How to Host, LPA Updates and a to Die for Nancy Meyers Story

The following podcast is a deer media production. Hey, you know what story I was thinking of the other day, but I haven't told anyone. That's such a great second story. So when my father passed away and we like suddenly moved in here, you know, David had given up his job. I was whatever. It was like all the sudden we there was like a lot of finances. And a lot of us trying to figure out how to get our shit together. So my mom was like, I'm going to list our house as a rental space for movies and photo shoots. I was like, that's a great idea because like location fees can be huge. And we forgot about it. It was like, I mean, it was right. It was five years ago, four and a half years ago. So a couple months ago, she gets an email from someone saying that they saw our house and they wanted to come look at it for a movie. And she was like, oh my gosh, I forgot my house. I forgot the house was even on this website. And I was like, well, movie. Like those fees are big. I was like, maybe we should just have them come locations out see what it is. But let's like, by the way, it's crazy. You have to fully move out of your house. So now I have a baby and we have three dogs. And my mom and Dobby Day and like all of our stuff. But I was like, the money's where I, I'll fucking go wherever. So this sweet woman comes. She's taking photos. I'm working. I'm like on zooms and calls and stuff. And she's taking a million photos of the house. So then I come into the kitchen, like 45 minutes after she's been taking photos of the whole property. Like backyard front yard garage folding. And I'm like, she's taking photos of the kitchen and I was like, oh, you know, whatever. Nice to meet you. And I was like, so do you work for of scouting agency? Or do you work like directly with the movie or the director or the producer? You know, because like some people don't even know what they're looking for. They're just like sent to take photos and submit them. And some people work very close, you know, whatever. She's like, I work really closely with the director. Working with her firm, you know, over 15 years, doing locations. It's like, wow, what a special career. I was like, how amazing that you're able to work with a director so closely. She's like, yeah, the director's really involved in the locations. It's been, it's been like a beautiful. So like, I'm so lucky. And I was like, well, I don't want to overstep. But would you mind telling me who the director is? And this woman looks at me and says Nancy Myers. I literally, my mom and I, my mom dropped her cup. I was being obviously very polite and professional. And then I looked at her and I said, are you fucking kidding me? But I said it in a shriek. I was shrieking. And then I pulled out a chair and I sat down. I said, do you have any idea what that death to me? And you know, went on, proceeded to tell her, you know, I grew up in Pasadena. The father, the bridehouse is a staple in my life. I, you know, blood over what? Just the whole thing. I mean, it was, it was epic. And then I saw that the movie, I saw like two weeks later, the movie was supposed to be for Netflix. But there was like a $50 million discrepancy in budgeting fees and Nancy Myers pulled out and is like, I guess trying to get the funding through somewhere else, like not to the movie with Netflix. So the movie is currently on hold. I don't know if our house got picked. I don't know if it would still get picked. And I was like, it was right, you know, it's like, I was like, I'm sorry, our kitchen's pink. You know, then at this point, I'm like, oh my god, what, like, she's like, would you mind if we painted things? And I was like, fucking, do what? Burn it down, rebuild it. Like, what, whatever you want to do. Like, and I will keep it. I was like, my kitchen could be like a Nancy Myers kitchen. Like a Nancy Myers kitchen, by the way, our kitchen's so narrow. I don't need, I don't think there's anybody like physically they could, oh my god, it was just I was losing my shit over that one. Okay. Someone asked, I'm just going to rip through your questions that I did in my Instagram. Someone was like, what has been going on with you? Well, in general, I don't, I don't, you know, it's funny. I don't post how much I like what I, like how often I'm working. I don't post all my meetings I have all day long. Like you guys just see like the funny little moments in between. So, by the way, I got this giant water bottle called an iron flask. I got it when I came home from the hospital and realized that as soon as your baby lectures onto your boob depressed feed that the thirst is insatiable. And now I know if I drink one and a half of these a day that that's the amount of water I'm supposed to drink. And it's been so helpful. I drink that and I always put a element in it because I love it. So, I don't know, LPA has been just great. It's a weird, it's, you know, I think, I think, oh my God, that's so funny. Like two days ago, like August 10th is when it launched. I think that was nine years ago, eight years ago or something. So, it's been a long time we've been doing LPA. And it's had many different iterations. I feel like the vibe of the brand has always been obviously consistent because it's been me, you know, there's not like some big design team. It's been me and a designer. And so, it's been pretty consistent. But I'll tell you what's weird about fashion