E190 Carolyn Sandler

This week's guest is Carolyn Sandler, who joins us from Toronto, Ontario. Born and raised in Toronto, Carolyn has a passion for all things dessert related. Carolyn has been freelancing in the film and TV industry with a strong focus on the Justics and Culinary over the last 15 years plus. Carolyn has worked on a number of popular culinary TV shows and has taught food media, tourism and culinary theory at a Toronto College.

Being a freelancer, Carolyn has her hands in a lot of different ventures, so like for her never gets boring nor redundant. Make sure you check her out on Instagram at Ms. Underscore-Sugar-Skull and her online Etsy storefront named Fig and Fortune, or check the show notes as always for all the links. We had a great time talking with Carolyn.

Enjoy the show. We are back with another episode of the Industry Podcast. My name is Kip. This is Dan.

What's going on, man? It's me, man. I'm not too much the usual start of the work week. The work in like a chump.

What about you? How's your weekend? Kind of slow. We had that shitty weather.

This is new. Yeah, it was raining all. Actually, it was raining for three days. I understood it.

It's sort of a newer philosophy where people don't go out if the weather's bad. When we were in our 20s and 30s, rain didn't stop me if I wanted to get stuck up. Yeah, back then we did also the Netflix either. That's true.

That's a very strong point. There's many options here. Kind of stuck watching the movie of the week on CTV or something like that. I would like to say I got a DM from one of my bars.

I won't say which one. From someone who had thought that they had received bad service. Oh, I just got my DM. And I just wanted to give a shout-out to the press.

I'm not going to say who it was either just in case they don't want that to be exposed. But good on them for DMing me and being like, hey, I'm not going to post a shitty review. I just wanted to say we didn't get great service at your bar the other night. And here are a couple things that happened.

And that is the way you handle it. You want the public posting of... Just like, because this way I can do something about it, right? I was like, the answer there and I'm just like, come back anytime and we'll buy you a couple drinks or some appetizers or whatever you like.

If you can give us another shot, a story you had about experience. That's just called normal interaction as opposed to just saying nothing, going home and posting a shitty review on one of these sites. Yeah. When I can't do anything about it at that point.

I would say how often does that happen versus the public posting where someone's up in arms? I would say 99% public posting in 1%. So very rarely people actually do the private message. Yeah.

That's why I'm bringing it up. I thought I might be a quarter. You can get like that and then 75. No, you still get the odd person who will say something to you while they're there.

But even that experience is way less than it used to be. Now so many people just take the cowardly route of saying nothing and then going home and talking to their keyboard. Yeah. So again, I'm not going to mention who it was.

But if you're listening, shout out to you for doing it that way. And anyone else listening who has a bad experience at a bar restaurant, that's either talk to the person who's serving you right then. So probably they can probably fix your issue or, you know, do the DM thing later. If you don't like if you're nervous about the public confrontation, but just don't do the shitty thing where you just go home and write a review.

And that's all I'd say about that. If you are in Kitchenwaterloo, most people have a good time at my place. Just come by to one of them. Sugar run.

That's a down town kitchen to speak easy. Check out our Instagram to see what's going on there. And then Babylon sisters at Babylon sisters bar up town Waterloo to check out what is going on there. Lots of fun stuff coming up at both places.

So you want to check that out if you're in the kitchen waterloo Cambridge, Guelph, Bergus. There's a Laura. Sure. Well, it's a Toronto.

Come for this. If you like what we're doing here on the show, you should subscribe, follow, rate and review. That helps a great deal. And if you want to be a guest on the show, it's info at the industry podcast club, or you can DM us directly at the industry podcast on Instagram where you will find the amazing artwork by Zac Hannah at Zac Hannah.co.

Check out all the cool stuff he's doing. And I think that's all we really need to talk about. Sounds about right. Let's go.

Let's get all the show. Okay. Carolyn Sandler's with us. How are you?

Hi, I'm good. I'm absolutely appreciate it. I'm actually, I'm actually pissed because I got a fucking letter in the mail saying I got caught on video for running a red light. That's how I ended my day today before I started talking to you.

So I'm going to try and drink that out of memory. We have mail two strikes against you apparently. Right. One with the DM and then one with the red light.

I know it's not good. I'm not doing a good job. So tell us about the kind of job you're doing there in Toronto. You were born and raised there.

I was born and raised in the city. City girl for most of my life lived in a few other places, but always ended up back here. It's a funny thing with what I do. I'm not really sure what I do to be honest.

I read your bio and I wasn't sure either. I was like, you do it like cool. But I just put my finger on what your job is. It's really difficult right now.

