Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - Grab Bag： The Ballerina Farm Raw Milk Scandal, Hating on the Katies & Intellectual It Girls

00:00:00.000 Hey y'all, Jo here and you are listening to Under the Influence.

00:00:10.800 Today's episode is a little bit different than what we normally do. It's sort of, I guess,

00:00:16.160 I'm going to call it a grab bag. Sure, a grab bag. That sounds right. A hodgepodge. I'm doing

00:00:22.660 it this way because I've been getting a lot of DMs from all of you, a lot of emails, asking

00:00:27.820 me questions about a variety of topics. And I have a lot of thoughts, a ton of thoughts on these

00:00:33.980 things actually. And I thought, hey, why not just hop on the microphone and chit chat it out with

00:00:40.800 all of you. Here I am for our grab bag, hodgepodge, stew, whatever we're gonna call it. My brain is a

00:00:48.780 scrambled egg, so I would love if someone else could come up with a name for this sort of podcast

00:00:53.340 for me. I'd love it. That'd be wonderful. So the first question that I've been getting all week,

00:00:58.960 obviously, obviously, is about the latest ballerina farm controversy. And not just about

00:01:05.980 what happened, but about why we're so obsessed with it, why it's gone viral, and why we actually

00:01:11.900 care about something that's happening on a farm in Utah to people that we've never met. I'm going

00:01:18.560 back up and tell everyone what happened. I'm going to give you a little bit of TLDR about the

00:01:23.680 situation, and then I'll give you my hot take. Maybe this is called hot takes. I don't know.

00:01:29.220 Again, like I said, someone else decide. I am in the stage of my life where I just want other

00:01:34.320 people to make decisions for me. I do. It's like a trad wife, but without giving up all of my money

00:01:40.560 and agency and still like deciding the big things, but then having someone else meal plan

00:01:47.720 run and name things and also tell me what to do with my kids on a very cold Sunday afternoon

00:01:54.720 when I just want to let them watch movies, but then I feel guilty about letting them watch

00:01:58.980 movies because I'm like, oh, I should do something creative and nurturing, but ah,

00:02:04.080 they really just want to watch Tron too. Anywho, back to Ballerina Farm. Hannah and Daniel Nealman,

00:02:11.460 the two co-CEOs, co-founders of the brand Ballerina Farm, have reportedly paused their

00:02:18.860 sale of raw milk following health concerns that were discovered this past summer. Now,

00:02:25.800 in recent years, these two, this brand, they've built a really large following around a lot of

00:02:31.540 things. Around the idea of homesteading, homeschooling, getting back to the earth,

00:02:37.760 having lots and lots of children, and generally being a very beautiful-looking couple and family,

00:02:44.120 the brand is very, very good at promoting the image of a very good-looking, very large family.

00:02:53.340 And honestly, they've built the brand around that. And the Mallorina Farm brand was one of the early

00:02:58.500 trad wife-adjacent brands. In the very early days, a lot of the content just featured Hannah

00:03:05.440 Neilman, who is the business force behind this brand, but it just featured Hannah as little more

00:03:11.200 than a housewife, saying, hey, I'm just a stay-at-home mom. I'm just cooking these beautiful

00:03:16.580 from-scratch meals for my many, many children. Follow me, look at my idyllic life, and maybe buy

00:03:23.300 some of the very expensive home goods that I'm selling you, and your life could be this perfect

00:03:28.400 to. That was the basis of the Ballerina Farm brand, which has since exploded into one of the

00:03:36.140 largest social media first brands. In recent years, they built that out into multiple platforms

00:03:42.040 and really just a massive lifestyle brand, a la Martha Stewart, a la Pioneer Woman. And it's

00:03:50.700 really become a lot more evident that Hannah Nealman was much more than a housewife cooking

00:03:56.300 meals from scratch and staying at home to care for her children, and more the media mastermind

00:04:02.140 behind a lot of these things. The Nealmans have long been promoters of raw milk, milk that has

00:04:08.360 not been pasteurized, and they've even created a farm stand and a flagship store in Utah that has

00:04:16.660 been selling these products. Now all of this has been a bit controversial. Raw milk has been really

00:04:22.420 a flashpoint in the Maha versus non-Maha influencers. It's become kind of shorthand

00:04:29.480 for anti-vax and a lot of other things that have gotten all mixed up in our identity politics.

