Lynne Bowman-Cooking Up Healthy Food & Politics

Show Transcript

Lynn Bowman: Glam Grandma Talks Politics

[00:00:00] Bob Gatty: Mother's Day is right around the corner, so I thought I'd bring back Lynne Bowman, author of The Beautiful Cookbook, Brownies for Breakfast. Lynn's a grandmother from California who's in her seventies and knows what it's like to raise a family and spoil grandkids. She's lots of fun, so stay with us. 

[00:00:19] Hey guys, I just wanna take a minute to thank you for hanging with us on the Lean to the Left Podcast, where we focus on important social issues that affect all of us.

[00:00:30] We're approaching now 10,000 subscribers on our YouTube channel, and if you haven't subscribed yet yourself, you should do it so you don't miss out. Comments on both YouTube and on our audio channels, like Apple, for example, would really be appreciated and it'd be helpful. A five star rating would be awesome if you are up for that. 

[00:00:53] Now our guest today, Lynne Bowman, has been featured at women's expos throughout the country, speaking on kitchen table culture, community planning, and dealing with diabetes, which she says has been a gift. Now I've never heard that before. Lynne teamed up with actress Deidre Hall to write and publish Deidre Hall's Kitchen closeup in 2010 in Deidre Hall's How Does She Do It? In 2012. Previously she worked with companies like E&J Gallo Winery, where she was Creative Director and Redken Laboratories, where she was advertising manager. Lynn also held various positions with agencies and clients in San Jose, Los Angeles, and on the East coast. Lynn's also worked as an actress, a makeup artist, screen writer, illustrator, legal journalist and TV weather person. She's the mother of three grown kids and has two grandchildren. Now lynne also shares our Lean to the left focus politically and has plenty to say about the world in which we are raising our kids today. We'll talk about some of that too. And of course we'll talk about her cookbook, Brownies for Breakfast, and about healthy eating, things we can do to stay healthy and a lot more.

[00:02:10] I'll tell you this morning I was telling Lynne that I wasn't feeling so hot today. I just down, draggy a little bit and the first thing she said to me was, what are you eating? And I told her and she slapped my wrist and said you should be doing this and you should be doing that. I'll take her advice to some extent cuz I like what I like the stuff I eat.

[00:02:39] Hey, Lynne, since this is a pre Mother's Day show, tell us about your kids and your grandkids. 

[00:02:45] Lynne Bowman: That's, a big order. 

[00:02:47] Bob Gatty: How many kids you got? How old are they? What do they do? 

[00:02:50] Lynne Bowman: Okay. Okay. I have three and they are all in their late forties or edging toward late forties. So they're all in that part of their lives where they're doing too much and stressed out all the time. My oldest, my son is in North Carolina.

[00:03:08] Farming starting. He, just got some land and he's building his place. And one of the, one of this generation of new homesteaders really the, young ones who are thinking differently about food And our food ways and our sources for food. So he and I have long conversations across the country about all that.

[00:03:35] My middle child is a landscape architect by trade and mother of my granddaughter, Helen's, just 15. And in college, I'm happy to say, and that's a whole discussion because. COVID turned education upside down. So the kids are having a completely different experience now. Many of them.

[00:03:59] Most of them. And some of it is, I don't know, but some of it's good. So that's a thing to talk about. So that's middle child. Her husband is a Silicon Valley guy that I met so many, years ago before my daughter met him. He was my client. We always have plenty to talk about the dinner table.

[00:04:19] And then my youngest child is in Reno, Nevada, a child. I say, she had her first baby at the age of 43. And. Her baby is now 18 months old, and of course, just fabulous. The most fabulous baby ever. And he and I try to do Facebook Messenger once or twice a day. And so he, knows me as this funny person on the screen that blows him kisses and waves and tells stories.

[00:04:54] But, How cool is that? That even when I couldn't see them all winter, because I couldn't drive. Anyone who has been seeing the news knows that the Sierra Nevadas were covered in 20 feet of snow all winter. So there was no way that I could drive over there. So, we have our relationship via just like you and me, Bob, it's all virtual, but it's still lovely. 

[00:05:22] Bob Gatty: That's cool. 

[00:05:22] Lynne Bowman: Although you said I slapped you, that was a virtual slap. It was a virtual slap. Yeah, it was. Yeah. You would remember it if it weren't.

[00:05:30] Bob Gatty: You know what? It struck me as I was looking through other things that you've done in your career. 

[00:05:37] Lynne Bowman: Are the ones I will admit to anyway. Okay. 

[00:05:40] Bob Gatty: What'd you say? 

[00:05:41] Lynne Bowman: The, things that I will admit to in my career. That you admit to, 

[00:05:45] Bob Gatty: right? Yes. Okay. That are in your little resume that you sent me.

[00:05:48] That that I dutifully read off to the people. 

[00:05:51] Lynne Bowman: That was really well done, by the way. Thank you. 

[00:05:53] Bob Gatty: Yeah. Okay. So anyway, you had a lot of jobs. You did a lot of things. Tv weather, person actress all these things that you've done. You were doing that while your kids were growing up.

[00:06:08] How did you, balance all of that? The work life thing, raising kids, having this career what did it take to do that?

