The Dinner Sisters: Navigating a Breakout Opportunity—and Devastating Grief
When I invited Dinner Sisters Co-Host Betsy Wallace on the show, it was with a couple of aims in mind. First, with Valentine’s Day approaching, I wanted to speak with a cooking show host to find out what she'd learned—over 200 episodes and the growth of a wildly devoted Facebook community—about the connection between food and relationships. Second, I wanted to unpack what Betsy and her sister and co-host, Kate Schultz, had created that inspires so much love from listeners. One answer: An impeccably crafted structure and the discipline to stick to it. Another: As a listener, you probably won't notice the structure, because the rapport between the sisters and their comfort on the mic is so evident. They work hard behind the scenes to make this production-heavy show easy on the ears. So easy, in fact, that the Food Network came calling, and the sisters found themselves contestants on the Great Food Truck Race. Listen to this episode to learn about setting purpose, values, and structure for your show, and for examples of how to grow wildly enthusiastic fans. But also, this episode became something very different, and bigger than that, as you will hear. It's also about the things we never talk about: Podfading. The intersection of life, death, and work. How we make choices we don’t want to make. About whether opportunity lost is lost forever. And about how we deal with loss when we are public figures. Should you share your personal life with your listeners? Betsy Wallace has a lot to say about this. If you like this episode, you’ll also like Episode 1: Emotional Bravery on Last Day with Stephanie Wittels Wachs.
Sound Judgment · Betsy Wallace, Kate Schulz, Andrew Parella, Elaine Appleton Grant, Tina Bassir
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Show Notes
Dinner Sisters Producer and Co-Host Betsy Wallace is an editorial director for podcasting at WebMD. Her career pivot into podcasting started in 2018 with the first episode of the Dinner Sisters, a cooking podcast she produces and co-hosts with her sister, Kate. Through the Dinner Sisters, Betsy has cooked and reviewed more than 500 recipes from popular food blogs, interviewed dozens of New York Time bestselling cookbook authors and competed on Season 15 of The Food Network’s Great Food Truck Race.
Together, Betsy and her sister, Kate Schulz, prepare three recipes each week, compare experiences and informal reviews, and run the Dinner Sisters Facebook Group.
When they're not cooking or recording, they can be found hunting through the millions of online recipes and food blogs to discover timeless classics (Smitten Kitchen’s Oven Braised Beef with Tomatoes and Garlic, anyone?) and hidden gems just waiting to be cooked up.
Kate lives and works in Atlanta, Georgia. She loves collecting regional jams and jellies, recipes that claim to be THE BEST or WORLD CHANGING and baking overly complicated German holiday cookies.
Betsy lives and work in Atlanta, Georgia and cooks dinner for five. She has three kids with lots of opinions. She’s a fan of one-bowl baking recipes and is significantly better at making dinner since starting this podcast.
For takeaways from today's episode about purpose, structure, values, building a successful Facebook community, and podfading, visit www.podcastallies.com/blog.
The episode discussed on today’s Sound Judgment:
Dinner Sisters Episode 210: Spinach Lasagna Dinner Party
A note about Sound Judgment: We believe that no podcast host does good work alone. All hosts rely on their producers, the hidden hands that enable a host to shine. We strive to give credit to every podcast producer whenever it’s possible to do so. Betsy and Kate produce and host Dinner Sisters on their own. Kate plans episodes and meals; Betsy handles the post-production.
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Credits
Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC.
Host: Elaine Appleton Grant
Project Manager: Tina Bassir
Sound Design and Audio Editing: Andrew Parella
Illustrator: Sarah Edgell
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Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: [email protected]. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.
Credits
Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC.
Host: Elaine Appleton Grant
Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir
Production Manager: Andrew Parrella
Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline
Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson