Latest / Everyday Ancestral with James Barry / What Do We Owe Our Parents? Duty, Dementia, and First-Gen Identity in a Polarized World | Sophia Nguyen Eng

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What Do We Owe Our Parents? Duty, Dementia, and First-Gen Identity in a Polarized World | Sophia Nguyen Eng · Everyday Ancestral with James Barry

0:00
Imagine leaving a successful Silicon Valley career for a 40-acre permaculture mini-farm
0:09
in the Appalachian region of Eastern Tennessee.
0:11
Well, my next guest, Sophia Ang, is an award-winning author of the nourishing Asian Kitchen cookbook,
0:19
and a first-generation Vietnamese American who did just that left a very successful tech
0:26
career to start a farm.
0:29
And now she's not only a desired speaker, speaking about regenerative agriculture, but she's
0:36
also a Weston A. Price chapter leader and the founder of the website, Sprinkle with Soil.
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And with her husband, Tim, hosts a podcast called Call to Farms.
0:47
They raise grass-fed dairy cows, beef cattle, lane hens, broilers, ducks, sheep, goats,
0:54
jerkeys, and grow a variety of produce for her multi-generational family and local community.
1:00
I am very excited to share my friend and my fellow San Josean Sophia Ang on the Everyday
1:10
Ancestral podcast, and I'm your host, James Berry.
1:14
Please enjoy.
1:15
Hello, Sophia.
1:17
Hey, hey, James.
1:19
I have to just put it right out there right from the beginning.
1:22
I always feel just a very special connection to you because of the fact that we're both
1:30
from San Jose.
1:32
And it's kind of odd for me, because I didn't know that childhood home had that much tethering
1:38
for me because I moved away, and as did you, obviously, but yet when I meet people specifically
1:44
from the city from San Jose, like it's just like I immediately feel like, oh, I get this
1:50
person.
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It's home.
1:52
I do.
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It feels like home.
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We met at polyface a couple of years ago.
1:57
The whole family, if you remember, at Joel's.
2:00
Oh, yeah.
2:01
And yeah, your mom, your dad, your kids, and I'm so sorry to learn your dad is now dealing
2:07
with dementia as well, so how is that process going?
2:10
It's been rough, to be honest, we didn't know what we were dealing with.
2:14
I mean, he had always had kind of a depression and anxiety before, but it just progressively
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got worse and worse.
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And we didn't know we were dealing with dementia, but now it's very clear he, it's been a rapid
2:27
decline.
2:28
It's been a lot harder for us to manage as a family than I had expected.
2:33
Well, let's talk about family for a second, because, you know, Vietnamese descent, right?
2:39
Your first generation Vietnamese American sounds a where I grew up specifically in downtown
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huge, heavy, heavy Vietnamese population.
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I mean, I feel very intimate with the Vietnamese culture because of that.
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I mean, they were all, all of my first friends were Vietnamese, my first crushes.
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I mean, it's such a beautiful culture from my experience.
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And one thing though, I think, is very associated for me with that culture is they take care
3:12
of their elderly.
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The families stick together.
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I remember one of my good friends on, I won't say his last name in case he wants privacy,
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but his entire family all lived in this small apartment.
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I even think their grandparents were with him when we were younger.
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Is that something that you are modeling as your dad is experiencing dementia and how important
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is that for you that, you know, kind of honor the generations?
3:37
It is so important for me because it's a way to repay my parents back when they came
3:45
here to America in 1975.
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They didn't have anything.
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And I was born in San Jose.
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I didn't know any better.
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They worked two full-time jobs each and barely made ends meet even back then.
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But I was afforded all the other things that any other, you know, American second generation,
4:04
whatever you want to call it, child got.
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So I was able to go to college.
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I was able, I mean, I had to work my way.
4:09
I had to pay my way.
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Now in their old age, because they didn't plan for retirement, they gave everything to my sister
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and I, this is a way to take care of them and honor what they have given to us.
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My mom always said that I am the asphalt.
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I create the asphalt for you girls to be the car to drive over.
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That's directly translated.
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But I guess what she's trying to say is, I'm creating this smooth path for you.
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I'm laying the groundwork so that you can just keep driving.
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And if you think about it, Tim and I talk about this all the time because he's second generation, right?
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Meaning his dad was born here in Chicago, went to Berkeley, so Tim didn't have any of that.
4:59
We talk about how, because I'm the daughter of an immigrant and how my mom has that perspective,
5:04
I've been able to catch up to him even as a second generation.
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If that makes sense.
5:09
For those listening to Tim, as your husband, that's a fascinating connection.
5:14
So you are first generation Vietnamese American.
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He is second generation.
5:20
How are you guys different?
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How are you similar?
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I'd say I'm very connected to my traditional roots.
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Like I still speak Vietnamese.
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He doesn't speak Mandarin, Cantonese.
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Now he's Chinese American, but doesn't speak anything.
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Like in his native tongue, his native tongue is English.
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And so what I'm saying is, because of my immigrant background,
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we have that, I'm not to say that he doesn't have the hardworking right aspects of it,
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but we have a unique perspective to from our history and being so closely connected to it.
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And then also seeing modern families had to quickly catch up to that,
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but also implementing a lot of that hard work ethic that I got from my parents.
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Not to say that his parents didn't have the harder work ethic,
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but there's a lot more of this like internal drive
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that comes from knowing that you're behind because one financially language is different
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and not being able to assembly.
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Whereas his family, his parents always said,
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we're not going to teach you Mandarin or Cantonese
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because we want you to assimilate better to the American culture
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and not have to be bogged down by any of the traditions.
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Whereas I'm on the other side of like,
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I want to continue to honor my traditions
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and how do I bring that to the forefront in a beautiful way?
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This is an interesting topic at simulation.
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Right? I mean, that's kind of what your cookbooks about.
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I mean, it's kind of in a sense saying like,
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well, I don't know if we should assimilate, right?
6:58
I mean, it's kind of like recognizing that not all assimilation is for our good.
7:05
Correct. Not all. That's the key point there.
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There's a lot of the beautiful aspects of it, right?
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Because now we have these, the best restaurants that we've eaten in Napa.
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I'm sure you're familiar with have a hybrid of both the American
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and the Asian infused and inspired recipes, right?
7:25
And that's cookbook number two that we're working on.
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But there's beauty in combining it kind of like the Vietnamese cuisine.
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The fact that we even have fa is because we've brought in some of the French influences
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into our culinary experiences or that we have banh mi,
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the Vietnamese sandwiches, or that we have gaffes,
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which is the Vietnamese coffee with the condensed milk.
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A lot of the Vietnamese cuisine is made popular now because of the French influences
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from from France over to Vietnamese cuisine.
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In that sense, though, is there a pure Vietnamese cuisine?
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I mean, Vietnam was affected by other cultures so intensely.
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Can you actually look back at the Vietnamese cuisine and say,
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oh, like this is purely a Vietnamese?
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Because everything you just mentioned is not correct.
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Everything I mentioned, but there are still very traditional recipes as well,
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especially when you look into like, you know, it's interesting
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because you bring up a good point.
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Vietnam was also under like Chinese and Japanese and then French control.
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That's a good question.
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I guess you could pose a question like, what is true,
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clean American cuisine too as well or like of any culture?
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But I think though it's safe to say that the things that you grew up
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understanding, the things you grew up eating are for you traditional.
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Whether they are culturally traditional doesn't matter,
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that it's for you, you were being, you know,
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provided with foods that your grandparents had eaten,
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that your parents then, you know, your mother just made as well.
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Here you are in the US though and you're not seeing foods out in public
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that you're making at home, first of all, but then secondly,
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as you get into health and your interest in realizing like,
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oh, food matters for my health,
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you're not seeing any of these Asian principles concepts
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in what's deemed as kind of healthy food.
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Correct, I wasn't.
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I think it's becoming, I mean, that's the whole premise
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of the nourishing Asian kitchen was to bring that to the forefront,
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to say, hey, these are our traditional Asian recipes
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or the preparations and the way that we honor our food
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to heal our elders, our new moms, our babies,
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that hasn't really been talked about before.
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You know, I think that there is so much that we are going to lose
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from many other cultures too.
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It's kind of on our generation to capture that from our elders
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and the way that society, the way that we move now
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and I'm totally guilty of it myself is that, you know,
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we're just trying to get through the day,
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we're trying to raise our children,
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we're trying to stay up with technology
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that you're telling me I need to stop all of this
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and slow down to learn how to cook
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and learn how to cook where it's, you know,
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honoring our traditions rather than taking something out
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of the freezer and sticking it into the oven
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or sticking it into the microwave.
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That's something that, you know, is,
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I may be hitting my late 30s, early 40s
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that I've had to come to a point where it came to a head
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where okay, I can continue to go down this path
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but I'm neglecting everything that I learned
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from my grandfather, my grandmother,
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my mother when I was a child.
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Those conversations aren't happening today,
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even when I went through premed at George Washington University,
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I only had one nutrition course
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and that was at the moment where I realized
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I was learning more about integrative health
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and holistic health from my grandfather in the backyard
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or a grandmother in the kitchen
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or my mom at the grocery store.
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I was learning more from them than I had ever learned,
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you know, spending a copious amount of money
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and time investing into this institution,
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which totally grateful for, but it also,
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you know, there's a time and place for that too.
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Yeah, let's take a step back then
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because I want people to understand more
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of your journey to writing a cookbook
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which was not at all in your zigas, right?
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So, grew up thinking you were gonna become a doctor.
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Yeah, I was premed.
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That was another way to,
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I mean, I was always drawn to it as a child
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because my mom would bring home these chickens
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from the local farmer, an Asian farmer
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who kept all of the innards in there.
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And so I remember like, actually, head, feet,
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not only that, but the eggs.
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Like, sometimes I would open up a chicken
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and it, like, not just the sack of eggs,
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but a whole egg with a shell in it intact.
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And like, as a child,
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that was really fascinated by it
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because I only saw eggs in a grocery store
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never in a whole chicken.
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And it actually-
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You know where your food came from, right?
12:32
Right.
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So that all, like, really,
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I wanted to then become a cardiologist.
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I loved surgery.
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I loved just like dissecting things.
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So it started at a very young age
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and I knew already in college I wanted to get into health
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and I thought that by being premed
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to being a doctor,
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we could actually learn about, like, health and nutrition
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because my grandfather always said,
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and sung, dingo sung, and which means eat to live,
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do not live to eat.
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Like, don't over-enjold whatever you eat
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should be to restore your health to live healthy.
13:07
Oh, that's such a powerful saying
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because I've been really trying to articulate more
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and more to people that this energy
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that we put towards food, I love this, right?
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We shouldn't be putting that energy towards food.
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That is reserved for people.
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I love you, right?
13:27
But when we say, I love pizza.
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I love ice cream or something like that.
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We're putting this, we're doing exactly
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what your grandfather said.
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We're living to eat, right?
13:38
That's right.
13:39
I think that is what majority of Americans now
13:42
we live to eat.
13:45
40% of you listening still haven't followed the podcast.
13:50
Let's drop that to 20%.
13:52
It takes three seconds
13:53
and helps us reach more folks
13:54
who need these conversations.
13:56
Go follow everyday incestral on Apple or Spotify
14:00
and let's stay curious together.
14:03
So what happened though, because you're not a doctor,
14:06
so, and you got into tech
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before you're doing what you're doing now,
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so what went wrong or what went right?
14:12
What went so right?
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So this is what happened.
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So I went to Villanova University
14:17
and we did a shadowing event
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where I followed around doctors in the ER.
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So I was like, really in love.
14:23
I don't know if you remember this when we were kids,
14:26
but back when we were little,
14:27
there used to be this game called emergency room.
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And like you would have these people,
14:32
these characters come in and you would diagnose
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and treat them.
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So it stuck with me.
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I loved it.
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I played it for endless hours when I was a little kid.
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So naturally I said, okay, well,
14:41
let me just try to play around
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and see what it's like to be an ER doctor.
14:44
And then remember back then,
14:46
I am deathly afraid of children.
14:48
Like other people's kids, I just,
14:52
my kids I love, but other people's kids
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very uncomfortable around.
14:56
I don't wanna break them.
14:58
So I remember I was shadowing some ER doctors
15:01
and they opened up a room and said,
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this is the on call room and it was bunk beds.
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And I remember at that point thinking,
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I don't think I'm gonna have kids ever,
15:10
but if I were to have kids,
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it would be really hard for me to sleep in here
15:16
and treat other people's kids
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if I knew that my kid was at home sick.
15:21
So I don't know why that flashed through my mind
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because I never thought I wanted to be a mom
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even as a young 20 year old for a while.
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That really shook me up and I thought,
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okay, there's that along with other things.
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I said, well, how do I find a career
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where if I know that could be a potential
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that I would be able to stay at home
15:44
or at least like run my own schedule
15:45
but still be in the field of nurturing
15:48
and helping others heal.
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So I went on to get my masters in clinical psychology
15:54
then moved back to the Bay Area
15:57
where now I had the tenants of using
16:00
biopsychology, understanding psychology
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as well as the scientific mindset of testing things
16:08
and applying it to my tech background.
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So I learned how to code when I was in fifth grade
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that was growing up in San Jose.
16:14
That's, you know, Q basic was my first programming
16:17
language when I was in fifth grade.
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And so I took all of that back to the Bay Area
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and realized that I can help translate marketing
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to the online world digital marketing space.
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This is before it was really a thing
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the way it is today and use psychology
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and the science background of testing it all
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to help people and businesses convert online.