00:04:36.280 But recent tests showed that the Ballerina Farm brand of raw milk did not pass routine

00:04:42.860 milk testing conducted in late May. There were allegedly very high levels of coliform,

00:04:49.760 which is in the same family of bacteria that includes E. coli.

00:04:55.020 So the brand has stopped selling their raw milk,

00:04:57.260 and Daniel Nealman put out a statement saying that they need to do some more work

00:05:00.840 and that they're trying to better understand the process

00:05:03.960 behind making consumable, unpasteurized dairy products.

00:05:08.480 He said, quote,

00:05:09.780 Producing raw milk takes careful planning from a facility and infrastructure standpoint.

00:05:15.140 Unfortunately, we learned this after the fact.

00:05:17.200 now I am gonna say maybe maybe before you sell a product to people both in person and then also

00:05:28.180 all over your multi-million audience social feeds maybe you just do that research before you start

00:05:36.800 selling a product like that just seems like smart business to me that just seems like safe business

00:05:42.620 to me. It seems like something that you should just know to do. And honestly, the raw milk push

00:05:50.880 has really been all over the ballerina farm feeds. And in fact, Hannah Nealman directly linked her 0.99

00:05:58.840 raw milk consumption to her beautiful, glowy skin. She actually says that her mom told her,

00:06:06.520 when you started drinking raw milk, your skin got a lot better. And I kind of think there's

00:06:11.320 something to that. Of course, she's doing this all as she's promoting their own raw milk business

00:06:18.380 and while promoting their new line of farmer protein powder. Look, capitalism always be 1.00

00:06:27.620 capitalism-ing. Also, I would probably attribute Hannah Nealman's gorgeous glowy skin to being a 1.00

00:06:34.080 very rich person. Remember, her husband Daniel is the heir to the JetBlue fortune, and being a very

00:06:40.620 rich person makes it a lot easier to have glowing, dewy, perfect skin all the time. Also, the fact

00:06:47.940 that they are members of the Church of Latter-day Saints, they are Mormons, and so she's probably

00:06:53.080 never smoked an entire pack of parliaments while staying out until three in the morning,

00:06:57.660 dancing on tables at bungalow eight. I'm not saying that's why my skin isn't glowy and dewy

00:07:03.180 imperfect, but I'm not saying it isn't why it's like that either. Okay. Just, just throwing it

00:07:10.600 out there. So anyway, the internet went wild over these accusations. I posted the news on my social

00:07:19.780 media feed as a person who covers influencers and particularly as a person who covers the business

00:07:26.060 of influencers. And there was definitely a very high level of schadenfreude here. Perfect German

00:07:34.260 word. Really just one of those German words that truly delivers. A lot of people were rejoicing

00:07:41.620 and celebrating over this news that the ballerina farm brand had screwed something up so royally

00:07:49.200 and screwed something up involving raw milk, again, which is such a political and identity

00:07:56.460 flashpoint these days. Now, what I'm interested in is where this is coming from. And I have to say,

00:08:04.500 I say this all the time, that influencers are truly the new celebrities. And when I used to

00:08:11.220 work in celebrity gossip magazines, people loved celebrities messing up. Okay, give me a celebrity

00:08:18.920 getting a DUI. Give me a celebrity getting a divorce. Give me a celebrity just doing something 1.00

00:08:25.720 ridiculous in public. And people ate that up. Okay. So I mean, this goes along with the whole 0.98

00:08:36.680 theory that especially in American culture, but I would say in a lot of Western cultures,

00:08:41.760 we like to build celebrities, often women, up and then knock them off their pedestals.

00:08:49.740 But I think that there is more to it than that. I truly think that with influencers

00:08:54.520 like Hannah Nealman and the entire Ballerina Farm brand, they have been creating this whole aura

00:09:02.040 of perfection, of ease. A whole lifestyle that says if you just do what I do, if you homestead

00:09:13.480 and homeschool and bake everything from scratch and only put the finest organic products on your

00:09:19.560 face and chug a whole gallon of raw milk, you too can have a life as seemingly happy and idyllic as

00:09:27.460 mine. And number one, they're only doing that to sell us stuff. Let's always remember that.

00:09:33.700 But number two, it creates a level of guilt and shame for women, particularly mothers, 0.61

00:09:40.460 that is absolutely terrible and toxic and has to stop. So I think that there was so much joy

00:09:48.100 and so much celebration over this raw milk snafu, over the fact that there was E. coli

00:09:54.840 in their raw milk products that may or may not have come from cow poop. There were so many cow

00:10:00.660 poop memes. I mean, look, and they were also really funny. I'm not gonna say I didn't laugh

00:10:05.260 because I laughed. I did. Of course I did. Who does not like a cow poop joke? Everyone in this

00:10:10.320 house does. So there was just something about bursting the bubble on this fantasy, about taking

00:10:17.320 this family down a notch about showing, oh my gosh, you are not perfect. And in fact,

00:10:24.860 you guys skipped a major step in bringing one of these products to market because you simply

00:10:31.640 were not careful enough. And thankfully, I mean, I'm very happy that Daniel Nealman admitted this

00:10:37.780 and, you know, God bless. That is what I say all the time. God bless. But I completely

00:10:45.160 understand why this went viral why why people were so eager to share it why people have been

00:10:53.960 so eager to take the ballerina farm brand down a notch because we're sick of the fantasy we're

00:11:01.040 sick of this fake idyllic beautiful life that is constantly being shown to us when of course

00:11:08.340 behind the scenes you're running a business which is never easy you're running a marriage and i say

00:11:13.400 that because a marriage is often very much like a business partnership. You're running a marriage.

00:11:19.240 You're parenting many, many, frankly, too many children. Okay. I try not to be judgy about other

00:11:25.940 other humans, but that is a lot of kids. For me, three is a lot of kids. And that is a lot of kids

00:11:30.760 in their household. I said it. I said what I said. Okay. Anyway, I think that is where the

00:11:36.420 virality of this came from. We're honestly sick of looking at picture perfect images that are

00:11:42.600 completely unattainable on social media, and this is our little way of fighting back. This is our

00:11:49.140 little bite-sized resistance, and frankly, I'm here for it, okay? Yeah, all the things. If you

00:11:55.440 want to post a ballerina farm cow poop meme, I'll share it. Shoot it to me. Hit up my DMs. 0.96

00:12:01.640 Okay, we are going to take a very quick break, and when we get back, 0.96

00:12:05.100 we are going to talk about the rise of the intellectual it girls. 0.95

00:12:12.600 Okay, we're back. So what's an intellectual it girl, you might ask? It is yet another trend

00:12:25.380 in the celebrity slash social world and really all over social media. And frankly, I'm all here

00:12:32.280 for this. I am very here for anything that is just a little bit smarter than most of the crap 0.99

00:12:40.500 that I am consuming on social media these days, that is not to discount the things that I love

00:12:45.560 on social media, which I talk about all the time. Things like otters holding hands and sexy gay

00:12:51.460 Norwegian men dancing around fjords in well-cut suits. Those are things that are wonderful and

00:12:59.140 good for the world. But I am happy about this intellectual literary it girl trend because I'm

00:13:07.280 seeing it as a counterweight to what was killing me, to the trends that were actually destroying

00:13:13.260 my soul, which are the trad wife, but also the soft girl trends. The I am checking out of the

00:13:20.840 world. All I'm going to do is wash my face 15 times and then show you videos of doing that

00:13:26.500 and then take a nap and then put on my red light LED face mask. And then I'm going to pack my

00:13:32.080 husband's suitcase for his business trip because he gives me my shopping allowance when I make his

00:13:37.080 life a lot easier. I'm so sick of that drivel that I am all here for the intellectual it girl. 1.00

00:13:44.060 Now, you know, a couple examples of this are we have both Dua Lipa and Kaya Gerber, both hosting

00:13:51.420 celebrity book clubs, and their book choices are very high end too, because I wrote to both of

00:13:57.580 them and I was like, hey, y'all, you should really have Everyone is Lying to and Sicilian

00:14:03.660 inheritance. I mean, this is just, this is some delightful, delicious, bringing down the patriarchy,

00:14:09.360 but glamorous trash. This is, I mean, this is the kind of stuff that people, people want to read, 0.92

00:14:13.720 but they are reading the classics. They are reading some, some very esoteric literary tomes.

