Episode 8: Lynn Bowman
Have you ever wondered how whole foods might change your life? If so, this episode will be a revelation. Embark on an engaging journey with our extraordinary guest, Lynne Bowman. From an uncertain youth to an eventful life in Paris and an unplanned broadcasting career, Lynne’s journey is full of unexpected twists. We delve into her inspiring book and discuss the tremendous evolution women’s lives have undergone since the 1960s.
In our heart-to-heart conversation, Lynne unveils her transformative journey in her 50s, finding peace at a Mexican spa, and making a home in a Californian agricultural community. We ponder upon the concept of ‘enough’ – an understanding that material possessions don’t dictate happiness. Shifting gears, we share our personal discoveries involving yoga, the significance of sleep, emotional well-being, and some advice for managing life’s challenges.
The episode takes an exciting turn as Lynne reveals the magic of whole food and how it can easily be transformed into mouthwatering recipes. We emphasize the importance of teaching kids cooking from a young age, fostering their love for healthy meals. Lynne also shares some of her treasured recipes, including her pumpkin pancakes and Genius Soup. Wrapping up, we discuss her upcoming cookbook and its Audible version, offering listeners an innovative way to connect with her work. Don’t miss out on this episode overflowing with inspiration, life lessons, and, of course, delectable food!
ABOUT LYNNE
Lynne has been featured at women’s expos throughout the country, teaming with actress Deidre Hall to write and publish Deidre Hall’s Kitchen Closeup (2010) and Deidre Hall’s How Does She Do It? (2012). She’s won national awards as a creative director for Silicon Valley companies, was Creative Director at E&J Gallo Winery, Advertising Manager at RedKen Laboratories, and freelanced for agencies in San Jose, Los Angeles, and New York. She has also worked as an actress, makeup artist, screenwriter, illustrator, legal journalist and television Weather Person. Lynne has three grown children, two absolutely perfect grandchildren. Her latest book, Amazon best-seller “Brownies for Breakfast, A Cookbook for Diabetics and the People Who Love Them,” has just been released as an Audible book.
Lynne and her husband have a small farm (totally organic!) south of San Francisco.
www.facebook.com/LynneParmiterBowman
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www.youtube.com/@lynnebowman485
WWW.LynneBowman.com
TRANSCRIPT
Lynne Bouwman: 0:00
Right, that’s the good stuff. Right there, it’s true. So it’s intended to be for people who’ve never. Okay, that’s a huge question, by the way, and you already know I’m old, I’m 77. What I love to talk about with women, caroline, is you know we take these twists and turns.
Caroline Balinska: 0:22
Welcome to the Life On Purpose Over 40 podcast, where empowerment, elegance and health take center stage. I’ll be your guide on this thrilling journey to outshine your past self. This is a podcast all about transformation. We’re plunging head first into exactly what health, wellness, style, relationships and career look like as a woman over 40. You’ll be hearing from all the most sought after global trailblazers and experts. This isn’t just about learning. It’s about embracing your inner fierce, fabulous self. Let’s get started. Welcome back to the podcast. Today I have Lynn Bowman with us. I’m so excited to have you here, lynn. How are you?
Lynne Bouwman: 1:01
I am really excited to talk to you. This is so much fun. I love that we’re so far apart and yet so close Big fun.
Caroline Balinska: 1:09
I think that we’re going to have a lot of fun together and we’ve just having a chat before we actually started recording and you’ve already got so many things that you’ve told me, and I’m very excited to delve into a few extra things. One thing that I do want to discuss before the end of this call is all about your book, because I’m going to keep it a little bit secret for anyone who doesn’t know who you are, but from what I know, you had done multiple, multiple podcast interviews I think over 50.
Lynne Bouwman: 1:38
More like 125 or 30, I think by now.
Caroline Balinska: 1:42
Okay. So if anyone’s listening and doesn’t know who you are, then hello, wake up, get out from under the rock, because that’s unbelievable. Where have you been? Yeah, exactly, you’ve been an amazing cookbook and I want to discuss it because I think that that just sounds scrumptious. But I want to set off by asking you a little bit about where you started from. How did you get to where you are now? What’s some defining moments of your journey? Okay, that’s a huge question.
Lynne Bouwman: 2:08
By the way, and you already know I’m old, I’m 77. So I can’t even remember how I got started anymore. It was so long ago. And what I love to talk about with women, caroline, is you know, we take these twists and turns and we never really especially back. I graduated from high school in 1964 without a clue. We did not have any idea what would happen in our lives, except we would get married and have children. That was what we were programmed to do, that’s what we were told we could do and that was what was available for us to do. You know, it’s fascinating to me to be living in this time and have seen the change that we’ve seen in our family structure and women’s lives. I mean, it’s amazing when you think about it, because when I was 18, 19, the only thing available to us was nursing. You could be a secretary, you could be a teacher and brand new thing you could be a flight attendant, if you can keep your weight down. And my sister was five, six. I remember she applied and she had to be 125 pounds or she would be fired. So, ladies, we have come some way. I don’t know whether it feels like a long way, and it certainly I don’t think is is a complete way. But wow, things have changed. So I didn’t know what I was going to do with my life. I thought I was going to be an artist, a fashion illustrator, and I went to Paris and learned very quickly that in Paris, there were no jobs for anyone, except people from the right family, french people, whatever. So I ended up like a lot of young girls selling newspapers on the street in Paris until I came back and you know, I we don’t have time here to even begin to talk about the number of jobs that I had, most of which never made it to the resume. We didn’t have resumes either, by the way, but we did anything that we could do to stay alive, just to get work. And in my case, I looked at. I actually did three semesters at UCLA and about the end of the third semester I was sitting in a geology class thinking this is so stupid. What the heck am I doing here? What am I going to do with this? I don’t care about rocks, I really don’t.
Caroline Balinska: 4:56
Why did you do it?
Lynne Bouwman: 4:58
Because it was required in those days. You had to have a certain number of science credits and a certain number of, you know, history credits and language credits, whatever, because this was university, and so the idea was that you were going to get an all around education, a degree that meant you, you were what? Capable of living in the world in an educated way, I don’t know. But I just had this kind of revelation where I can’t do this, I don’t want to do this, I’m young, I’m healthy, I want to go. And so I pretty much got up and left and you know, there were beaches, there were motorcycles to be ridden, there was life to be lived and I did not want to spend it in a dark room with 500 other people looking at pictures of rocks. So I left and life has taken a lot of interesting turns since then, but I wound up as we were talking earlier. I mean, I did, I was an actress, I was, you know, did makeup I? Because I was in LA. So I did all those things that my friends would call and say, hey, you want to do it? Sure, I’ll do that. Yeah, I can do that. Yeah, I want to be an extra. Yeah, talking part. No problem, I’ll do a walk on. Okay, that was the town industry, so you know I was around a lot of that. And then I got an opportunity, was offered a job in broadcasting in those and I said yes, yeah, that’d be great. And I went to North Carolina and took it and was hands down the worst weather person ever in the history of broadcast.
Caroline Balinska: 6:45
You didn’t finish your geology class.
Lynne Bouwman: 6:47
Yeah, can you imagine so. And that led to other things Advertising, marketing. I knew I could write and and you know I. And again I would say, yeah, I’ll do that, sure, I can do that. And then I wound up back in the Silicon Valley in 1980, which was just kind of the luck of the draw. Here was this place, that was the nexus of the world, you know everything happening, business wise, and they needed marketing people, they needed advertising people who could take this crazy technology and translate it into understandable language. And that turned out to be me. And you know, I come from a family of geeks and engineers, and so I had an ability to listen to them and talk to them and then turn what they said into real people language, and so I basically made a career of that afterwards and I, along the way, had three babies quickly and was single mom to these little guys and so and then their sole source of support. So you know, we don’t. I don’t know if people still plan their lives and do what they plan to do, but we sure didn’t then. And and I could never have imagined that either, I mean, that was not on anyone’s radar. We didn’t know what a micro computer was, you know, when I graduated from high school or was planning my education, who was Apple? What was Apple? You know? Who was Microsoft? You know these things didn’t exist. So my, my advice to everyone about life is really simple. It’s say yes, you know, say yeah, I can do that, and then figure it out, and it takes us wonderful places, and still is taking me some places, some of which are kind of wonderful, thank you.
Caroline Balinska: 8:54
I love it. I love the sense of freedom is one word. But I think freedom is a bit scary to some people. I think it’s the belief in yourself that you are capable. I think that’s the takeaway from that that, even if it was scary, even if you weren’t sure what was next, you had three children, your single parent and the sole supporter of them. I’m sure it was God down scary going through that time period. I think the fact that you believed in yourself yes, but there are also.
Lynne Bouwman: 9:36
It’s the mama bear idea. When you have these little people depending on you, you kind of don’t have time to be scared. You’re moving forward and you’re doing all these things with your kids Going back to. I’ve been asked, caroline, a lot of times where does your confidence come from? I think it’s from being raised at a time when we were feral as kids. We were not supervised, we left our little homes in the morning and we went out and we played, we climbed trees and we caught snakes and we rode horses and we fell out of trees and we had motor scooters and broke our teeth. We didn’t wear helmets and we didn’t have seat belts and we certainly did not have parents following us around watching us all the time we went in clusters of children. I think we’ve kind of swung back the other way so that these poor kids now don’t do anything without instructions and uniforms and schedules. That doesn’t lead to confidence and it doesn’t lead to creativity. In many cases Our kids were so busy preparing them for some imaginary future that they’re going to go to this great school and they’re going to have this great career and so they need to have these skills and they need to get in the right preschool, and then they need to be in the right elementary school, and then they need to be in the right middle school and they need to have the right friends and they go oh my God, right. There’s no room in there for them to find out who they are. It’s only with some freedom, it’s only failing, that we learn. If you’re not allowed to fall on your face, or if your life doesn’t somehow put you in a situation as mine certainly did to fall on your face, how do you learn? How did Simone Biles become this incredible athlete? Well, she fell a lot. That’s how we become. In addition to saying yes, I would say the advice is don’t be afraid to fall on your ass and then fall again, and then fall again and hopefully you get good at falling and doing something else. Particularly women, I think we’re brought up to be terrified of looking messy or having dirt on our pants or something. But you need to get a little messy, you need to fail.
Caroline Balinska: 12:36
Do you think social media is making that worse now, because everyone’s showing off their perfect lives?
Lynne Bouwman: 12:41
and it’s all BS. Part of us knows it’s BS, but there’s the picture of this woman looking perfect and her perfect looking boyfriend or husband or whatever. No, sorry, we know better. That’s not life. That’s not how it works. I think this is a fad. I think it will fade, I think it’s already. People are getting wise to it, I hope, and we’re certainly seeing the danger for our young ones. We’re seeing the research on their mental health and their happiness is not a good thing. Right now. We have these tools. We have these enormously powerful tools. Look at you and me this morning using these tools. We hope for the benefit of everyone, and mankind, womankind. These powerful tools are, at the same time, forcing us to deal with things with our children that we just never dealt with before. They’re coming over the transom, they’re coming in the door at this enormous rate. It takes courage to not let them in your house. That’s a whole other discussion. I realize it’s a whole giant topic and that’s, I don’t think, what we intended to talk about today, but there it is. It’s in front of all of us right now.
Caroline Balinska: 14:27
Yeah, it is. Yes, we are using it for greater good sometimes as well, so we can’t hate on it too much. I wanted to ask you tomorrow I’m turning 44. I just wanted to get your perspective of what you feel, how life has changed for you since you’re in your 40s and, I guess, going through the sound of menopause, and how that’s changed you, because I’m not sure even how old you were when you went through it and some women don’t even remember when they went through it. It might have been a great time for you, so it might have been okay. But that whole time period, that 40 to 50 year old to now, how do you reflect back on that time period? And I guess getting to that age might have felt a lot more overwhelming and does it feel like that now, or is it something that you look back?
Lynne Bouwman: 15:23
on. Let’s go backwards. I’ve never been happier than I am right now. This is a wonderful time in my life. I’m really, really enjoying it and spending the clock back, and I have daughters who are in their late 40s. Well, they’re mid 40s now. My son is in his late 40s and it’s easy to see that your 30s and 40s are tough. I mean, you’re working usually very hard If you have a family, you’re raising kids and working typically, and you have relationship, adult relationships, and you have a house and you have all this stuff. It’s hard, it’s very hard, and no one has told you how to do it. You’re making your way in this world with no instruction manual whatsoever and I remember that. I mean I worked my buns off, like so many women do, and was struggling to raise my children the best I could. But it was hard and for me, everything changed when I was 50, quite suddenly actually, because my sister, who had been my stalwart and the one helping me I didn’t my mother had been gone since I was 18. And it was my sister who would take the kids in a pinch and who would tell me to shut up when I needed to be. You know, she was great my older sister, four years older, died when I was 50, and breast cancer. She’d had it for a number of years and I also had fibroids and was suddenly bleeding profusely. And I’m happy to say now the medical community will say, oh, you can die from that. At the time it was just oh, you’re having some heavy bleeding, you know. But I had. And so I ended up having a hysterectomy and my physician, a woman, my OBGYN, said I’m just going to take your ovaries out too, because you’re just going to come back and want those out anyway. And so I said well, I guess she said, okay, good, we’re done. And so, at the age of 50, I had all my worries removed surgically and between losing my ovaries and uterus and my sister, my sister was the hard one. And yet I went to a spa when I was 50, that same year, that same time, and had a couple of revelations that have served me extremely well the rest of my life since then. And so I spent a week crying at La Puerta in Mexico, which is a wonderful old kind of one of the early spas in the California area, started by a European couple, very humble, it wasn’t fancy, it was out in the country and it was hiking and communal eating and quiet. And I sat in a little casita outside and I listened to the quail and all of a sudden went oh, that’s what I need in my life. I need to live as if I were at a spa like this and I need to hear quail, I need to eat healthy food and I need quiet and I need quail. That’s what I need. And this week at this spa was revelatory and wonderful and interesting. And so I came home and a matter of I don’t know two, three weeks later, a friend and I, driving down Highway one in California, we turned off the road into this little village and I went oh my gosh, this, this is it, this is where I need to be right here. And I have been here for 27 years now since then and love it, and I’m very much a part of this little funny agricultural community about 500 people, a lot of artists and musicians, and I have wonderful friends who do interesting, peaceful things. I mean we’re activists when we need to be, but for the most part we’re we’re peaceful. So for me, this half so far of my life has been. I mean, I’m so grateful and happy that I have my children. I have two grandchildren now which, yes, they’re the most wonderful grandchildren ever in the entire history of the universe. And going back to our tools, even though my grandson is 400 miles away Reno, nevada he and I taught. He’s two years old and we talk for breakfast and dinner very often and he shows me his boo-boos and his books and I show him mine, and you know we have this wonderful long distance relationship. But in his two year old mind I’m just right there in his phone, you know, in his computer, which that’s kind of magical, isn’t it Wonderful? So, yes, having grandchildren, having enough, is wonderful. I now have enough of everything that I need to have enough of, and and I would wish for everyone, no matter what your enough is, that you’ll get there and you will. And part of it is defining what your enough is. And of course, the joke I’m a boomer. So the joke now is we’re trying to give all of our stuff to y’all and you know we’re getting rid of it. We want it gone. I don’t wanna carry all that stuff around my back and you can see behind me is one of the things that wound up in my house from my husband’s long since dead great aunt and nobody else wanted it, but I couldn’t bear to see it. I mean, look, it’s this wonderful, it’s an organ. Yeah, call the harmonium. I don’t play it, but it’s mine now Because I mean what you know, I had to keep it. So our lives have a bit of that in them. But I think you younger ones are beginning to see it differently and not define yourselves by your stuff, by your antiques from the 18th century, you know, by your jewelry, by your designer clothes in your closet, and you know, yeah, I have some too.
Caroline Balinska: 22:16
Yeah, but we kind of are beginning to, I think, see that for what it is, and that’s not happiness, it’s not no, that’s true, and you just gave me goosebumps when you were telling me the story about your sister and that’s really sad and I’m sorry to hear that, and the fact that you went on to find something really beautiful and find a beautiful place to live. You were telling me about your phone before as well, and they say that from everything bad something comes good, like something good comes of it, and I was always taught that by my mom. My mom used to always. She always says that and yeah, I think it’s some funny way your sister actually guided you to where you are now.
Lynne Bouwman: 23:02
Absolutely, and I so feel that you know, and it’s sometimes it’s probably my sister. Sometimes there are other voices, but when we get quiet, caroline, which is the challenge today, right, when you can actually find a way to be quiet in a quiet place with a quiet mind, we do hear those messages. I don’t know if they’re voices or not, but certainly there have been plenty of times in my life where someone something has said no turn, right, you know no, turn no, you know no, stop no. Talk to that person and I’m a great flirt and I like to talk to people about the advantages of flirting, because it has a bad name. You know, when we think of flirting, what do we think of? We think of, I don’t know someone in a bar, but I love to flirt with babies and with Labrador Retrievers and with very old people. And you know, when you just allow yourself to let go and relax and reach out and flirt when things attract you, when people attract you, there’s a reason why you’re being attracted to that thing or that person. Go with it, you know, ride with it, and sometimes it’s a wave, sometimes it’s a hive seen you here before. Sometimes it’s the language that you speak to babies, the only babies, understand, and that’s fine. You know, dogs are great flirts too and they can lead to wonderful conversations with their humans. But I think that letting yourself flirt with ideas, with you know notions, and with people all ages, and dogs and horses and cats and fish, sea creatures, are also flirts. You may know that that that makes your life rich, and the older we get, the more. I think old ladies are famous flirts, you know, because we’re no longer prey, you enter into this wonderful space where people aren’t afraid of you and people aren’t after you and they’re always a little bit surprised by you. So it’s a great place to be, isn’t it?
Caroline Balinska: 25:45
I like that.
Lynne Bouwman: 25:46
I’m looking forward to that as well you should, yes, but caveat you have to be healthy. So you, my dear, if you’re not already, and I think you are, but especially in your 30s and 40s, you need to take your health very seriously and start doing the things that you need to do to be me. I’m assuming you want that.
Caroline Balinska: 26:15
Yes, I was gonna do my next question. What does exercise mean to you? What’s it been for you over the last 30 years, especially?
Lynne Bouwman: 26:22
Well, I always did what I could, but now it’s a joy. I’m in a place where I can take a class four days a week. I just signed up for a new one, so right now I’m three days a week doing a mobility and a strength a circuit in a little local gym. Wonderful, with six people, five people, they’re friends. It’s a very sweet social time for me and it is real exercise. And my teacher, my trainer, tiago great big guy, very strong, but he’s sweet and we are gaining strength. We are doing strengthening exercises and the kind of exercises that keep you more limber and keep your fascia more stretched, and that’s what health is made from, right there. And then I just signed up with a new yoga teacher in town, so I’ll be taking a yoga class on Tuesday mornings at 10.30. I can’t wait because at this same spa that I’ve always already mentioned to you, that I went to when my sister died and I was 50, one of the classes that I took as part of the daily was a yoga class. I’d never taken a yoga class, didn’t have time, wasn’t in my life. Here I was a beginner in this yoga class and the teacher walks in and I knew her to be 60-ish from someone having told me or her resume or something which at the time seemed old to me, and to look at her face was not? The woman had the most beautiful body, gorgeous body, and all of a sudden I was hooked right. Oh, obviously yoga is a key to having a lovely, functional, healthy body in your 60s and beyond, and that stayed with me. So I’m very excited to be beginning my yoga classes this week, next week now. But absolutely exercising it can be dancing, walking, playing with a child, anything you do to move things that you do, your little plank that you do. When you get up in the morning, next to your bed I’ve got weights under my bed. I have some little tools that I use to stretchy things and one of those balls with little round things on it that you can put under your feet. So it needs to be included in your life in every way that you can, because life is conspiring against us more and more and more to do nothing but sit all the time, your car in front of the screen. So your battle is not to sit as you and I are sitting right now. The battle is to be on your feet and moving. I have a treadmill right over here, so when I watch YouTube’s about things I’m interested in, I have a treadmill to be on at the same time, and so obviously, since I’m a cookbook writer, among other things, I teach food. I believe in food as a healing thing and it’s terribly important. But two other things just as important, moving and what’s the other one? Can you guess?
Caroline Balinska: 30:13
Emotional well-being oh no, we don’t care about that Of course I’m teasing you.