stuff is that a lot of things get dictated by buyers and analysts. And it's a very tough thing to navigate because maybe there's something you want to make. But the numbers, you know, like the analysts will say, we know that won't sell. Or there's something that you never want to see again because it was like kind of cheesy. And then so it's like aging even more poorly. But it sells like fucking hotcakes and it keeps getting re-cut. And you're just like, why won't this thing die? But it keeps selling out every time you re-cut it. And it's a very obviously interesting personal thing to try to find a designer that can interpret what you want. And I think that's in every job, right? Whoever you work with, you kind of have to have this like unspoken synergy that allows people to just work together really well. But most importantly, especially when it comes to something, you know, like designing a dress. If I'm like, oh, I kind of want it to be like this. But like, it definitely wanted to be easy to wear. But I want it to be sexy. But I want a little bit of this and like, you know, I'll sketch things out. Or I go through all my inspo or we pull up like older dresses that we've done. Or I'll pull out like I have such an amazing rack of vintage clothes that like live at the office. And so we work a lot on that. And it's every month we design a collection. It's about a year out. We do fabrics first. And then once we have secured the fabrics, you know, I make a deck for the fabric. And then we secure the fabrics or we know about what we'll use. And then we have a pre sketch review and then we have a sketch review. So this week we had our last week now. We had our pre sketch and then our sketch review. And I've been working with a new designer on my team who is great. And then I was able, we were able to like shift things around in the office to get D. Larson back helping with LPA who is a genius and works on revolve brands. And she and I have been working together forever. And we work really well together. And she just like pushes the limits of like what we can do. And if it's something we can't do, she figures out how to do it. Like there's so much that goes on in production. And she's one of those unicorns that like really understands production. Like knows all the factories and knows their capabilities. So if I'm like, oh, I want to do this dress, she'll be like, actually, you should do this. And like we can use this lace. But you're going to need to do like a tech pack for it before or like actually that dress doesn't need to take back. And he's like artwork until we'll do the artwork first and we'll do that long lead. I mean, there's so many things. And so being able to have her back on the team. We're like everything is a possibility. And everything we're going to work really hard to make it happen. Instead of having kind of an energy. But by the way, this is just normal in any job where you're kind of just trying to get things done. Just for the sake of getting them done because they have to get done. And I've had people like that in my life. And I've been that person because that just fucking happens. So do you just really brings a lot of a lot of romance to everything in the process, which I love. And I'm, you know, really happy that we got like a really big buy for that collection. And that collection will drop in conjunction with a trip. That feels really special and really cool. And, you know, when you get your numbers back from the buyers and it's higher than the year before, because they know that the product will sell. It's a really good feeling. So that is LPA. And I really just love everything right now. And everything that's coming out is getting like better and better. In every month, like when the drop comes, I just like want to scream with the excitement. And then Baron Cheney, we've been doing so much work on that. So we are going to be doing a total rebrand for Baron Cheney, but not like a total rebrand. We are changing the tin a little bit because we now see the brand obviously as a like an entire company that's going to need to live in many different forms and across many different products. And so I work with this amazing graphic designer named Michael, who is incredible. And if anybody needs like a really great graphic designer, he has a huge team. And he's incredibly professional. And again, is somebody that we can say, you know, give like three photos to. And he reads our brain like because he's been working with Davide on stuff. His company is called label maker. He's based in New York, but he and I worked on something together a long time ago and then kind of like rekindled at the exact perfect time when, you know, we need labels made for a lot of these different products that are in the works and we need a new website. And I was like, you know, I think we need to do kind of like a full like brand overhaul. And I think that the tin just needs like a facelift. So we did that and it was super collaborative and really amazing. The tin started. Dobby day water colored the tin. We're like through with a pencil or something. Dobby day is very talented when it comes to drawing. So he drew the tin. And then our friend Harvey, who is now the creative director of flamingo estate. And is just one of the best people he made our wedding invitation. He did the Baron Cheney tin. And he did my dad's funeral pamphlet, which was like the most beautiful pamphlet because you have to like get those things laid out. And I was like, how do I, it was just as a crazy time. And the fact that he like came over and laid all that out and made it so beautiful. We have them sitting out still for anyone that comes over. So he's obviously done very important things in my life. And it was like just time that we kind of, you know, give it a bit of a facelift. So it looks almost the same, but the changes, the changes are minor, but it's just kind of like a newer. I love showing people the work that I'm doing like as it's happening. I showed a bunch of people and they were all like, wait, I don't want you to redo the tin. And then they saw it and they're like, oh, okay, see, we're doing like this is great. So we're going to redo the tin. We're making finally, we're making a 500 ml tin, which is basically like half the size. Which we couldn't do before literally because like minimums are too high. So like for everybody who's like, oh, I want to start a brand. Like I'm here or like loop. Here are frustrating things that happen often. We have not raised any money for barongini. And we have, you know, our partners are the people who make the oil as a family. The minimums to make the small tins that you see other brands make is 50,000. So that means that we need to be in a place where we're secure enough to sell 50,000 units, right? It's a huge investment. The bigger tins has a way lower minimum. So we were like, oh, let's just test this out and do this all of oil thing. And that big tin, the fact that we've been able to sell it so well for this long. And it's a giant size and it's so hard to ship and it's really expensive. And by the way, the price on it, it's so, the price on it is, it's $40 less than it should be. Like I can't even wholesale it right now because we're retailing it for what the wholesale cost should be. Because by the time people, yeah, I mean, it's just, it's been so we're redoing everything. And they have pasta coming and then we have all the interior stuff coming and that's a separate company. Or it's a separate, you know, like we have pantry and then we have costs up there in Cheney as to your things. And so like we've been working on that. But like the logistics of working on that are really complicated and involve really crazy decisions that could either lead us in the perfect direction or they could lead us astray. And everybody has kind of a different opinion and so many brands have launched and so many brands have done things in so many different ways. So it's very, I don't know, it's like part of me is like, should I just get a little, you know, do like a friends and family round to raise some money. But like, you know, I investors can also be really tricky. They can ruin your life and your business if you have somebody that's like the wrong investor. And then if I raise like a shit ton of money, I could give away like a huge part of my company or I just like, you know, VC money, like they want that money back so fast. And I obviously like am really anxious to hit the market and get a lot of products out and do all the things that I've had in my head for so long. But I don't want to do them in an irresponsible way where we crash and burn and everything's in a weird place because we have so many learnings from so many companies that have launched. And there's just a lot of things that people did great and a lot of things that look great but are not great on the back end and we're really lucky to be around a lot of entrepreneurs to be able to kind of have those conversations and see what's happening on the inside. And it's just so crazy. So, you know, right now we literally are like making sure that we're going over contracts and that legal things are are working and then having to come up with like a timeline and then now we have PR with Walker draw us. And so, you know, you can't just be like extremely strategic about the way that things are launched and when and how and what that involves and there's a person that I've been working on working with all of this on in terms of like someone to like bounce ideas back and forth. Everyone needs like their unicorn. You need like somebody who you can call or be like, oh, we should do this and they're like actually, yes, we should do did it like somebody who's just as jacked up but is not you obviously because you need to have somebody with like a little bit more of an objective view. And it's obviously good to have somebody who's like worked at lots of brands and more to like the companies to obviously give their experience and learn from their experience. And I have that person and now obviously like, you know, I'm trying to figure out how to get her locked in. It's just a whole crapshoot of a million different things going on, but it's great. And I really like the intensity and chaos of all of this. Like the product is something I could do easy with my eyes closed, but setting all of this up and coming up with like the proper strategy and then figuring out who want to raise money or like, you know, all the different options for how to get it to the market are really, really interesting. And I can't wait till we decide what we're going to do and I can talk about that and we can hopefully see how that goes. Brooklyn in was founded by husband and wife duo Rich and Vicki in 2014 and their mission was to provide their customers with hotel quality luxury betting. And let me tell you something they have done that I needed new sheets. I was a little lost. There's a lot out there. I don't want to spend money that's going to break my bank because I have three dogs and a toddler. And I also deserve to be in luxury goodness. And that's really what Brooklyn is. It's the internet's favorite sheets because I literally typed in best sheets into Google. And that's what came up and that's why I purchased them. And while there's no such thing as the perfect sleep, there is the ideal fabric, every kind of sleeper cool off with their crisp classic per cow weave or try the best selling battery smooth looks satin sheets. We love the per cow. 