00:14:21.240 Good for them. Not so much for me, but good for them. But I'm all here for it because these young

00:14:27.800 women have so much power and influence over the next generation that pushing out the idea that 1.00

00:14:34.480 being smart is fucking awesome is incredible, okay? The Hyper Bay actually wrote this. I'm 1.00

00:14:43.080 going to read something from the article that they put out there because I think it's really smart.

00:14:47.320 They said, selfies with books, reading on public transport, or heading to a cafe specifically to

00:14:53.320 read now feel mainstream in a way that they just didn't years ago. From here, a kind of pseudo

00:15:00.960 intellectualism has emerged. On TikTok, trends like going analog or, quote, becoming disgustingly

00:15:08.780 educated and the media I consume instead of doom scrolling sit alongside New Year's resolutions

00:15:14.860 focused on mastering niche topics or building a personal curriculum. Now, let's not pretend that

00:15:21.540 all of these are just kind of trendy and meme-y and perhaps maybe even a little bit surface level,

00:15:28.500 but it's still better than the slop that we were getting before.

00:15:32.660 And frankly, I'm all for anything that gets more people reading books. Okay, you know that. And if

00:15:37.900 anyone has a close personal line to Dua Lipa, let's get her in on the Sicilian inheritance. 1.00

00:15:44.120 I think she is gonna love that shit. Next up, I want to talk a little bit about the Cady's. 0.99

00:15:49.960 I've been getting so many questions about the Katies on my social media, and yet when I bring this up in real life with my actual friends, my mom friends who, just like me, are overworked, they're working like 19 jobs, they're raising two to three kids, and really just shuttling around to activity after activity while trying to sometimes have sex with their husbands, they don't know a whole lot about this Katie situation.

00:16:15.820 but it is a thing that is getting huge online. And so I think it's worth explaining it. And

00:16:21.320 then I've got some takes on it. So the idea of the collective Katie's is kind of like a new version

00:16:27.400 of the Karens. And this has been happening over the past month or so when a lot of influencers

00:16:34.780 and also a lot of just regular average not online a lot people have finally been speaking up against

00:16:41.540 the atrocities that ICE has been committing in Minnesota when they haven't really spoken out

00:16:46.240 about politics ever before. So this can be your friend from high school who you're not entirely

00:16:51.880 sure if their husband voted for Trump, if they voted at all, who really just posts cute puppy

00:16:58.480 videos. And then all of a sudden they're posting a lot of anti-ICE content. And some people are

00:17:05.240 like, oh, wow, too little, too late. How dare you only start speaking up now and attacking them

00:17:12.660 online? This is also happening to a lot of lifestyle influencers, many of whom are actually

00:17:18.780 named Katie because it was one of the most popular names starting in the late 80s, all through the

00:17:23.460 90s, and then even the early 2000s. I personally probably know about 100 Katie's. The only women's

00:17:29.260 name that might be a little bit more popular is the Emily's, but no one is ever going after the 0.99

00:17:34.100 Emily's because the Emily's would would dropkick a bitch, to be fair, to be honest. Never go after 0.99

00:17:39.720 the Emily's. But OK, yes. So these influencers who are lifestyle influencers, they're cooking 0.83

00:17:45.700 influencers. Some of them are actual hockey and soccer mom influencers. These are some people who

00:17:51.760 have never spoken up about politics before. And yet and yet and yet the situation with ICE right

00:17:57.660 now has finally made them want to speak out. And they're getting a lot of shit. They're getting a 1.00

00:18:02.780 lot of shit online. First off, they're being labeled the Katie's, which no one wants to be 1.00

00:18:06.780 the new version of the Karens. And even though some of those original Karens were awful, I still 0.69

00:18:12.720 feel so bad for anyone named Karen. Like I look at people and my mom has a lot of friends named

00:18:17.620 Karen. And I look at those women and I'm like, I'm so sorry. You know, you're not awful. You're

00:18:22.880 a lovely lady. You were a lovely lady who used to take me to Chuck E. Cheese when I was a kid. 0.78

00:18:27.540 I don't even know your politics, but I'm sorry everyone hates you now when you introduce

00:18:30.920 yourself. That sucks for you. Same thing for the Katie's. So I've been seeing a lot of women on the 0.99

00:18:36.540 left attacking these Katie's online for saying, hey, too little too late. You should have been 1.00

00:18:43.180 in the fight before. We've been doing this right for a long time and you're just jumping on the

00:18:48.140 bandwagon. I do not like this. I do not like this even a little bit. And I say this a lot. I usually

00:18:56.460 don't say it as much on my podcast because what I'm about to say could be divisive, but I'm no

00:19:03.920 longer as worried about being canceled as I was before. So I'm just going to say it because I

00:19:08.540 think it's an important message. As progressive women, it is very important that we do not shit 0.99

00:19:16.040 all over each other. It is very important that we make our tent bigger, that we welcome in women who 0.99

00:19:23.100 are maybe just having a political conversion, who maybe have checked out of politics, because

00:19:28.120 let's be honest, following politics is terrible and miserable, and a lot of people checked

00:19:33.580 out, and they might not have told you they checked out, but they checked out.

00:19:36.500 Some of my smartest women friends, highly educated women, women at the tops of their 0.98

00:19:42.660 fields, have told me, I just don't follow political news anymore, because I can't stomach

00:19:48.000 it, because I don't have a place for it in my life.

00:19:50.200 again maybe good for them but not for you but the future of a progressive america or the future of 1.00

00:19:56.320 an america that actually takes care of people depends on bringing these women back into the 1.00

00:20:01.960 fold it depends on making our tent bigger it depends on us listening and having real conversations 1.00

00:20:08.920 instead of having these knee-jerk reactions of oh too little too late i've been working so hard

00:20:15.100 you're not welcome here because you know who's going to welcome these people the other side

00:20:20.160 The Republican tent is, it's not even a tent.

00:20:22.740 It's just like one of those parachutes that kids hold up in preschool and anyone at all

00:20:28.340 can run under it and no one is kept out.

00:20:30.840 They're like, oh, are you a pedophile? 0.62

00:20:32.540 Welcome to our tent. 0.98

00:20:33.800 Come on in.

00:20:34.880 We love you.

00:20:35.880 You're welcome.

00:20:36.340 Here's some snacks.

00:20:37.620 Here's some snacks for you here in our tent.

00:20:40.100 Okay.

00:20:40.440 And that is one of the reasons that they are winning.

00:20:43.240 They do not try to cancel someone for coming over to their side, for finally saying, oh

00:20:48.720 my gosh, you know what?

00:20:49.620 this is the thing that tipped me this is the thing that converted me this is the thing I finally want

00:20:55.680 to use my voice for they say come on in come on in we've got a butter plate for you and that's

00:21:03.060 what we need to be doing so yes I think that you can have your personal opinions about the fact

00:21:10.320 that maybe someone is coming to all of this a little bit too late or you can choose to sit and

00:21:16.840 listen and welcome them. Because honestly, we need more bodies in this tent. We need more bodies in

00:21:24.200 this fight. We need more people who honestly just want to make the world a better, safer,

00:21:32.040 and saner place than it is right now. So if what is happening in Minnesota right now,

00:21:38.240 I can't say Minnesota without saying it, like Minnesotans in Minnesota, in Minnesota right now. 0.97

00:21:44.680 I'm so sorry if you're from Minnesota and you're like, you sound ridiculous. 0.69

00:21:48.260 Anyway, if what is happening in Minnesota right now is the gateway drug to get people

00:21:53.580 invested in more progressive policies, in more progressive politics, to wake people

00:21:59.240 up and say, this really matters.

00:22:01.460 This impacts your life.

00:22:02.680 This impacts your neighbor's life.

00:22:04.520 Come on.

00:22:05.160 It's time for us to get back in the fight.

00:22:07.360 Cool.

00:22:08.040 I'm all for it.

00:22:09.420 Get in our tent.

00:22:10.860 I'll make the cheese plate.

00:22:11.800 let's take a really quick break and then I just want to close out with some things that I'm loving

00:22:17.160 right now okay we're back I am late to this I'm very late to this but I love it so much

00:22:29.600 I am obsessed with Amy Poehler's podcast now I am the first person to say that I think a lot

00:22:35.780 of these celebrity podcasts are just cheap TV or just low budget television talk shows. They're

00:22:41.800 not really podcasts. But Amy Poehler's is great. And I started listening to it when I was running.

00:22:48.360 The Gwyneth Paltrow episode just brought me so much joy. I mean, it actually it made me it made

00:22:53.280 me feel very warmly towards towards Gwyneth. I mean, I've always felt warmly towards Amy Poehler

00:22:57.520 because she is a national treasure. But I'm all in. I'm all in on Good Hang with Amy Poehler.

00:23:03.040 all in. I can't say enough good things about season two of Shell Game. In this show,

00:23:07.980 journalist Evan Ratliff, who is truly a delight to listen to, he decides to try to launch a startup

00:23:13.460 with just him and five AI employees. The funniest part for me is when the AI employees try to decide

00:23:20.660 whether or not to go on a company offsite, like a hiking company offsite, despite the fact that

00:23:26.180 they're not actual humans. It's great. It's great. It's funny. It goes there. It actually makes you

00:23:32.380 feel a lot better about the scaries that AI is going to take over the world, because Ratliff

00:23:37.640 shows that it's just not there yet, okay? But it's also a really good reminder that none of this is

00:23:42.180 science fiction anymore. This is our current reality, and understanding it is imperative for

00:23:46.760 all of us. I don't know about you, but I've been hibernating for the past 10 days. It's been so

00:23:53.480 cold. Charlie and I were walking home from his swim team yesterday, and the wind nearly knocked

00:23:59.980 both of us over. Like we had to hide inside the vestibule of a very fancy apartment just to warm

00:24:07.340 up again to walk the like six more blocks home. It's ridiculous. I'll do anything to not go 0.95

00:24:13.520 outside right now. I'm wrapping myself in fuzzy blankets and we're watching a lot of movies. I

00:24:19.360 mentioned Tron 2 at the beginning of this episode. By now, my kids are definitely watching it. We

00:24:25.260 watched Tron 1. It's, you know, the movie, the Disney movie from the early 80s with Jeff Bridges,

00:24:30.560 where Jeff Bridges gets sucked into a video game. And actually, it's pretty fun. It's a pretty fun

00:24:36.820 movie. But we've been trying to watch as much Olympics as possible. I am a massive Olympic

00:24:43.840 nerd. I gotta say, I'm not a fan of a lot of streaming services. But Peacock, they have done

00:24:55.260 frankly like the winter olympics even more than the summer olympics i love gymnastics and i love

00:25:00.320 swimming but i gotta say downhill skiing big air snowboarding lugeing lugeing is ridiculous okay

00:25:08.980 lugeing and bobsledding and all of it i just i can't get enough i can it it is it is now the

00:25:15.520 soundtrack of my life we are non-stop all olympics all the time in our house my kids even the baby

00:25:22.340 have made Go USA signs, and frankly, until it creeps back up over 30 degrees, I'm not leaving,

00:25:29.380 okay? I'm an indoor cat watching all the Olympics, eating all of the dips under all of the fuzzy

00:25:36.320 blankets at my house, and no shame, okay? If there was ever a time for hygge, it is right now. 0.90

00:25:43.180 Now, watching the Olympics reminded me of a truly excellent movie, which we re-watched last night, 0.99

00:25:48.980 and it gave my whole family all of the feels. All the feels. I mean, I'm sure that you've seen this.

00:25:55.460 I don't know if you've seen it again lately, but if you haven't, it's a really fun Olympic week

00:26:00.180 watch. Cool Runnings. Yes, the Disney movie about the Jamaican Olympic bobsled team, but you know

00:26:07.780 what I'd forgotten about that movie? I'd forgotten that John Candy plays the coach. And I will watch

00:26:12.300 anything that John Candy does. I love him. I'm very psyched to watch the new John Candy documentary.

00:26:18.500 Actually, I think we're going to have that on tap for today

00:26:21.520 while we're waiting for the Bad Bunny Super Bowl concert to begin

00:26:25.500 because no one cares about the Seahawks or the Patriots.

00:26:30.600 That's who's playing, right?

00:26:31.640 I mean, go birds.

00:26:32.500 I mean, when the birds aren't involved, we don't care in this house.

00:26:35.540 I'm wearing my birds jersey right now.

00:26:38.020 I've got some birds donuts downstairs that I just picked up from the grocery store

00:26:41.940 because if you live in Philadelphia,

00:26:43.700 you're just you're pretending that the birds are doing something special today that's that's how

00:26:48.840 we roll uh but I am I am very excited to see Bad Bunny in concert but yes so anyway that was a

00:26:55.420 tangent and a long way of saying rewatch Cool Runnings it got my kids so into bobsledding

00:27:00.820 and also I have to say even though we were planning on not doing anything big for spring

00:27:05.680 break this year we were just going to go up to the Catskills and chill and work on our bookcase

00:27:10.360 book trailer. Now I kind of want to go to Jamaica. Like I nearly booked tickets last night while

00:27:15.960 watching Cool Runnings. I did. I did. But it was really fun. And then Disney served us Miracle,

00:27:21.140 the movie loosely based on The Miracle on Ice, America versus Russia Olympic hockey. And even

00:27:27.560 though it might not have the spice of heated rivalry, thankfully, because it was served to

00:27:31.820 my kids on Disney, I'll do anything to keep my household psyched about the Olympics. So I'm all

00:27:36.120 in. All in on that. And as for really good reads, I just finished the book, The Rachel Incident.

00:27:42.800 I'm really late to this book. It's by Caroline O'Donohue, who I really like a lot. She also has

00:27:48.320 a great podcast called Sentimental Garbage, which I swear is going to become your next great listen.

00:27:53.900 Her episodes with Dolly Alderton crack me up. It is like being a fly on the wall with two best

00:28:00.360 friends, and it's just pure joy, pure joy. But the Rachel incident was also pure joy. I've given

00:28:07.580 it to about four of my friends. I actually dropped it off at my friend Leslie's house this morning.

00:28:11.320 It's a coming-of-age book set in Ireland during the financial crisis. I don't even want to tell

00:28:17.540 you anything else about it. I'll tell you a little bit, a little bit. Rachel, the main character,

00:28:22.040 falls in love with her married professor, the enigmatic Dr. Fred Byrne, but then it all totally 1.00

00:28:27.440 goes to shit. And it's not even about her falling in love with her professor. It's about her falling 0.99

00:28:31.700 in love with herself and with life and with her gay best friend. This is just one of those books

00:28:36.480 that is going to make you laugh out loud. And I'm trying to be better about recommending books on

00:28:41.940 every platform that I have, every chance that I get, because with the news that the Washington

00:28:47.260 Post has laid off their entire book staff, and with so many book review sections closing almost

00:28:53.940 every single day. I think it's imperative for any of us with a platform, for any of us with a voice

00:28:59.380 to recommend all of the books that we love. Word of mouth is the best thing that can happen to a

00:29:06.040 book. So I'm going to be recommending books everywhere you see me. The Rachel Incident,

00:29:10.660 it is fantastic. Grab a copy today. It's one of those books that you're going to want to read

00:29:14.900 with a friend. So get a copy for you, get a copy for a friend, and then do a book club of two.

00:29:19.440 I love a book club of two because you know what's the hardest thing in the world? 0.85

00:29:22.640 trying to get five busy women in their 40s together in one room during bedtime. 0.98

00:29:27.380 Okay, it's awful. It's so hard. 0.78

00:29:29.420 I want more of it in my life, but it's also very logistically difficult.

00:29:34.120 So just do a book club with two of you.

00:29:35.720 Make a restaurant reservation, read the book,

00:29:38.100 don't talk to each other, and then talk about it over dessert.

00:29:41.820 Boom. I just planned your Tuesday night for you.

00:29:43.960 And also make that reservation at 5 o'clock,

00:29:45.940 because we deserve to be in bed by 8 p.m.

00:29:49.280 We all deserve good things.

00:29:50.640 I hope you enjoyed my little grab bag experiment

00:29:53.260 have a great day guys

00:30:20.640 Thank you.

Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - February 10, 2026

Grab Bag： The Ballerina Farm Raw Milk Scandal, Hating on the Katies & Intellectual It Girls

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