Lynne Bouwman: 30:22
It is the emotional well-being that comes from a good night’s sleep. You have to sleep. There’s no point in talking about emotional well-being if you haven’t slept. Okay, anyone who’s had children or a relationship or a job, you know this. If you haven’t rested, if you have not slept, you’re not going to be your best, you’re not going to be at whatever it is. So it’s a thing that, as a culture in the US and I don’t know if I can speak for Europeans as much, but in the US we always pride ourselves on not needing sleep. Hell, no, I can stay up all night programming. You know I can do this. No, no, no. Our bodies only heal literally when we are in deepest sleep. And when I say heal, I mean just maintain themselves. But also, if you have a boo-boo, as my grandson would say, the only time your cells are able to come out and do the stuff they need to do to heal, it is when you’re in your deepest sleep. I think it’s important to keep that up there on the list. We’re all exercise conscious now, I think, but the sleep bit needs to be part of our consciousness too. It’s very, very important, and I think of myself as a kind of recreational sleeper. I mean, I really love sleeping. I love the whole thing of going to sleep and you know, getting quiet and being in a I have a wonderful bed and you know my sheets are great and you know it’s a ritual, it’s not just falling over and so I would hope that everyone could enjoy their sleep as much as I do, Even that bit where you wake up in the middle of the night and you go oh, I’m awake, enjoy it. You know it’s quiet, it’s beautiful. It’s a part of the world that you know you should enjoy, as well as the noisy part. And I live out in the country so I hear the owls and the you know critters and stuff and I love that. That’s part of my life. But, yeah, sleep, movement, food, all of them. And then the emotional well-being comes along. I think, when you’re strong enough to deal with what you have to deal with, to get the emotional well-being but you can’t have one without the other, I don’t think.
Caroline Balinska: 32:59
Yeah, yeah. And what do you think about if people are in a situation where they’re trying to overcome issues in their lives, like you’re talking about the importance of these things, but if you’ve got people with issues in their lives and they can’t overcome those issues, but then that’s what comes first the chicken or the egg. They’re not able to go through the sleep process, or they’re not able to get themselves into the workout, or they’re not able to stop eating real brownies that are not sugar-free. What is the? Do you have any advice of what they can do?
Lynne Bouwman: 33:44
Yeah, make a decision, decide what you want and then do it. As women, I think a challenge always is to put everyone else’s opinion, needs, wants, everything in front of ours. And the power that you’ve had, the power all along, my dear, remember that one Glinda the Good Witch and the Wizard of Oz. You have had the power all along. You just need to decide to use it, to connect with it, to be that power. You have it, you can do it. You just need to decide. And when you decide, you’re deciding to be a force of good for everyone around you, the people who are in your life, who are difficult to the children, the parents, the ex-husband, the current husband, whatever. Unless you decide not to be abused, not to be neglected, not to work at something, you have to make that decision. Or none of these forces can change. The change always has to begin with you. You can’t wait around for some, that guy who’s always been a pain in the butt, not going to change, right? The kid who’s difficult. How can that kid be less difficult if you don’t change? You are the one who must decide who you are and what you want, and that you’re going to do it. You’re just going to keep falling down until you get good at it, whatever it is. But you can’t move forward without I think that decision and in that decision is I deserve it, I’m worthy of it, and you sometimes have to repeat those things to yourself because you don’t believe them for one second. That’s fine, it’s all right, just keep repeating it. I can do this. Yes, yes, you have to say yes and make that decision that you’re going to do these things. The information is all out there. It’s. You know. I think most of us know that there is a better way of eating or a better way of relating or whatever it’s. The information is there. You just need to decide you’re going to use it and do it, and it’s only going to help you if you use it and do it.
Caroline Balinska: 36:38
I love that because all of the people that I hear talking about you know this Napoleon Hill story and the think and grow rich, and there’s lots of different people out there talking about what to do. But I love the fact that you’re saying exactly what they’re saying, but you’ve actually done it through experience and lived it. Yeah, I think that we get too stuck on like where’s the sign? Where’s the sign, like where’s the sign of where I’m going to be able to do that? But I think what you’re saying is we just have to decide that inside ourselves.
Lynne Bouwman: 37:17
Yeah, waiting around for it is never going to help. I mean not that being patient is not a virtue, and so forth. But and you know, we all have to deal with our own little pile of poop. We have only our own mess to deal with. And there was definitely a time in my life and I literally remember looking in the window of a house that was lit up and there were people inside and I thought, will I ever be the person on the inside of the house looking out? Will I ever be that person, warm and dry inside? And the answer is yeah. Yeah, not only that, but I have a really nice house. I mean it’s not huge but it’s sweet and wonderful. It’s what I wanted. But, yes, there was a time when I mean I had done everything wrong and wrong, you know, and but I had three little kids and a couple of dogs and a cat and stuff and they needed me to get my act together and do what needed doing. And that gave me purpose and gave me hope and we all made it, we lived through it and you know and you decided I think that that’s the. I decided yeah, and things happen. You know, we can’t prevent some of the awful things that happened to us. You know, my first husband was a veteran. He was one of those guys that came back from Vietnam very, very damaged, but you couldn’t see it right away, and so over time he just disintegrated, he just came apart, and those are the kinds of things that you realize looking back on the history of the world. Things have happened to us that are so out of our control that other people have created or done or whatever, and we have to end up cleaning up the mess. What we hope is that we won’t repeat those mistakes and we hope that we’ll have empathy for people who are living through those, the results of those mistakes. But you have to decide that. Nobody. But you can make you happy, you’re it?