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Mr sale visit brook linon dot com and sign up for emails to be kept up to date on the exclusive offers all their new products and much more. Hello our next partner is a G one it's the daily foundational nutrition supplement that supports whole body health and drink it every day because it's the easiest way to give your body the most incredible foundation without thinking about it. I make sure that my mom and Davide and I are getting our greens and our vitamins and there's adaptogens by the way there's 75 vitamins and minerals in there and prebiotic and a probiotic adaptogens help make me feel more zen there's something about this formula that just gets me so glowy it keeps my stomach so flat. I just drink it in the morning before a workout or right after my work out whatever I drink it before noon make sure I drink it before noon every day and it's just one scoop in a glass of water you can add it to a smoothie. You can add it to anything and it just really makes me feel like I have all the tools to take on my day and that my body has been giving all the nourishment that it needs it's a really nice feeling. Since drinking a G one I've totally noticed like I said that like it keeps my stomach and my digestion so on point I cannot tell you enough. If you are looking for a simpler effective investment for your health try a G one and get five free a G one travel packs and a free one to your supply and then indeed with your first purchase just go to drink AG one dot com slash best that is drink AG one dot com slash best check it out. Okay the next question is about our dinner party. I had a dinner for dovey day here last night or his 35th birthday so okay I'm going to break down some of my tips for this it is not impossible to do all of this. On your own but you need to be somebody who understands the timing of lots of things so there are many there are many ways you can do this. Listen if you want to have a dinner party that you are completely like this is saying like we've had dinner parties where we where I've said okay like we'll make the main dish which would be like pasta or like you know sometimes we'll do like steak and chicken right. We'll do the main thing and then you delegate sides to people. This is for if you're having like an eight to 12 person dinner right what we had we had 22 people last night and that was really pushing it because I don't have rental so here's but here's where things get tricky is. If you have over a certain amount of people like you have to rent shit like I don't like. You know who just has like 25 place settings you know like it's some people do but I don't I don't know a lot of those people so we have three different like dinner where sets. And they're all blue and so I have no problem mixing those and so obviously that got me to exactly the number that I needed plates I always get the same. Dapkins from Amazon I linked them I'll link them again they're really fucking cheap and I buy a fuck ton of them and I have I mean I must have like a hundred of them here and they're great and the more that you use them and wash them like the softer they get my mom wants to hire them all the time I never iron them I think it looks like two weird and precious and then if they get tons of stains in them we just use them as rags because they're not super expensive so they're not really precious and like stains are going to happen. Well you always want to make sure that you have a lot of if you can fit it in your house if you're going to do a big party is obviously folding tables so we have a shit ton because we've done many events here it's a good investment for us to always have them and keep them on the side of the house and then have like one smaller one for the bar but like whatever so. You want to make sure that you're not over like because if you invite too many people and it's more settings then you have stuff you have to rent things okay or you can go to a vintage shop and buy things or IKEA and buy bulk of things and mix and match them so long as you have the storage and the finances to do so it's really expensive to rent stuff but. Usually people rent things and but yeah it's fucking expensive shit I also think that when I look at a lot of dinners like everyone puts a lot of pressure on having like a purple purple a perfect table scape like I find that it's nice when things feel more organic and are not perfect so I mixed three different plates I always layer. Tablecloths there were all my grandmother's from both sides of my family they all happen to be white summer with lace I have one really big beautiful one that's from doing. You can buy these cheap on Amazon you can get plain linen you can get some vintage ones from Etsy I like layering multiple different pieces I didn't do it for this dinner but sometimes I will