And you know, it's it's been like that for I think since probably COVID, you know, everybody's kind of gone through this like transitional sort of like, what am I doing with my life, you know, what am I doing with my career. So forever I freelanced in TV and that's been my bread and butter for a really long time. And up until 2015, I was like really doing that as a full time thing and then I got really burnt out and I realized that, you know, I really needed to pursue food as an option for my career and just, you know, be able to do it. So I left TV, I started events and catering managing for a company here in Toronto, then went back to TV, and then that kind of started my whole career journey in food, television and food media.

And from that, that's like branched out into like, you know, I taught food media at Centennial College and, you know, I do all these little side food media projects. I hosted a show and now I have a little small batch clothing and accessories company, which is food focused, a lot of chefs in Toronto and other places. I just had the pastry chef from Nova order one of my T shirts and promoted online. So that's like massive massive.

So yeah, I like to have my hand in a lot of different things. So that it doesn't ever get boring or redundant, you know, so being able to do freelance work and contract work and having people say, hey, do you want to do this? And I'm like, yeah, that sounds great. And then the next week do something else that's it just keeps it all interesting.

So when you were starting out then, like, and you say you started out in media, was that supposed to be in food media or you were doing all different kinds of media? No, I mean, I started my first TV freelance job is like right out of college. I was about 22, I want to say, 21 22, and I was pursuing a fashion degree and was supposed to go back to school for a post diploma. And then I really needed a job and someone was like, hey, do you want to be a personal assistant to a director of a TV show and it paid at the time?

Which was an exorbitant to my money was $500 a week. And I was like, yes, yes, I want to take that job. And that started everything for me. So I was doing mainly lifestyle reality, Renau shows and wedding shows and then eventually food shows.

So your training isn't in culinary necessarily. You just kind of got into it through the media side of it. So that's super interesting. We haven't really thought to anyone who came at it from that direction.

So yeah, talk to us about how that sort of morphed into a more food media focused. I mean, it was really before the food media thing happened. I think in my early 30s was very much like, okay, food is this really big part of my life and I love it and I enjoy it and it brings my life a lot of joy. And I had zero formal training, zero culinary school, any of that.

So I really had to learn as I go. And I've had to learn how to bake from scratch, I've had to learn how to use on classroom scratch, I've had to learn how to whatever from scratch. So I'm still learning. I mean, I'm still in that process of like, okay, I need to practice my onion cutting skills and I need to make this my, you know, all these different types of skills.

And then when I went into events and catering, which was for Fidel Castro, as you guys know, Matt Vasile and Lisa Marie and all of that. That's actually been on the show before. Oh, yeah. So I love Matt.

He's a very dear friend and so I ran his events and catering for a year. And that really allowed me to like focus. You know what I mean? Like it really like laser focused my, my love her food, my understanding of food and really set me up for a lot of like amazing things to come.

So when you say that you now teach courses in food media, I'm just sort of interested. Like, how is that different than teaching like a media course? Well, I mean, it isn't. It isn't right.

Like it is media. So you're giving the general overview, but there's such a focus on food. So like, for example, you know, if I have my students do like a sizzle reel for a show concept, it had to be food focused. Okay.

If it was like an empty word of the install, if it was like a shot show or if it was a, you know what I mean? So it had to be food related and within that space. Why is it that people are so fascinated with these shows about cooking? Because everybody wants to be a rock star.

You know what I mean? Like there are certain industries, musicians, tattooers, chefs that people revere and they think it's the coolest thing that they've ever seen and they're dying to have that insider knowledge. Yeah. And there's so many of them now.

Like, are we reaching an apex of like how many of these, like how many concepts are left for a food show? I mean, I personally in my own opinion, just because I feel like I was at the height of it when I was really into, I was doing all of the major competition food series here. So like Master Chef, Top Chef, Fire Masters, all of those. And it burns you out so quickly.

And I think the concepts are kind of, I don't want to say on the decline, but I think because of streaming services like Netflix and all those others that are pumping out content, A, and after eight and B at a higher quality. I think maybe we're going to see some different formats come into play, which we already have, but more. Right. Well, I guess, I mean, it's kind of weird when you think about, like, they don't run out of ideas for sitcoms and shit like that.

There's always ideas, right? There's always ideas. People are never going to be disinterested in food. People are never going to be disinterested in entertainment, right?

So those things are always there. But, you know, the concepts, I think, kind of get stale a little bit. Like how many times do we need to see Guy Fieri do a grocery cook off? For me, I haven't even hit one time yet.

Right. Right. Right. But then there's the demographic that, you know, loves food network, loves Rachel.

Loves, you know, Gordon Ramsay and all that. So there is that, there is that audience still for that. Right. And what's this?

There's a show now that you have to guess whether something is a cake or what? Yeah. Yeah. You know what?

Yeah. Yeah. It's played it to us. Is it cake?

Is it cake or a ball or like the actual object? Like I think it's like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a can of beer.

Is it can or is it cake? Yeah. I gotcha. Okay.

I mean, you know, it's really fun. Like I only watch myself personally. I watch spring baking championship and I watch nailed it. Those are really the only like food shows that I watch.

And there's a few reasons behind it. But I don't really watch anything else food. Otherwise, maybe you're specifically kind of into desserts too. Right?

Yeah. Very much. Yeah. Okay.

So that makes sense. So, I mean, you can spot the fucking cake. You know, some of them are really dumb. I'm like, holy shit, that's not cake or that's cake.

You know, I don't think it's me that they're trying to appeal to. Right. Yeah. There's a million times that Dan and I'll be having a couple drinks after one of these shows watching some TV or sports or whatever and be like, I just don't think we're the target demographic.

Yeah. Yeah. It's fine. No, it runs across all formats, right?

Like there are like how many like, what's that show? Like, where you run like an internet? Like, you run like an endurance course, like American Ninja or like, you know, like, I'm not, I'm not a demographic, but there is a demographic for that. Yeah, there's a demographic for everything.

I'm kind of fascinated by the whole thing. When you're doing these shows, like, what was your specific day to day job at all these shows? Say, like pick anyone. It really honestly, it's such a tough question because on every show, I was sort of a different thing.

So, like, for example, I was an ingredient sorcerer on MasterChef. So, like, I would source the pantry items, I would source the items for challenges. I would make sure that we had what we needed, things like that. You know, on top chef, I was more of like the culinary production manager.

So, I was taking care of like orders and things. So, it really, really depended on the show. And now that I've gotten sort of out of those large formats, like for example, I'm working on a project right now where I'm assistant food styling and I couldn't be happier because it's like less responsibility. The case is really good.

Like, I get to be around food. I get to work with my friend. Like, it's, they're ups and, you know, good and bad towards it. But it's really, every job is different.

So much like probably anything really, once you get your foot in the door and you start making like, you're doing a good job, people know about you kind of just get other opportunities, right? Correct. It's, you know, like any other freelance type of gig, right? Where it's like people, you know off the top of their head.

And you're like, Hey, I need, you know, culinary producer for this thing. Like who do you know? And they're like, Hey, I know Carolyn Sandler and she's great or whatever. It's, it's a lot of work to mouth.

It's a lot of reputation. It's, you know, I've been in the industry now for 18, oh my god, 18 years. Yeah. So, you know, at this point, if people don't know my name and then like what the hell am I doing?

Right. Yeah. Then you probably fucked up. Yeah.

Or they know your name for the wrong reason, which is the other. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, how, you know, it happens.

My god. Yeah. So do you have like, I'm just kind of fascinating by it because like whatever, I mean, I own bars. So that's obviously also a risky proposition as a career.

But like, do you ever get nervous about not having a gig for a while or like be like, they can take a certain kind of personality to be like, I'm just going to do freelance stuff, which is, I think it's awesome to brave. You're doing whatever you get to do whatever you want to do, but there's a large amount of uncertainty that goes with that as well, right? Totally. As much freedom as there is, there's a lot of uncertainty.

I really decimated the industry and still is decimating the industry. And the writers. Yeah. I mean, I mean, I did everything.

But with us, we couldn't go to set. We couldn't work. We couldn't do this. And the writer strikes the actor strikes like it all trickles down and it all affects everything.

So, you know, I've been freelance pretty well my entire life. And I wouldn't do it any other way. My parents are freelancers. Like I just grew up with it.

It was something I was working with. But there are times like now where the jobs aren't there and they're not coming either. Right. So, you know, as much as you have maybe some savings or whatever, everybody's panicking at the moment.

But everybody I talked to was panicked, right? Because they just don't know what's happening. They don't know what's coming down the pipe. Well, you know what might help with that, Carolyn, is a good stiff cocktail.

And if you were looking for something like that, then what you're already drinking. So that's good. We're drinking. But once I can get them to civil pours, it's from the people at Civil Liberties in Toronto.

I'm sure you're familiar with Civil Liberties Caron. So they're probably to civil pours and they are pre-bottled or keg'd craft cocktails. The sounds of this. What kind of flavors do they have?

They have old-fashioned. They have margarita. They have whiskey sour. They have espresso martini.

And the beauty of these is you just pour them into a shaker or a mixing glass depending on the cocktail, obviously, and stir or shake and they are ready to go. So if you're like a high-volume craft cocktail bar like my bars are, they're perfect. Oh, wonderful. Pour them out of the keg or you just pour them out of the bottle if you want to go that way.

I've tried this product. These products are awesome. Said many times on the show, the espresso martini and the whiskey sour, they actually have the perfect amount of foam on them once you've shaken them out. I mean, they are professional bartenders making these and they are using a proprietary patented vacuum distillation technology.

Fancy? Yeah, it is fancy. Sounds of that. And it's just a stable product as well.

It is sustainable. And we're going to get some more information in this coming week. So people can understand exactly how they're sourcing this. I just don't want to give away any of their trade stickers without their permission.

But I have been privy to it. Let me just tell you, it's all sustainable repurposed product that goes into these products, which I think is amazing. And it's great for your margins as well. They're priced appropriately to a point where you can mark the mop at your bar or restaurant and not gouge anyone.

Wonderful. And how does this deliver? Like, is this keg's bottles or? Yeah, they have the 20 liter keg or they have the 750 mil bottles.

You can get them both ways. To order that, you would go to sales at civilpores.com. That's sales at civilpores.com. It's also great.

Like, if you just want to host a party at your house and you're not an amazing bartender, like many of us aren't. Then hit them up, sales at civilpores.com. Get a case of bottled old fashions. Sounds good.

Especially if you're perhaps hosting an event. You have a special occasion permit. You want to get everyone drunk at the baby shower? Yeah, that's right.

You're hosting a madmen party. Yes. In case of these old fashions and go to town. But no, they really are a terrific product.

They're also amazing people to work with. We're super happy to be sponsored by them. So check them out sales at civilpores.com for all your free batch cocktail needs. I'll put a link to that in the show notes as well for anyone that's interested.

Okay. Back to you, Carolyn. Let's talk a little bit more about your new project with the fashion design for chefs. I don't know if it's specifically targeted to back a house or?

It's honestly for everybody. Like I say, when I was trying to explain what my company is, it's really for chefs, it's eaters. It's people that love food, people that love good puns, people that love slutty puns. It's just for everybody.

I know it takes a certain type of person to love that kind of humor, but I don't know. I think there's a market for it. Give us a couple examples. I did check it out on your Instagram page.

But for our listeners, maybe having it first of all, tell them where to find you on Instagram. That'll help. So you can find me at miss M.I.S.S. underscore sugar skull.

And on that Instagram is going to my Etsy bio. So if you're local in Toronto, you can pick up or whatever. And if you need shipping, you can go to Etsy and order. I would say like my biggest seller now is my more to Dell T-shirt, which is the motor head logo, but it says more to Dell.

My biggest one I've done that the more to Dell also in master puppets like the Metallica font. One of the ones that I love that is tricky for people. It says artichoke me daddy. That's like some people.

They get it. They know they're wise. Don't want them to wear it. I've had that.

Yeah, there's great ones on there. And for me, it's like, I struggle with the idea sometimes because I want it to be insider, but I don't want it to be insider enough where people don't get it. It can't be too only this group of people knows what that means. But then I don't want it to be like the live, laugh, love type of thing.

I just don't want it to be generic. I want it to be niche, but not to niche. So there's a struggle there. It's a fine line, but I always feel the same way about anything you create.

I mean, opening bars and restaurants, you want it to be available to the mass public because obviously you want to make money. That's why you start a business, but you also don't want to maybe go the most generic route. Right? So it's kind of, yeah, it's hard to kind of straddle that line.

And there's so many times in my career where I've looked at the people who do do the generic shit and be like, why am I doing what I do? It's the struggle every day because so basically, I don't know if you know what a cricket is. It's a vinyl cutter. So I use a vinyl cutter to create images and designs and I heat press.

But cricket is like, it lives within this very suburban mom, live, laugh, love, soccer mom, home goods kind of place. Right? So a lot of the times what I'm seeing of what people is putting out is just that, you know, like the infinity symbol with the birds flying out of it or like, what ever you know, mom meets her wine. Or, you know, so I struggle sometimes with that same thing where it's like, I could just make a t-shirt that says mommy's wine time and probably make a bazillion dollars, but like deeply in my soul, I cannot.

I can't do it. I'll be putting up that shirt right after this podcast. You'll probably be a millionaire. So you come up for the designs yourself or do you collaborate with some friends or like?

No, it's it's all me. Oh, wow. Yeah, the only time I collaborate, which I'm really lucky for is with my husband, he's a tattooer. So if I need something specific, like if there's like a tattoo element or something like that, he can just like draw it for me.

But everything else is with me. And then what about sourcing like the supplier of like the shirts and stuff? And like, how do you go about doing that? Is that all you?

I just. All me. I do everything by hand. I keep myself on myself.

I still screen myself. So like, it's really neat. It's like exactly me to order. Oh, well, I thought you might.

Yeah, that's pretty neat. That's a lot. Yeah, I mean, I have. I have a source.

I have done one of my sweatshirts. I outsourced last year. And it was just too much money. It was just too expensive.

Yeah. Well, that's like you started outsourcing the shit and then you have to mark it up again. And then it becomes like it's not it's an issue for the customer at that point. It's always my husband, you know, he asks me sometimes like, how much should I charge this or piece or how much I charge this painting or whatever?

And I was like, what's your time worth? Right. That's that's my thing. How, you know, if you could put a dollar now on every hour, it takes you to do something or how much you think it does.

That's kind of how I do it. So for me, it's like, if I can source teachers that are really, really cheap. And then my time is worth this amount of money, then that comes out to the final product. Yeah, it's, but it's such a, it's hard because it's a little bit subjective, right?

Like you can, you know what the materials cost, right? But then when you're trying to add your time into it, well, that's sort of subjective process. Because even when we're like marking up cocktails, we have to factor in labor time of like batching cocktails or whatever it is, right? And then, but that is not a fine science.

No, and you have to go by market too, right? Like, like, as you know, especially in that industry in Canada, like everything's so inflated right now. So, you know, our cost of shipping is way higher. Our cost of materials is way higher.

Why does it cost me $20 to ship a feature to Vancouver? You know, but it does. So it's like all of these things have to be factored into the final costing. I know.

And the problem is all these supplies are getting so much more expensive. Like we're probably going to get nailed with like in my and we're going to get nailed with another liquor tax coming up like they just delayed it. But it's happening eventually. And then you, I was buying cigars at my local tobacco shops earlier today and talking to the owner there and he was pitching about how he'd just gotten this tin of chewing tobacco.

And it was like 50 bucks his price. And it's like, yeah, I know. And then people come in and like, why is your store so expensive or why is your bar restaurant so expensive? And you're like, well, I'm just trying to make a profit.

You know, it's the same across the board. You know, like I was looking at prices from this supplier that I got my sweatshirts from and I was like, OK, maybe, you know, I'm doing food and free garage is coming up, which is Canada's like biggest gluten free festival in Toronto in the country, but it's in Toronto. And so I do the merch for it. And I was like, well, maybe I'll say myself some time and get the t-shirts or whatever.

And it would have pulled out like before I marked it up. It would have cost me around $30 a t-shirt. So then I have to charge people $45 a t-shirt. You know what I mean?

Like I have to charge people $45, right? So I'm like, it's just not, it's not, it's not sustainable. Right. And then you just hear people, they should have $45 or a t-shirt like, you know, but they don't understand why.

And if you have known your own business, then you probably don't get this stuff, right? So when you say you're doing the merch for this festival, like you're specifically doing the gluten free merchandise or oh, really cool. How do you wind up with me like that? I mean, I think this is your real job getting gigs.

It is. I know this one's really lucky and it's my full net, but my best friend, her first cousin runs the festival. So that's my end. That's pretty very like, if it's the biggest festival, like I wasn't aware of it.

I'm not gluten free, but like the, but that's a huge deal to get it. Like, and that's a lot of fucking work for you though. Yeah. I mean, last year was the test.

So last year was the first time she had merch. And so I did keychains and T-shirts and everything sold really, really well. Again, it's a very niche market, right? But there's tons of people out there that are celiac and tons of people that are gluten and gluten and tolerance.

And there's nothing really worth it in that in that market, right? Tote bag, T-shirts and hats. So this year I'm kind of like amping it up a little bit and doing like a couple different styles of shirts and then trucker hats and keychains again, but I'm sort of switching up the designs. So yeah, it's like, I can show you this was sort of the, I know the viewers won't see it, but like, you know, stuff like cute little motel keychains.

Oh, really? Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. So she's basically holding up for just our listeners is like a literally old school motel keychain.

It's just, it has a heart with Suss, Luton, Freon, really cool graphics. So do they tell you what they want the merch to be in this situation or do you get to use your own creativity? No, I get to, it's all me. So I get to do whatever I want.

So I mean, you know, I do fun things like not today, gluten and gluten free as fuck and, you know, gluten free, girly. Oh, I saw one of those things on your story today. And I was like, oh, I didn't get how it connected to like, I'm not looking for either. I thought I would just passionate about gluten.

I mean, I love gluten. I know gluten. Oh, probably. Don't worry, no one from the festival will listen to this.

You'll be fine. So do you also get to mix in some of your other items or do you have to stick to just the merch for the festival? Like it'd be cool if you could also sell some of your own shirts there. I'm sure I could.

I would just personally either keep it to like something that I know we're going to enjoy. Like my biggest seller last year was the t-shirt that said my celiac is chronic, but this ass is iconic. That was like big, that's not the biggest. That's pretty cool.

Holy shit. No one does celiac merch, right? Right. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like the beauty of that too is like a festival like that.

I think that the gluten free thing has got a bad rep in the service industry because for a while it was like a fad diet type thing, right? Like, oh, I don't eat gluten as a way of losing weight or whatever the hell it was. And then it'd be so a lot of chefs and cooks in the industry. You've got pretty negative about the gluten free people, but there are legit celiacs, right?

So like, yeah, and obviously thousands of them defend, they're sending on this festival. So yeah. It was, it was like, I'd never seen this. It was like tens of thousands of people after it was so many people came from New York.

They came from all over. Right. It's really one of a kind. So it's a really important.

It's an important one, I think. So how do you gauge how much stuff you need to make for a festival like your first time? Was that your first time at that festival? Yeah, last year was my first time at that festival.

You can't really like you just kind of make what you make and then hope that, you know, you sell it, right? I don't want to be stuck with my celiac is like, but my ass is iconic to sure. It's like, you know, I swear in the same shirt every day and you're not going to celiac. Yeah.

I mean, I also had a tank top that was like my celiac is chronic with these tips or iconic and heavy tips on the front. You know, I'm stuck with them now and I'm just like, I can't wear it. But I kind of underestimate and then that way if I sell more, I can take orders. And then I can sell them to people.

Right. Yeah. And like where's comes the worst of you didn't sell it, I guess? Like you do have your Etsy store now too.

You can just sort of move some of the stuff onto there, which is helpful. So talking about your sort of, I don't know how we would describe it, you're sort of not cemented lifestyle. You just kind of roll in with whatever life offers you, which I think is awesome. I really do.

Like what do you think do you have any plans in the future that we need to know about or anything you can develop? Any plans. I try not to plan too far in advance to be honest with you. Yeah, I believe you.

I do have an episode of Blitz coming up on Gasso, which is a live to take show that I shot already. So that's coming up in June on the Gasso network. And I mean, other than that, I'm just kind of like, you know, I want to just get more gigs, sell my merch, take a vacation, eat with the dog. You know, like I just, as long as work can be a little bit steadier, I'm always happy.

But yeah, other than that, like, you know, people like, what's your plan? And next year, what's your plan for that? I'm like, I don't know what tomorrow is. Like, I don't know.

You know, like, see if I have a question. Yeah, you kind of have to be that way though, right? Based on all the different things you can, like being, like, essentially a freelancer for a living, you can't really make plans for like six months from now. Cause what happens if a good offer comes in?

So it's, it's a really tough one. And I struggled with it for a long time because I'm a huge traveler and I like to be able to take vacations and go to places. And it would always fall by the wayside because you'd always be waiting for the next contract, right? The next gig, the next whatever.

And then I kind of, in the last few years, I've just been like, I'm just going to, if I'm booking stuff, I'm just going to book it and whatever happens will happen and things will fall the way that they need to. So I kind of put my trust into the universe in that respect, you know, and if a show comes along and it doesn't work or it does work, it's kind of out of my hands, to be honest. So yeah, there definitely is that element of like, how can I plan because I don't know what's happening? Right.

But the other thing too, is you're not in like all the stuff that you do with all the stuff that you're good at that you keep getting hired to do or jobs that you keep getting offered. They're all hands on things. So it's not like something you can ever do remotely. So if you do this, yeah.

That is a really good thing. Okay. Yeah. So there are definitely times where I can revert back to just my production skill set.

And if I'm not doing food related stuff and I can do that remotely, like if it's production managing or whatever, like I can still do that from my home, which is really nice. But yes, most of like the food stuff is on set or hands on or whatever. Right. And do you feel like you'll be happy doing this like for eternity, like as long as you're on earth or do you think that there's, for see a time where you might just be like, I just got to get something that's a regular nine to five gig?