[00:06:18] Lynne Bowman: Fear and desperation. And I didn't have a husband. I was a single woman from the time my kids were two, three, and four. So I did not have to worry about my relationship and his career and all that sort of thing, and he wasn't dropping clothes on the floor and messing up the kitchen.

[00:06:36] I was queen and empress in my house. So I, hired help as soon as I was able to do it, and got the help that I needed when I could. And also, Bob, we you don't have a choice. You do what you have to do to keep a house running, to keep the kids in school, to keep everything happening .

[00:06:59] I would get up and this was the eighties primarily. I would get up at five in the morning. And put on a full face and the, shoulder pad and outfit and the whole thing, and then take, and then feed everybody and help everybody get packed up. And then take everybody to daycare and drive the distance from my cheap place out in the suburbs into my office in the Silicon Valley.

[00:07:24] And I'd get there early because I was a female. And so I did everything I could do to be not just as good as, but better than the guys who I was working with. And in those days it was not real balanced. There were not many girls in the room. So I'd slide in early and get there and look all calm and everything.

[00:07:47] And then the men would start coming and going, man, I had a rough time getting to work this morning. Of course, I. I, I've been at it since five in the morning and taking care of kids and everything else. But you'd say, oh, hi there Jeff nice to see you. 

[00:08:03] Bob Gatty: That because you were a female.

[00:08:04] Explain that. 

[00:08:07] Lynne Bowman: Explain it? Honey, you're older than me. So you know how it was back in the day. Yeah. You hired women when you had to . And I should say, okay. I was in the advertising business, so I, my work was in an advertising agency. And one of the reasons I had pretty good work for pretty decent money was because they couldn't find men to do what I did.

[00:08:37] You were hired based on, it's like being a singer or something. You're hired based on your book. Which is the ads that you've done. And so if someone liked that, they weren't hiring you as a person, they were hiring you for your product, that became their product. Advertising was a field where women in the United States anyway got a foothold professionally earlier than a lot of other careers because we could do the work as well, or better than the men. We didn't have to be strong or tall or tough, although no, Maybe there was a, toughness sort of factor there. And it wa And then particularly when I came to the Silicon Valley, it was interesting because it was all guys and they were geeks, they were nerds.

[00:09:32] And, by the way, I married a nerd. Okay? And his pickup line was, "Try a nerd, you'll never go back." And he was right and I didn't. And I'm happy to say 33 years later. Yeah, love those nerds. But I was all very often the only woman in the room, which Yeah, you've heard before. And, so that's a very different situation than being a professional man. 

[00:09:59] Bob Gatty: And so you, just felt like you had to, show up early, you had to do way better work than, the, your male counterparts in order to get to the same place, and you probably didn't get to the same place money wise. 

[00:10:16] Lynne Bowman: I did all right. Yeah. Yes. 

[00:10:19] Bob Gatty: Good for you. All right. 

[00:10:21] Lynne Bowman: But, I'll tell you a little story, which was, I was freelancing because my kids were teeny. I became a single mom when they were two, three, and four, and ran away from a marriage in North Carolina and came to California with just what we could carry on the train. And so I had to weasel my way into working anywhere.

[00:10:43] And so I was freelancing as a copywriter. And this one client kept saying, no, we really, we need somebody. Can you come to work for us full-time? And I would say I am a mom. I, like you guys, you're great, but I can't promise you an eight hour day every day. I have little ones. And so finally he said how about if you write me an ad to replace yourself because I need somebody full-time. I said, sure, I'll write the ad. And so I sat and started taking down all the information he wanted to put in the ad, and then the salary came up and he told me what the salary was and I tried hard to look just as cool as I possibly could, but it was more than twice what I had ever made in my life on the East Coast. And so of course what I said to him was I really like you guys. You're great. And I've been thinking about it and I'll take the job maybe I can figure out how to make it work. Yeah. Because all of a sudden there was the money to pay for daycare Sure.

[00:11:48] And the other things that I would need to, do a full-time job. And so I said yes. And and it worked out fine, but I, didn't know what they were paying Bob in the Silicon Valley to do this stuff. And then, and my sister, who's also a nerd, and then her husband was a nerd, but she was the one who said to me, okay, you're gonna sit down, you're gonna learn how to use this Apple two computer.

[00:12:14] And I said, no. No, sorry. And she said, no, and she's my big sister, obviously. She said, no, sit down. You're gonna learn how to do this. And so I, I said, okay. And I sat down and I learned how to use it. So I think I might have been the first person in Silicon Valley to write advertising copy on a computer.

[00:12:36] And when I carried it into my office, of course, everybody said, what is that? What are you doing? But this was 1980, right? And just, I think we're at a precipice now with AI like we were then. Yeah. With digital everything. It was all brand new and nobody understood what it was gonna do. The business the disruption factor, we didn't know.

[00:13:07] That's really true. Yeah, 

[00:13:09] Bob Gatty: that's really true. I, remember during that same period of time I had been working on Capitol Hill for congressman and I got sick of that job and decided I was gonna go on my own and a communications company. My first clients were trade magazine publishers and they were in New York, and I would have to write my, columns, my, my copy and, I was always on deadline.

[00:13:44] I had I. I had about 30 clients I think at the time, and I was doing all this myself, and I was writing a monthly column for them about what was going on in Washington that affected that particular line of business, whether it was jewelry or sporting goods or food or whatever it was. And but I started that business using manual typewriter.

[00:14:13] Yeah. And and so I was having to copy things and, there was no way to digitally electronically transmit the columns to the publisher. So what I would do is I would run from my office, which was near the capitol in Washington to the train station, which was about five or six blocks away, and carry the manuscript in an envelope, give it to the conductor with five bucks and say, please give this to the guy that's gonna meet you at the train at. At the train station in New York. And then I would have a publisher send somebody to the train station with another five bucks and they'd give it to him. 

[00:15:05] Lynne Bowman: And could we have imagined, Bob, that magazines wouldn't exist anymore?

[00:15:11] Bob Gatty: Really? I know it. That's just an incredible thing. 

[00:15:14] Lynne Bowman: And my first job, a as a journalist, was with this Legal newspaper in downtown LA and it was in hot metal, remember? Hot metal Linotypes? Yep, Yeah. So that's how old we are. Yeah. 

[00:15:33] Bob Gatty: Yeah. I would just say that when President Kennedy was assassinated, I was working, I was only 20 years old, roughly. 20. I was born in 43. He was assassinated in 63, correct? Yeah So anyway, I was working for a my first job or my first daily newspaper job was with a, publication called the Jeanette News Dispatch outside of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania. And I was the proofreader and a general assignment reporter.

[00:16:11] And President Kennedy was assassinated. UPI machines went crazy. Ding ding, And we all ran over. Everybody in the newsroom ran over to the machine to see what was going on. And, of course it was the story that President Kennedy had been shot. And so we published a special edition.

[00:16:35] I ran outside on the street with a bag full of papers and handed them out to people, and that's how a lot of people found out about President Kennedy. Yeah, getting assassinated. Yes. And something I'll never forget. 

[00:16:52] Lynne Bowman: Here we are in the who, soon to be former Twitter age I guess, but the, Twitter age where everything is out instantly and.

[00:17:05] Reachable by everyone instantly. 

[00:17:08] Bob Gatty: Exactly. 

[00:17:09] Lynne Bowman: And another thing that's strange, I think in our world now is that none of us really, even the young ones, have the mental capacity to deal with the amount of information that is coming to us all the time, 24 7. 

[00:17:24] Bob Gatty: I think that's true. That's, really true. And this new this ar artificial intelligence development and, I don't even know what this chat, whatever it is, thing that is out there that people are using to write with. I'm, really afraid to look at it, to see what it means. 

[00:17:49] Lynne Bowman: It is a bit creepy. 

[00:17:50] Bob Gatty: Yeah, it is what? 

[00:17:52] Lynne Bowman: Creepy a little bit. 

[00:17:53] Bob Gatty: Oh, creepy. I know. Yeah, I know. Talk about creepy. The other night I was watching tv with my wife and I made a comment loudly and I yelled "Jesus" like that.. And my watch said, this is what I found on the internet, and it showed me a picture of Jesus Christ.

[00:18:21] Lynne Bowman: Yeah, 

[00:18:22] Bob Gatty: like holy mackeral. 

[00:18:24] Lynne Bowman: That's the world we're living in now. 

[00:18:26] Bob Gatty: That's the world we're living in. Yeah. You can't even do anything without your watch telling you what to do and what not to do. 

[00:18:33] Lynne Bowman: And do you notice ?

[00:18:34] Bob Gatty: You don't have one? 

[00:18:36] Lynne Bowman: No, I don't need anybody else talking to me all the time, whether I want 'em to or not.

[00:18:43] Bob Gatty: Oh, I'm addicted to my Apple watch. I have to say. People, huh? What'd you say? 

[00:18:49] Lynne Bowman: People, love 'em no, not for me.

[00:18:52] Bob Gatty: Not for you. For you. Okay. So you, when you were raising your kids and you were doing all these different jobs, you told me that it wasn't, you didn't have the conflict at home because you didn't have a husband at home to deal with.

[00:19:12] Nevertheless you still had to take care of these kids and, balance your job along with the responsibilities of taking care of these kids. 

[00:19:24] Lynne Bowman: And I'll also tell you, and I think most single. Moms, at least I can't speak for the dads will tell you that almost any career you can think of is easier than raising kids.

[00:19:38] So for me, the eight or 10 hours that I spent in an office every day was my relaxation. I had work that I enjoyed for the most part, and that was satisfying to a reasonably good degree, and I didn't have to work out in the fields. I didn't have to work in awful circumstances. I had an air conditioned office to work in, so that was the easy part of my day.

[00:20:02] Sure. The tough part is going home to three little people who are looking to you for all these things, everything. But what it meant for me was that my kids were always the team. They learned as very little kids how to clean, how to cook, how to set the table, how to take care of the pets, how I, didn't do all that.

[00:20:27] I see parents now. Doing all that for their kids. Yeah. And they are taking their kids to choir and Mandarin and martial arts and all these things that they think their kids need to have to get into the good college and to have a good life. You know what? No I, told my kids early on actually I was soccer.

[00:20:53] They were all in soccer teams, and I sat 'em down one night and said, okay, how much do you love soccer? And they all went, oh, we don't, okay, we're done. We're not doing soccer. Because I couldn't do it. All of those things in those days at least, were designed around a mom being at home and available to be snack mom and drive everywhere mom and all these things.

[00:21:15] Yep. And I wasn't so, I said to them, each one of them, you can have a physical activity and a sort of intellectual activity like music. Choose 'em, but we're not doing this crazy soccer thing . So a couple weeks later, my son came back and said, okay, I've got it fencing. I said, what?

[00:21:38] He said I, wanna learn how to fence. Okay. What? He said, no. I said, there's a place in downtown San Jose where there are fencing lessons and and the girls can come too. And the girls were going, yeah, we wanna go too. So all of a sudden now I had three kids who were gonna learn how to be fencers in at only two miles away at the same time every week.

[00:22:03] I didn't have to do three. And it turns out that the teach the, teacher Connie Yu, fabulous woman who's remained a friend, she did a, just a great job with kids of all ages. We loved the other families that were involved. They tended to be a lot of homeschool families. And it, suited the kids fine, and we didn't even realize at the time that what it meant was it did help them get into the colleges of their choice, which I, didn't think about and I didn't know enough to know that. But my youngest actually started a fencing team at the, college that she wound up in her first two years, which was Simon's Rock College of Bard in Massachusetts.

[00:22:55] When, you have to be disciplined, About how you manage your kids' lives and how you manage your own life. You can be, and it's a life skill that helps everything, right? If you just think a lot about it and are careful about how you're using your time and how you're using your kids' time.

[00:23:16] And my kids were the team. I didn't wait on them I was not their servant. I was their teacher. And I, think that's a thing. If, I were in the business of advising parents, and maybe I am in a way, that's what I would say. And I have said to some, you are not their servant. That's not how you teach a child to be competent in the world.

[00:23:43] You and, it doesn't serve You I don't wanna be anybody's servant. Sure. It's not a thing I like to do. 

[00:23:52] Bob Gatty: It seems to me that based on what you've told me about your kids and what they're doing in their lives and their careers, that must have worked out pretty well. 

[00:24:03] Lynne Bowman: I think so.

[00:24:04] First they're all still speaking to me. 

[00:24:06] Bob Gatty: That's a good thing. 

[00:24:08] Lynne Bowman: Huge. Huge, right? If we get a absolutely a show of hands out there, and there have been times my son and I had a couple of really rugged years, but we're all speaking, they are in happy domestic situations for the most part.

[00:24:27] Except my youngest, we have great conversations about this and I, a thing that I would like to share with all sort of moms of school age kids when you have your first or second baby, It's the roughest time in most cases in your marriage and your life. It, you don't know what hard work is.

[00:24:52] You don't know what fatigue is, and you don't know what negotiation is until you have to deal with a newborn child and a spouse at the same time. Who, and neither one of them, and you, aren't good at it either, but nobody knows the drill here, right? You, don't know how to be the best mom in the world, and that baby has no clue how to be a human.

[00:25:18] Gotta learn it all. And the partner in the marriage or the relationship has no clue how to participate and be a good partner. Everybody has to relearn all these roles and it's hard. And I've said to more than one woman. Yeah. For me it was pretty easy cuz the relationship part I didn't have to do, I just did the kids.

[00:25:43] So the, 

[00:25:44] Bob Gatty: you said the second child, that's when? Is that hard time? What's that? You, said your when, you had your second child? Is that what you said? I think I said first or second child. Yeah. Oh, okay. Okay. That first year with a new baby and I, had healthy babies for the most part.

[00:26:05] Lynne Bowman: I one spent some time in hospital for a couple of reasons, but. And in fact that scene where you sit by the tent in the hospital with your five week old in there, and the doc has to say to me 50 50 we don't know. Those are life changing moments where priorities become so clear, Bob, you get your head straight quick about what matters and what doesn't. 

[00:26:38] Bob Gatty: Yeah, for sure. Did that happen to you? 

[00:26:42] Lynne Bowman: Yes, it did. 

[00:26:43] Bob Gatty: Okay. And the child is okay, obviously now. 

[00:26:46] Lynne Bowman: She is much better than Okay. But I sat by her bed and I promised her stuff. I told her that she would have everything, every pony, every anything she wanted, and we would have so much fun.

[00:27:01] And you know what? We have and I have pretty much tried to give her whatever the heck she wanted. And I've been rewarded by not only a fabulous daughter in both cases, but now I have a fabulous granddaughter. Which is the most wonderful gift of course. 

[00:27:18] Bob Gatty: As yeah. It's, nothing like that.

[00:27:22] Yeah. Okay. When did you decide that you needed to get on the healthy eating bandwagon there? 

[00:27:31] Lynne Bowman: I, think I always had an attraction to it because I love to eat. Yeah. And I really love being healthy. And my mother had not been healthy. She died when I was 18 and of a chronic disease. Okay.

[00:27:47] So I think I imprinted really early on. This is a thing you don't want. This is a thing that, that blows families apart. This is a thing that makes people sad and unhappy. So whatever you need to do to stay healthy, you need to do. That was always in the background. And then, and I love to eat and I never had any money as a young person, so I couldn't go out and just get served wonderful food all the time.

[00:28:15] So I learned how to make it. Okay. And cheap and fast. Okay. As the kids started coming and I would slide in home with these little screaming hungry people, I learned how to put a meal on the table really quick. I. And that's a life skill. I think all of us benefit from when we know it is how to get her done, for sure. Not make it crazy and elaborate and bother everyone. Just get it done and have it be good. Yeah. And then a lot of friends started saying, wow Lynn, this is really amazing. You ought to write some of this stuff down. And so my first book was "Fast, Cheap, and Skinny" because of course back in those days we, females knew that our stock went up the skinnier we were, that was just the way it was. 

[00:29:14] Bob Gatty: Yeah. You didn't tell me about that book before, so tell me about it. 

[00:29:20] Lynne Bowman: Oh it was a fun book that I did with a friend and it was done in PageMaker. Do you remember PageMaker? 

[00:29:25] Bob Gatty: Oh yeah, for sure. 

[00:29:27] Lynne Bowman: When PageMaker was brand new and so we wanted to experiment and see what we could do with it.

[00:29:32] So I did the illustrations, and I don't have here to show you, but, Okay. It was fun and funny and And then I did the, two books with Deidre Hall, and we did those actually with a friend who did the, software part of it designed them for us. But the, first of those books was done in six weeks because we could, we now have these tools.

[00:30:00] Sure. That boom we could put something out and it was when Facebook was brand new, right? We could then have the, this sort of digital marketing sure. Element to it, right? But the, how did I come to write about food? I don't know. I just did and it seemed like the most natural thing in the world.

[00:30:22] And now that I'm a grandma, you may notice particularly the. Grandmas in your life that we punctuate all of our sentences with recipes. You can't talk about anything without saying. Yeah. And that's when you make the toast where you, where it's, it just becomes part of who you are and what you do.

[00:30:46] Okay. And the, health part of it, and then the health part of it really goes to having been diagnosed as a diabetic, I had Gestational diabetes when my kids were born. Oh, okay. And so I knew from that point that I had to take care, I had to watch what I was doing right. And the health advice I got was pretty sketchy.

[00:31:09] And not really super helpful. But in those days they said, keep your weight down. Just the more you keep your weight down, the better your numbers are gonna be. They don't really tell you how, cuz they didn't really know how to keep your weight down. But I've learned over the years how other people managed it and how I could manage it, and that I wanna pass on to people.

[00:31:32] Bob Gatty: Okay. So that was the genesis for Brownies for Breakfast, right? 

[00:31:38] Lynne Bowman: Absolutely, yes. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:31:41] Bob Gatty: It's, a beautifully done book. It really is a beautifully done book, and I have prepared myself one, so far, of your recipes, which was peanut butter cookies. 

[00:31:56] Lynne Bowman: Yay.

[00:31:56] Bob Gatty: Mainly because I am a real, I love cookies. 

[00:32:00] Lynne Bowman: Everybody loves cookies 

[00:32:02] Bob Gatty: and and peanut butter's good. And so I made peanut butter cookies and they were really, good. 

[00:32:10] Lynne Bowman: Thank you. And can I say, Bob? I I made a really grave mistake in a way naming it what I did "brownies for breakfast" because there is an assumption that it's all about sweets and it's not.

[00:32:22] There's, there are lots of savory recipes in there, soups and stews and main dishes and salads and everything in the book. But for diabetics, I wanted everybody to know that they did not have to give up sweets. That they could have better sweets than ever if they do 'em the way I tell 'em. If you do what I tell you, you'll be fine.

[00:32:46] Which is no sugar. Give up sugar. Absolutely. 

[00:32:50] Bob Gatty: So how do you have sweets if you don't have sugar? 

[00:32:52] Lynne Bowman: You use Allulose is my favorite sugar substitute, which a lot of people don't talk about. What you hear a lot is sugar substitutes are really bad because they don't really get you off of sugar and bs.

[00:33:07] Sugar substitutes are lifesaving, literally, and nowadays there are two or three that are really, good. No side effect. No funny taste. They bake the way they're really, and Allulose is one. It's a natural product. It's not a bunch of chemicals. It's something that's not creepy and icky.

[00:33:30] It looks like sugar. It tastes like sugar. It cooks like sugar. And it does not spike your blood sugar. And it has no calories. So what's not to love? There's also exactly. Pre root, there's 

[00:33:45] Bob Gatty: where do you, find this?

[00:33:46] Lynne Bowman: Monk fruit health food stores are online now. We were talking about the digital age. You can go online and buy anything you want online. 

[00:33:54] Bob Gatty: How do you spell it? 

[00:33:56] Lynne Bowman: A L L U L O S E.. 

[00:34:01] Bob Gatty: Okay, good. You guys write that down. 

[00:34:05] Lynne Bowman: And in my book there's a couple of pages about sugar substitutes, which ones to use and which ones are better and which ones aren't. So I recommend that. Also, if you sign up on my website, I will give you free, because I love you and I want you to have it free, a whole little thing about, I'll give you the recipe, first of all for the brownies, cuz you need that. And then I'll give you the breakdown of the sugar substitutes cuz you need that. And, that will be it. No crazy marketing, no buy my class for $300.

[00:34:39] Nothing. Just, get the recipe free and the article free if you sign. 

[00:34:46] Bob Gatty: That is cool. 

[00:34:48] Lynne Bowman: It is cool. Yeah, for sure. And I'm proud of you for making the cookies. That's huge. That's one 

[00:34:56] Bob Gatty: I'm having a little bit of a problem here right now because I showed that book to my wife when it, when you first sent it to me and then I made the cookies and then she took the book.

[00:35:10] And said I'm gonna make some things from this book. And before we began doing this show today, I went to look for it. And I don't know what the hell she did with it. So hold up here so people can see it. There we go. 

[00:35:27] Lynne Bowman: She's, a woman who knows your cookbooks. Yeah. And And you can tell I talk about eggs.

[00:35:33] Yeah. Among other things. 

[00:35:34] Bob Gatty: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:35:35] You know what and, the thing is beautifully illustrated. There's beautiful photos. No, You took a lot of those photos yourself, didn't you? 

[00:35:43] Lynne Bowman: I took all the pictures of food. I didn't take the pictures of myself. Oh, peppers. The drone peppers coming in season again.

[00:35:52] Yeah. Okay. And so easy, the whole thing is just so, easy. Okay. Oh, fruit yes. Diabetics, you can eat fruit and I tell you how, but also it's not just for diabetics, it's for anybody who wants to eat. Eat healthy, especially. Oh, we're planting these right now too, in our raised beds, radishes. 

[00:36:22] Bob Gatty: Oh, okay.

[00:36:23] Lynne Bowman: Beautiful radishes. So good. And there's soup recipes in here. Oh, this is one that I look forward to every year when the tomatoes. We grow little tiny tomatoes, gazpacho, cold soup. 

[00:36:35] Bob Gatty: Oh, I love that. 

[00:36:36] Lynne Bowman: So easy, so delicious. And if you go to a fancy restaurant, you'll pay this year even more. You'll pay 15 bucks for a little teeny, tiny serving of this stuff.

[00:36:48] Sure. And you can make it for. Oh, a small fraction of that. Yeah. In a blender and it's so easy. Here's 

[00:36:58] Bob Gatty: you know what I'm gonna have to do is look up, look at your gazpacho recipe. That'll be my next thing cuz I love gazpacho. 

[00:37:05] Lynne Bowman: That's true, don't you? It's just it's, love it.

[00:37:08] Absolutely. One of the most wonderful. And and yes, of course I have the obligatory avocado toast recipe. Okay. Because you can't be cool anymore if you don't eat avocado toast.

[00:37:22] Bob Gatty: Oh really? Yeah. I guess I'm not cool then. 

[00:37:25] Lynne Bowman: No. You need to eat some avocado toast, Bob. 

[00:37:28] Bob Gatty: Okay. All right. 

[00:37:30] Lynne Bowman: Okay, now, and here's Ms. H's pumpkin pancakes. Ms. H is my granddaughter. Oh, okay. And one of the secrets of the book is that I use pumpkin a lot instead of flour. 

[00:37:45] Bob Gatty: Oh, okay. So that's interesting. Yeah. I didn't know you could do that. 

[00:37:50] Lynne Bowman: Yes, you can do it because that's interesting because I did this book. You can do it.

[00:37:56] Okay. You 

[00:37:58] Bob Gatty: know what in, our last discussion that we did, and I urge you guys, if you didn't check it out, you should just go back. Go up to podcast, lean to the left.net and, check out the thumbnails of the different shows and you'll find the show that Lynn and I did a couple months ago.

[00:38:20] Lynne Bowman: We were fabulous, weren't we? 

[00:38:21] Bob Gatty: And it was a really interesting discussion and we talked about our book of course, but we also talked about tons of other stuff and which is why I invited her back because I wanted to do something focused on Mother's Day. But She was such a kick to talk to that.

[00:38:38] And also she didn't gimme a hard time because there were certain things that I liked that. That I told her about that are not particularly wonderful, like a daily dose of ice cream, and she shakes her head. 

[00:38:56] Lynne Bowman: You're, lucky. I'm so old. I have a poor memory. So I have no idea what we talked about before and I hope we're not repeating ourselves too badly.

[00:39:03] Bob Gatty: No, we're not. No, we're not. Not at all Uhuh. But I do wanna ask you This, you, you mentioned in that discussion that food companies are designing their products specifically to encourage over consumption. Talk about that a little bit. Explain that a little bit, because I think people will be concerned about that.

[00:39:26] Lynne Bowman: It's the craveability industry, and these are the guys in buildings in New Jersey who figure out what to put in food so that you will be addicted. And when I say addicted, I don't mean it metaphorically. These foods are addictive. And you can eat a ton of them and keep eating them because they don't, they're chemically designed to not satiate you, to not have you feel full when you eat them and to want more and more. And the way they do that is they put a lot of sugar and salt and fat in them and absolutely no nutrition. They are worthless as foods. Have you got examples? Can, you can hear me talking about you, Doritos and those things?

[00:40:15] Anything in a bag or a box with a whole bunch of ingredients in it is designed to make money for the people making it. It's not designed to fill you up or make you healthy or make you happy. It's designed so that you cannot literally stop eating it. So you keep buying more and it's placed in the grocery store so that you won't miss it, so that you'll grab it so that your kids will grab it.

[00:40:45] So you are the unhappy and unfortunate dupe of the food industry. Big food we like to call it? Who are using you to increase their ROI, their bottom line, their shareholder value is coming right off of your bones and muscles. And, I, if that sounds rude. Sorry. I think it is rude. I think it's more than, I think it's close to murder.