then take like a hell of a bunch of like. Vintage kind of like lace doily things that I got from Davide's mom and I like do those as like runners down the table and then I mixed wine glasses we fucked up last night so we did this dinner with Lamora pizza and they're great and they make the most amazing fucking food and they all you know they do catering so here's another thing like if you're going to have a catered but or if you're going to work with like a chef or you have like a food person you want to work with you. You also have to realize that like there are going to be big rentals that if they don't own these things like you're going to have to rent like a fryer you're going to have to rent a pizza oven you're going to have to rent you know whatever like a bunch of different shit so you want to make sure that you work with someone that understands how to navigate around a budget like that or people like Lamora owns their fires they own a they own their own like pizza oven they own like there there they are like well equipped for all of this so you don't. You don't have those additional add-in costs of fucking rentals which are insane like I had to do that for our wedding I've never done it for anything else sometimes people just want to get like a chef that comes and cooks and that's great you just have to let them know what your kitchen capabilities are and so you have to like work within these restrictions or whatever we messed up last night so we were I was like running around like a chicken with my head cut off all day because I went downtown to do the flowers and all this stuff and I'll talk about that in a second. So you know 30 minutes before people were coming I had set up most of the table and you know people were like who were you know the catering people were here and bartender was here and I hopped in the shower and I got out of the shower and I got a text or Marley from the morning she was like oh where's all the flatware and I was like oh I thought you were bringing the flatware and she was like no I said silverware which is like to serve things and I was like oh my gosh I'm a real weird guy. fucking God. And so 30 minutes before people got here, we realized that we didn't have any tensiles. And I don't have 22 forks and knives. So she ran to Creighton Barrel and bought 22 sets of forks and knives. I think God Creighton Barrel is up until 9 p.m. That was a minor crisis, but worked out fine, which was nice. Then, but I, you know, what I was going to do, what I thought about was going to like a vintage place and getting a bunch and whatever. It looked nice because the plates were mixed match and the wine glasses and the chairs were mixed match. So to have like one thing that was consistent on the table looked nice. And then I also decided to do a shit enough tomatoes. There's a guy at the flower mark that usually has through inventables that sometimes will use his props. He didn't have any tomatoes. So I got all of those from Ralph's and then obviously we saved them. Some people took them home and then we'll make sauce. None of them didn't go to waste. In terms of like table scape, you know, there's like a bunch of different ways to do it. You can put together like a mood board and then go like, you know, if you live in L.A. or you live in New York, you live where there's like a flower mark. I didn't even have like any idea in mind. I knew that I wanted to put a bunch of tomatoes down on the table. And so I thought, okay, if I'm going to do flowers, I think I should play off of red. So and especially since nobody got me red roses, they were for our anniversary. So I was like, I just kept all the flowers like either burgundy or I did like red poppies and I did some deep purple peonies. I ended up like looking really nice. And so I made flower arrangements and put them in vases around. And I didn't put any of the flowers on the table because when I set up everything, it was really like narrow in the middle. So with the candles and the tomatoes, like I couldn't fit flowers. And like oftentimes people end up moving them out of the way if you make them tall. Anyway, like I have all these like little vases and I was going to put some flowers in there. But I was like, maybe it looks cooler without flowers. And then we just put the flowers around the house. And then I think it's what I like did yesterday that I think I like love a lot more than anything was instead of doing arrangements where I'm mixing a bunch of different flowers, I did the same like I just did bunches of the same flower in all my vases. And it made everything look kind of like really yummy and cohesive. And I'll post photos of it. Like I really I thought it was, I don't know, I like, I've been walking into the household day like, I love this. I think this looks really amazing. As a business of one, you're killing yourself for everything that you earn. So when you're paying a CPA, a bookkeeper, payroll and other admin services, every dollar out is so so painful. Please trust me because I've been doing this many years. And not only does your admin work cost you an arm and a leg, it also takes you away from your own billable hours. And that was really like what changed my life was realizing that I was spending so much time trying to make invoices, figure out my taxes, deals my CPA, deals a lawyer, do all these things separately. I was wasting a lot of money. I wasn't writing off all the things that I could write off. And I was drowning. And it was taking me away from the things that make me money. There has to be a better way. And there is and it's collective.com. Collective was built specifically for businesses of one that are making over $60,000 in profit a year. Collective handles all the stuff that used to cost a pile of money for a fraction of the cost and listen up because I'll tell you how to save on your membership and lock in their lowest price of the year. Here's how it works. Collective is an all in one financial solution. Like I said, for businesses of one, it handles all of your business information and compliance paperwork, all your taxes, your bookkeeping, your accounting and even your pay role. If your setup is an LLC or just sole proprietorship, collective can elect your S Corp tax status, which could save you. And I mean, I could scream this on the rooftop. It saves you thousands of dollars on taxes. In fact, collective members can save on average $10,000 per year on taxes with this structure. A collective membership pays for itself in a few months and it's tax deductible. The price goes up on September 1st, so lock in your lower rate for a failure today to sweeten the deal, give it extra $100 off. You go to collective.com slash PA, but you have to do it before September 1st, let a team of experts handle all of this stuff that you shouldn't be doing plus save potentially thousands of dollars each year on your taxes. That's collective.com slash PA. You know, we're always trying to bring Italy home. And Jennifer Lopez felt the same way. That's why she created the Lola Spritz. The Lola is a delicious world crafted cocktail made with premium spirits and natural botanicals and it's ready to enjoy. All you have to do is pour over ice, sit back and sip in the sunshine and you just feel like you're on the coast of Italy. The Lola is so effortless, whether at the pool, the beach or just hanging out in the backyard, the Lola takes all the work out of having a delicious crafted cocktail because it's all ready in the bottle. And I'm telling you, if you want to entertain, this is the perfect way to do so, especially since there's a Lola Spritz option for everyone. The Paloma Rosa Spritz is made with tequila, grapefruit, and elderflower. It is so good. The Belaberry Spritz is made with vodka, berries, and hibiscus. And the Lourage is made with Amaro orange and passion fruit. I'm telling you, all three of these are a damn 10. The Lola is made with all natural botanicals. It's gluten-free. It's only 110 calories per serving and has less alcohol than traditional cocktails about the same amount as a glass of wine. The best part is the Lola makes it easy to entertain without all the effort of making cocktails at home, like I said. You just end up being a hero to all your guests because they're drinking something that's delicious and you just pour it over ice. I like to set it on the bar. I like to set up a bunch of lime, lemon, grapefruit, cute little things to throw on top and telling you, you are going to be the biggest crowd pleaser. Visit delolalife.com to find a story near you that carries the Lola and follow at Delola on Instagram to learn more. Please enjoy it responsibly. So in terms of bar, there's a couple of ways you could do this. You want to figure out what maybe your signature drinks are for the night. You can batch those and you can very cheaply buy a dispenser if you want to batch margaritas or if you want to batch negronies or if you want to batch whatever. You can also set those things up or you could tell everybody to bring a bottle. Like we do that often for parties. We'll like everyone like what can I bring them? Just bring a bottle of something and you can set up an area in your house with a folding table or wherever and just have everybody put everything there and get like we have a Yeti cooler that we keep for ice and so I'll put out an ice bucket and keep the Yeti cooler under the table and so as ice is diminishing it can just get easily refilled and you can leave like everything out. You can chop up a bunch of like limes and lemons and oranges and grapefruit slices and have mixers there and have everybody like make their own drinks all night and anytime anybody brings something they can set it down and that's like a very easy, very cost effective. If you tell everybody to bring a bottle, you will always end up with more booze than you could drink for sure. It's a very cool thing that always happens and so I like doing that because then when the party ends I'm always like, oh my god, we have so much wine that people brought and that's always really great. As our parties started getting bigger we started hiring a couple that come here and we I did it for my mom's 70th birthday party here and I remember that being like a big deal of like an investment you know I was like okay it's going to cost me like a few hundred dollars but like it's to be able to enjoy your party because somebody is bartending and cleaning and then helps clean up at the end of the night. It's fucking priceless and you really want to not be a frantic host. I can't tell you enough like your energy is going to dictate the vibe of the fucking party. So if you're running around crazy everybody's going to be having a good time and they're going to just see you kind of in the chaos and they're going to maybe feel a little bit bad or try to offer listen if you can invest in having just at least one person and you