Ali Netzer, of Five Family Adventurers, uses travel to fully immerse her kids in new cultures and expose them to new flavors and exotic foods. In this episode Ali shares some of those experiences and how that influences her cooking and family mea...

Ali Netzer, of Five Family Adventurers, uses travel to fully immerse her kids in new cultures and expose them to new flavors and exotic foods. In this episode Ali shares some of those experiences and how that influences her cooking and family meals. She and her husband share food prep responsibilities and hear how their extensive New Year's Eve meal has turned into an annual tradition.

Transcript of this Episode

Andrea Heyman 00:00 Adventures Inm feeding my fam is a weekly podcast discussing the challenges and fun around feeding your family healthy meals. I'm Andrea Heyman and I've been a registered dietitian for over 25 years. So I know the importance of good nutrition. But I'm also a mom of three so I understand the challenges and humor that comes along with trying to make this happen. In this podcast, I'll share my tips, tricks and menus, but also share the stories and food prep failures that come along the way to interview guests. We'll discuss family food traditions, how to strengthen bonds around the family table, as well as their favorite family recipes. There isn't one right way to feed your family. But there are countless stories, you can take bits and pieces and learn from all of them.

Welcome to another episode of adventures and feeding my fam podcast. This is Andrea Heyman, and I'm really excited to share this conversation I have with Ali Netzer from Five Family Adventurers. In this episode, she shares how she immerses her kids in various cultures. And one way to do that is through food. So she's got some really incredible stories. But first I just wanted to mention coming up in another week is my meal planning health challenge keep tabs on my Instagram account and on Facebook. For additional details. It's going to be so great and I'm really looking forward to helping you all get healthy through meal planning. Allie is a world traveler and a mom who loves sharing her adventures and combining both. She uses food as a way to engage her kids and local cultures as well as to bring those cultures and Heritage's home. Food connects both their family and others as well as to each other. You can always find her in the kitchen on Friday night creating a large family meal to be enjoyed together. Also while reminiscing about many family adventures, she loves the hiking and walking her to high spirited chocolate Labradors.

Welcome, Ali. I'm so glad you joined us today for the podcast.

Ali N 02:22 Thank you so much for being here.

Andrea Heyman 02:25 How would you compare those traditions as you're growing up to how you do things now in your own home.

Ali N 02:33 So I took those traditions to heart and I took them with me as I grew up, I knew that I always wanted to have family meals, be able to cook for you know, if I had a family, I didn't know, you know whether or not I would have a family. But I always knew growing up, I would want to, you know, not sit in front of a TV, but eat as a family. And now, it was something that my parents instilled in me and I took it with me, you know, once I get married, we always sat down at a table. And then once the kids came along, it was really important for us to have meal time together. And I would say six out of seven nights, we do have meal times together. It is unusual. I mean, granted, there are some weeks that it's like five out of seven nights are poor, but seven nights. But I would say, you know, most of the time, it's six out of seven nights.

Andrea Heyman 03:25 That's really impressive. I mean, that's just fantastic. How do you think your kids and you as a family have been influenced? Or how do you think that's Yeah, I guess affected your family because of this really strong routine that you have.

Ali N 03:44 So I think the kids just know that, you know, when we come together as a family, it's our time to talk, it's our time to put down any kind of electronics, it's our time to take away any kind of school stresses, any kind of work stresses. And that's our time to just kind of relax and talk and be together. And so I think the kids have really enjoyed it. Because, you know, it's that week where I can't do the six out of seven nights and it's a five out of seven night. Well that, you know that second night that I can't do my concern like, Wait, you're not making dinner or dad's not making dinner. We're not sitting down together like something's wrong with the universe here. They really come to enjoy it. And I think they look forward to it.

Andrea Heyman 04:30 So what are your kids think? What are your older kids think when they go to friends houses and see how different the culture is around mealtime there? Because we say your house is not the norm these days. It's lovely. It's good, not norm.

Ali N 04:50 It is true. I mean, interestingly enough, there's been a little shift like with our teenagers because they want that teenage time and so they're kind of like you know, Can't we do it like so? And so where they don't have to have dinner every night? And I was like, but do they communicate? You know, do they spend that time together? You're gonna appreciate this when you're older, and you're going to talk to people who are going to say, wow, I really wish that was my family. I'm so I think them being teenagers are kind of like an that teenager acts like, another meal, even though right, once it comes together, they're happy to be there. Sure. Um, but, you know, they have also at the same time, they also have made comments of like, Oh, you know, so and so's mom orders out all the time. They never eat dinner together, or they're on the TV, you know, like, just little comments here and there that you can hear like, oh, wow, maybe they really do appreciate everything that we do.

Andrea Heyman 05:51 So I understand that you have a travel blog. And in fact, I've looked at your travel blog, can you tell the listeners a little bit about that?

Ali N 06:01 We have always traveled as a family with our kids. Since they were little, I mean, babies like three months old babies, we've always traveled with our kids. We love having them with us. We'd love the experience. And and when I moved to Baltimore, there were so many people I encountered who were like, why would you travel with your kids? Like, they won't remember anything? Why would you bring them along? It's just, you know, one more thing to have to deal with? Oh, my God, oh, they are our kids. I mean, yours, we enjoy having them. And so it just kind of started like really annoyed me that people were like, why would you travel with kids at a young age or, you know, until they were teenagers. I'm like, why one shoe? Like you're building these memories, ripping kids attracted to traveling, you're creating so much bonding time with your family, and introducing them to new cultures, languages, foods. And so basically going off of a friend's very popular blog. I was like, oh, if she can do this, I can do this. Like this doesn't look hard at all. And it's probably one of the toughest things I have ever done. I didn't realize how much work went into it. And it's been fun journey. And it's you know, it's a great way for me to essentially one day look back and be like, Oh, yeah, I remember that trip or I remember that trip and, you know, just have readers come along and ask questions and look to our blog or advice and that's really nice. So tell tell us the ni five family adventurers, and family adventures? Great. Yeah, these are five of us. And we you know, have been traveling. Like I said through the world, we've been fortunate enough to even a day trip we consider a travel that like a big travel thing. So you will write about that as well. Yes. Mowbray about day trips, road trips, going abroad, even popped in a base like baseball outing.

Andrea Heyman 08:06 Is that considered, you know, a family trip? A family time together? Yeah. And when you say we who else writes?

Ali N 08:15 Oh, no. Yeah, a lot of times I'll have my husband edits, writing, always good to have a pair of second eyes. And he writes to her work so you know, I love having him there. I'm doing this the writing and then there are also some like tips for travel, like how do you handle a road trip or why it's important to take kids or losing weight or not losing weight, but not gaining weight on traveling. That's ways to keep in shape when traveling.

Andrea Heyman 08:47 Okay, so you said that your husband will review the blog post but does Does he ever come back to you and say no, no, no alley, this is not how it went? Or this My memory is completely different.

Ali N 09:05 No, I've never had that. I have not yet. Not yet. There's always a chance. But now she is deep.

Andrea Heyman 09:12 So tell me why it's difficult. Why do you think this is a challenge? What makes it challenge?

Ali N 09:17 Oh, I thought it was just like you write you put it up, you're done. But it's not that case you have the writing is I'm not a writer, like from past. So writing in itself is very difficult. And I just didn't realize how difficult it can be. So it's like the writing then you have to edit the pictures but you have to put text with the pictures to make it searchable. Then you have to figure out the whole SEO of it. You know, how are you going to get it optimized for search engines. And then there's a whole social media side of it, which is crazy work amount of work like writing like a deal. We effort in a daily effort. I mean, keeping up with Pinterest keeping up with Instagram keeping up with every social media outlet you can think of. I haven't hit Tick Tock yet, but it's coming. So yeah, it's a lot of work. Fun. And you keep up on all of those platforms all the time among them. Yeah, yeah.

Andrea Heyman 10:24 And how long have you been blogging?

Ali N 10:27 About two years?

Andrea Heyman 10:29 And did you go back and write up articles from or blog posts from years past?

Ali N 10:36 I have. Yes. Yeah.

Andrea Heyman 10:39 And what was your what was one of your biggest food adventures when you were traveling?

Ali N 10:44 We had Yes. Yeah. So um, we've had a couple of them, I would say, definitely Cambodia. Mm hmm. The taste, the smells were totally differently. I had hired a guide, which we typically don't do. But in somewhere like Cambodia, you should have a guide. And who took us to a local market, outside of, you know, in the countryside. And so we went and, you know, he was kind of showing us some kind of like, listener to eat and there were deep fried silkworms. Okay, yeah. So we grabbed a bag of booze and the kids pop them in their mouth. Like it was fun. Yeah, baby what it was before they started eating. Yeah, they did. And ironically, we went to a silkworm farm right after that, to see who was with me. And I'm like, boy, we're eating all this info walking through here. Um, so yeah, so that was a huge adventure. And there was another time when we were in Spain. And we were in Madrid, and we went to this restaurant and, and they were known for their gooseneck barnacles, like literally barnacles. Okay, kind of on the side of rock side of foods, and it's a delicacy, and my daughter was in love with them. What does it taste like? mushy, it's like, squishy, and she's like, the SCI. Fi Yeah. Those are your most exotic foods you've eaten. Um, I would say those are pretty excited. You know, we we tend to like and pop from through dining as well, instead of like, over planning, which we've done in the past. Stop at a burrito stand in Guatemala, like a one woman burrito stand at a truck stop and see how she makes her salsa big day, you know, and it's Lacey. And it's full of flavor. And it's like an introduction to these kids like, feel and taste all of these flavors melding together. So it could be a basic taste, but it's so full of different kind of tastes that it's almost exotic. There was another instance when we did stop at a tribal village in Thailand yet in Thailand, we stopped at a tribal village and the village elders, were having a big barbecue. Men and my husband went in and you know, they gave him a piece of the pork, the pig that they were roasting, and it was he took a bite and he was like, writing away news picking test 10 and then, you know, hung around, and then he went, my husband went and bought them some beers. You know, that's like a really awesome, bold, nice thing to do. And once you brought the beers back, the tribal elders were lay the tour spots fear. Here's another piece of rain. Pushing the food again. Yeah. And they gave him a piece of the pig era, which is considered one of the best parts right? Yeah, so it went from like a Yeah, you can join with the pig intestine to elevating to the pig ear, which is rent honor. How on earth did you end up at a tribal barbecue? We set up a tour to go see to visit some of the tribes of Thailand like Karen Villa, the Karen tribe, the long neck tribe. And so one of the places was you know, they said to us to was a I want to say it was not it was a it was a Karen knows among tribe. And he just kind of talked to one of the village elders who was like, come on, we'll show you there's barbecue going on. kids were playing soccer with some of the local kids, which was really neat experience. And then as we continued on kind of a tour of seeing them and we actually went with one of the Karen tribesmen, he was the tour guide. He took us to turn village and they had houses on stilts. And we got stuck in one of the elders houses with a thatched roof, bamboo flooring, because of monsoon. So monsoon came in. And he offered us, honey, that he had just gathered a hump. It was amazing. And then gave us fermented tea leaves. Oh, yes. So that sounds incredible. It was incredible. It was incredible trying to fermented tea leaves. Yeah. Ali N final episode Page 6 of 10 Transcribed by

Andrea H Oh, wow. That's sensational. Look at you, you get not only are you exotic eaters and willing to try you know, new flavors, but you guys really try to immerse yourself in a new culture too it sounds like

Ali N 16:15 we do. And we really try to immerse the kids in it. And, you know, expand their palates. And say, like, you know, explain that some of these foods are part of the culture, like eating the pig intestine, eating all the parts of the pig tailed us now is what they do. You know, they don't leave anything behind. So we really worked hard to kind of teach our kids to respect and appreciate the different tastes and the different foods of different cultures. So do you have any other food traditions? Yes, so we, we definitely do every. So when 911 happened. This was pre children. We kind of it was such a sad time and a hard time. And so we kind of my husband and I came together and I think we weren't even married then. We came together and we were like, you know, we should have a big New Years and open some amazing bottles of blind because why would we wait? We were living in an apartment in Philadelphia we had and it was pretty small. But we had about six other people come over we got moved bottles of wine, which is really fancy cheeses from France. We had a cheese store that would like sneak in unpasteurized cheeses and, and just cut this amazing like, eight course meal. And so the tradition has gone on. And for years, we always include like truffles into our food. We always include starting up like caviar. One of our favorite things is to get the little not french fries. But what are those little potato kind of brown? Again, blanking on the name, tater tots, I was gonna say tater tots. Yeah, totally get paired. We deprive them and stuff on your back. I'm okay. I'm not kidding. We're deep vitamins rendered duck fat. And then we put them fresh like each Yeah, everyone takes one you put cream fresh on and then you put a really expensive little dollop of caviar and common dressings every eat. So our meals so we continued on with new years with the fancy thing they caught up to like 11 courses. So who comes to these meals is the same group of people it's the same group of people we have friends who live in Long Island who come down friends in Philadelphia who come down and you know through the years like the kids you know, we brought we first started without kids now we have kids and it's fun to see them growing up and and the kids participate in the meal in the beginning No. Okay, um, now that they're getting older, yes. Without the wine now Yeah, tradition has really been a wonderful tradition we all we all cook together we all clean together we all need together everyone sleeps at my house because obviously we don't want anyone driving. They have the line. Exactly. So everyone sleeps here and it's just been so great because it's a guaranteed getting to see them. Also in my family and among my friends. Everyone calls me la Marina de la sofa which is I don't know why they called me in or something. Because I love to make soup, any soup or one particular all kinds of soup. My favorite, like I said, I think earlier in the podcast is the spot show. And what I've learned to do. This is a funny story. When my husband and I were getting married, he put a shin Wah On our registry. And I've never seen one and it's a it's a wall. It's a fine mesh strainer. Okay, the wooden ladle is kind of art, not ladle, but a little wooden, like hammer kind of thing that you can walk around. And it what it does is it puts the soup through the Shinhwa. And nice, silky smooth. Yeah, so I've always made gazpacho by blending all the ingredients, and then putting in the shinwa. But you put it on the registry, I'd never seen him like this. Like, I don't mean this. I'm never gonna use this. I use it all the time. For my Wow. Yeah. No. And then I also one of my favorites, especially in the winner is gumbo. Mm hmm. And I will sit and I will stir that rule for 30 minutes, sometimes 45 minutes. Um, you know, to get it nice and coffee Brown. And it's almost like you're meditating there. As you're stirring. Yeah, i goes from a really, really light tan to a deep, deep dark brown. And so everyone knows in my family that if I'm making gumbo, you do not bother me while I'm stirring the light. I don't care if your arm is falling off. It's gotta wait. My route he starts. Right. And where did you learn to do this? Or did you just pick it up from practice and reading? Yeah, practice some reading. I mean, I definitely I will find a recipe sometimes. And but I'll, I'll make it into my own. I'll use it very loosely. So fun thing about cooking is that you can always make your own things like baking. It's a science correcting method up, you mess it up like it. Yeah, it shows it. But cooking is really fun that if you mess up, you can always adjust it and make it come back to life and make it fun and and like I said earlier, I think seasoning is so important to add that salt. So what's what's a cooking sale that you can think of off the top of your head. I suck at baking. I can read. I can like I love baking breads. I even got into the sourdough trend that was happening during I was like, ooh, I'll jump on that wagon. And so I do I'm okay with baking bread. But when it comes to cake, they're always lopsided. Together, they're like, completely lopsided. And I just think it's so frustrating, like, I don't understand my mind are always lopsided, bpce fine, but they're just never quite as pretty as the ones you know, other people make. I find it so fascinating.

Andrea Heyman 23:20 And you're not the only one but some people can make elaborate elaborate dishes, but have a really hard time baking. And other people are the exact opposite. Like they they can bake because they can follow everything to a tee. But when it comes to cooking and experimenting, and you know, like making up your own flavors, or adding or adjusting, they can't do it.

Ali N 23:46 And I know it's so true. I mean I think that's the problem with me and baking some like I don't need to follow everything perfectly but in reality I do you do. You really I'm not a baker either. I will do it and there's like a few things that I will do. But it's actually really my daughter who has emerged as quite the exceptional Baker. And she follows those recipes to a tee like she will sit there and sift flour and she will you know do all like she will need it the right amount and she's very very precise with it. That's worse. That's awesome that you that you know she's a rule follower.

Andrea Heyman 24:32 Okay, there you go.

Ali N 24:34 Yeah.

Andrea Heyman 24:34 So since we're coming into fall, what is you one of your favorite fall suits besides your gumbo?

Ali N 24:41 Yeah, so jumbo is definitely a number one. Just because it is a whole day like it's most of the day process. My kids love my stew. And I know it's like a chunky soup bombers, but they love My stew. I'm not a huge fan of the ginger carrot soup. I actually hate ginger. I cannot stand ginger. So that never comes across. That really surprises me. Yeah, I really don't like chunky soup to say. So a lot of my soups or bouquets are like, you know, very thinned out. I love making wild mushroom soup, but I'll try to send it out as much as possible. Okay, so that's one of their favorites as well. And then the good old fashioned chicken soup, it's like to die for in the house. Every day on my alley. I love hearing all of your ideas and stories and traditions. And you're making me want soup.

Andrea Heyman So thank you for coming on today. I think everyone's really gonna enjoy hearing what you have to say,

Ali N 25:56 No, thank you. And I'm so excited for this podcast. I think it's a great way to you know, bring people in like, we're not all professional cooks and we don't always, you know, have everything perfect and things don't always go right. But that's okay. It's like it's totally okay. So I love the fact that you're bringing these stories to light and showing how everyone's different. You know, everyone has a different way of preparing. And like I said, like, I'm the worst planner in the world. And that's okay. Like it's still good thing.

Andrea Heyman 26:29 Well said, Ali. I hope you all enjoyed that conversation with Ali as much as I do. She was so generous, and she shared a couple of her new year's menus. with us. Those will be linked in the show notes for you guys to see. And she's also sharing her gazpacho recipe, check out Allie at her website, and blog page at five family adventures and also at her Instagram account as well. Take care and I'll see you next week.