[00:41:17] And so I'm, out here talking all the time about, read the label, first of all, know what you're eating. Read that label and if you can still convince yourself or someone else at your table that is good food to eat. Okay? 

[00:41:34] Bob Gatty: Yeah. Okay. Hey, you wanna talk a little politics? 

[00:41:39] Lynne Bowman: Let's, okay.

[00:41:42] Bob Gatty: What do you think about the spate of bills that are being considered in various states to restrict abortions and ban books and legislate against the lgbtq plus community? What do you think about all that? 

[00:41:56] Lynne Bowman: What do you think? I'd think? It's murder. It is literally murder when you remove a person's ability to manage their own healthcare.

[00:42:10] In the case, for example, of a woman who is carrying a non-viable pregnancy, an ectopic pregnancy, you are literally killing that person. That person may survive, but in many cases they won't. What do we think we're doing here? 

[00:42:34] Bob Gatty: Is there legitimacy to the idea that the people that are pushing these kinds of restrictive bills that they really care nothing about the child once it is born? It's make sure that it's born. And then , that's the end of it. 

[00:42:56] Lynne Bowman: Absolutely. All you have to do is look at the data and that, that becomes an icky word for some people. But I'm sorry. If you look at the number of children that die every year from gunshot wounds, from avoidable illness, from accidents, from automobile accidents. If you want to keep a child alive, work on those things. I just, I can't, it's hard for, me to not get a little hot under the collar. And of course, I come from a time when, I was in high school and, began college women had to go to Mexico to get abortions or go to a provider who was not legal.

[00:43:48] So I saw friends die as a result of pregnancies. And then of course, as time goes on, we become aware of now again, women are dying because of pregnancies, not just because of seeking an abortion that isn't legal, but because they cannot get healthcare from doctors who are terrified that they'll be against the law, they'll be arrested.

[00:44:20] Because there's confusion too that the laws aren't clear that are being, and it's not, how can anyone defend that it's about a baby when it's not. It's about controlling women. It's about controlling women. It's, and I, say women because there are small number of exceptions, people who don't identify as female who can be pregnant.

[00:44:47] But for the most part we're still, we're absolutely in Margaret Atwood land. 

[00:44:53] Bob Gatty: I see what you're saying and I agree with you. I just think that it's a horrible thing what they're trying to attempt. And if you, I'm sorry. If you look at, the people that are behind this legislation, typically you're talking about men.

[00:45:14] Lynne Bowman: Yeah, 

[00:45:15] Bob Gatty: Just let me tell you this, here in South Carolina there's a bill that would ban abortion in almost every instance. I think after six weeks. And that bill is currently before the state legislature, which is run by Republicans, but there were three Republican

[00:45:39] female members of the state Senate, who along with two Democratic female members of the state Senate, got together and blocked this bill from moving forward. And, one of the Republican women called out the Sponsors and said, we're the only ones who have ever had any, I forget the exact wordage that she used, but basically we're the only ones that have ever had kids.

[00:46:17] We're the only ones that know what this is all about, and you guys are trying to control us and put us in this position and, that happened here in South Carolina in a red state. So I thought that was a positive thing when I read that this morning. They spoke up. 

[00:46:37] Lynne Bowman: We'll see what happens as time goes on. It's, and the don't say gay stuff. Anyone who's ever had a, gay child or a trans child, you realize that this is part of the human condition. This is part of being human. 

[00:46:54] Bob Gatty: Exactly. 

[00:46:55] Lynne Bowman: And anyone who says otherwise just doesn't know the facts. Exactly. 

[00:47:02] Bob Gatty: I raised a i, i raised a gay son and, I know what this kid went through and still goes through. The guy's 50 years old now and he's still having to deal with a lot of the crap that 

[00:47:14] Lynne Bowman: Oh, you bet. 

[00:47:14] Bob Gatty: Is thrown his way because of that and it's just an incredible. It's an incredible thing. 

[00:47:20] Lynne Bowman: I can still remember my daughter, middle child, coming home from her first year of college with a textbook about human sexuality and the two of us upstairs in her room looking through this thing, and we were both stunned at the time to learn the number of humans who are born every year, every day with undefinable gender. With, this whole range of different genitalia that are not clearly definable as male or female. And it's not just a third way, it's this whole range of ways. And once you have seen how the human body actually functions and seeing how people are actually born, How can you try to deny that is the truth?

[00:48:16] Bob Gatty: Yeah. Yeah. It's the truth. While this is going on, we have an ex-president that's on trial right now for raping a writer in a freaking dressing room. Yes. 

[00:48:29] Lynne Bowman: She actually was someone that I read a great deal and enjoyed reading.

[00:48:33] She's hilarious as a writer, smart gal, and she's a being a hero as she does this because we all know that the chances. Of everyone saying yes, she's right. No, She knew she was gonna get up there and have a huge contingent of people going, she's lying. She's only doing this for this reason or that reason.

[00:48:55] You gotta be a tough broad. Yeah. To allow yourself to go up in what is a national, internationally Advertised trial. And tell your truth and know that you are gonna be shot at and, 

[00:49:13] Bob Gatty: Absolutely. Absolutely. And now this guy is, Wants to be president again. And, he's 

[00:49:24] Lynne Bowman: forever Uhhuh.