pay them by the hour and show them where your trash is and have them walk around even if it's like not a full bartender but like if you even if you set up a makeshift bar you can have somebody walk around saying oh can I refill your drink and just clean up and help with everything and like at the end of the night make sure that like your kitchen is clean and the dishes are put away and like whatever leftover food is put in the fridge. It allows you to be present at your own party and I can't tell you how much that saves me and so we've been using this same couple. Now it's been what five years we've been working with them and we you know they did my baby shower and then I've known them for ten years because they do all the events for like you know all my friends baby showers and Pasadena they like work with all the Pasadena families that I love. So I've seen them and known them personally forever until it feels like there's family here and because they're always here when we have events like all of our friends who are here a lot like recognize them and then they use them for their events and so it just feels like there's like lovely it's like feel like there's just like more friends here and the vibe of that is really really nice. So they always help which is great because you know it was very minimal cleanup this morning for having 22 people here last night and that's a lot of people right think about how many drinks people had think about the food and the plates and it was our own plates like it wasn't disposable. We did disposable plates and forks for the dessert and then my mom made a chocolate cake and I made a really beautiful Pueblova. Oh my god I wonder if I even ever took a photo of the Pueblova. A Pueblova was really easy to make by the way and I fucked up the recipe and it still turned out fucking great. So I'm gonna do I'm gonna like do a little post about that but you can also just Google Pueblova recipe I'm telling you it's so fucking easy and then you just gotta whip up your own dessert and then you can get as like symbol or as funky as you want with like the fruit. So I just did berries but if I wanted to get epic I could have done like a mango puree or like passion fruit or something that like was like tropical and tangy and fabulous and that would have really amped that thing up and you throw a bunch of flowers around it I mean it looks like you're a full professional chef when you do something like that. So I think like I think you want to just make sure that you feel like not overwhelmed that if you're hiring someone that you've done a walk through of your house so they're not asking you a million questions while the party is happening. You want to make sure that if you are telling everybody to bring something and that what you're responsible for is prepped and ready to go. Obviously if you're doing something like steak you're gonna want to like cook that while people are here but like you know make sure that you have them like pre-seasoned and that they're ready and they're sitting out it's there's just like a lot of you just want to make sure by the time people get here everything is like sorted and ready to go and of dinner that you go to or that you're throwing where there's a professional chef or a bunch of people are bringing something like there isn't even much of a difference like both are so fucking fabulous like it's really just about having a good time so if you're want to be somebody who's like repeatedly having events I would definitely invest in bolding tables I would invest in linens and I would invest yeah including napkins and I would invest in either a bunch of vintage wine glasses or like cheaper wine glasses from IKEA like stuff that like can be stored to like basically whenever we have a party I know I have plastic fork I like bamboo forks and knives and extra bamboo plates like that's stored in one area of my garage I always make sure that we have backup of like mixers and bartending stuff I always have like biodegradable plastic cups I did plastic cups for cocktails last night and then I did the wine glasses on the table you want to make sure that you have like a water pitcher that's filled with water so people who import themselves water to drink I try not to buy I mean I never buy like little bottled water because people finish it and throw it away like you want them to keep you in the same couple night long I make sure that I always have a million napkins I make sure obviously that I have that I say the folding tables they have all the folding tables and I think what's cool too is to like switch it up like put that folding table in a different place than you're used to like maybe sit outside or sit outside in like a different area like maybe instead of putting you know like like sitting at your usual dining table maybe you like move your furniture somewhere and like do a dinner like in front of a fireplace in a living room there's just like a lot of like we're always kind of like switching it up and like switching up where we put flowers and like what the different kind of arrangements look like and I think that's really makes it feel like more interesting when people come over and like like I said with arrangements you can look online obviously and have like either a palette or see something that you want to get inspiration from but like I just kind of like raw dog the flower mar and see what flowers are in season and go from there and it's really