Caroline Balinska: 40:21
Yes, very, very good advice. I want to talk about again being happy and how we can make ourselves happy, and I think one thing that can make us happy is brownies for breakfast. Yes, so please tell us more, because I kept this little secret. But you got a cookbook. It’s called Brownies for Breakfast. I, just as soon as I came across you and the name of your cookbook, just I loved it. So tell us more about it, because this is especially. I love what you say it says for diabetics and for everyone who loves them. I love that.
Lynne Bouwman: 40:55
Because if you have an issue, a metabolic issue like diabetes or fatty liver, number of heart situation, you know you don’t want to sit at the table and be the one just eating these things and have everyone else eating those things. But the secret is that we should all be eating like a diabetic or heart patient. If we eat that prescription, we will all not only be healthier but happier, because it’s better food, it’s just better. And my prescription and what the recipes are all about, caroline, is whole food, real food. I see that that’s basically it and it sounds really simple. But then you go okay, what am I eating now? That’s real, that’s whole. And you have to go through your cupboards and pull out everything and read the label. And if it has a label, it’s probably not whole food or real food. So it’s a little bit more of a challenge than you may think. But what you end up with is more delicious, more beautiful, more wholesome, more, and your friends want to come over and eat it too because it’s really good. It’s just real, whole food and plant based in that. And I do eat meat and fish not a ton of it, but I do eat it, but I source it very carefully, which I want other people to do too, for a lot of reasons for you and the animal. We all now are becoming conscious that if we are going to eat beef or pork, it needs to come from animals that have eaten well and had a happy life, not from factory raised animals, and you need to consume animals who have consumed good food too, and that’s a challenge. So the recipes are fairly simple and, yes, there are some canned things in there. For the brownies, the recipe is let’s just go into it here. The recipe is pumpkin You’re going what Pumpkin and cocoa and nut butter and a little bit of cinnamon and eggs or egg substitute and, I think, baking powder, baking soda. That’s about it. It’s a very simple recipe, but the magic is, oh, and al-yolos the sweetener, very important. Al-yolos is a natural sweetener. It’s what’s called a rare sugar no calories. It will give you no glucose spike, nothing Wonderful sweetener. It looks like sugar, tastes like sugar, no aftertaste. So sweetened, but not with sugar and not with an artificial sweetener. So the brownies the secret is that something magical happens with the nut butter and the pumpkin that you think you’re eating oil and flour, but you’re not. You’re eating a vegetable and nuts. So everyone pretty much in the audience I’m sure knows that vegetables and nuts are good for us. And there you have basically a little meal that is a brownie, and you can make your frosting out of a sugar-free dark chocolate bar and a little bit of aloe gelose and a little bit of soy milk Just milk and I nuke things. I put them in the microwave Easy, fast, low, stir it up and put it on there. And the other secret is don’t tell anybody that they’re sugar-free, just put them out there and they’ll go. Oh my gosh, these are the best brownies I’ve ever eaten. How in the world? And you just say, yeah, they’re really good, aren’t they? That’s it.
Caroline Balinska: 45:11
Yeah, it sounds perfect for my three-year-old daughter, who’s always saying, mommy, I want chocolate, mommy, I want cupcakes, mommy, I want. So it’s like you said it’s for the whole family and we should be eating like that. I’m very I’ve got four-step kids as well and I’m very strict on. While I’d love to cook them normal brownies all the time and them cakes and everything I’m really strict on. Hang on, it’s just not healthy to be eating that much.
Lynne Bouwman: 45:37
And again you moms, the kids, need to be cooking. Kids will eat what kids cook and they will eat what they raise. So if you can do a garden, even a little teeny one, do it. And kids love to cook, especially when they’re really small. They think it’s just wonderful and magic, and so you pull them in early and if they’ve made it, you’re done and they’ll start cooking for you.
Caroline Balinska: 46:09
Yeah, my daughter, my three-year-old give her a few more months. She makes all the schnitzels. So when I’m making schnitzels she’s like let me help. And she gets up there and she knows what to do. She cracks all the eggs. Now she doesn’t need any, she can make pancakes. She just can’t turn on the pan. Let’s eat.
Lynne Bouwman: 46:25
It’s fun and there’s a recipe in the book for Miss H’s pumpkin pancakes. So Miss H is my granddaughter Now just turned 16. Oh my gosh, but she and I spent a lot of time making her pumpkin pancakes Very simple and full of pancake, and this time of year in the fall, it’s really fun to make them. And you use your pumpkin pie spice in the pancakes. Everybody loves them and it’s a great meal. It’s a wonderful meal. Who doesn’t love pancakes? You know.
Caroline Balinska: 46:59
Yes and especially yeah, with fall coming up started and having pancakes.
Lynne Bouwman: 47:05
But the book is not just sweets. It’s one of my favorite recipes. You’ve got a lasagna. It’s not a lasagna. I have macaroni and cheese, a very American dish. Everybody loves that. You can make it with a cauliflower puree and it’s full of vegetables and it’s delicious and it’s all in the book. Trust me, it’s really, really good. But the recipe that I recommend highly for busy moms is Genius Soup, Because it’s a way to clean out your fridge and use up all those vegetables that you bought Very well-intentioned, and now they’re down the bottom and they’re kind of getting a little bit, you know. So you want to bring them out and throw them in the pot and make a big pot of Genius Soup. Very simple, I tell you how You’re going to go. That’s it. Yeah, that’s it. That’s all you do. But then you’ve got this wonderful soup base that on Tuesday night becomes pasta and on Wednesday night becomes tortilla soup and on Thursday night becomes a Greek thing that you like to do, with feta on top of it. So you’ve got your vegetable rich base that’s warm and wonderful, that you, just in 5, 10, 15 minutes after you get home from work, after the kids get home, you’ve got dinner on the table or lunch or whatever you’re eating, and that’s how we need to operate. You know so many of us are now kind of dependent on grab-and-go for food and the kids are eating in the back of a car. And in Europe not so much, but in the United States you know, that’s epidemic and that’s what’s wrong physically with the kids. They’re sitting and eating fast food. So and again, I don’t need to lecture but everybody knows that’s probably okay. But the solution is Genius Soup and my mac and cheese and the brownies that are a meal. You know what’s wrong with pumpkin and nut butter as a meal? I mean, most of us would be happy if we thought our kid was taking in that and maybe some egg protein or some substitute eggs. That’s good food, Nothing wrong with it. If you’ve got to eat quick on the run, it works fine. And then there are donut recipes in there for baked donuts that are good for you.
Caroline Balinska: 49:38
Oh, yeah, I saw that Fantastic.
Lynne Bouwman: 49:41
They’re really, really good. There’s other savory things, dinner ideas that are colorful and good. Another favorite that I had the conversation just yesterday with somebody. They said oh, mushroom soup, oh, you know, no mushroom soup that you make yourself, first of all, is so embarrassed, is so easy, and it’s one of the most delicious things you can eat and for some reason, people don’t know that. I think people have eaten it out of a can and they just don’t know, because it’s just fresh mushrooms and onions sauteed. And then you pour in your stock whether you’ve got your own or whether you have some stock in a box, you know where I can and you’ve had a little olive oil in there to saute and then you cook the mushrooms and onions that have been sauteed in the stock for an hour until they’re very tender, and then you blend them up and here’s the secret you put in just a little bit of bourbon, okay, and I guarantee, and if you don’t have bourbon, got a little port, use a little of that. That’s fine. And that’s another thing you should be able to cook from your heart a little bit. You know it doesn’t always have to be measured in so many grams of this and so much. Just make it good and make it with what you have. Open up your fridge and pull out what you have and turn it into something you want. That, to me, is the secret of happiness right there. First, you don’t want to go to the store right. Second, you’re hungry now. And third, you don’t want to throw anything away ever. If you can help it.
Caroline Balinska: 51:29
Especially now. I don’t exactly like you, but I can tell you everyone says to me I say the same thing and they go yeah, but I can’t do that Because I don’t know where, like I don’t have a start guide, but your cookbook sounds like it’s got all of those, the starting, the base to everything, the fact that that soup sounds fantastic.
Lynne Bouwman: 51:47
It sounds like it’s intended to be for people who’ve never cooked or don’t want to cook or are unhappy but now they have to cook, or they want to cook any of that, or an eight-year-old kid or an 85-year-old grumpy grandfather, you know, whatever it’s intended to be fun and forgiving and yummy and look good and be easy All those things I’m a messy, impatient cook and so that’s in the book. I mean, you’ll know, or you read the books. This is not like any chef. No, I am not a chef, I’m a grandma, and that’s a very different thing. But I’ve had chefs tell me they like my stuff. And if you talk to the chef, if you say so after everyone leaves your five-star Michelin rated restaurant, goes home and you’re alone in the kitchen, you know, and you go home to your apartment. What do you want to eat? Every one of them that I’ve ever heard, interviewed or read about, says the same thing it’s well, it’s the soup my grandma used to make for me. Right, that’s the good stuff, right there, that’s true.
Caroline Balinska: 53:05
So I didn’t get a chance to get your cookbook before we did this call because I had to buy it on Amazoncom and to get it sent over from the US sometime. So I’m going to do some of your recipes and I want to post some of them on my Instagram.
Lynne Bouwman: 53:20
Yay.
Caroline Balinska: 53:21
Because I love cookbooks and I love like the fact that it’s all healthy stuff. My daughter’s always asking to make things like brownies and cookies and that, so at least I’m going to have a nice recipe that I can do with her that’s healthy.
Lynne Bouwman: 53:35
You’re going to have a bunch of it. You can let her pick them out. But here’s the great news, thank you. I have an announcement to make you can get the book on Audible now. So you can have me in your ear as you drive or as you take a bath or whatever. And I’ve had a number of people say first of all, audible said well, we don’t do cookbooks and art books, because why would anyone want an Audible cookbook? Well, they did it. It’s an art book and a cookbook and it was an experiment to see if it would work. But the feedback I’m getting from people is oh, I heard it was a totally different experience hearing you talk the book than it was to read the book, because we do learn different. We learn with our eyes, but when we learn with our ears it’s a different experience. So then you can go home and download the ebook, which has the pictures and the recipes in it, and there you have the whole thing. So I highly recommend picking up or downloading the Audible book If you want to play around with that. Love to hear from you what you think.
Caroline Balinska: 54:54
And where do we get that? Is that in Amazon we can get that?
Lynne Bouwman: 54:59
You can, and the easy thing to do is go to linboemancom and there’s a link. Right smack on the opening page. It says here’s the Audible book, right here, and you can hit the link and you can get a taste of it. If it was, you can listen to a little bit of it and see what you think. But that’s an easy link. So it’s on Audible, on Amazon and on my linboemancom website. It’s just L-Y-N-N-E. Don’t forget the E Boman B-O-W-M-A-Ncom.
Caroline Balinska: 55:30
I’ll put all the links in the sharing section.
Lynne Bouwman: 55:33
Great, okay, and you can sign up for me to send you new recipes, which I do not often, but recently, for example, I came up with an orange snack cake which is so good. You use a whole orange including the peel in it Wonderful. So yeah, sign up and I’ll send that to you with other stuff.
Caroline Balinska: 55:55
And I want to get three tips from you. I ask all of my guests this Three tips for women that are in the season of life of going into their 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s. Do you have three tips for them?
Lynne Bouwman: 56:11
Three tips. As in actionable things, they should.
Caroline Balinska: 56:15
I think you’ve given a lot already, so maybe it’s the ones you’ve already given, but maybe you have something else.
Lynne Bouwman: 56:23
Become the healthiest version of yourself, that you can Think very selfishly and deliberately about your body being your instrument that you should care for just as lovingly as you care for your labrador retriever or your children or your aging relative. Care for yourself ferociously, because your health is everything to your happiness as far as I’m concerned. So that’s probably number one, two and three right there. I don’t know, but that’s a big one. Listen to music all the time that you can. Turn the news off, please, and listen to music. And if I had enough life, I want to do a show about music. I love Swamp Rock and I don’t know if you know what I mean by Swamp Rock, but I think I need to do a podcast or radio show about Swamp Rock music. It’s wonderful regional music, mostly from the United States, acoustic music, but find the music that makes you happy, whatever that is, and have more of it in your life, because music does make us happy. So your health, some music. And number three yes, organize your closet. Get rid of that crap. It’s time.
Caroline Balinska: 58:07
I’m going to tell you what I did. I went into a shop one day and a girl said to me in a passing comment oh, you always look fantastic. I just see you in this supermarket occasionally. You always look great, she’s. I never like my clothes. I don’t like my arms. My arms are really fat. And I looked at her. I said, honey, no one likes all of their body. There’s always something we don’t like. And I said I look fantastic because of the. I choose the right person for my body. I just there’s many things that don’t suit me. No one believes me, but, trust me, many things don’t suit me. All my friends can’t believe it until I purposely try on something that doesn’t actually suit me. And she was looking at me and I said just throw out everything in your wardrobe. The problem is you’ve got it there. Just throw it out, because while it’s there, then you feel guilty, I better wear it. I better wear it, just get rid of it. So true. She just smiled at me and went oh, okay. Then, anyway, I went back a week later and I’m not joking she goes oh hi, guess what? I threw out my whole wardrobe the other day and I was like oh wow, you actually did just. I got rid of everything after what you said and I feel so much better for us.
Lynne Bouwman: 59:18
Yeah, first of all, we don’t know what we have because we have so much stuff jammed in there, right? So yeah, filter it out, clean it out and if, if you only want to wear stretchy, black, warm things, that’s what you should wear. You know, if that’s what works for you, do that. It’s your signature, yeah.
Caroline Balinska: 59:43
So I love it. Then you have been absolutely amazing, amazing, amazing, and I am definitely getting hold of your cookbook, and I want the book though, because I like every time I buy an ebook, I end up sort of I love cookbooks. I’ve got a whole collection of cookbooks.
Lynne Bouwman: 1:00:01
I regret that it’s expensive. Now they raise the price on Amazon, and so the hardback book has become very expensive.
Caroline Balinska: 1:00:08
No, and for some people, having like for some things I like having that, I’ve got like a cooking app and then I put recipes in there. So ebooks are great for some reasons and audio is great for other reasons, but I really I like books and I want to have yours as an actual book.
Lynne Bouwman: 1:00:26
And then and let me know, I love the- feedback.
Caroline Balinska: 1:00:29
I will be. You’ll be hearing from me because I’m going to be doing some recipes. I never take photos of my food and post them anywhere, but I’ll be posting photos and letting you know because I’m very excited to try, especially. The first thing I want to try is the pumpkin. What was it? The pumpkin?
Lynne Bouwman: 1:00:44
Yeah, that’s a person.
Caroline Balinska: 1:00:47
So as soon as I do that, I’ll be letting you know Good.
Lynne Bouwman: 1:00:51
Yeah, I want to stay connected to you as well.
Caroline Balinska: 1:00:54
Yes, we’ll stay in touch and I’ll put all the show notes in the show notes, all of your information, your links to everything, so everyone can get that. But, lynn, you’ve been absolutely amazing, so thank you so much for joining us.
Lynne Bouwman: 1:01:06
This has just been huge fun, thank you.
Caroline Balinska: 1:01:09
Thank you, thanks everyone, bye.