#27 | Reimagining Vegan Dining + Broccoli Cheddar Soup
In this episode I sit down with restaurateur, Founder and CEO of Chicago’s Spirit Elephant, CD Young to dive into the delicious world of vegan and plant-based cooking. Hear CD's personal story growing up with horses and discovering how remarkably similar to humans they are leading her on a vegan food path. Follow along her inspiring journey as a female restaurateur, overcoming gender biases, and fostering a woman-forward culture in her restaurant, Spirit Elephant. Plus, we talk about the growing trend of zero-proof spirits and the advances in vegan food options leading to more vegan fine dining options (including the mouth-watering Valentine's week menu at her restaurant).
Along the way, CD shares some amazing tips on creating moist, flavorful treats using alternatives like vegan sour cream and plant-based yogurt while we chat about the wonders of aquafaba and its many uses, from making meringues to vegan cheese. You may also catch my personal stories experimenting with alternative ways to whip up a nostalgic snack from my childhood.
Throughout the episode, CD and I reflect on our personal food preferences, favorite vegan products, and the evolving landscape of plant-based dining. CD then walks us through her scrumptious plant-based Broccoli Cheddar Soup recipe, perfect for busy days and delightfully zero-waste.
The Recipe starts at 59:31
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Spirit Elephant Restaurant: Website, Instagram
Elephant & Vine Restaurant: Website, Instagram
Business Coaching Website: SpiritBizPeople
Farm Website: Crown Hill Farm
Missy’s Social Media: Instagram, Facebook
Are you looking to elevate your Business in a mindful and aligned way? Get a 1:1 Business Coaching Session with Missy at: WomenInFood.net/workwithmissy
Vegan Broccoli Cheddar Soup
Ingredients:
3 tbsp olive oil
1/2 onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
4 cups vegetable broth
2 cups water
2 medium peeled yellow potatoes diced or one large peeled russet potato chopped
1 chopped carrot
3/4 cup raw cashews
1/3 cup nutritional yeast
1/2 tsp paprika or smoked paprika
1 tsp lemon juice
about five cups broccoli florets with chopped stems
Cholula to taste (I use a about a teaspoon)
Salt and Pepper to taste
sliced vegan cheddar for garnish
croutons if desired
Method:
Saute onion till almost translucent, add garlic and carrot and continue simmering for a few minutes.
Add broth and water and cashews, potato, and broccoli stems and low boil for about 20 minutes.
Then ladle the contents into a blender and blend until smooth.
Return to pot and add the rest of the ingredients (florets last) and simmer until florets are softened (about 10 minutes). Stir frequently.
Finish with salt, pepper and garnishes.
Serve with crusty bread or toast if desired.
*** If soup is too thick, add water until desired consistency
In our commitment accessibility, we’d love to offer polished show notes to help make this podcast more accessible to those who are hearing impaired or those who like to read rather than listen to podcasts. However, Women in Food is still a startup with limited resources. So we’re not there yet.
What we can offer are these very imperfect show notes via the CastMagic service. The transcription is far from perfect. But hopefully it’s close enough - even with the errors - to give those who aren’t able or inclined to learn from audio interviews a way to participate.
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Missy Singer DuMars [00:00:03]:
Welcome to another episode of Women in Food. I'm your hostess, Missy Singer Dumars. This podcast is all about the intersection of 3 things, food, business, and the feminine. Each episode, I invite you to sit down with me and my interview guest as we dive into this intersection to spark your food curiosity, share a favorite recipe, and give you some fun food
Missy Singer DuMars [00:00:25]:
explorations along the way. I'm inspired by these women,
Missy Singer DuMars [00:00:25]:
farmers, chefs, bakers, cooks, writers, inspired by these women, farmers, chefs, bakers,
Missy Singer DuMars [00:00:30]:
cooks, writers, and food
Missy Singer DuMars [00:00:30]:
makers who all bring their passion for beauty, nourishment, community, pleasure, connection, and deep care to others through food. These are women who advocate and take action towards increased food awareness for themselves, their families, and their neighborhoods. Before I introduce today's guest, I have one request. If you could, go over to Itunes or whatever app you're using to listen and give us a rating and review. It's a simple act that helps other people find this show. Thank you so much. So today, I'm happy to introduce to you CD Young, restaurateur and founder of vegan fine dining restaurant, Spirit Elephant, and her newest fast casual vegan concept, Elephant and Vine, all in the Chicago area. She'll share more about her journey from animal lover to recipe blogger and restaurateur as we talk vegan trends, food inclusivity, and she shares her favorite go to super SP.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:01:29]:
Having said all that, Sidi, welcome to Women in Food. I'm so honored and happy to have you join us.
CD Young [00:01:36]:
Hi, Missy. Thank you so much for having me on. I I'm excited.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:01:40]:
Yeah. And this is a new game I'm playing with my guests with my first question, which is, what was your most recent breakfast?
CD Young [00:01:48]:
Oh, gosh. It's funny because that is a funny question when you ask me because it was green olives. I literally start every day with a handful of green olives.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:02:00]:
Wow. You have to tell us more about that. That's a unique and interesting morning. What's the story there? Where did that come from?
CD Young [00:02:08]:
It's not terribly interesting or maybe it is, I guess, depending on your life experience. So I, since my mid thirties, have struggled with, kind of a heartburn issue, and I that was brought on by a virus, interestingly enough. And somewhere along my path, a doctor taught me that if I started the day with fat because I'm addicted to coffee or, espresso, and that would give me heartburn, but but she said if I started the day with with some fat that it would combat the acid, and it actually worked. And so I used to have peanut butter alone and, you know, whatever sort of fat I could eat, it has evolved. You know, olives have good fat, and so that is now how I start my day.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:03:02]:
That's so interesting. And, I mean, you and I haven't talked about this. I don't know if my listeners know, but I'm also sometimes a little bit of a health and wellness geek as well. So I find these things fascinating. And, it reminds me about, stuff like taking vitamins liposomal vitamin c, where it's essentially coated in a lipid, in a fat Uh-huh. The vitamin c, and it makes it more integratable
CD Young [00:03:29]:
by the body. Interesting. Interesting.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:03:31]:
I wonder if there's a relationship between those two things.
CD Young [00:03:33]:
Probably. Probably. There usually is.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:03:36]:
There usually is. Right? So let's start at the beginning. I know there's a really special horse that is the beginning of your journey. You You wanna tell me tell us about that?
CD Young [00:03:46]:
Yes. Absolutely. I in my very young years, I had a horse that I was very connected with. She was actually a a registered Arabian or beautiful horse, but small, so we called her Dinky because she was small. And she sort of taught me about how animals have family connections that are very similar to humans. And she she was you know, I would have considered her sort of a close friend, funny enough, just because I spent so much time with her. We sort of got each other, enjoyed each other, etcetera. So, yeah, Dinky was probably my pathway to veganism, I would say.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:04:35]:
And I know there's more to that. How do you how do we get from loving a horse to veganism?
CD Young [00:04:40]:
True. I'd I'd say she because because my connection to animals through the dinky as the beginning, was so intense, I and funny enough, at that time, I lived in Iowa. So, you know, there's a lot of meat on the table in Iowa, particularly meatloaf. We ate every week. Mhmm.
CD Young [00:05:03]:
And
CD Young [00:05:03]:
I did not connect food at that point in my life at all. I didn't connect it. Like, the meatloaf wasn't a cow. To me, it was meatloaf, and so I made no connections like that until much later. And later in life, when I reflected back when I and I and I mentioned to you, Dinky taught me about animals and relationships. So when I, with my mom, we went and we purchased Dinky. She and this is a little bit sad, so sorry about this. But she Okay.