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So I did a lot of testing from like button colors
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to landing pages, email campaigns, all of that 15 years ago
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to of course, like climbing up that corporate ladder
16:55
and making it to an executive level
16:57
then having my second kid.
17:00
And right after I had her, I said, you know,
17:03
I really need to look into why we're educating our children
17:07
based off of their birth date.
17:09
So we in the American education system,
17:12
we follow the September 1st rule, right?
17:14
So if you're born before or after that dictates
17:17
your child's grade.
17:18
And even then I was like, well, how come we don't teach
17:20
to mastery?
17:21
Like that is just really interesting.
17:24
Because we mean by teach to mastery.
17:27
Meaning why don't we teach a child,
17:30
not even just child, even ourselves,
17:32
how do we teach them so that you master a subject
17:34
and then you move on?
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Why is it based off your birth date?
17:37
Like just because you're born on September 1st or before
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or after doesn't mean that you are qualified
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or know enough of the topics to be at that first grade level
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for example, or kindergartener.
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And the reason why I ask is because our oldest
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had another student that she was classmates with
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in TK, so transitional kindergarten.
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This is in California, right?
17:57
So there's all sorts of like, there's junior kindergarten
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then transitional kindergarten.
18:01
Then you hit like kindergarten
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and it's all dictated by your birth date.
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And I remember this boy was born in August
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and he moved over to kindergarten.
18:11
Emily had to stay back another year,
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even though she was more advanced.
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She had said he scribble scrabbled, right?
18:18
And she was coloring in the lines
18:19
and he was just going everywhere.
18:20
Yet he was promoted to kindergarten
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just because he was born in August
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and she was born in November, she was held back.
18:28
So this whole idea of like, wait,
18:29
how come we don't teach to mastery,
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which now with AI coming into the fold with education,
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that's a whole nother thing that I've been exploring.
18:37
But it's really made me a question
18:39
because when we work with our companies, for example,
18:42
we work with other people,
18:44
it's not based off of your birth date or your grade,
18:47
your boss could be younger than you.
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How do you navigate through that?
18:52
Why don't we teach ourselves
18:55
like how come the education system isn't developed
18:57
so that it's specialized education
18:59
or that if you are wanting to learn math,
19:02
you are learning at the speed that you're wanting to go at.
19:07
So whether you're slower at reading or you're faster
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and you want to accelerate that,
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it should be at the pace that's designed specifically for you, ideally.
19:16
We're jumping over why you ended up kind of changing
19:20
your eating habits, which I definitely want to cover.
19:23
But let's just go, let's dive into this a little bit
19:25
because it sounds like really you're jumping to
19:29
some of the supportive thinking
19:33
that has resulted in you and Tim unschooling
19:36
or homeschooling your kids.
19:39
Right, and all of it started because we looked at our food.
19:44
And it wasn't until our oldest was born that I looked into.
19:48
You know, I was gifted these books that said,
19:50
hey, make sure that you source organic apples
19:54
if you want to make apple sauce.
19:56
And I know I've shared the story before,
19:58
but I didn't know how to make apple sauce
20:01
because that's not in our culture,
20:03
we just don't cook our fruits.
20:06
And I know it's simple now.
20:08
The piece of it doesn't cook fruit at all.
20:09
We don't cook our fruit.
20:11
It's our dessert.
20:12
I mean, that every time I got fruit,
20:13
it was sliced fresh at the end of a meal
20:17
to kind of help wash down the meal.
20:20
But we never cooked it.
20:22
I didn't know like pure taste.
20:23
You think it's even deeper than just being desert
20:28
that maybe there's a reason why the culture believes
20:31
it's better to have it raw than cook?
20:34
I don't know.
20:35
That's a great question.
20:37
Maybe access.
20:39
Or you know, like he probably destroys the nutrients,
20:42
things like that.
20:43
Yeah, I believe he does,
20:46
especially when it comes to fruits and vegetables,
20:50
just how we were born and raised.
20:52
I just ate fruit raw.
20:54
And when it came to making apple sauce,
20:57
I remember one of the books that said,
21:00
try to source organic apples
21:02
because your baby's body is not yet developed enough
21:04
to process the harmful toxic chemicals
21:07
from herbicides and pesticides.
21:10
I thought, okay, fine, I'll go by organic apples.
21:12
This is what 13 years ago.
21:15
But at what point then is her body
21:17
going to be developed enough
21:19
to process the harmful toxic chemicals,
21:22
like herbicides and pesticides?
21:24
Why do you think you were ready?
21:26
We get gifted books all the time in our life, right?
21:30
We get told, given advice all the time,
21:34
why did you listen to this?
21:36
I think it was new mom and being a new mom
21:40
when I was starting to wean her off of breast milk.
21:43
It was, okay, what's the next thing?
21:45
You walk down the aisles as every other,
21:49
one of my women colleagues at work did,
21:52
you just buy your baby food from the counter.
21:55
But I remember picking up a jar
21:58
and looking at the color and going,
22:00
well, am I going to be willing to eat this myself?
22:04
And I remember thinking,
22:05
well, I don't want to eat this muck.
22:06
So how am I going to feed it to her?
22:09
And that's what started coming, like, okay,
22:12
I guess I can make my own baby food,
22:14
never thought of it before.
22:16
My sister didn't have babies.
22:18
I didn't grow up with like young nieces and nephews.
22:21
I didn't have any young siblings.
22:23
So I just never had the exposure
22:26
to making your own baby food.
22:28
But when I had my own, then it was like,
22:30
okay, how do I figure this out?
22:32
So I don't screw this up.
22:34
That's where it started dismantling everything for me.
22:37
And at this time, you and Tim are in the Bay area, right?
22:41
We're still in the Bay area.
22:42
And like, so he's a realtor in the Bay area.
22:45
You're doing tech, your new parents.
22:48
And then this changes your perspective of like,
22:52
wait, DIY my own food,
22:55
and then you kind of go into the rabbit hole of nutrition,
22:58
then what happens?
23:00
So I found Sally Fallon Morelle's
23:02
nourishing traditions book, changed my life,
23:06
and then it started looking into, okay,
23:09
while all the things that mom said
23:11
when I was growing up didn't sound so crazy anymore.
23:15
A lot of the things in our traditions
23:17
I never was really proud to share.
23:19
So like this nourishing Asian kitchen cookbook of mine
23:22
has been very redemptive in the last year
23:25
that it came out because she would tell me as a child
23:28
at Safeway, they would sell the gummy bears in bulk.
23:33
I don't know if you remember this,
23:34
but I loved gummy bears.
23:35
I still do.
23:37
And she would say, you can have it,
23:39
but you have to pick out the clear ones.
23:41
I love the red ones.
23:42
The red ones were cherry flavored.
23:44
And I thought, well, okay, fine.
23:46
So I would just buy the clear ones.
23:48
Now fast forward, you know, 2028 red dye.
23:52
And but she knew that intuitively.
23:55
She knew that with soda, we never got soda.
23:58
We got milk and we got water.
24:00
You guys were the only people that purchased clear coke.
24:03
Is that clear?
24:04
Do you remember clear coke?
24:05
I don't.
24:06
Oh my gosh, I just revealed how old I am.
24:08
Clear coke was Coke's attempt to revitalize their product.
24:14
And it was literally, they pulled out all the caramel,
24:16
halorines and all that stuff.
24:17
And people thought it was disgusting, yet it was exact same taste.
24:21
That's crazy.
24:21
So look, so that's really interesting.
24:24
I want to dive into a little bit about this
24:26
because I think it's fascinating.
24:29
So first generation Vietnamese American.
24:32
And here you are in American culture.
24:34
And you, you're not really respecting your own culture.
24:38
And it took having a kid, having a kid,
24:42
but even then it doesn't sound like you were fully,
24:44
like going to your mom for advice,
24:46
you were getting a vices from coworkers
24:49
and people giving you books.
24:51
But it took like, it's almost like,
24:54
it took the Western A Price Foundation
24:57
and their emphasis on traditional foods for you to then go,
25:01
oh wait, I come from a tradition.
25:04
Correct.
25:05
I fought my mom a lot, a lot.
25:08
Like I remember after giving birth in our culture,
25:13
we have like a 40 day after phase
25:17
where you don't do certain things, you eat certain things.
25:21
For example, you keep your head warm
25:23
and I thought it was a silly thing.
25:24
You don't take a shower for 30 days
25:26
and I took a shower every day, right?
25:28
But I remember I was a week into after giving birth
25:32
and I said, I broke down and it could have been postpartum
25:36
but I literally broke down and cried
25:38
and I said, mom, I need to take a shower.
25:40
Like I can't, there's all these things going on.
25:44
I need to like wash this up and she's like, fine,
25:47
it is your choice if you do.
25:48
But she told me, you know, make sure you shut the door,
25:51
you turn the heat on, you don't turn the fan on,
25:54
let the steam just, she was all about heat.
25:57
And even after that, she said, keep your head warm
26:01
and don't put your head by the window
26:03
because the draft will come in while I didn't listen
26:07
because I think I know better
26:09
and I slept without having a hat on in that night.
26:12
Like that next day I woke up with like the worst migraine,
26:16
the worst headache of my life.
26:17
Like it was like searing pain through my skull
26:20
and it was in that moment that I said, okay,
26:23
I may consciously fight
26:26
but there is something there that I need to stop
26:29
and listen to because I'm fighting against
26:32
what in the American culture, right?
26:35
There's actually a term for people who came by boat.
26:38
You call them boat people
26:40
and it's a condescending term and my parents were boat people.
26:44
Instead of embracing that because I was born in the States,
26:47
I looked down and frowned upon it
26:50
but there is so much wisdom in that,
26:53
in honoring like traditions
26:55
and like specifically the nourishing traditions
26:58
of our Asian culture that I completely dismissed
27:01
up until I had my first kid
27:03
and was completely humbled by that.
27:05
Gosh, it's making me actually the clent talking about this
27:09
because I remember going to my friends,
27:12
I mean, I remember how he was embarrassed
27:14
to bring people to his apartment.
27:16
A, the fact that they were an apartment
27:18
versus a house was shaming for him
27:21
and the smells were different, you know,
27:23
that there was, I don't know if it's pressure,
27:26
I think you would be able to answer that better than I could
27:29
but there was definitely a vibe of like be American
27:33
and do it this way versus the old way.
27:37
What was that, you think?
27:38
Do you think it was a almost like an ethnic cleansing
27:43
to degree or do you just think it was kind of like
27:45
that was the 80s or the 90s?
27:47
Like that was just kind of what it was like then
27:49
of like if you're in America,
27:51
you're just your pro-American habits and lifestyles.
27:55
I don't know, it was very strong though.
27:57
I don't know if it was growing up in the 80s as Asian American
28:01
but I felt all of that.
28:03
I completely resonate with how your friend must have been feeling.
28:07
We have fermented smells like we ferment,
28:10
my mom fermented and it's not just like a normal cabbage.
28:14
It was like the stinkiest cabbage ever
28:17
and then on top of that, you know,
28:18
we've got the dicon radish which smells so bad
28:21
when you're even pickling it and opening up the fridge
28:24
much less like she put it in my bun me sandwich
28:28
and put it in my backpack for science camp.
28:30
So we got like all hot and then when I brought it out,
28:33
like it smelled like just like somebody just let it all out.
28:39
And I remember hearing the kids say,
28:41
oh, who farted?
28:43
And I'm like, oh gosh, it's nothing.
28:46
It's not from my backpack that I just brought out the sandwich
28:49
and no, I'm not eating it.
28:51
So it's all of that that brought in a lot of shame
28:55
but that's why I'm saying like the cookbook
28:57
has been so redemptive because now we can talk about the fact
29:00
that even when my, actually when my mom came to America
29:04
and they were sponsored by a family in Seattle,
29:06
it was a church family.
29:08
She had asked them with her broken English
29:11
where the organ meat was.
29:13
She was asking for like the gizzards.
29:16
She was asking for the chicken feet.
29:17
She was asking.
29:18
You said they were in Seattle.
29:20
You said, Seattle.
29:21
They were pointing toward Portland, Oregon.
29:22
Say, oh, the organ meats are that way.
29:24
Well, her sponsor told her.
29:28
She's like, oh, no, no, no, no.
29:29
We don't eat that as Americans.
29:31
That's dog food.
29:33
Right.
29:34
So that was 1975 in Seattle.
29:37
And so it was really hard to source because that was dog food.
29:40
Right.
29:41
And that is the truth of why so many people don't get organ meats
29:46
is because historically it was seen as poor people's food
29:50
or gross and not for human consumption.
29:53
Even though it's always been consumed by humans,
29:57
it's just it was seen mostly.
29:59
It was a classist thing, you know?
30:00
It was like really seen as poor people's food.
30:03
And honestly, if you look at even now that we have our farm,
30:06
right, when one of our animals gets attacked,
30:09
what is a predator go after first?
30:11
It's the organ meats.
30:12
It's the most nutrient dense.
30:14
They know what to do.
30:15
They let the actual the muscle meat rot for a while
30:18
before they eat it.
30:19
It's very interesting.
30:21
And here we are giving the most nutritious parts
30:23
of our food over to our dogs because of,
30:26
I don't know if that is from the American culture.
30:30
I don't know if it's from marketing, right?
30:32
And it's actually the most economical cuts of your meat.
30:37
It's so fascinating just to go slightly back to the honoring
30:42
traditions versus feeling shame from them.
30:45
It affects me so deeply
30:46
because those were the communities I was around, first of all,
30:49
and I didn't get it either, obviously.
30:51
I don't think I shamed it
30:53
because I don't think I was one of those people like,
30:55
ew, I didn't do that at all.
30:56
I really cared for this, my friend, on,
30:58
and many of my friends there.
31:00
I truly liked him a lot.
31:01
And he was a very important person in my life.
31:05
And I definitely remember recognizing the strong smells.
31:10
I don't remember ever shaming him
31:12
or making him feel weird about it.
31:14
I don't think and I hope not.
31:15
And sadly he's not in my life anymore
31:17
so I wouldn't be able to ask him.
31:18
But there is something that's coming up in me of like,
31:22
why does this matter so much to me?
31:25
Because I really as the person I am now,
31:28
the adult I am now, like honoring tradition
31:30
is so important to me.
31:33
Clearly it is for you now as well.
31:36
But I'm just questioning is it because
31:39
the American culture doesn't have as much tradition.
31:42
So for me, it's like this emptiness of like,
31:45
why don't know what to honor in my own culture?
31:48
Because it's such a mishmash and it's not really respected
31:51
and I wouldn't even know where to start there.
31:54
But for you, it's a clear line of like,
31:56
oh, no, I know exactly where to go back to honor tradition.
32:01
Oh, that's a really good point, James.
32:04
It is very clear to me and my like,
32:06
my direct line is my mom at this point.
32:09
And actually in our podcast,
32:11
we just started a series on the Call the Farms podcast
32:14
where we just released a podcast episode
32:17
where I sat down with my mom,
32:19
had the kids there and Tim.
32:21
And we started asking her questions.
32:22
Let's just go back from your childhood.
32:24
Let's go back and she talked about wartime.
32:27
She talked about what she remembered.
32:29
And it's going to be a series of just,
32:31
I want to capture it because if like I said,
32:34
we don't then where do we go from here?
32:37
How do you plan ahead if you don't at least
32:40
glean the wisdom from our ancestors or our history?
32:46
And that speaks true to American culture as well, right?
32:49
Like we have to learn from our history
32:51
to see where and how to plan forward.
32:54
But I think to your point,
32:57
American culture does not honor our elders.
33:00
And if you look through some of the comments
33:02
that I've gotten just from that first podcast episode,
33:05
people have said that.
33:07
They've said we're so glad you're honoring.
33:09
Like we all need to do this.
33:10
We don't honor our elders enough.
33:13
I don't know what it is.
33:15
I blame it on the microwave.
33:17
I blame it on the fact that we came out with the microwave
33:20
which then brought convenience over to the families
33:23
into each family's removed moms, removed dads,
33:26
just put in like here's the first step of like not just
33:29
technology, but replacing the family unit
33:32
to make things just efficient, but not in a good way.
33:36
Like our nourishment needs to be the priority.
33:40
You can manage every other area of your life
33:43
with technology, but not the nourishing aspects of it.
33:46
And that's what the microwave did.
33:48
And I like, you go on about it so much.
33:51
So yeah, that's huge because I'm hearing something
33:54
that I've never really thought about.
33:56
But like, so I used to substitute teach at one point
34:00
before I went down the culinary path.
34:02
And I remember I was always like kind of asking the kids
34:06
what they ate for the morning.
34:07
I was always, I already then I was really into health
34:10
and just curious.
34:12
I remember so many of them were eating their dinners
34:15
and their breakfast were all like microwave burritos.
34:19
And I never thought of it that way, but in many ways
34:22
when we talk about being disconnected to our food,
34:25
you're mirroring back like like, oh no, no,
34:29
there's a connection of family with food
34:31
in that it was your parents who connected you to what you ate.
34:34
But once the microwave came, it suddenly
34:37
was the corporation that bypassed your parents.
34:41
You didn't need your parents.
34:43
And now you completely relied on that corporation,
34:46
that food business to provide your nourishment
34:49
and to basically give you the meal you're gonna eat
34:53
because you just throw it in the microwave and it's done.
34:56
It's unnecessary for an adult's supervision.
34:59
Exactly.
35:00
You asked the question, what is that tradition?
35:03
How do I honor that tradition?
35:04
Now if you grew up like that,
35:06
which you know, thankfully my mom
35:08
already had reservations on the microwave,
35:10
but even first generation Americans grew up with the microwave.
35:13
Like my dad loved the microwave.
35:15
Even though my mom cooked fresh food,
35:17
he would still go back and microwave it, right?
35:20
But all of that, if you grew up in that,
35:23
how do you ask the questions?
35:24
Like how did you make this?
35:26
How, where did this come from?
35:28
You naturally just don't think about it anymore.
35:30
It's just how do I get to the next task?
35:33
How do I move on to the next thing?
35:36
What we started within the beginning, James,
35:38
was you talking about how important it is to have intention
35:41
in our food and like the making of our food.
35:45
And if you remove that altogether, what do you have to work with?
35:50
Right, there's no end to your grandmothers
35:52
or your, sorry, your mother's perspective or point of view as well.
35:56
It's like, what's your grounding?
35:58
What's your pavement?
35:59
You have nowhere to drive this vehicle into the future
36:03
because there's no road.
36:05
I just, I love you so much
36:06
in this such a fantastic conversation,
36:09
but I want to jump to where you are now
36:12
because I think what you and Tim are creating
36:15
and co-creating now, your daughters,
36:17
is so important for people to understand
36:20
because it's connected to this.
36:21
It's connected to tethering us to what is important,
36:25
taking the best from the past
36:30
and making sure that we carry it not only to our present,
36:35
but let it lead us into our future.
36:37
So can you talk about what you guys have created at this point?
36:42
And I'll just start you so that you're clear
36:44
on where I want you to go,
36:46
but you moved from the Bay Area
36:48
to now completely changing your lives
36:52
to basically living on a farm
36:56
and growing your own food,
36:58
using your own animals, your homeschooling your kids.
37:03
Tim is now supporting other people
37:05
in basically as a realtor and finding farms
37:08
and then you're helping them with getting the funds for it.
37:12
So you've really created this
37:14
more than just a homestead.
37:15
You've created a family system.
37:18
So can you talk about that?
37:20
Yeah, I like to call it like the home ecosystem
37:24
and the home economy essentially.
37:27
What we talked about was how we could take all of our history,
37:31
all the things that were gifted in
37:33
and understanding like if we want to teach to mastery,
37:37
the whole premise of us even homeschooling from the beginning
37:40
was that how do we teach to mastery
37:42
and how do we know what each child's gifted in
37:46
and so that we can continue to nudge them in that direction
37:50
and help support them in that way.
37:52
And I think that's what our education system should be
37:55
in any way.
37:56
And especially now that AI is in the forefront,
37:59
how can we use that to specialize education
38:02
per each individual, not just child,
38:05
but even adults too.
38:06
I think that there's really cool conversations around that.
38:09
So yes, because of my background in marketing,
38:12
that's been my bread and butter.
38:14
I grew up with that naturally because I didn't grow up
38:17
with much, right?
38:18
So I always learned how to make something from nothing.
38:22
And it has carried through in my marketing career
38:26
and my life from, I think, osmosis,
38:30
just like that's my philosophy of life.
38:33
When I wrote the Nursing Asian Kitchen cookbook,
38:36
I wrote, I had three months to write that.
38:39
And on the day of launch, it already hit best seller
38:42
and then it won an award.
38:44
And ironically, when I wrote the Nursing Asian Kitchen
38:47
and when I promoted it, I really turned off my marketing brain
38:51
because I didn't want any of my marketing stuff
38:55
to come out to potentially be disingenuous.
38:59
I wanted me, like all of my heart.
39:02
This was a passion project.
39:03
I had been a passion project of mine
39:05
from when my daughter was born.
39:07
I had thrifted all those dishes
39:08
that you see in the cookbook, all the photos.
39:11
I've thrifted those.
39:12
And it was because of those boxes that I've collected
39:16
and like moved over from California to Tennessee.
39:19
That was when Tim said,
39:20
you had to do something with those boxes
39:21
because I've been moving them around
39:22
from here to here to place a place.
39:24
And you keep talking about this cookbook,
39:26
Mom 75, write the cookbook or donate it, he said.
39:30
And he's like, you got two options,
39:31
but do something with it.
39:32
Don't just let it sit there.
39:34
And we're all the recipes that you had written down
39:38
from your mother and even grandparents.
39:41
Right. So from my mom, we basically,
39:44
I, when I cleaned up all my food
39:47
from finding nourishing traditions,
39:49
what Dr. Weston Eucharist did not go to Asia,
39:52
he at that point said, well, it wasn't indigenous enough, right?
39:56
But I'd argue to say that there's still indigenous tribes
39:59
in the mountains of Asia today.
40:02
He just didn't go.
40:03
He said that at that time,
40:04
China and Japan was already importing goods.
40:07
So he went to every other country
40:08
to find the indigenous tribes, to interview them,
40:11
to find the patterns.
40:12
But I took that information.
40:15
And when I tried to cook the food,
40:17
mom and dad couldn't eat it
40:19
because it was not palatable for them.
40:21
They said it was missing the mommy flavors.
40:23
That's very distinctive in Asian cuisine.
40:27
So I basically then removed everything.
40:30
I found Vanny Hari, the food bay,
40:32
but at the same time that I found Sally Fallon,
40:35
I went through all of our sauces,
40:37
removed them all from the kitchen, the pantry,
40:40
the refrigerator, and only replaced it
40:43
with very few ingredients that I knew was safe,
40:45
or that we could make them from scratch ourselves.
40:48
And I said, mom.
40:49
That is kind of the elephant in the room.
40:51
And I think it's very fascinating that,
40:54
I think American culture judges that Asian food is healthy.
40:59
Right.
41:00
Meeting Asian food today is healthy,
41:02
but Asian food, at least Americanized Asian food,
41:06
is not healthy.
41:08
It is not at all.
41:09
And my one bad review on Amazon was someone reviewing to say,
41:14
hey, I thought you were going to have
41:15
yum-yum sauce in here.
41:17
Yum-yum sauce is not a traditional nor healthy sauce.
41:22
Now I can recreate it, but it's not a traditional
41:26
nor healthy sauce to begin with.
41:27
And you'll get that fast food restaurants.
41:29
And I think, unfortunately, Americans think that,
41:32
well, Asian food is healthy.
41:33
So if we go here and we eat Asian food, it's going to be good.
41:36
But on the contrary, there's MSG and commercialized MSG,
41:42
not the naturally occurring.
41:44
That's completely detrimental to neurotoxin.
41:47
On top of that, it's addictive.
41:49
It ruins our taste buds and our pituitary gland,
41:52
tricking us to think that we need more.
41:55
We need more of this.
41:57
And we're also using seed oils.
42:01
And all of that is in Asian food that you go in the grocery,
42:05
that, yeah, it's also in the grocery source.
42:07
But in the restaurants, for sure.
42:08
Because they're cooking for profit.
42:10
If you're making fah, or if you're going to order fah
42:13
in a restaurant, there's bouillon cubes now
42:17
with MSG that flavoring cubes that you don't even
42:19
have to use beef bones or chicken bones anymore.
42:23
But that's the whole purpose of making fah for your family
42:26
so that you can drink the broth.
42:28
God, I never thought about this.
42:30
But if you think about it, Asian cuisine,
42:33
when you're in the country itself, where it's not them trying
42:37
to Americanize their food, but when it's authentic, OK?
42:40
Traditional Asian cuisine is very simple.
42:44
It's got lots of flavor.
42:45
But I just mean it's simple ingredients.
42:47
It's very like real food ingredients, right?
42:50
Yes.
42:51
100%.
42:52
And yet, I think there is such a disrespect
42:55
of Asians in American history, such a disrespect,
43:00
and such a dishonoring of their traditions, of their practices,
43:06
and really that whitewashing that we talked about earlier,
43:10
that for some reason, Asian food here in the US
43:15
is made very cheaply.
43:17
So they took simple food, and then they cheapened it
43:21
with all these horrible ingredients to make it cheap.
43:23
Because I think people Americans expect Asian food to be cheap.
43:28
Would you say that that's true?
43:29
Yes.
43:30
It's completely adulterated.
43:32
Asian American food is completely adulterated
43:36
in American culture.
43:38
And you're absolutely right.
43:40
If we took the time, and that's why I wrote the nursing Asian kitchen,
43:44
it is very simple, simple ingredients.
43:48
It doesn't take a lot of time, but we don't cook that way,
43:52
because we've just kind of dumbed it down,
43:55
made it really bad for us, made it quick, made it for profit.
43:58
But we do that to other cuisines,
44:00
and our own culture, our own American culture as well, unfortunately.
44:05
And then obviously, we're paying the price for it as well.
44:08
Yeah.
44:09
What changes have you seen in not only your health,
44:12
but your family's health?
44:14
Clearly, you were raising your daughters in the barrier
44:17
before you were on a farm.
44:19
So what changes have you seen in them,
44:21
as you've kind of unlearned these very American nice habits
44:27
you gained while you've been here,
44:29
and re-embraced some tradition,
44:32
but also more farming and more mindfulness
44:37
around not only ingredients, but lifestyle.
44:40
I love that they are doing life with us.
44:45
They're learning alongside with us,
44:47
when we butchered our very first sheep.
44:49
We butchered our very first goat or chickens.
44:51
They've been there.
44:53
Now they're at the point where they're teaching other adults
44:56
on how to butcher chicken.
44:57
We just had our homesteaders United jamboree
45:01
back in August of last year,
45:03
and they were teaching the both of them, right?
45:05
Like 12 and 8.
45:07
We're teaching adults how to eviscerate a chicken.
45:10
And a lot of the reviews that came back, people were like,
45:13
oh my gosh, your kids were there, they were doing it.
45:15
And it actually encourages the adult to do it.
45:18
You learn better from when it's a child teaching you,
45:20
then I guess an adult is teaching you.
45:23
And so there's that, it's having them try new food
45:28
and not having them react to it,
45:31
like I would any other child would be like,
45:33
oh no, I don't want to.
45:35
They're open to trying things at least once,
45:38
and having them alongside my mom, cooking in the kitchen.
45:43
They're teaching her just the other day,
45:45
the little one taught her how to make Italian seasoning,
45:48
like bulk Italian seasoning,
45:49
using the herbs that we had to mix it match together.
45:52
Mom never did that before,
45:53
yet we do that with our spice mixes.
45:56
We all work together as a family, right?
45:58
We were just talking about like our goal this year
46:00
is to create this home economy
46:02
where we learn together and thrive together.
46:07
So yes, Tim is the homesteading realtor,
46:12
because the homesteading lender,
46:14
and we help people,
46:16
the idea is how do we replicate this?
46:19
If this is something that interests you,
46:21
it starts at home, it really does.
46:23
And take it from me who's completely guilty
46:27
of outsourcing everything in the Bay Area.
46:30
I had our grocery food delivered to us by five o'clock.
46:34
I invested in anything to make my life
46:35
more simple and convenient, easy and convenient, right?
46:39
And now we have the garden.
46:42
Nothing is as easy as going out there
46:44
and harvesting your own fresh vegetables from your garden,
46:48
throwing it into a stir fry,
46:50
involving the kids, having them understand,
46:52
like they have their own business, joy and jolly,
46:54
where they make their own saves,
46:56
they make their own fuss by mixes.
46:58
Now they're creating their own pottery, right?
47:01
And they're learning marketing alongside us,
47:03
like using these principles of psychology.
47:07
And we have weekly game nights with our close friends.
47:11
And we get together every week
47:13
and we're playing Axis and Allies,
47:15
Fuzball, Catan, Chess, poker at night,
47:19
like we always end the night with poker
47:21
because none of this is for money.
47:23
Like this is just so that you learn how
47:26
to use the psychological principles.
47:28
It's all game theory and it helps you with calling it out.
47:34
If you understand marketing and propaganda,
47:37
look at the billboards during 2020.
47:40
Look at where they were telling us to do things,
47:43
even within the federal government,
47:47
what is the government trying to tell you?
47:49
What are they trying to have you do?
47:51
And literally when we're driving through billboards
47:53
and buy billboards, I'll ask the girls,
47:55
like, what is that company?
47:58
What are they trying to sell?
48:00
And what can you tell that they're trying to sell
48:01
because of that?
48:02
Who do they have, what pictures, what images, what colors?
48:06
Break it down because you cannot just go through life
48:12
and be fed information.
48:15
You have to be able to decipher the truth
48:18
and then strategize, which is why like Axis and Allies
48:22
and all of these strategy games are important.
48:23
Because when you know the truth
48:25
and you know the direction that someone is trying to take you down,
48:28
how do you strategize to work through a battlefield
48:32
that's filled with minds everywhere?
48:34
You've got to get through it.
48:35
And so like we watched Hunger Games,
48:37
they've read the books and to understand,
48:40
like this is fortunately, this is the game
48:43
that with food marketing, that's so important.
48:47
All of those systems from the medical system,
48:50
the food system, the education system, financial system,
48:54
military, it's propaganda.
48:57
So you just have to understand,
48:59
like it's not just reading the labels,
49:00
that's a great first step.
49:02
But what are they really trying to do?
49:05
So we incorporate the children,
49:06
we do have, you know, the game nights,
49:08
which is to make it fun, but they are learning these things
49:11
because how else are you going to learn?
49:12
Who else is going to,
49:13
I can only show them how many billboards,
49:15
but they still have to learn these strategies,
49:19
these psychological strategies and principles too.
49:21
Like how do you call BS?
49:23
Like when someone's betting a certain way,
49:26
how do you know when to fold?
49:27
Because that's also just as important as knowing when to bet.
49:30
In fact, learning how to fold is probably the most important thing
49:33
because you feel like you've already invested
49:35
all of this money in,
49:38
and then when you get to the river,
49:41
playing poker, right, Texas, hold them.
49:43
Sometimes the hardest thing there is knowing when to fold
49:45
when someone calls you all in.
49:47
Are you going to go on and risk losing at all,
49:49
or are you going to be okay with,
49:51
oh man, I put in like 80% of my funds, my time,
49:56
my resources, but this is not the path I want to go down.
50:00
So I'm going to cut my losses.
50:02
I would rather you learn that now as a child
50:05
than as an adult in your relationships with people,
50:07
your future spouse, your partner, your finances,
50:11
your business partner.
50:12
Like I'd rather you learn that feeling now
50:14
and how else do I induce that?
50:16
I love that.
50:17
You're definitely have changed my mind.
50:19
I want to start incorporating poker night as well, you know?
50:22
And you're making me very excited too,
50:24
because I'm going to be interviewing a world class poker player
50:28
on this podcast this year.
50:30
So he's a friend of mine and can't wait
50:32
to ask him these kind of questions.
50:34
It all comes back to for me, tradition.
50:39
What you're saying now or how you're describing your life
50:44
is very interesting to me,
50:45
because I can't classify it as traditionally Vietnamese.
50:48
I can't classify it as traditionally American even.
50:52
What tradition do you think you're building now
50:55
for you that you're honoring for yourself
50:58
but building and stilling in your kids?
51:02
It is definitely our unique family tradition
51:05
of doing life together and building it together, right?
51:10
And how all of the systems and all of the things,
51:14
all of the products that we make is tied to our values.
51:17
Like our family values are so strong,
51:20
what we are going to stand for, what we're going to accept.
51:24
Like our boundaries, thanks to 2020,
51:27
our boundaries are very clear.
51:29
And it's hard lines in the sand for us.
51:34
And from there, we can build.
51:37
From there, we accept the things that we're going to accept
51:40
and we're not going to accept the things that don't work for us.
51:42
But the tradition, it's not traditionally Vietnamese
51:48
or Asian American or Asian.
51:50
It's not traditionally American either,
51:53
but it is very value driven now
51:55
than where we were back in prior to 2020
51:58
where we were more interest-based.
52:00
Like we made friends based off of like,
52:02
all right, let's hang out together.
52:03
What do you like to do?
52:04
What are the things that you guys like to do?
52:06
I'm sure we would take vacations together with our friends.
52:09
But in 2020, it really became clear to us
52:13
and very evident that we were establishing relationships
52:18
with the wrong intention.
52:20
It was interest-based versus value-based.
52:23
So everything that our family,
52:26
like we had to get very clear
52:27
on what the values were for our own family.
52:29
And then now we can build off of that.
52:32
And anything that's not congruent to our values
52:35
can only go so far with how we want to build.
52:39
This is a beautiful way to close this.
52:41
But before we do, what is your definition of a value
52:45
versus an interest?
52:47
What you're willing to die to protect is a value.
52:52
And what your interest is is very superficial.
52:58
It could be like, I love going to Hawaii.
53:01
I love traveling.
53:03
I like long walks on the beach, right?
53:06
Like those are interest.
53:08
But values are what are your die hard guesses
53:13
and what your die hard knows?
53:15
And I love those Sophia.
53:17
Now, truly last question.
53:21
And I imagine you guys face this a lot in your line of work.
53:25
I would offer that your switch from the city to the farm
53:30
and to this value-based living,
53:33
this value-based lifestyle took a lot of courage
53:37
that a lot of people are scared to embrace.
53:40
So how do you support people around those fears
53:45
and support them in getting over them
53:48
and embracing these changes?
53:51
I hope that by hearing our story, knowing our story
53:56
and realizing that how far we've come in just a couple of years
54:01
from being completely immersed in all of the systems
54:04
to slowly dismantling everything for ours.
54:08
So meaning started in the kitchen with our food, right?
54:13
Started 12, 13 years ago with the oldest
54:16
and me making applesauce to now, like,
54:19
making all of the meals from scratch.
54:21
To when we were in a quarter acre in Walnut Creek,
54:25
we started our quarter acre garden
54:28
then we brought in the chickens to where we are now
54:30
where we raise all of our meat.
54:32
It only took us a couple of years,
54:36
but it has to be intentional.
54:38
Yes, it is scary.
54:39
We didn't know anybody going into this.
54:42
And listen to any podcast with someone telling me
54:44
that they made this drastic switch
54:46
from being totally immersed in the tech industry
54:50
and working climbing the corporate ladder
54:52
to completely dismantling and saying, like,
54:55
none of this aligns with our family values.
54:58
And we've got to figure out how to do this from scratch.
55:00
Nobody was talking about this four years ago.
55:02
I actually went through some major physical challenges
55:06
because of the revolution that I was having.
55:10
And to now, you know, I'm one of very many stories
55:14
what five years after 2020 to share that it is possible.
55:19
It is scary, but you've got other people like myself
55:23
who can tell you that you're in a land
55:27
and it's gonna be okay.
55:28
And if you need any help, we're here.
55:30
If it's starting from cooking from scratch,
55:33
how to make your first, you know,
55:35
fah broth, your first nourishing broth,
55:37
which I think is the most nourishing,
55:39
but I'm biased.
55:40
Or if you're looking for a piece of land,
55:43
if you're looking for a quarter acre,
55:44
if you're looking for your first home.
55:46
And like, all of that is something
55:50
that we can definitely guide you through.
55:52
So Tim and I actually hold monthly webinars,
55:55
our next webinar on like 101 for home buying
55:59
and it pertains to all different ways to like finance,
56:02
to how to look for it.
56:03
We're coming up with courses on how to buy land
56:06
to homestead onto homestead security.
56:09
Last Friday of every month,
56:11
we host something where we're on for a little over an hour
56:14
and we walk you through the whole process.
56:15
You can ask us all of your questions.
56:17
A lot of people have come in from the nourishing
56:19
Asian kitchen cookbook, have loved the story,
56:22
been so inspired that we've now found people there land
56:27
and two of the people that we spent our holidays over
56:32
with they said it was from the cookbook that they found it.
56:34
So like it's inspiring people and I hope that you know,
56:38
you don't feel alone because there's so many others
56:40
that feel the same way and you can start exactly
56:43
where you're at, whether you're in an apartment, a condo,
56:46
or if you have a small home, a quarter acre,
56:49
to now where we're at 40 acres.
56:51
Yeah, congratulations on that, you know, you just move.
56:55
Where can people go to learn of your next online meetings
57:00
and just in general to deep dive into Sophia and Tim's world?
57:05
So we have call to farms, which is our podcasts
57:08
and Tim and I are on there weekly
57:10
and we do our monthly updates for the housing market
57:13
on there, we have guests on there
57:15
and then we have the series with mom
57:16
that we're capturing her stories of tradition
57:19
and then I blog on sprinklewithsoil.com
57:23
and we have our YouTube channel as well.
57:26
So you can find us there
57:27
and if you wanna reach out to Tim, homesteadingrealter.com,
57:31
you can set up some time with him and go exploring.
57:35
Sophia, thank you so much for joining us.
57:37
In this more we can talk to you
57:38
so we'll just have to have you on again
57:40
because I think the hanging question that I have
57:43
that we can answer at another date is the balance of,
57:48
okay, when you emphasize home and family
57:52
but then you're putting yourself out there as a, you know,
57:56
as an influencer and as someone who's helping other people,
58:01
sometimes you lose sight of the family
58:03
and the core values because you're traveling all the time
58:06
and you're speaking and you're doing for others
58:08
and then you're not doing for your family.
58:10
So I think and I know that you guys are doubling down
58:13
like and you realize that you were separating from that
58:17
and those values were getting gray
58:19
and so you know you're getting right back to the grounding of,
58:22
no, this is about family, we're gonna double down on that
58:25
and then everything else is second, third, fourth, right?
58:28
But I think that that is a worthy conversation
58:32
for us to have at another point because that's the rub, right?
58:35
The more notoriety you get, the more you lose sight
58:39
with the thing that actually got you notorious.
58:41
Right, and that one I think would be good
58:43
to bring Tim into the fold too
58:44
because he's definitely the COO of the company
58:47
and I, of the family and I'd say I'm the CMO of the family
58:51
so he does keep things organized, keeps the balance
58:55
and if anything he's the one that's like raising flags
58:57
like hey, we need more time here, we need more time.
59:00
That's kind of where the game nights happened
59:02
because you could get lost and building all of this
59:06
but I spent a lot of time with influencers last year
59:10
when I was traveling for the book
59:11
and so there for sure is a lack of balance
59:15
and that's when I saw that, that's not something
59:17
that I want for our family
59:19
which is why incorporating game nights
59:21
and bringing other families in the fold is good
59:24
to just break that up but also learn and play.
59:28
Play is so huge.
59:30
Thank you so much Sofia.
59:31
This has been fantastic learning about your home economy,
59:37
your family economy and just reminding us all
59:41
that when we have these instincts of that things
59:43
feel like they're spinning out,
59:45
we can co-create a grounding and asphalt
59:50
to get back to zero or just get back to something
59:53
that doesn't feel so chaotic
59:55
and sometimes it just starts with like starting
59:59
a little garden on your balcony if you don't have a farm
1:00:02
or like having a game night where there's no TVs,
1:00:05
no screens and you're just focusing on each other.
1:00:08
So thank you, thank you for sharing that with us.
1:00:11
Until next time everyone else, thank you for listening
1:00:14
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1:00:19
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1:00:22
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1:00:25
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1:00:30
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1:00:34
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1:00:41
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