[00:49:25] Bob Gatty: Yeah. Yeah. Forever. 

[00:49:27] Lynne Bowman: Just like his friend in China. Uhhuh. Yeah. And his other friend in Russia. Uhhuh. 

[00:49:32] Bob Gatty: Yeah. So what do you think about the Republican sweepstakes? Do you think that DeSantis has got anything going for him or, you think Trump is just gonna be the ultimate nominee? What do you think?

[00:49:47] Lynne Bowman: I don't think DeSantis has anything going for him. How smart can you be to attack Mickey Mouse? 

[00:49:55] Bob Gatty: Yeah. How, brilliant is that, right? 

[00:49:59] Lynne Bowman: What? And actually he's, probably a semi bright guy, but he's utterly charmless. 

[00:50:05] Bob Gatty: There's an explanation. Yeah. I didn't be char. 

[00:50:10] Lynne Bowman: Yeah, even Trump give him credit. He's a serial seducer. I mean he, he knows how to be charming when he has to be charming and then it doesn't last. Of course. Yeah. But DeSantis doesn't even have that ability. 

[00:50:25] Bob Gatty: Yeah. Know. He's disgusting, I think. 

[00:50:27] Lynne Bowman: , don't see him impressing a lot of people that need to be impressed with his ability. And I think that there is this huge, sort of, not mouthy, but important, and it used to be called the silent majority for a lot of the wrong reasons, but there are many of us who see that we, need some real competence and some real brains. And I wanna ask you about this teamwork. You don't see people running for office, talking about teamwork, really. But when you think about what it takes to be president of the United States in a competent way, what it means is you are managing an enormous, powerful team of people and you'd better be able to do it well. Yeah. And for sure what you've had and experienced in from the Republican party is the mafioso model.

[00:51:27] Bob Gatty: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And what about Joe? Do you think that do you think that he should, be running again? Or what, do you think ? 

[00:51:36] Lynne Bowman: I think he gets very, competent, intelligent people around him. Look who he's brought in. Yeah. Look who his cabinet is. So a, good chief executive builds a team, builds a great team. Yeah. And judging him on that, I would say that Joe has, been spectacular. 

[00:51:57] Bob Gatty: I've been a little bit disappointed with I didn't think he gave Kamala Harris enough substantive stuff to work on. 

[00:52:07] Lynne Bowman: No. And Kamala is not everybody's cup of tea. She's a tough cookie. And a brilliant woman. Extremely competent. But I don't know. It's a sort of a, telegenic quality that she doesn't have, that some other public figures have. And I would hope that she gets some good coaching in that regard, because she can certainly do the job. She's a smart cookie and, has great experience.

[00:52:39] Yeah. But I had to laugh. You know what, when she was running, what did they bring up? She slept with Willie Brown , huh And you're 

[00:52:49] Bob Gatty: really, that's what they bring up. 

[00:52:51] Lynne Bowman: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. It's astonishing to me what they can still say about women in this game. But I think that if you look at Joe's team who he brought in it, it's a bunch of amazingly.

[00:53:08] For example the guy outta Louisiana, whose name I always struggled to remember, Mitch Landreu. He's, not out there on the front page. So this is a brilliant, fabulous guy who is one of the people up there with Joe making things happen and Pete Buttigieg.

[00:53:29] Bob Gatty: And the same with Pete Buttigieg.

[00:53:32] Lynne Bowman: Yeah. Brilliant, guy. Absolutely brilliant. Fabulous man. Yeah. Yeah. And these people also bring a broader scope of who Americans really are. And what we really need to do. 

[00:53:43] Bob Gatty: You know what I have to give Biden credit for bringing in Pete, because mayor Pete, because actually he, he brought in a guy and gave a platform to who could end up running against him at some point. Now he's not , but that could have been the case, right?

[00:54:05] Lynne Bowman: Yeah, could have been the case. 

[00:54:06] Bob Gatty: He had the balls to bring them in and put 'em in that position.

[00:54:09] Lynne Bowman: But the best CEOs always bring people in who can replace them. 

[00:54:16] Bob Gatty: That's right. 

[00:54:16] Lynne Bowman: That's what you do, as opposed to the Republican model, which is only bring people in who you think won't kill you. 

[00:54:24] Bob Gatty: Yeah. For very well with that, Lynne, look at we've, this has been the fastest hour I've done in a long time. We'll have to do some more, sorry. But we're at almost to an hour. I wanna thank you for being with us and for sharing your insight and thank you.

[00:54:45] I just enjoy made my day enjoy thoroughly. I hope you guys enjoyed listening to, this. And by all means, pick up her Brownies for Breakfast book. . It's just a wonderful book. It's beautiful. It, really is. You just enjoy having it. But there's good stuff in there. And, my next thing is gazpacho. I'm gonna give that a shot.

[00:55:10] Okay. 

[00:55:10] Lynne Bowman: And I hope your listeners will send questions in for Bob and the snarky granny. Okay. And then next time we can answer questions, 

[00:55:18] Bob Gatty: that's a good idea. Yeah. So send in your questions and send 'em to Bob at Lean to the left.net. And and Lynne and I'll address 'em the next time we, get together, so 

[00:55:33] Lynne Bowman: You bet.