CD Young [00:05:31]:
Had a
CD Young [00:05:32]:
daughter that she was stalled with, and, we purchased Dinky and took her away. But before we did that, you know, I inter we we inter my mother and I interacted with Dinky, so we got to see sort of what her life was like that before you buy a horse, you get to know it a bit. And they were so close, those 2. And when we bought Dinky and took her away and Dinky would cry and neigh for weeks, for her daughter, when I was 10 years old, I thought that was a shame, but I didn't, like, really absorb, which is just interesting. I don't know why I didn't, but I didn't really absorb it. Maybe because we feed off our parents. I don't know.
CD Young [00:06:12]:
Mhmm.
CD Young [00:06:12]:
So it wasn't till later in life where I felt really bad about it. And I connected it to what was on my plate. Like, I, you know, was eating somebody's mother, somebody's daughter, etcetera, etcetera. And that led me down a path of bear in mind, as you as you and I have discussed, before, Missy, modern agriculture just has no feelings for animals the way it's mass produced, agribusiness and all that. So it's so disconnected from from animals' personalities. And I and as the Internet as I got older and the Internet was a thing, and we could see this. We could see factory farming and what it, does or does not do for animals. I just was having a lot of trouble in in not being depressed.
CD Young [00:06:56]:
I just really felt that. And so my family and I were trying to combat my relief sadness, and so we, were first gonna start a farm animal sanctuary to teach people about the sentience and the the family connections of animals. And then very quickly, because of the simultaneously, I had been, you know, trans transforming to veganism and learning about vegan food and cooking it and cooking it for my friends all at the same time as all this was happening, I just sort of woke up one day and thought, I wanna share this delicious food that doesn't harm animals with more people, and that is how the restaurant was born.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:07:34]:
I love this story. Actually, I was really aware as I was listening to the poetry of you and your mother, mother daughter, witnessing this challenging experience with a mother and daughter or some kind of poetic thing there.
CD Young [00:07:47]:
It really is. It really is.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:07:50]:
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that.
CD Young [00:07:52]:
Yeah. No. Of course.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:07:54]:
And I, you know, I know having a farm and being around farms, I've seen some of those pieces, experienced some of those things as well and raising livestock myself as humanely and mindfully as I can. There's always those decisions after we've made. It's really hard of, like, what's the what's the humane decision here with the living thing. For example, most other farmers don't keep their aging out chickens, but I have a really solid old age home for my kids. I I seem to and it's okay. Like, I you know, let them choose when they want their last breath to be and, let that be their choice, not mine.
CD Young [00:08:35]:
Yeah. That's really nice.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:08:37]:
That. Yes. So Yeah. So I get you. I get
CD Young [00:08:40]:
you. Okay.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:08:40]:
Good. I'm curious, like, when you first for our listeners who might be vegan curious or just starting to experiment, like, what were some of the first ways you ventured into switching to vegan cooking and eating?
CD Young [00:08:56]:
Sure. So initially, it was pretty easy to just give up chicken, beef, you know, pigs, they'd be ham, those thing pork, those things were just very easy for me. I've never liked it much anyway, so that was not hard. But what what was, of course, hard, I think what a lot of vegans find the hardest is the cheese. And and and I've learned since that there is an addictive casein? Is that how you say it? Is addictive? Yeah. It's casein. Yeah. And so it's not only delicious.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:09:30]:
Protein part. Yeah.
CD Young [00:09:31]:
Right. I guess it's it causes, like, an addiction. So and a high. Like, it gives you a little bit of a high. So so that was harder to give up. Although after, you know, a few months, I'd stopped missing it. So it it was not impossible, just one of the harder things. And and then, it was a little bit harder to give up seafood, which I'd also really actually liked.
CD Young [00:09:54]:
So that was hard too. So I'd say, overall, the evolution from omnivore to vegan took, you know, probably almost a year full to be full full evolution.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:10:05]:
Are there certain tricks or go to ingredients or foods that you found really helped that process?
CD Young [00:10:13]:
Yes. For sure. Well, interestingly, cheese has, non nondairy cheese has been evolving, every year. And so when I first was giving up cheese, it was really hard to find good vegan cheese, and the good vegan cheese was all cashew based, and you had to really make an effort. So I did seek out those things, and that helped a lot to have substitutes I could go to. Now it's easier, of course. Even Daiya cheese, which started out tasting terribly, now is actually pretty good. They've, you know, keep changing it every year to
Missy Singer DuMars [00:10:46]:
the recipe gets better and better.
CD Young [00:10:49]:
And then other tricks where, of course, plant milk keeps getting better too. I happen to love and I I don't know if you're allowed to plug brands, but I drink Oatly. Like, I love it in my coffee. It's just to me, it tastes better than dairy milk used to taste. And then other things are you know, you just get used to certain easy things to make. Well, I make a lot of pasta dishes. I used to mince up, portobello mushrooms for, like, a ground beef. They're just, yeah, little things you get used to, as your go to's.
CD Young [00:11:22]:
And then you can, you know, bake potatoes loaded with veggies, make amazing meals. You know, it's it's really it's not as hard as some people might think.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:11:32]:
Well, part of why I ask and what I appreciate of what you're sharing is the combination of all ingredient foods and premade ingredients. Yes. And, you know, I think I'm just gonna be transparent and say I've not been a fan of veganism until more recently because I feel like people who turn to veganism turn to a lot of very processed, substitutes and things. And I'm you know, my feeling is, like, I don't know that that's any better for the body or wellness. However, you know, meeting more vegans who are actually eating a lot of vegetables and diversity of plants, that way, has changed my mind and seeing more of that out there
CD Young [00:12:19]:
in the
Missy Singer DuMars [00:12:20]:
world representing veganism has definitely, shifted my perspective some. So I I appreciate that because I think sometimes people I've seen people turn to veganism and go for the convenience things that are processed and prepackaged. And so trying to find ways to incorporate whole plant foods into easy to make meals, which we're gonna get into because you're gonna share your easy to make soup later, you know, as part of the challenge of that transition, I think.
CD Young [00:12:53]:
Well, Missy, much the way people that are omnivore, they, you know, they try to say have 20% meat and then 80% veggies
CD Young [00:13:02]:
Mhmm.
CD Young [00:13:02]:
Or that sort of those ratios, you know, they try to have more plants than, animal products these days anyway. It's sort of how I look at, like, the impossible and beyond meats and those things. It's the same thing. Like, there's a place for them, and I'm really glad they exist as a vegan. I'm super glad they exist because when I crave a burger, I really appreciate being able to have something so similar.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:13:28]:
Right.
CD Young [00:13:28]:
But it's a small percentage, a small proportion of my diet. But if it's it's there when I have a craving or really wants comfort food, it's there. So it's similar to the omnivore diet in that it's nice to have a little of both or a lot of one and a little of the other, I should say.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:13:46]:
Yeah. True. True. And you and I are both probably more avid cooks than the standard, person. So we're also, you know, more likely to turn to making a meal as opposed to, you know, grabbing something that you just heat up and eat, more often. But Right. Right. So there's that too.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:14:07]:
It it's an interesting thing. Just
CD Young [00:14:10]:
Yes.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:14:10]:
Where convenience comes in, ethics, health, wellness. There's so many, nuanced aspects to any of these food choices. And one of the things I really appreciate, and you and I were talking about the other day, is that your restaurants, really provide possibility for a range of that those choices and desires, and and nuances. So Exactly. Before we get all the way to that, I'd love to hear how you got from, like, cooking for yourself and your family to being a restaurant mogul of sorts.
CD Young [00:14:44]:
Well, that's generous.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:14:46]:
Chicago restaurant mogul restaurateur.
CD Young [00:14:51]:
Tell us a
Missy Singer DuMars [00:14:52]:
little about how you got from, you know, choosing this for yourself and your family to having, I think, 3 restaurants now?
CD Young [00:15:00]:
Yes. Three restaurants. So it's it's, you know, like like anything we do in life, it's always a path and it's one step at a time. And, you know, I had
Missy Singer DuMars [00:15:08]:
no restaurant experience whatsoever.
CD Young [00:15:08]:
So this was a passion project more
CD Young [00:15:09]:
you know, experience whatsoever. So this was a passion project. It was not it was not to put food on the table, so to speak. It's it it it was literally this is a passion I wanted to share. And so it evolved by you know, a friend of my son's worked at Blaze Pizza, and I asked, do you wanna help me start this? Because he at least had worked in restaurants for, many years. So it was somebody who knew something about it. And so, again, that was step 1. And step 2, finding a chef, and didn't know what we were doing there either.
CD Young [00:15:43]:
Like, now I know they're headhunters to find chefs.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:15:45]:
Who knew? I had no yeah.
CD Young [00:15:48]:
So it was, like, literally one foot in front of the other, and building this restaurant like that. And that and it's not the most efficient way. And if I had had another way, if I had had connections or a better way in, I would have taken it. I just really did what I could do, and so it was been a learning progress process. And I'm still learning. We all are still learning, of course, but I'm still learning a lot, month on month. But now I'm you know, we opened in January of 2020, 2020. So, now, wow, 4 years.
CD Young [00:16:26]:
That just doesn't seem possible. So, of course, I know a whole lot more now about being in this business than I did when I started. But I guess looking at the bright side, learning that way, you really do learn every nuance there is. You learn everything from the back of the house to the front of the house and in between. And, yeah, it's been it's been a great because I'm a little older now too. My kids are grown, and, it's I've been able to devote myself to learning. And, the the the cuisine aspect has also evolved. It's it's depending on the chef that we had, we don't have the same chef we started with, but we started with a French chef.
CD Young [00:17:05]:
So we had we had, bourguignon, and, you know, we went down that road a little bit. And that's the cool thing about vegan cooking is you can do any genre and make it really delicious with certain ingredients. And you don't have we we at Spirit Elephant have not picked a lane. We just do sort of the best from all over the globe.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:17:24]:
Right. So okay. I wanna go 2 paths. First of all, I just wanna recognize you opened in January 2020, and then you hit a pandemic. Oh, yeah. What what was going through your mind in that moment of, like, we just opened. Now we're closing. Now we don't know what's happening.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:17:44]:
How did you navigate that? Because I think that, you know, I think that's really nice. Good lesson. A lot of my listeners, you all have businesses or have dreams of having a restaurant or other food or land based business. And, you know, weathering these storms is part of part of entrepreneurship. So I'd love to hear, you know, your experience of navigating.
CD Young [00:18:07]:
Yeah. That was, that was a bummer. So part of our our shtick, if you will, is we had our our restaurant is is a beautiful venue. That was always part of the plan. It would be to entice people to come. Not only did we want delicious food and great service, we wanted a space and a place that was transformative. So our space is filled with plants. It's very uplifting, beautiful spot, and so we had a lot of attraction.
CD Young [00:18:36]:
Like, we were very busy out of the gate, like, packed, and so to have that blow up in our face after 5 weeks was was a lot. But we just put a shoulder down and decided, you know, even well, even before, PPP came through, we kept paying our people, like, full full bore. I just assumed we'd get paid back, and we did. But, we just kept going. We just kept going. We can we converted to takeout. The community did rally around us. It's not like we made the same, you know, business that we did when we were open, but but we were able to survive, and our staff was great.
CD Young [00:19:18]:
And, yeah, we just put our shoulder down and got through it. That's all I can say. It was not it was not fun.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:19:25]:
No. It wasn't for anybody.
CD Young [00:19:28]:
No. It was not for anyone. That is
Missy Singer DuMars [00:19:30]:
for sure. That's for sure. And it, certainly either I don't know. It reveals our ability to be resilient or it reveals our ability to, step away. Right.
CD Young [00:19:44]:
Exactly. Right?
Missy Singer DuMars [00:19:44]:
It's like one or the other.
CD Young [00:19:46]:
Right. And there's no wrong answer there. It's just you know?
Missy Singer DuMars [00:19:50]:
True.
CD Young [00:19:50]:
For us, we just felt like we had to keep going because we just opened, and we had such a strong reception.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:19:57]:
Right. Right. And I wanted to ask in starting a restaurant, you know, what was your experience? Of course, this is women in food. So I always like to ask about your experience as a woman restaurant to your restaurant owner, especially because in very visible culture, you don't see that many of them. You still want more men.
CD Young [00:20:23]:
Correct. It's very disproportionate. So, yeah, I mean, I've had some really good experiences and then some less good. Just, you know, you can tell that there's still, bias and being taken seriously in some instances. You really I I feel like sometimes I have to be overassertive to, get folks to realize that, you know, they're dealing with me and not, you know, maybe our COO, who's a man. You know, I I, I've had a lot of those experiences where I'm like, no. I I'm I'm making this decision. He's helping me, obviously, but you you gotta talk to me.
CD Young [00:21:06]:
So so, you know, instances like that. But, you know, for the most part, people I've met in this business are very nice people, very helpful people. I just do I wish there were more women, even women chefs. There just aren't many women chefs. And so the culture in the back of the house is yeah. It's it's very male, which is a shame. So we have some amazing women in our in the back of the house, which I am very happy about, but it's definitely predominantly men.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:21:40]:
Is there any particular ways that you bring your experience and wisdom and feminine into it, or do you have any systems or things that you've set up over the years to maintain that awareness?
CD Young [00:21:55]:
Well, we have paid particular attention to women being paid the same as men.
CD Young [00:22:02]:
Mhmm.
CD Young [00:22:03]:
I try to attend as many meetings as possible, which I've heard the women like to see a leader there that's a woman. Mhmm. I have made sure their voices are heard and tried to elevate their voice when they have concerns, when anything has happened that might be, you know, not above board that we allow in our in our restaurant, I make sure we take it extremely seriously. And I will say our all our team feels the same. The men and the women on the leadership team are all are are on the same page about that. So, you know, 0 tolerance policy for any kind of sexist behavior or any any sexual harassment. There's zero tolerance. So I think I think our culture, is woman forward in in the restaurant.
CD Young [00:22:55]:
It's just, it's just hard to find women, out there who who want to work in certain roles, but but we we're we're trying, and we're trying to promote our existing women also. We we have just promoted a woman actually to, from server to sort of a maitre d', and she she's on a track to be a manager. And in the back of the house, we have promoted a woman also. So, just being mindful of it and conscious of it and trying to, promote them is sort
Missy Singer DuMars [00:23:26]:
of a culture that that we have. Yeah. Indeed. And I know and my listeners know from a previous conversation with, Andrew, who's a food writer and critic, here in Buffalo. And we had a really deep conversation about exactly this and why there's not so many women. And I just I find it such a fascinating phenomenon because there's a way that women were in the kitchen and are the natural feeders of humans first. Nice. And yet when it comes to visibility and celebrity and all that stuff and where we are now, it's it's like it's switched.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:24:08]:
And it just fascinates me, you know, the evolution of that. So I'm always looking at looking at that, but I I hear you that it gets started. I, you know, I besides running this podcast where I'm always in search of women chefs and guests here locally, where I live, we do a women in food event festival. And, you know, seeking out the women chefs in this region, it's, like, takes extra effort. Also Right. They're there, though. They're there, and I'm finding them.
CD Young [00:24:43]:
No. They are there. They are there.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:24:45]:
It's just it's just harder harder to find, and it it's fast it's interesting to me. But I think that's true across all industries that
CD Young [00:24:53]:
Yes.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:24:54]:
Naturally, women tend to show up. I hate to make a generalization, versus men moving through the world and moving through a world that was designed by and for men most of the time, even though there is a lot of change in progression since then, you know, the women stay a little less visible kind of naturally almost.
CD Young [00:25:16]:
For sure. Yeah. You're absolutely right.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:25:18]:
Yeah. Now you have another little trick that helps you in your name.
CD Young [00:25:23]:
Yes. Exactly right. So, I yeah. My initials are are useful in that. If I'm sending emails to vendors or whomever, being CD has been helpful because they assume I'm a man, which is kinda funny, actually. But I I think it's good to be androgynous like that in communication because then you don't run into what you might run into if if, you know, you sign with a woman's name. So I've I've I've found, many times that people say, oh, you're a woman. Like, yeah.
CD Young [00:26:03]:
Right. Yeah.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:26:05]:
Of course. Here I am. Yeah. So tell us about Spirit Elephant. I have to ask the origin of the name because it's such a unique restaurant name.
CD Young [00:26:15]:
Yeah. So first of all, let me tell you it's hard to to come up with restaurant names because if if you listen to your lawyers, they will tell you it has to be patentable, the name of the restaurant
CD Young [00:26:28]:
Mhmm.
CD Young [00:26:29]:
So that nobody can pretend they're you or whatever it is. So, because we did get a lawyer involved, we had to go through that process. We we, early on decided to use elephant. Well, actually, we started with Wild Thing, which is now the name of the the restaurant group is Wild Thing, but we started with that. That was taken by the local zoo, so we couldn't use that. Then we gravitated to elephant because elephants are the largest herbivore, and everybody knows that elephants are just really cool animals that look after their herds and their they have, like, little communities they take care of, and they take care of each other, and they have culture and history and rituals and all that. They're fascinating animals. And because they're the largest herbivore, we we sort of glommed on to that that.
CD Young [00:27:16]:
And then spirit elephant, well, the first name we thought of was, Elephant in the Room, which we thought was cool because, obviously, veganism could be that. But that was taken by a vegan restaurant in Thailand, and our lawyer said you can't have that because of that.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:27:32]:
Oh my goodness. Every name on the planet.
CD Young [00:27:36]:
I know. I know. It was so frustrating.
CD Young [00:27:39]:
Mhmm.
CD Young [00:27:40]:
And so spirit elephant obviously was not taken. Well, I forgot one of the names we thought of was spirit animal, I think. Spirit animal. And so we kinda combine spirit and elephant. And I'll and I personally really like it because the spirit of the elephant is sort of why the elephant is a cool symbol. And then over and above that, we are very into our spirits program at the restaurant. So we have a quite an extensive cocktail program. So it just makes sense, and we've really grown into the name.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:28:14]:
Interesting. Cool. And then now I hear me wondering, do people need to be aware I guess you have to be aware of spirits being vegan too.
CD Young [00:28:25]:
Oh, yes. You do.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:28:26]:
Tell us a little bit give us a short education on vegan spirits because it's not ever something I thought of until this moment that you mentioned it.
CD Young [00:28:33]:
I'm surprised you even thought of it because most people don't even think about that.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:28:36]:
Well, I know that wine is often fine or has traditionally has been fine with, egg and now often gelatin. So I know that because I pay attention to that for my own Right. Choices. Right. But then I started thinking about other spirits. Right.
CD Young [00:28:54]:
And then
CD Young [00:28:54]:
I got my Vodka is typically vegan, but, like, there are some spirits. You're right. I think bourbons and some things that are filtered using things like fish bladders and what whatnot. So, yes, that we do have to go through a process of vetting all of our spirits to make sure they're all vegan, which they are. So there I mean, there's plenty out there, so it's not it's not too hard. But it's always
Missy Singer DuMars [00:29:20]:
Is there labeling or certain
CD Young [00:29:24]:
I mean, sometimes you have to dig deeper than labeling. You have to literally go to, the maker of the product and ask them, like, you know, how do you filter? How do you do this, that? And and there's actually a, like, there is for everything. There's a website you can go to that
CD Young [00:29:41]:
goes
CD Young [00:29:41]:
through this deep dive and does it for you. So you can just sort of rely on them, which we have done before. Yeah.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:29:49]:
And for my listeners, I will put that I will find out that website, and I will put it in the show notes so that you can do your own research for things for sure. For sure. For sure. That is interesting. Yeah. Dawn, I mean, the moment as you said it, it was like, oh, yeah. And then along with that, I mean, I'm seeing a trend in nonalcohol cocktails.
CD Young [00:30:11]:
Oh, yes.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:30:12]:
I'm curious. Is that probably another area?
CD Young [00:30:15]:
It is really a
Missy Singer DuMars [00:30:16]:
big spirits.
CD Young [00:30:17]:
Yes. Unspirited spirits. I don't know. Unspirited. Zero proof spirits.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:30:21]:
There you go. Zero proof spirits, but very common.
CD Young [00:30:24]:
Yeah. No. For sure. It's a it's a huge thing right now. And so we are, very much into that. We have the lemon ginger boost, which is probably our biggest seller of, mocktail and, you know, several others. So, yeah, I'd say we have to pay as much attention to that these days as we do the, you know, the actual alcohol drink. So, it's a good point.
CD Young [00:30:49]:
People are I don't know if it's a, will continue to trend that way or or if it's a temporary. I have no idea. But it's right now, it's a big deal.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:30:59]:
Yeah. I mean, I've seen a lot of stuff about younger people being more and more interested in alternatives to alcohol. Right. So Right. Age that might continue. Who knows?
CD Young [00:31:12]:
Yeah. It's not a bad thing. Then you get, you know, no hangovers and etcetera, etcetera. It's a it's not a bad idea.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:31:19]:
Yeah. So for our listeners, give us some can you give us some examples of what you're serving as vegan fine dining at Spirit Elephant?
CD Young [00:31:29]:
Well, I'll have to start be fine
Missy Singer DuMars [00:31:31]:
if we walk in and we look at the menu, we sit down for dinner.
CD Young [00:31:34]:
You'd be fine, but, I'll I'll start with what's going on this week because it's Valentine's week. And Valentine's Day is one of the biggest days of the year, for restaurants. And so because it falls on a Wednesday, we are calling it Valentine's week. And we have an amazing special. It's a, filet mignon with, Diane sauce and twice baked potato and creamed spinach. It's it's our special this week, and you'll I'm sure you'll ask what what is the filet mignon made of?
Missy Singer DuMars [00:32:08]:
Of course. I'm gonna ask it, but you need that. So So good for our listeners. Like, I want my listeners to hear about, like, what can be done with vegan food these days because it's it's different than 2 years ago.
CD Young [00:32:22]:
Right. And it's just getting easier and easier. And and what's really cool is technology. And and I don't mean that the food is, like, techie. Like, this filet mignon is the cleanest the cleanest vegan thing you can buy. It's made by a company called Meaty. They call it steak. We call it we prepare it, so it's like filet mignon.
CD Young [00:32:40]:
So you can buy this at Whole Foods. There's probably other places too, the Meaty steaks. And the when we prepare it, I can't vouch for preparing at home, although it's probably delicious prepared at home too, especially with their you know, your listeners' recipes, I'm sure, can be applied that they use for animal products. But the way we do it with a slight char and, you know, a grill and and the meat just sort of flakes off like filet mignon, and it's made of mushroom root. And I think 2 other ingredients, nothing artificial. It's just mushroom root is really all it is and, like, maybe, like, water and something else. But it's so clean. It's gluten free.
CD Young [00:33:19]:
It's delicious. And that is the result of, you know, every year, it gets easier. This is one of those examples where you're eating something with high and protein, literally as healthy as you can get, and it's just an amazing product. So we're using that for filet mignon. And then for the, you know, the creamed spinach is a cashew cream based, homemade sauce. It's also yummy. And then the twice baked potato, is just like a twice baked potato. You do with sour cream, butter, and and chives and all the things you're used to.
CD Young [00:33:55]:
So it's a lovely dinner.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:33:58]:
Nice. Nice.
CD Young [00:33:59]:
Yeah.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:33:59]:
There would be some other things we would see at Spirit Elephant just to give us a sense.
CD Young [00:34:05]:
Sure. So, one of the 1 of 2 crowd favorites. I mean, cauli wings are every vegan go to in on the planet, but ours are literally still even though that's the case, they are the most ordered thing on our menu, like, by double. And it to me, that's so funny because that's the last thing I would order because cauli wings are just too universal. So we also have calamari, which is made from, king oyster mushroom stems hollowed out. So they're rings. They're the chewy texture of calamari, and then we, grab them.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:34:38]:
That's true. Those stems are. Totally. Chewy like that.
CD Young [00:34:41]:
That's what I'm hearing. People love them. People absolutely love them, and they taste just like calamari. And so so so what we do is we take, like, vegetables and then make things you're familiar with in a lot of cases. We do a an amazing penne alla vodka right now, with the San Marzano and cashew cream tomato sauce that's really taken off. People love it. It's filled with veggies and, you know, some people
Missy Singer DuMars [00:35:09]:
I've played with cashew cream a number of times. I used to make ricotta. Yes. Cream ricotta. It was quite good.
CD Young [00:35:16]:
Yeah. Yeah. It really has that creaminess and that I think the nuttiness gives it the cheesy flavor, you know, like, that little nuttiness.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:35:25]:
Yeah. Well, I can actually speak to what I think is the science to some of that. Sure. You know, proteins are made up of amino acids, and one of those amino acids is glutamate, which is what gives savoriness Uh-huh. Flavor. That's actually glutamate is umami flavor. Oh, interesting. Cashews you you can look up the glutamic acid content in different foods, and cashews are definitely higher in the That's so interesting.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:35:57]:
That's why it has a little more of the savoriness.
CD Young [00:36:00]:
Oh, I'd love to know that.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:36:01]:
Why it has more cheesy things cheesiness to it or a sense of it's a it's savory. It's it's umami.
CD Young [00:36:08]:
Right. It's such a good descriptor. Right?
Missy Singer DuMars [00:36:12]:
It it's Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
CD Young [00:36:13]:
Spot on. Yeah. No.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:36:14]:
Thank you
CD Young [00:36:15]:
for sharing that. That I didn't know.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:36:17]:
Yeah. I mean, I that's it's actually one of my nutritional passions. I don't talk about it on the podcast that much, but that's, my dining is about reducing umami and glutamate in my diet. So Interesting. I'm not gonna get into the whole science of that. It's a whole that's like a podcast episode.
CD Young [00:36:36]:
That's another podcast.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:36:38]:
But in educating myself on that, I've learned what foods are higher and lower and and whatnot. So and that's also why I've avoided a lot of vegan things because to make up for the savoriness of meat, a lot of high glutamate things are added to get that flavor, and I don't wanna eat that stuff. So Interesting. Interesting. So that's also some of my non interest in veganism. However, creative ways to prepare vegetables, I'm always for, especially as a vegetable farmer. And, I love that about the the what did you say?
CD Young [00:37:13]:
Is that true for all nuts or just cashews that have been done?
Missy Singer DuMars [00:37:17]:
Foods that have protein I mean, protein's made up of amino acids. Glue you know, glutamic acid is just one of the many. And so different kinds of proteins have different combinations.
CD Young [00:37:27]:
I see.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:37:28]:
So different kinds of nuts are higher or lower in that particular amino acid. The same with meat proteins and things like that. So even though I'm a meat eater, I don't I don't, overly break down meat. So I don't do a lot of marinating or long braises or things like that when I cook animal protein to, because it's the unbound. It's the broken down protein. So it's glutamate glutamate not in its chain that can become a problem. And and the short version is it bind binds to salts. It becomes MSG in your body even if you don't add MSG.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:38:05]:
And so that's what I am trying to be mindful of. And in my diet so I also don't touch things like nutritional yeast or soy sauce or coconut aminos or any of that stuff, which is pure unbound amino acids. So different nuts, different proteins. Even, you know, like, if you talk about fish, for example, different kinds of fishes and seafoods have more or less, And then how it's prepared. So, you know, I pay a lot attention to how things are cooked. That's kind of how I developed my culinary skills and passion, as well as what the food is and where it's sourced and how it's grown, how it's processed. All those things break down the amino the the protein chain and the amino acids.
CD Young [00:38:49]:
Interesting. Very interesting.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:38:51]:
That's my my geekery. You got me going on it. And once I get started
CD Young [00:38:56]:
Yeah. Well, I mean, it's your specialty, it sounds like. So
Missy Singer DuMars [00:39:00]:
Yeah. Well Yeah. Well, one of the things I love about what you're doing is that there's you're, you said this to me the last time we spoke about how you're creating a range of possibilities even within veganism and creating, you know, options for different choices and different people. And, Right. I love that. And that's probably, I imagine, what has led to your other two restaurants, Elephant and Vine. I want you to ask a little bit more about the development of moving into to that into the more fast casual concept.
CD Young [00:39:39]:
Sure. So, basically, again, if you go back to what my food mission and our our team's food mission is, it's just making plant based food more widely available, more sought out, more, more understanding about how it can be, you know, no sacrifice, delicious, you know, all the good things about it, good for planet, good for health, good for, animals. So trying to promote the trifecta of good from plant based eating is is the mission. And so the fast casual is really born out of you know, not everybody likes to go the fine finer dining route and and just to make it more accessible to younger people, to maybe, you know, more more college kids who are who are arguably more into the environment and all of that. We decided to to set off on this fast casual concept where the price point would be, much lower. And even though we there are still very helpful options, it's also comfort food forward, the things that you don't like, Missy. Sorry.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:40:52]:
We do I love comfort food. I just come up with creative ways to make them. That's all. Don't worry. I I love my comfort food for sure.
CD Young [00:41:00]:
Right. So so we we do try to to to bridge the comfort and then definitely having healthful options, homemade options, things from scratch and that sort of thing. But it is it is a smaller menu, a lower price point, and then there's, you know, burgers, chicken sandwiches, bowls, soups, and sweets and wraps. And so it's just an a it's a different it's counter service. There's no servers. And one is right next to Northwestern University, and one's right next to DePaul University in in Lincoln Park, Chicago. So they're by by college campuses. So they're, yeah, they're quite different, but they're they're doing well also.
CD Young [00:41:42]:
They have And they have quite a following.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:41:44]:
Tell me a little bit, just the businesswoman side of me likes to know of, like, what was the journey to making the decision to open them and go that route?
CD Young [00:41:57]:
Well, I have to throw my husband under the bus because
Missy Singer DuMars [00:42:03]:
That's alright. He'll be okay.
CD Young [00:42:07]:
Yes. He'll be okay. He kept saying to me, you know, if you wanna grow this faster, you probably should have done smaller restaurants and more fast casual restaurants. He kept sort of saying that to me, lofting these bombs in my ear. And then one day, I'm like, okay. Let's try it. Because even though Spirit Elephant is is also doing great, it is a big behemoth restaurant. I mean, it's a full service restaurant have so many employees and so many moving parts.
CD Young [00:42:38]:
It's a little daunting to think, okay. I'm gonna go open another one. Even though we will, trust me, we will, and we're about to, it's much more daunting than having a little restaurant with a much smaller footprint menu, you know, capital cost, fewer employees by, you know, less than half, etcetera, etcetera. It's much less daunting to think, okay. I'm gonna I'm gonna blueprint this and open more and more and more of them. That just seems easier. Right?
Missy Singer DuMars [00:43:05]:
Yeah.
CD Young [00:43:05]:
And so we yeah. I mean, this whole thing, Missy, has been sort of an experiment. Can this work? Can people, love this food and come to us as much as they go to other restaurants? See, we don't we're not asking to be your only restaurant, but we wanna be in your mix. And the answer to that question is absolutely yes. And so now we're just into the phase of, okay, we're we're getting ready to grow and scale, and we're just fine tuning our model in each concept to be absolutely as good as it can be, and then we're gonna hit the gas.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:43:39]:
Cool. Cool. Well, in a moment, I wanna ask you more about some of the vegan food trends that you're aware of and seeing and something I'm aware of, and you have a recipe to share with us. But before we do that, I wanna take a quick break and share a bit more about how women in food is supported. As you know, I care a lot about food and land, and this includes the success of food and land based businesses. I believe that sustainability goes beyond the land to how we grow ourselves and grow our business at the same time. Now I've noticed that many folks in the food and land space have fantastic concepts and strong passion and deep care, but still struggle to market and run their business in ways that can make the impact they envision while also providing for themselves at the same time. I always say that most farmers I know are great farmers, but dread or avoid sales and marketing.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:44:37]:
I'm the other way around. Farming is my learning curve always, but I know business really well. Besides hosting this podcast and running my farm, I'm a business coach having coached hundreds of entrepreneurs over 6 continents to mindfully grow their business with a combination of intentional strategy and natural unfolding. So if you're listening to this podcast as a food or land based entrepreneur who's looking to what the next phase of growth for your business is, this kind of coaching support could be for you. If you'd like support in this way, go to my website to have a 90 minute session with me. The website is women in food dot net forward slash work with missy, and I'll put the link in the show notes as well. I want every listener to thrive and particularly land and food based businesses to thrive because, honestly, I believe that the success of food and land based businesses is the success of all of our future. So once again, that's women in food.netforward/workwithmissy, m I s s y.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:45:39]:
Our local Yelp Buffalo has also been a wonderful supporter of women in food programming almost since the beginning video series in 2020. Did you know that you can search specifically for women owned businesses on Yelp? So support your local women owned businesses by visiting them and writing a Yelp review. Download the Yelp app now and search for women owned in the search bar. Alright. CD. Let's talk about some vegan food trends that you see as, what to keep an eye out for, especially for folks who want to turn to more plant based options in their diet and in their kitchen. What what would be your top couple that you're excited about?
CD Young [00:46:25]:
Well, I'm always very excited about the technology. For instance, what I just mentioned, the meaty steak. Whereas
CD Young [00:46:33]:
Mhmm.
CD Young [00:46:33]:
Whereas before, if you wanted a very meat focused item, you would have to turn to impossible or beyond or something like that. Mhmm. Now they're taking more whole food plant based things and turning it into the familiar textures that we all remember as kids. And remember, vegan vegans don't necessarily go vegan because they wanna eat more vegetables. Maybe they loved meat. They just don't wanna eat animals. So these these copycat textures are very welcome to a lot of vegan or plant based or plant forward people, that go for certain reasons this way. So that excites me.
CD Young [00:47:08]:
Seeing a product like Meaty come out was very exciting to me. And they also do chicken, which is also similarly very clean and, very authentic texture. And then, you know, there's also things coming out in in seafood, and I and I told you I miss the taste of seafood a lot. And so that's exciting to me to see tunas made from plants and salmons made from plants, things that I remembered enjoying, and I can enjoy those things again. Again, I'm coming at this from I don't wanna eat animals. I just wanna eat plants, and I but I don't I do miss the taste of these things. So these are very exciting trends for me. And every year, they get better, and they get cleaner.
CD Young [00:47:52]:
So it's
Missy Singer DuMars [00:47:53]:
You're talking about, vegan seafood options. What came to my mind? This is a funny story. I don't think my listeners have ever heard this. There was a time where I would occasionally travel as a technical director with a magician. Oh, really? Of course. Yes. And, we did a tour in Taiwan. And they would bring us, you know, the production company.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:48:17]:
We it was a crazy tour. It was like load into a theater, do the performance, do, you know, meet the fans and all that after, pack it up, get in a bus, drive, you know, 2 or 3 hours late at night, stumble into a hotel room, get up the next morning in a new place with a new theater and do it all over again each day for like a week. And so they would the production company would bring us lunch at the theater.
CD Young [00:48:43]:
Yeah.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:48:44]:
And, like, Taiwanese food, you'd get like this little bento box kind of thing. And and I was much more naive about food then than I am now. But it was definitely that whole trip opened my eyes to different cultures' food. But I just remember opening the box one day, and there was some kind of like little sardine like fish, and it's like whole fish. Yeah. Bites, beans, and everything. And I was just like and one of our team was vegan, so she was requesting vegan food. So I'm like, you know what? Safer, I'm gonna request vegan.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:49:19]:
And and they had they so then they you would get these, like, things that looked were were pretending to look like a little shrimp or things like that that were supposedly vegan, although you don't really know. You don't really know. A few chicken broth with the meal, though. That was funny. Even though you asked vegan we we got to a point where we just asked for dumplings because that felt easy and safer. Right. So Right. But I have a feeling that vegan seafood options have come a long way since then.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:49:47]:
That was a good number of years ago, but that was, like, one of my first experiences of since that plant shaped like a fish. Plant shaped. And it was, like, colored too. So it was, like, white with little bits of pink on it. And Oh, wow. I remember being fascinated by all the different food things in, in Taiwan.
CD Young [00:50:07]:
Yes. I'm sure. Curious and
Missy Singer DuMars [00:50:09]:
taste it.
CD Young [00:50:10]:
Wow. Good experience.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:50:11]:
Alright. And tell us about, you know, what's out there for the dairy lovers and us.
CD Young [00:50:17]:
Again, just advances in cheese. There is a company I wanna explore called Climax Foods that is apparently it's I think it's AI, like, based cheese, and it apparently is they do. They specialize in blue cheese, which I love. I don't not everybody loves it, but I do. And apparently, now some fine dining restaurants like, you you know that, 11 Madison Park is now vegan. Right? So restaurants in New York City and restaurants like that
Missy Singer DuMars [00:50:46]:
Mhmm.
CD Young [00:50:47]:
Use Climax Foods Cheese. I'd like to get it for Spirit Elephants. So I'm I'm trying to get on their list, but, apparently, it's quite coveted and not that easy to come by yet. But that but it just shows you that, and there the people are people all people are saying you cannot distinguish this cheese from, dairy cheese. So they're just these technological advances that basically also use cells from animals to create the cheese into the my next question
Missy Singer DuMars [00:51:16]:
is is lab created I mean, I guess, technically, animal I don't know what the correct term is it.
CD Young [00:51:23]:
It's lab grown meat.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:51:24]:
Lab grown meat. So it's actually meat, but it's lab grown. And I'm kinda curious where you and Spear Elephant are landing on that, or is it still a discussion? Or,
CD Young [00:51:33]:
you know Bring it on. The problem with it is it's still not scalable. They they could not supply it. I would use it in a heartbeat.
CD Young [00:51:42]:
Mhmm.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:51:43]:
There are
CD Young [00:51:43]:
many vegans who don't want meat, and that's that's fine. I we would always cater to, everyone, so we wouldn't have just lab grown meat. But if it became readily available and were FDA approved and all of that stuff, which I think it already is, because it's literally break it down. You're a scientist. You break it down. It's literally the same thing as meat from an animal. I I think it ticks our boxes. You know? Plant animal I'm sorry.
CD Young [00:52:11]:
Animal planet health. Like, we would apparently, it's cleaner for you too. So, yeah, we would use it in a heartbeat. I just I know it's very expensive now to make, but it won't be forever. I'm sure it's coming. So it's exciting.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:52:25]:
Right. Yeah. Cool. Have you received a lot of, like, anti vegan pushback? No. That's interesting because, I mean, I I follow the discussions, both pro and anti vegan discussions on in social media circles, and it's intense and venomous at times. And
CD Young [00:52:47]:
I'm sure. And remember, we're not activists. We have our mission, but we're not, like, out there in people's faces. So you probably Certainly.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:52:55]:
But I imagine the activists might seek you out. That's what I was wondering about.
CD Young [00:53:01]:
Right. No. We've gotten only positive feedback, and I'm really grateful for that. Like, we're about positivity. We we just do our thing and talk about positive stuff, and that's what we do. We don't, you know, we don't push our stuff on anyone, and we don't down talk anyone. We just we're about positivity. Honestly, that's that's our thing.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:53:26]:
I actually think that's our perspective of the feminine in a subtle way that you bring to it. You're right. Is that, you know, just be who I am, be in integrity, be about what I'm doing, and with care and consideration Right.
CD Young [00:53:45]:
Right.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:53:45]:
To me to hear about.
CD Young [00:53:47]:
Right. I I I think you're right about that. We need more women leaders. Right?
Missy Singer DuMars [00:53:53]:
Absolutely. Absolutely. Never gonna get me to disagree with that statement. So speaking of delicious things, you have a soup for us, broccoli cheddar soup. Tell us more about that, and then we can get into how you make it. So before I do that, I
CD Young [00:54:13]:
I thought I was remiss, and I didn't touch on you. And I don't know if I talked about this before. Before we talk about my soup, I just wanna make sure your listeners know too that we're also known for our, desserts and baked goods.
CD Young [00:54:28]:
So I
CD Young [00:54:28]:
don't know if you knew that, you know, you can bake vegan to an incredibly high level degree. We're in that present, and today we have a a triple chocolate cake that is just to die.
CD Young [00:54:39]:
I saw
Missy Singer DuMars [00:54:40]:
a picture of that on your Instagram earlier today. I was like, I'm not always a chocolate eater myself, but, dang, that looked really good.
CD Young [00:54:46]:
Dang. It's good. It's so moist and delicious. And so I just wanted to touch on that because that's something that a lot of people don't realize is that you can literally bake anything. Tiramisu, cake. Like, we've had it all. Creme brulee. We've had it all, and it's a very high level.
CD Young [00:55:03]:
If you know what you're doing, which I don't. I'm not a baker. I don't know what I'm doing. But luckily
Missy Singer DuMars [00:55:07]:
chef your pastry chef does.
CD Young [00:55:10]:
Yes. Exactly. So now we can talk about my soup. So
Missy Singer DuMars [00:55:13]:
Well well no. I mean, now you went into desserts. I have to ask, like, I know you said you're not a baker, but are there a couple, you know, 2 or 3 key things that you've
CD Young [00:55:23]:
Yes. There are a
Missy Singer DuMars [00:55:25]:
couple that that our listeners can, like, go research or look to to learn how to do vegan plant based baking?
CD Young [00:55:33]:
Yes. So I have learned to get the moisture in brownies and cakes. Our people use either sour cream, vegan sour cream, or, or plant based yogurt. They add to the recipe, which gives this incredible moisture. And you can even use if you wanna go even healthier, you can use apple sauce.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:55:53]:
Applesauce. I was about to say, I've I've often substituted applesauce Yes. For moisture.
CD Young [00:55:59]:
We have done that too. So that's one thing. And then, you know, there are very good butters out there now. Miyoko makes some, some amazing butters for baking that are just mimic pure butter. So there there are places you can go to get very, very good butters if that's your thing. If you're into, like, butter crusts or butter in your baking, you can you can find it. And, I mean, those are the biggest tips, I can I think I can give you? And Yeah. And, also, say, remind
Missy Singer DuMars [00:56:32]:
my listeners that, when I interviewed Carina in Bart Sweden, we had a whole discussion, and she shared about using aquafaba.
CD Young [00:56:45]:
Oh, yeah. That that's a cool idea.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:56:48]:
You get using it as an egg replacement. I actually I I made hummus recently, and I saved the liquid from the can of chickpeas and made, pavlovas with it. I made meringue, and it was delicious.
CD Young [00:57:02]:
Oh, wow.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:57:03]:
Oh, so
CD Young [00:57:04]:
that is a great idea. And then speaking of umami, you can use aquafaba to make cheese, vegan cheese.
CD Young [00:57:10]:
Mhmm.
CD Young [00:57:10]:
And and maybe that doesn't have those bad things that you don't eat in it, but it still has that flavor.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:57:16]:
Right. Right. Well, anything that's kind of starting to break down a protein, it will have a little bit of that. But, you know, it depends on the quantity and Yeah. Percentage. But I've been having fun now when I make hummus, which I love to make from scratch. It's so easy to do and so much more delicious than packaged.
CD Young [00:57:33]:
It is.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:57:34]:
I've been saving the liquid from the the chickpeas. And mostly, I mean, I'm kind of a meringue fiend in general. Yeah. I'm an egg farmer, so becoming that, I have a lot of egg whites around too. But, I so I I love making meringue. And I discovered one of the times I made a Swiss meringue and discovered, like, playing with the flavoring of the vanilla and whatnot a little bit, it's like an equivalent of marshmallow fluff, which I loved as a kid. And so it was like a quick way to do a fluff and peanut butter sandwich without having, you know, chemical fluff fluff. But having real
CD Young [00:58:14]:
Sounds amazing.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:58:16]:
That was one of my one of my, obsessions with meringue for a while is I have peanut butter fluff sandwiches or
CD Young [00:58:23]:
Oh.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:58:23]:
Some flour butter. It's peanuts a lot, but sunflower butters, fluff sandwiches, and it was really good.
CD Young [00:58:29]:
That was really good.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:58:31]:
But, yeah, there is a lot. I, for how much I say I'm not always a vegan fan, I've cooked a lot for every dietary thing imaginable over the course of my life. And in the years I lived in San Francisco, I had a lot of friends with all kinds of dietary specificity. And so I had to hunt really hard for recipes I can make that would satisfy all those. And baking was definitely a place I I had found a gluten free vegan, like, stone fruit tart. That was sort of the
CD Young [00:59:05]:
Oh, no. Kind of
Missy Singer DuMars [00:59:06]:
the standby dessert for potlucks. And then at, like, a vegan mac and cheese that became the gluten free vegan mac mac and cheese that became the the requested potluck event meal for me.
CD Young [00:59:19]:
Oh, well, you need to come and cook for me, Missy, because these things sound amazing.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:59:23]:
Well, come visit the farm.
CD Young [00:59:26]:
The farm.
Missy Singer DuMars [00:59:26]:
I need to. I have guest rooms anytime. Alright. Let's get to plant based broccoli cheddar soup.
CD Young [00:59:34]:
So the thing about soup and and I have to correct you on something even though I I really wasn't being described this way. You kind of said I'm you kind of put me on the same pedestal as you, like, in in the world of chuffing. I'm not I love I love food, but I'm a very simple cook. Like, I can only do very simple things that I I've sort of repeat things. That's the kind I think what I make is good and my family likes it, but I'm not your level. I'm not even close to your level. But but so I love soups because soups are so forgiving. And to make this broccoli cheddar soup couldn't be easier, and it's 0 waste, which is lovely.
CD Young [01:00:12]:
So, you know, you're just sauteing in olive oil, garlic and onions, and adding carrots too and and for color. And then you're adding vegetable broth, and you're boiling up everything. And then it's such an easy recipe because you can really add anything. And the the secret to this the richness of this, is the the Yukon gold potatoes. And because they when you blend them with the other vegetables that are, in it, it becomes just rich sort of cheesy texture. And then, all you're doing I know you don't like nutritional yeast, but it does give cheesy flavor. I love it.
Missy Singer DuMars [01:00:59]:
And I used to use it for everything all the
CD Young [01:01:01]:
time.
CD Young [01:01:01]:
I use it all the time myself.
Missy Singer DuMars [01:01:03]:
It was the go to for popcorn.
CD Young [01:01:05]:
Yes. Exactly. Exactly. So so and it does have a lot of vitamin b 12, which vegans don't get enough of. So it's really it has that as well. So
Missy Singer DuMars [01:01:14]:
Yeah.
CD Young [01:01:15]:
When you add those Yukon Gold potatoes and blend them and put them back in your broth, and add the cheese and the the the toppings, etcetera, and the broccoli. Oh, and I forgot. You do add the broccoli stems chopped up into that blended mix, which also gives it a richness and a flavor.
Missy Singer DuMars [01:01:34]:
So you're blending the stems in, but keeping the broccoli tops more
CD Young [01:01:38]:
Exactly. So the broccoli tops, right, come after the blending and they fold in, and then you've got the beautiful green tops in your in your soup. And it's so simple, Missy. It's really easy.
Missy Singer DuMars [01:01:50]:
I love simple. Just because I'm a passionate cook doesn't mean I don't like simple.
CD Young [01:01:57]:
No. I'm sure that's true. I'm sure that's true.
Missy Singer DuMars [01:01:59]:
I love how easy. And I have so many you know, I have a lot of volunteers and interns who stay here at the farm, and I cook dinner for everybody most nights. And the you know, they ask me questions, and I'm like, it's simple. It's easy. I need it to be I I I have a busy life also. It has to be easy. I mean, once in a while, I like to do fancy thing, but for what I eat every day, I prefer simple.
CD Young [01:02:22]:
Oh, good. Okay.
Missy Singer DuMars [01:02:24]:
No. No. You know, I realized once, I think I realized once that I enjoy the challenge of learning, like, a complex recipe and accomplishing it well. But when it comes to my daily eating, I like to eat simple.
CD Young [01:02:38]:
Yeah. Yeah. There's something there's something nice about it too, like, health wise, and it it just it I don't know.
Missy Singer DuMars [01:02:46]:
It feels like a potato is a potato. The broccoli is a broccoli. Yes. Each thing is what it is. It is what it is. That's fine by me. So
CD Young [01:02:54]:
Yeah. No. And and and you and with soups, you can add you can really add anything you feel like. And so that makes it you it can change every time you make it, which is nice too.
Missy Singer DuMars [01:03:06]:
Absolutely. Awesome. Anything else you wanna say about broccoli cheddar soup?
CD Young [01:03:12]:
No. Just just, I I picked that one for the the podcast because, you know, with veganism, people often assume you can't get that flavor of cheese anymore, and it's just not true. You can really you can mimic all the things you love, if you just know, like you say, a few tricks. And, this soup, if you try if your listeners try it, they'll see. They're like, my I have a a daughter who, you know, when she was very little, only ate 5 things. Like, a
Missy Singer DuMars [01:03:42]:
lot of us have these kids that are very picky. Yeah.
CD Young [01:03:45]:
And and broccoli cheddar soup was one of those things that she loved, and she loves this virgin virgin. So it's it it it's a simple but good good recipe for for when you're if you're making that transition and wondering what you can eat.
Missy Singer DuMars [01:03:59]:
Yeah. And for parents out there, it's a great way to get these green green veggies in.
CD Young [01:04:04]:
Oh, Heinz the veggies really well.
Missy Singer DuMars [01:04:06]:
I feel like you could totally even pour it over pasta and make it like a broccoli chip or mac.
CD Young [01:04:14]:
For sure. Absolutely.
Missy Singer DuMars [01:04:15]:
Or add pasta to the soup either way, depending on your pasta to soup ratio.
CD Young [01:04:20]:
You definitely could. I mean, it it it's really a cheese sauce, without the broccoli. Right? If you take if you don't add the tops of the broccoli, you have a veggie filled cheese sauce.
Missy Singer DuMars [01:04:30]:
Cheese sauce. Yeah. Add the broccoli. Throw on some pasta.
CD Young [01:04:35]:
Good to go. Good to go.
Missy Singer DuMars [01:04:38]:
Cool. I love it, and I love the creativity in the moment here with it.
CD Young [01:04:41]:
I was looking at it thinking I'm thinking about it. I I'm gonna have
Missy Singer DuMars [01:04:44]:
to try it now. And I'll I'll also admit boy, you just get me to admit all the things. I, I have never ever, in any form, been a broccoli cheddar soup fan. There's something about, like, I I I love cheeses, and I love broccoli a lot. And there's just something about cheese with green vegetables that, have a hard time.
CD Young [01:05:07]:
Maybe it's an Iowa thing, but we grew up putting cheese on everything.
Missy Singer DuMars [01:05:11]:
Maybe it's an Iowa thing.
CD Young [01:05:13]:
Maybe it's an Iowa thing. That's fine.
Missy Singer DuMars [01:05:16]:
I don't know. There's certain things. I mean, I love cheeses. I also I love cheese, and I love eggs. I don't always love them together.
CD Young [01:05:24]:
I Which is a weird thing. Maybe you're a purist. It's gotta be
Missy Singer DuMars [01:05:27]:
I I am a purist, I think, in certain ways know. For sure. No. Like, certain things are only supposed to go together in certain ways. Fair enough. Alright. Well, I have 2 last questions before we complete here. One question is if there's a woman who inspires you, like, who do you turn to for inspiration, motivation?
CD Young [01:05:50]:
So many. It's hard to pick 1. It's,
Missy Singer DuMars [01:05:53]:
Who comes to mind in this moment?
CD Young [01:05:56]:
Honestly, all I can think about is Michelle Obama right now. I don't know why. I think it's because I've been talking about her so much. Or is this in terms of cooking and chefery?
Missy Singer DuMars [01:06:06]:
Anything. It doesn't matter. It can be Michelle Obama.
CD Young [01:06:08]:
I like Michelle Obama because of her, she's just so smart and passionate and inspiring as a speaker. And I've met her, and she's, you know, like, she is in person. And then there's another there's a there's a vegan foodie who I also, know, and her name is Tabitha Brown. Have you heard of Tabitha
CD Young [01:06:34]:
Brown?
Missy Singer DuMars [01:06:34]:
Yeah.
CD Young [01:06:34]:
Yeah. So she also inspires me just because, she is just such a good person and uses a platform of just being positive and good, to spread almost anything and everything. And and one of those things is veganism. Like, she she attributes veganism to saving her life because she had chronic illness. And when she became vegan, it all went away. Mhmm. And she so she you know, that's inspiring to me as a vegan to listen to that. And but but but over and above that, she just she talks about, you know, living your truth.
CD Young [01:07:14]:
And, and she's always giving if you're into social media and you follow her, you know that she's always pausing her very, very busy and celebrity life to give these very personal snippets of wisdom and that, you know, has has she's used in her life or she's seen in other people, and they almost always resonate. And so she is she is somebody, I'm glad I thought of that before we signed off, that does really inspire me. And I would encourage people to follow her because there's almost nobody that I know that follows her that doesn't love her.
Missy Singer DuMars [01:07:50]:
Absolutely. Absolutely. And I'll put a link to follow her in our show notes for our listeners as well. Great.
CD Young [01:07:56]:
Awesome.
Missy Singer DuMars [01:07:57]:
Fantastic women. Thank you. I love them both. You're good. My it doesn't matter whether I love them. That's who inspires you. My last question is, is there anything we did not talk about or last thing you want our listeners to walk away with from this conversation? Any last words?
CD Young [01:08:19]:
I guess the only thing, in terms of last words that I would always say is if you've ever been, intrigued by eating more plants and or or wanna dabble in it, there there are many great cookbooks out there that can get you started. It's it's not as hard as you think. It's actually really easy. It's really delicious. And in my experience, it has made me feel really great. So, I would just encourage your listeners if if they wanna eat more plants. It's it's not hard it's not hard to do.
Missy Singer DuMars [01:08:52]:
And if you're in the Chicago area at all, check out
CD Young [01:08:56]:
Yes, ma'am.
Missy Singer DuMars [01:08:57]:
Elephant or elephant and vine.
CD Young [01:08:59]:
There you go. Thank you so much. Absolutely.
Missy Singer DuMars [01:09:02]:
Welcome. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you so much, CD for sharing your stories, your perspective, and your recipe with us today. To all our listeners, I hope you enjoyed this episode of Women in Food and got a bit of inspiration for your next meal. A last request, if you could, go over to iTunes or whatever app you're using to listen and give us a reading and review. It's a simple act that helps other people find the show. Once again, thank you for accompanying me on this delicious adventure.
Missy Singer DuMars [01:09:29]:
Join me around the table for our next episode and get ready to eat.