No, it'll never be a regular nine to five gig. Never. But I mean, do I want to be 75 and still hustling? I don't know at this point.

I mean, I say that. And then I'm like, I go to set or I work on a project and I love it so much. And then you're like, Oh my God, this is the best, you know, but do I want to be a little bit old lady working? I don't know.

I'm not sure. Probably not. And I think that the thing that you said there's the best is like to do what you do. I know that a lot of those jobs pay very well.

Maybe you can do one for a little bit. And then maybe you're okay for a little bit, right? But for budgeting your life from whatever to do what you do, you really do have to hustle. Like you got to have something kind of on the go at all times and that can be exhausting in its own right.

100%. I mean, hustling for work is like having a job, right? Because you're constantly emailing people and calling people and texting and you got to have your ear to the ground all the time. And what's going on and what's the gossip?

And, you know, it can be very taxing mentally. So it does. You definitely hit the nail on the head by saying, you know, it takes a certain type of person at 100% does, you know, we're all a little crazy. We're all a little like, don't want to stick to the status quo of like, you know, working a nine to five or whatever.

Like, and it's the same, you know, hospitality is kind of the same. You know, all these great industries take a very specific type of person to do. If you don't love it, you'll never make it. Did you find during the pandemic that obviously you mentioned earlier that it sucked for the media jobs that you were doing, right?

Just like it took for the service industry. But did you find at all that having all these different skill sets and the mindset that you're kind of a hustler and you can always find something to do that maybe put you in a better position than the average person that was going through that? Or did you feel like it was worse because you were losing the media gigs? I mean, you know, the media gigs, like I said, the bread butter.

So like that's a big one. But at that time, my husband and I also own a tattoo shop. So I was running that on top of also doing other things. So I think I kind of fucked her in the pandemic too.

Right? Yeah. Very much. We got fucked as an understatement.

We were closed for close to a year. So we were also on top of that hustling to try to find ways to bring in, you know, different income. So yeah, it was definitely through a wrench and our plans for, I mean, as it did for everybody. But at least like the one advantage that you had, maybe that most people didn't is that your entrepreneurial spirit and always having this sort of like notion that you're hustling for a gig no matter what.

So maybe you can just pivot and like the worst word of the pandemic was pivot. But like you actually, you actually, your whole life is a fucking pivot. Oh, yeah. Every day is a pivot.

Every day is a deal with it. Yeah. I mean, it's tough to write because now I think part of that hustle and pivot is social media. And, you know, I'm in that age category of like we just missed it.

Like, you know, I'm in that gen X category of like we had the start of the internet and all that thing. But we kind of became too old for social media in a sense. Yeah. So we're trying to figure TikTok out and we're trying to like TikTok.

Like I said, like I hate it. It's like not where my audience lives. It's not, you know, it's not for me. But at the same time, then I'm trying to figure out, you know, how Instagram works and how can I promote myself via Instagram and business and all of that.

It's just like, it's another job on top of. Yeah. I find it. I find it torturous because like if I didn't have my own businesses, I would not, I would not have a social media account at all.

Like I don't have any personal ones and it has no interest to me. But like you have to advertise this way. It's the only way to advertise now. So you have to have accounts for all your businesses and especially doing what you do.

How is it going to hustle, especially the clothing, right? I find it's really tough, right? Because I am the creator. I'm the creator.

I'm the model. I'm the social media person. I'm right. I'm all these things.

And Instagram now is like, well, if you don't pay us, we're not going to like, you know, send you into the algorithm or whatever. Right? So it's like, all of those things, you now have to like boost your posts or like pay to get verified or whatever. And it's like, it's really, really stressful, right?

Because I'm like, why is nobody like, you know, trying to get it or why is nobody liking these posts or whatever? And it's like, oh, because I'm not being seen by anybody. It's funny how all of these overlords in the social media or the streaming services or whatever is like, they give it to you. It's literally, they're literally drug dealers.

It's like, we can give it to you for free for a little while. And then once we've got you, then we're going to slowly start charging you at the point or maybe if you're an Netflix, we're going to add commercials all of a sudden or Amazon Prime is like, oh, it's pretty, yeah. Right. Like, it's just like slowly, but surely they get the money.

It's like, not exactly yet. Right. It's exhausting physically. It was exhausting emotionally to do.

And then there's that feeling of like, no one likes myself. No one wants to buy it. No one wants to, you know, and it's like, is it that or is it like this algorithm or is it this platform? And like, there's a part of me always that has this, I don't know if it's guilt or whatever, but it's like, this feeling of, if I don't consistently post stories like within my brand, which is like, I'm sure if you see myself as very like, off-color, sarcastic, slutty, food-related, you know, political.

Like, it's a certain style that I've honed, and like, I feel like I'm not posting those types of stories every day, people are gonna forget about me. Yeah, I know. It's the same in the freelance world too. Like, if you're not on the tip of everybody's tongue, like then are you really gonna be the one getting the jobs?

Right. So in a weird way, you've kinda trained yourself for the social media shit with your whole existence. But it's still, it's exhausting. And especially with you having hands and so many different things, you gotta be doing it for all of those interests in a weird way.

Yeah, yeah. That's a lot. I mean, it is a lot. And like, I think about it, like in terms of like the Instagram sphere in that world, in this meta universe, like I find like $2,100, that's nothing, right?

That's like a drop in the bucket for that, you know, in influencing if you wanna call it that. And when you think about like, if I had 50,000 followers, if I had a hundred thousand followers, five million followers, like, do I want that kind of presence? Do I wanna be that available for people? Right?

Because people are always there in your DMs, they're this, they think they know you, they think you're your bestie, whatever. It's like, do I want that responsibility too. Right. And if you think you have pressure to post now, if you have that many followers, it's like literally a full-time job.

So it's literally a full-time job. And being a woman in social media is a very, very different thing too, right? Because, oh yeah, it's bad. It's bad.

So, you know, dealing with that and dealing with, you know, having to post and dealing with the creepers and your DMs and dealing with, you know, whatever. Like it's, so it's like, if you start gaining, and gaining, and gaining, it's just like, oh my God, then you're, you're part of this huge world where you're responsible for like this messaging and what people, you know, people hate and they send you horrible things. And, you know, everybody, not everybody's gonna love what you have to say or put out or whatever. It's like, I don't know, it's tough.

Yeah. And it goes back to what we started talking about, at least I was rambling about that at the beginning of the show, which is like, it's a lot easier to say something shitty over social media or one of these posting sites, right? That's opposed to having a face-to-face interaction with someone and trying to tell them how you feel in that arena. Someone, I literally just had someone order a t-shirt from Etsy and then leave me a two-star review saying that, like some of the letters were peeling off the t-shirt, which I don't see how that would be possible to transfer, I've never had a problem with that.

But, you know, they left that review and I sent them a message and I posted publicly, and I was just like, please get back to me, I was sending you a new shirt, let me know what I can do, whatever. They never, I never heard from them. And I'm like, now that two-star lives there, right? Like, now it just lives there.

That's a part of the piss of me, obviously. You gotta fight to not answer these reviews in a way, because it doesn't do any good, you're gonna fight with them or whatever, or they just ignore you, because they weren't really looking for a resolution to the problem, they were looking to have an arena to voice their discontent. Yeah, that's what it is. And you can't fight those people.

No, and I'm like, girl, I will literally send you a new t-shirt, like please, let me help you. Yeah, she's not interested in the t-shirts, she's just interested in someone listening to her complain. 100%. And like, you know, I have a hard time with that kind of criticism, I'm sure as we all do, you know?

And I find it very hard not to get defensive and respond and be a aggressive person or whatever. And I had to learn to really take it set back and be like, okay, you know? You need to respond to them, you know? It's hard, my wife struggles with it as well, because she handles the social media for the one bar for bad-long sisters.

And like all the time, I'm just like, just don't engage. It's fine, you're not gonna win this fight. It's so hard not to do it. Yeah, it's hard, yeah.

It went to me a while too when I first bar, I was like fucking mad. And then I learned the hard way, let's just say that. Anyway, Carol, it's super awesome talking to you. I think it's super fascinating what you do.

And like I admire the fact that you have chosen this lifestyle, which can't be easy all the time. So keep hustling. And when is the gluten free festival? Maybe people can come and see you.

May 26th at which Woodbarn is in Toronto. Okay, awesome. Well, great luck with that, because it sounds like a lot of work. So, but congratulations on getting that gig again.

And on all your gigs in the store again, one more time for our listeners. So the Instagram is Ms. Underscore Sugar Skull, and the store is Big and Fortune on Etsy. So the bio is in the link.

Okay, great. Thanks again for, sorry to do. Yeah, let's say I'll put that in the show notes as well. So I can find you as well.

Thanks very much for that. Also in the show notes will be our friends at CivilPors. Once again, that's sales at civilpors.com. If you want to check out their amazing product.

And Carolyn, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thanks again for visiting with us. Someone who's busy as you giving us this time is much appreciated. So much pleasure meeting you and best luck with everybody.

Thank you guys.