get vegans in and they'll be checking you offer for cream cheese on the side or coconut whip and they're like, Is that vegan or whipped cream? Maybe not. We don't say coconut whip, just whipped cream with that. They're like, is it? And we're like, you're in a safe space, you're good.

[01:02:04] Connor: No, it's definitely very awesome when you let someone try your stuff and they're just like, wow, that's vegan. If they can't tell, then you're doing your job well.

[01:02:14] Ed: Yeah, exactly. That's our goal every day to make it as easy as possible for people and for it to be all inclusive.

[01:02:21] Natasha: We want to normalize vegan. We don't want vegan to be the outlier. Why is it that we have to put or vegans in general, have to put V on everything and show everyone this is vegan, as though we're the weird ones. It's like, no, we're the ones that aren't torturing and encouraging suffering to animals and killing animals. Why is that normal? Really? It should be the other way around, really. It should be products saying when you buy makeup, for example, they tell you when it's not tested on animals, they don't tell you, this was tested on monkeys and dogs and don't tell you really what's going on. Actually, if people knew what was really going on, then they wouldn't want to support it anymore. So I want that to happen. I want there to be a flip, a reversal, where instead of saying not tested on animals, we say tested on animals and list them, all right? And then make it really clear to people that this is the truth. And I feel like that with food as well. Why should we have to be the ones putting V on everything? Let's make all the meat and dairy people put labels on to say, this contains this, this contains that. Like on the white wine. This contains fish bladder and egg whites, god knows what, because people don't even know it's in there, drinking and eating it.

[01:03:35] Ed: Maybe they would well, they've done it for cigarettes. They've done all the pictures of the lungs and everything like that. You could have on a burger, pictures of.

[01:03:45] Natasha: A picture of your arteries after you've eaten meat and the dairy, that's quite extreme. But just having the information just to say this contains such and such and such, it would be nice if we could reverse that, at least. I think that would be a huge milestone.

[01:04:03] Connor: Right? I'm definitely here to back your bid on that one because it gets annoying at work and different things. Because if someone asks me what I have for lunch, if I say vegan ravioli or something, they're like, oh, vegan ravioli. But then if I just say ravioli, they're like, what? Aren't you vegan? Is it like, what do you want from me? No matter which way I say it, you have a problem with it.

[01:04:25] Ed: Or they come over and they, connor, you can eat this. I can eat anything. I'm just choosing not to.

[01:04:32] Connor: Right?

[01:04:33] Ed: This is good for you. You're slightly special.

[01:04:37] Natasha: People go, oh, we've got croissants. Oh, no, you can't eat them, can you? And you're like, of course I can. I choose not to. But that whole thing, you can as though you're, like, forbidden or something by some external force. And you're like, no, this is a choice I'm making with free will that I'm happy to make, that I want to make.

[01:04:57] Connor: Right? I just think they can't believe it. There's, like, no way that he doesn't want to eat this. I don't believe that it's on my own will.

[01:05:05] Natasha: We had a funny experience recently in a restaurant where the waiter was telling us about this special meal that we were eating. The chef knew us and he knew we were coming in to kind of celebrate something and he made a special four course meal for us. It was all vegan but it was based off of the dishes they usually have that are not vegan. So the waiter is presenting it and he goes and this is a kind of Mexican soup and usually there is some sort of protein. And I said to him, oh right, yeah. Because we don't actually eat protein. We don't get any protein.

[01:05:40] Ed: But it was a white bean soup.

[01:05:41] Natasha: It was a white bean soup. So it hadn't occurred to him that the protein bit was the white bean obviously in his mind because it didn't have meat on it. He phrased that as usually there is a protein in here. And so I then said to him, oh right, yeah because we don't eat protein because we're vegan. And then he looked at me and then he said, oh no, you do, but you get it from plants. And I said, oh good to know, good to know. I thought, I'm glad you know that. Then this is another beef I have a vegan beef is why are we talking about meat as protein? As though meat is the only source of protein. And protein is such a great word these days. And gluten is such a bad word. And gluten is a protein that comes from there's so many crazy ideas running around. We need to get these all cleared up.

[01:06:34] Connor: I'm glad we're on one of these times. We will find some protein.

[01:06:41] Natasha: We will find it. Where do you get your protein from? And I just say oh, I don't I'm probably going to die soon. Just say it very straight faced and let them sit with it.

[01:06:53] Connor: The delivery has to be phenomenal. Well, unfortunately we're coming towards the end. Is there any last message you guys want to give out to the viewers while you're here?

[01:07:06] Ed: Well, we just appreciate chatting with you today Connor. It's been really fun. I know Tash has managed to vent a lot and get rid of some of that tension so that's really the sarcasm. We do sarcasm really well.

[01:07:20] Connor: Sarcasm is amazing.

[01:07:23] Ed: So thanks very much. We appreciate it.

[01:07:25] Connor: Of course. Well, thank you both.

[01:07:29] Natasha: Go vegan and stay vegan. End of story.

[01:07:32] Connor: No better line than that. Well, thank you both for coming on the show and letting both me and my listeners get to know you better. Wow. I can't talk in your guys'businesses. We'll go with that. Your cookbook and your bakery. Let us get to know them and share all of your experiences with us. We do appreciate it.

[01:07:51] Ed: Thanks.

[01:07:52] Natasha: It's been a pleasure.

[01:07:53] Connor: And don't forget to buy the book November 7.

[01:07:57] Ed: Yeah.

[01:07:57] Connor: Anywhere books exist.

[01:08:00] Ed: Exactly.

[01:08:01] Connor: Thank you guys.

[01:08:02] Ed: Thanks. Bye.