nice to just either pick like a color palette or things that compliment each other I always like to have some organic yummy long green leaf you know you can buy olive leaves there's just lots of different cool things to do and if you put like little moments and places that are unexpected that make makes it feel really nice too also like we keep using these people these candles we've been using them my god I think it's been like three years what in the nine and nine cent store and got white prayer candles like millions of them and we have them out all the time and when people come over we'll like put them up either like the stairs or we'll put like 20 of them together on the entryway or like all down the table and like that candlelit thing it's something so low impact that is such like low impact on you on you and like high impact on the vibes I'll that answers everything I always want to do a little hosting pod but I'm gonna try to do more like videos okay last question or what are your current go-to meals my hyper fixation meals right now for breakfast are scrambled eggs with like some cottage cheese and either like some flax crackers or some like seeded toast or gluten free toast I try to you know either add I try to add protein to that obviously so sometimes I'll do like ground turkey or like chicken sausage or I'll do cottage cheese and I definitely try to most mornings have bone broth I work out obviously so I try to do bone broth before workout I find that that's like the perfect way to like satiate me without you know sometimes when you work out you're like burping your breakfast I definitely don't want that and it really doesn't help if I'm in hotty because you can get so nauseous so quickly in terms of lunch I always have chicken breasts it's like it's I don't like necessarily meal prep because I don't have like a routine enough schedule where I know that I can like shop one particular day of the week 90% of the time I get myself to the farmer's market on Thursday afternoon and I'll buy like some meat from there so I always either have like ground turkey or I'll have like ground bison and then our farmer's market has really good chicken sausages so I get telling chicken sausages and I get fiesta chicken sausages and then I always have chicken breasts and sometimes I'll marinate them sometimes I won't I made like a batch of marinade the other day I just did rosemary sage and thyme because it's growing a lot in our garden and I blended it with olive oil and lemon juice and some of the lemon skin and I put four chicken breasts in a ziplock bag and let it sit overnight and then the next day I made you know the chicken breasts I ate one warm I put the rest in the fridge cold and I just pulled that out and put it on top of a salad and then I always just have like different mixings for my salad depending upon what week it is what's available with the farmer's market it's usually an arugula spinach in a romaine and then sometimes I'll add a little bit of cheese on there depending upon my cycle maybe I'll do like a seed like a pumpkin seed or a sunflower seed and then I try to get in like a good carb so maybe I'll do a little bit of rice we always have rice we always have beans Carmella eats a lot of rice and beans and so we'll make like batches of rice and then I'll add like beans or a chickpea to my salad you know there's just like sometimes there's like a little bowl that's always really easy and then for dinner like I know this sounds so stupid but like if I'm home my like girl dinner is always hands down every time a piece of salmon and broccoli and they do like a spicy garlicy broccoli covered in hot sauce like that's really my favorite and then I've been very hyper fixated on these things that I eat all fucking day but I take like two scoops I take you I take coconut yogurt and sometimes I'll add vanilla protein and sometimes I'll add just collagen because you can kind of taste the vanilla protein and I'm not super into that otherwise I'll add like a bunch of scoops of collagen and I mix it with frozen raspberries because those are much cheaper than fresh raspberries and I freeze that into a little like flat patties and then I take them out and I dip them in I just like I melt sugar-free dark chocolate and I like paint it on the top I don't even do top in bottom but it'll like a thick layer of the chocolate on top and then refreeze them and then I take them out and put them in like a baggie and I'll just like if I'm walking by the fridge like I'll just fucking grab one of those you can also add like chia seeds to that we got to make sure that they like soak for a second in the yogurt so they can expand but I love that's then like raspberry and dark chocolate is my favorite combination so I've been doing that as much as possible okay that is my time re-talking you guys I always feel so weird to talk to myself in my bedroom but I hope you enjoy this podcast and if you are still listening please leave me a little review a nice one mean comments are for me and people love you guys and that ladies and gentlemen concludes this week's episode of everything is the best I hope you enjoyed it please rate, review, subscribe all that stuff maybe leave a comment but remember shitty comments are for shitty people go ahead and follow me on Instagram at Pia Barangini and I hope you have a fabulous fabulous rest of your day love you, ciao please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode