Looking for a dessert that satisfies your sweet tooth without compromising your health? Chef AJ's new cookbook, Sweet Indulgence, co-authored with Glen Merzer, is about to change the way you think about desserts. In a recent episode of The Glen Merzer Show, Chef AJ shared her mouthwatering recipe for the Peanut Butter Paradise Parfait, a dessert that’s as nutritious as it is delicious.
“Desserts don’t have to be bad for you,” Chef AJ insists, and her new book is proof. Sweet Indulgence features over 150 healthy dessert recipes, each made with whole fruits instead of refined sugars. From low-fat treats to decadent delights, there’s something for everyone. And the best part? Every recipe is accompanied by beautiful, full-color photos that make your mouth water before you even start cooking.
The Magic of Peanut Butter Paradise Parfait
During the podcast, Chef AJ walked us through the steps to create the Peanut Butter Paradise Parfait, a rich and creamy dessert layered with homemade peanut butter, fresh fruits, and a touch of indulgence. “The key to making this parfait so special,” she explained, “is using quality ingredients. When you start with the best, your dessert will always taste amazing.”
Chef AJ also shared some of her top tips for making homemade peanut butter, which is not only healthier but also more flavorful than store-bought versions. By roasting your own peanuts and blending them to perfection, you can control the texture and taste, making your parfait truly unique.
Why Sweet Indulgence is a Game-Changer
The cookbook is not just about satisfying your sweet cravings; it's about redefining what desserts can be. “I want people to know that they can enjoy dessert and still be healthy,” says Chef AJ. This philosophy is at the heart of Sweet Indulgence, which includes options for every kind of dessert lover, whether you’re looking to cut back on fat or indulge in something a bit richer.
A Revolution in Vegan Cooking
With the release of Sweet Indulgence, Chef AJ and Glen Merzer are making waves in the publishing industry. Vegan cookbooks are gaining traction, and this one is poised to be a standout. As an added bonus, Chef AJ has announced a special pre-order offer for the book, which includes exclusive recipes and behind-the-scenes content.
So whether you’re already plant-based or just curious about healthier dessert options, Sweet Indulgence is a must-have for your kitchen. Tune in to the latest episode of The Glen Merzer Show to hear Chef AJ discuss the book, share more recipes, and talk about the impact of veganism on food culture. And don’t forget to try the Peanut Butter Paradise Parfait—it might just become your new favorite treat!
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DISCLAIMER: Please understand that the transcript below was provided by a transcription service. It is undoubtedly full of the errors that invariably take place in voice transcriptions. To understand the interview more completely and accurately, please watch it here: Chef AJ Makes the Peanut Butter Paradise Parfait!
Glen Merzer: Welcome to the Glen Merzer Show. could find us across all your favorite podcast platforms. You could find us on YouTube. Please remember to subscribe. You could find us at RealMenEatPlants .com. My guest today is an old dear friend, Chef AJ. AJ, welcome to the show.
Chef AJ: Glen, how are you?
Glen Merzer: I'm fine. So is that the most colorful chef's coat you have?
Chef AJ: It's the second most colorful believe it or not. had one made in honor of Dr. McDougall in the style of his shirts, and it's even more colorful. But it is kind of cool. It's got the bling, know, Chef AJ. Yeah. But this is that when it gets dirty, you don't notice.
Glen Merzer: That's it may be dirty right now.
Chef AJ: It may be so is it.
Glen Merzer: What is that book you're holding? Is that a good new book?
Chef AJ: It's a book that I'm hoping will be our swan. I don't know if it'll be our swan song, but I hope it will be for both of us our first New York Times bestseller, it's Sweet Indulgence. I believe this is our fourth collaboration together. And I always joke that I can write a book without Glen Merzer, but I can't finish one. And that's another case in point. So we have this beautiful book and it's the first time that we really listened to our readers who insisted on a beautiful color photo for every recipe and Hannah Kaminsky. did a unique photo of all, believe it's 154, 156 recipes. And it's got a hardcover, which is what they wanted. And it's got the glossy pages and it's beautiful. And today I'm gonna be making for your audience, it may be mine if you share the video.
Glen Merzer: I'll share it.
Chef AJ: Well, thank you. One of the newer recipes called peanut butter paradise parfait. And this is what it looks like. I'm gonna be making, this isn't a trifle bowl, but I'm gonna be making a smaller version that will, show how to plate it. And it's basically two recipes in the book in one. It's the peanut butter mousse, which I created when I lived in the desert, because I was teaching a dairy -free and delicious class and somebody couldn't eat chocolate, but I felt bad because we were making a rich decadent chocolate mousse, which is in this recipe, and the chocolate crumbs. And the chocolate crumbs is actually our brownie recipe, but I found that if you don't process it all the way into a brownie, a brownie is a raw brownie, you get these lovely little crumbs that you can sprinkle on fruit, you can sprinkle on ice cream, and in this case on your parfait. And it's very, very easy to make. And so we're gonna start with a food processor, figured with the S blade, because it looks like the letter S, I'm using the Breville. It's my favorite because it's so powerful. It processes so quickly. I always tell everyone when you have cooking equipment, questions or anything in life, get the biggest and best you can afford because you can always process a small recipe in a big machine, but not the other way around. The most important thing, regardless of which food processor you're using, and again, you want a food processor, not a blender. Blenders are great, high -powered blenders, but not for most of these dessert recipes. You want to make sure it's dry because if there's even a drop of water in here when you process the nuts, it's going to turn into a paste. So we're going to start with raw unsalted walnuts. And we're going to place them in the food processor. And we are just going to process this like into a crumb -like, bread crumb -like or flour -like consistency. We don't want to let the food processor keep running because then we'll have nut butter, which is fine if you want nut butter, but not for this recipe. That was about five seconds on the brubble. I love that the brubble kind of keeps time for you. So we have just like little crumbs basically, no big deal. And then I'm going to add my cocoa powder or cacao powder or carob powder, whatever you choose, and vanilla powder. And we're gonna place that into the food processor again, and we're gonna process again was two seconds, and now we're going to add our pitted dates. I am using the deglet nor, because I find that they are the most cost effective if you're using a lot of dates. If you're using a date just to eat a date because dates are delicious, then I would probably eat the medjool or my favorite date, which is the bari, B -H -A -R -I, which tastes like a craft caramel. But I find that the organic pitted medjool dates at Costco are the best prices I've ever seen. and they work great in all these recipes, especially this one because they tend to be a little drier than the medjool, which is good because I don't want it too sticky. So I'm gonna hope that the bag that said pitted is really pitted, but sometimes you do find a pit. And now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna process this. If we were making the brownie recipe, then we would wanna process, process, process, as we had little trouble when you and I were writing, not trouble writing it, but the vernacular because since we're not teaching hands -on cooking, we were trying to explain that the people needed the break point that needed to come together into like one contiguous kind of mass. That's if you're doing the brownie, but for the sprinkles from the chocolate crumbs, we just want to make it into crumbs.
Glen Merzer: If there were a pit in there, AJ, would it cause problems for the machine?
Chef AJ: A pigeon?
Glen Merzer: A pit, not a pigeon.
A pigeon wouldn't be vegan. Yeah, I think a pigeon would cause problems. So it wouldn't cause problems, but it could technically damage the blade. But what would happen is if there was a pit, it would stop and you would take it off. So that was 10 seconds. And this is perfect for crumbs. So if we were doing the brownie, I'd want to be able to smoosh it together and it would stick. It doesn't, which is exactly what I want. So I'm going to take my crumbs and I am going to put them in another dish. And I will be back in just a moment because I need to either rinse or wipe out my food processor to make the peanut butter mousse.
Glen Merzer: OK, AJ, when you got your beautiful new house, did you get it because it said Chef AJ's Kitchen?
Chef AJ:exactly. The realtor was amazing.
Glen Merzer: know, was really a good selection.
Chef AJ:I'm not gonna rinse this because I feel like there's very few crumbs in this, but I just don't want the chocolate to get into the peanut butter mousse, even though it probably wouldn't be a problem. There we go. So now I'm gonna come back to the food processor and make the peanut butter mousse. And like all the recipes in my book, I really try to keep them seven ingredients or less that anybody with a reasonable amount of culinary skill could make. I try not to be a chefy chef. I try to make it really, really easy. And as a matter of fact, I really try to make sure that all the ingredients can at least be found in a person's local grocery store. I mean, I can't vouch for everywhere in the world or the United States, but our local grocery store is called Rayleigh's and everything except for the date syrup was available there, but the date syrup was available at Walmart. And actually many of these ingredients are available at Walmart if that's where you like to shop. So what I'm going to do to make the peanut butter mousse, I'm gonna start with a box of aseptic tofu, this is more a new, this is different than the water packed tofu that people use for stir fries. For desserts, you really need the silken tofu in the box. It's shelf stable, although some stores do choose to refrigerate it because this is what's gonna give it that creamy mouthfeel as if you were using eggs and butter and cream. I prefer the extra firm, but if all you can find is the soft, it will still work. But again, silken, not water packed And you can get this online as well. So we're just gonna place this in the food processor with some non -dairy cream cheese. Now, before Miyoko's was available commercially, I would just make my own. Miyoko Shinner has a book called Artisan Vegan Cheese, where all you really do is sow cashews overnight pretty much. And you can make your own cream cheese. But now that they sell it at the store, I use this and I get the one that has no oil. It does have the tiniest, tiniest bit of salt, but it is basically just cashews. We're just gonna flip that in. It tastes like real cream cheese.
Glen Merzer: So that's the whole container, right?
Chef AJ:Whole container, so it's one cup. Yeah. So this is one of the recipes that is more rich and more decadent. It's not one of the low fat recipes. We have many of those in the book. I would say the majority of the recipes are low calorie density, low fat, but this is a more special occasion dessert and I'm making it because we're going to our monthly potluck tomorrow and people love
Glen Merzer: And I will note that we label each book, I mean, each recipe according to whether it's decadent or low fat or moderate fat.
Chef AJ: So remember, it's decadent, medium fat or low fat. It's superbly sweet, mildly sweet. Look in the book, but it's a really great. Jeanne and Elder, our book designer, did an amazing job. And then I'm going to add my peanut butter. And I just make my peanut butter myself. And I'll tell you I don't know if you can see going in how creamy this is because when you make it yourself, it just always stays nice and soft and it tastes better. I make it in a machine called a nutrimilk, but you could make peanut butter in a regular food processor, probably like this as well. I find that the commercial brands are not only much more expensive, but they also tend to have that really thick layer of oil on top, which you can pour but then you can never blend your peanut butter. So my advice is if you don't wanna make your own peanut butter or nut butters, at least go to a store, and there's many of them now, where they have that little machine where it's just peanuts and you do it that way, because at least you'll get a smooth product. I forgot my little spatula. Okay, so now my sweetener, which is date syrup. And I'll talk a little bit about date sweetener. you helped me write all the parts of the book where we talked about why we use the ingredients we use and the benefit of dates. And of course we have that wonderful introduction by a childhood pediatric obesity specialist at USC, Dr. Michael Goran endorsing this book, even though we do use dates because they're really different than sugar. So I haven't eaten processed sugar since Sunday, July 6, 2003. So no honey maple syrup, honey is not vegan, of course, maple syrup agave, stevia, know, barley malt, molasses, coconut nectar, all that stuff. I've only used dates. And back in the day, in our first book that we wrote in 2010, we had a recipe for date syrup in our first version of unprocessed which you could make, but it's so labor intensive. takes like an hour. got to boil the dates and then, you know, reduce them and blend them. When now you just go to your local Walmart or Amazon and get organic date syrup. So that's what I'm using. And then the vanilla powder, which didn't put in, but I don't want to leave the kitchen to go over and get it right now. Well, should I get it? I won't get it. But if you can use the vanilla powder, we love vanilla bean powder, pure vanilla bean powder, regular white dextrose -ridden processed vanilla powder. It just bumps up the intensity of your desserts, but it's okay if I don't put it in, because I'm going to actually make this twice for the potlucks, so it'll even out. So I'm now just going to process this into a smooth puree.
Glen Merzer: You're having a potluck, AJ?
Chef AJ: What'd you say?
Glen Merzer: You're having a potluck?
Chef AJ: I'm not having it. My meetup group is Healthy Living in Lincoln, if anybody's in the Placer County or Sacramento County area, because my house really isn't big enough. So we have this wonderful member who opens up her house. So I just like to make sure it's all pureed, it's nice and smooth. I would say this is probably Charles's favorite dessert in the book. And you can see how easy and quick it was to make. So now let me show you how you plate it. There are separate options. Getting all the rest of my stuff here. So for the potluck, I'm going to make it in a trifle bowl. And so what I like to do is put some crumbs, some mousse, some bananas, and repeat my layers and end with chopped peanuts. Well, I'm not going to do that right now because truth is the potluck is tomorrow. So I'd rather wait and let this chill a little bit. It will get a little firmer as it cools. But I'm going to play the single one because our cameraman would like to taste this. And so you can also make these in individual glasses. And so I would recommend, these are actually kind of big for one serving, but these are the prettiest glasses I could find. And you can get pretty glasses at the dollar store, at the 99 cents store. So I'm going to show you how I'm going to plate a single serving right now. Now, my husband, Charles, he doesn't eat chocolate. So instead of the chocolate crumbs, we're going to use the other recipe in the book, which are what I call them vanilla crumbs, or in the book, they're called streusel crumbs. I actually like these better. So if they want the recipe for this, get the book. I love this streusel recipe. I use this on so many things from our pies to just fresh fruit. So what we're gonna do is I'll use this glass and I keep these crumbs in my freezer at all times for emergencies, meaning emergencies, I want something that's dessert, that's not just a piece of fruit. And you can sprinkle these crumbs like on an apple or a pear, microwave it and it's like delicious. So I've got some crumbs on the bottom and then I'm going to take some of my mousse, which right now it's like I said, this gets much thicker after it chills, but we're plating it, you know, before. So we'll give them a nice layer there. And then let's get the banana right here. So for this recipe, because it's so rich and decadent and sweet, I don't worry. This banana actually is ripe, but I don't worry if my bananas aren't ripe when I make this particular recipe because of the fact that it already is so sweet. And I actually prefer them when they're a little less right because they're a little bit greener, they tend to be a little bit thicker. So I have this really cool tool and you might want to lower the camera just to show. I'm just going to put the bananas in.
Glen Merzer: What do call that tool?
Chef AJ: I got it at Big Bear, one of those like stores where you buy really cool stuff. I don't know it's called. I'm sure that people can find it on Amazon. It works on bananas and strawberries and it's really, really cool. And it's just, mean, peanut butter and banana. I mean, I really should have called this the Elvis, huh? And you know, if people do eat chocolate, they could still rotate the crumbs and do like one layer of the vanilla streusel crumbs and one layer of the chocolate crumbs too. Nothing wrong with that. But I don't know, this is just so yummy. I just don't know why. And now we're going to take a little bit more mousse.
Glen Merzer: You know, I never had moose until a few years ago. I had assumed it wasn't vegan.
Chef AJ: Well, it usually isn't. It's usually made with egg yolks and and cream and all that kind of stuff. So let's just push this down. Let's get some more bananas. Always good to even if a Durser is rich like this, it's still always a great idea to add fruit to it. There we go. And then a few more crumbs. Nobody has ever complained about this dessert. And when I don't bring it to the potlucks and bring something else like a quinoa salad, they get a little bit mad. And so if you want, you can just, have a little bit of crushed peanuts here, just for the top. This way, somebody that has a nut allergy will see this and like, better not eat this. But this is just amazing. You want to this now, Charles? I think you'd probably wait. This is just amazingly delicious. And I promise you will love it. And just like almost all the recipes in New book, Sweet Indulgence, with maybe a couple of exceptions, they're that easy to make using the fruit, the whole fruit, and nothing but the whole fruit.
Glen Merzer: Well, that was beautiful, AJ.
Chef AJ: Thank you.
Glen Merzer: And it didn't take very long at all.
Chef AJ: Nothing to, no. I mean, obviously a cake is going to take baking time. You know, we can't really, it's harder to do in real time, but even then they're not that difficult. Right. Let's hold our newest baby. This is our fourth child. Neither of us had real children. We had book children.
Glen Merzer: you know, when I met you, AJ, you were not an author. You were not a weight loss expert. You were not a podcast host. I think you were a pastry chef, right?
Chef AJ: Yes. And as a matter of fact, we actually started this book like in 2011, I think it was. And we even had some preliminary photos taken and then the whole world got turned upside down because they ended up accidentally, well, not accidentally, but I lost like over 50 pounds. And it's like, how can I write a dessert book? You know, I can't even eat these desserts. And the truth is I can't, I that I can't, I choose not to eat the rich ones. I'll take a bite here and there. so many in these books I can eat, you know, and I did eat to lose the weight.
Glen Merzer: Right. Let's go quickly over the books we wrote and then we'll get back to sweet and diligence. This was your first book unprocessed. Right. And 10 years later, we came out with a 10 year anniversary edition of unprocessed with some new recipes and photos.
Chef AJ: But we only had only four 10 color photos. Now we have a photo for every recipe.
Glen Merzer: Right. And after you lost the weight. You became a weight loss coach and expert, and we came out with the Secrets to Ultimate Weight Loss, which was a best seller for a while. It was for a while. Yeah. And then I wrote the manuscript to own your health and you contributed seventy five recipes. Yeah, I'm very proud of all of these books. But now we have the most beautiful book that we've come up with yet. It's really your book with just a tiny bit of help from me. And it is, I think, the most beautiful dessert book I've ever seen. mean, a lot of that credit goes to Hannah Kaminsky.
Chef AJ: my gosh. It all goes to Hannah and Janine for her design because the two together were just an incredible team. And I will tell you that Rip Esselstyn interviewed me and he paid me a compliment. But it's really a compliment to you because I don't know if you remember he endorsed our first book on process in 2011. And he said, not the problem. said, know, your book would, cause he had several New York Times bestseller. I think they were even number one. He said, you don't tell any stories with your recipes. And so I took that note and you and I are writing sessions. That was the funnest part is I called it the preamble. Like it's not a constitution, but the words that go over the title before the recipe, you know, When we came up with those, you know, that was like a joint team effort. We had so much fun laughing, especially about George Washington.
Glen Merzer:People will have to read the book to look for the George Washington reference.
Chef AJ: Yes.
Glen Merzer: Did you ever imagine since you were overweight for much of your life?
Chef AJ: Most. 52 out of 65 years. That's like 20%, I think.
Glen Merzer:That one day you would You know, a podcast host, a leader in the vegan movement, a weight loss coach, a weight loss expert. How did that transition happen for you?
Chef AJ: just it just did. mean, you know, don't know if you know, growing up, I wanted to be a veterinarian, but instead I became a vegetarian. So my real dream is I love I, know, I I love doing the cooking more than any of the other things you mentioned. So I would love to have some kind of a cooking show, which I do on my YouTube channel. But that's my favorite thing is to teach the people how to cook, especially in person. Since the pandemic that changed, before the pandemic, I was teaching at many different culinary schools, both hands -on and demonstrational cooking. I still teach hands -on at Rancho La Puerta. But recently I had a bunch of medical students come to my home because I live near UC Davis Medical School and I did a hands -on cooking class. And that's really my favorite, even more than just demonstrating when I can be with the people as they're learning how to cook
Glen Merzer:Well, we're aiming for a New York Times bestseller.
Chef AJ: But in order to get that, you've got to preorder or at least order within the first five days. And that's why I if you're not going to order it, that's OK. But if you are, please order it before midnight on Saturday, August 31st, 2024, because after that, your order counts. But it doesn't count for New York Times bestseller.
Glen Merzer:Now, is there anything we can say now about a bonus for those who ordered the
Chef AJ: Yes, they'll get an amazing bonus if they save their receipt regardless of where they buy it, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or a seat at the table where Glen will provide a link where you can actually get a signed copy. If you buy it before midnight on Saturday, August 31st, even if you bought it like months ago, we will send you and we calculated it's worth over $1 ,000 of bonuses with all the various, I mean, it's probably over 20 hours because. there is going to be a recipe video for every single recipe in this book.
Glen Merzer:Wow.
Chef AJ: And other extras. We're going to give them the audio files of unprocessed. We have a few classes I taught like the, did a master class, a dessert pastry class. It's 18 hours that people paid $597 for several years ago. I did a class with Lissa Maris, my friend from raw food romance called make it raw, it cook. That's sold for 200. So it's a pretty sweet bonus, which is only available until deadline.
Glen Merzer: So if you get the book by August 31st and send in your receipt.
Chef AJ: We'll have that email address very soon by the time we get on stairs.
Glen Merzer:And I guess to know where to send it in, I could put that in the show notes too, of where you can send it in. And if you're on AJ's mailing list, which you can get on by going to chefaj .com, AJ will send you all the information about how to get the bonus. So the bonus is worth like 300 copies of the book. Yeah. Or something like that, 30 copies of the book. At least. So did you have in mind all these years that ultimately you will have a dessert cookbook that will culmination of all your recipes?
Chef AJ: Well, really, I mean, when I was a pastry chef, I didn't want to write them down because I always felt like somebody was watching me and they would have just taken my recipes and I wouldn't have a job. when I because it's interesting, Glen, because cooking and baking or dessert, I think is a little bit different because with cooking, you can be improvisational color outside the lines. And with with baking, you can't because it's a science with with raw desserts. Some of these you can. But no, mean, I never aspired to write a dessert cookbook, you know, but I did, I did enjoy being a pastry chef. You know, I, mean, I didn't enjoy all the decadence and stuff, but I mean, it was fun because as a pastry chef, I got my own kitchen. didn't have to work with anyone. I, know, I, or take orders and I didn't have the pressure of like an executive chef where somebody's waiting for their meal, you know, like the desserts were already made. just had to keep making them, you know? It was actually not really a stressful job and I could come in whenever I wanted. So I'd come in like early evenings and work till late evening. And yeah, I don't know. There's something fun about making desserts for me. They're therapeutic. Just the making. It's more to me like arts and crafts. And in general, most people, whether they're vegan or not, love desserts and appreciate them.
Glen Merzer:And the premise of the book really is that, as you say in the book, people are not going to desert desserts.
Chef AJ: Everyone. Not long term anyway, maybe for their diet or their program. But I don't know very many people that have committed to never ever eat another treat again the rest of their life.
Glen Merzer: Right. So most of us like to indulge from time to time. And the point is that when you have a dessert, it could be healthy. And so these are desserts made not sweetened with sugar, sweetened with whole fruits. Many of them involve grains like oats. And they involve fruit and all natural ingredients.
Chef AJ: And they're not all date sweetened. So a lot of them are just apple or banana. So, yeah, pear, for example. So it's not just dates.
Glen Merzer:Right. So, AJ, let's hope we have that New York Times bestseller. You certainly deserve it. And I hope that all your fans and followers will make this most beautiful coffee table book. The pictures are so beautiful.
Chef AJ: Tell your fans and followers. Now, if we make it, I don't think we know until the following. I think it's Tuesday or Wednesday. Robert Cheek always knows. But who's the first person you're going to call?
Glen Merzer:Well, naturally, Robert Cheek.
Chef AJ: Charles lives with me, so he's not going to be the first person I call. Maybe I'll call. I don't know. Maybe I'll just jump on line.
Glen Merzer:Maybe the publisher of the New York Times.
Chef AJ: Yeah. Or maybe our publisher, because this is his last book.
Glen Merzer:So that's vegan book.
Chef AJ: You know, this is that this will be nice for Bob to like a long term vegan for many, many years. I like it, too.
Glen Merzer:We're talking about a publishing company called you ready for this? The book publishing company company.
Chef AJ: What people people to realize, Glen, is when when vegan books do good, it helps veganism. You know what I mean? So it's not just about, yeah, Shefegi wants to be in New York Times to a seller. When this happens for people like Carly Bajrog and Dr. Will Bee and Robert Cheek, this elevates veganism to the publishers that maybe weren't considering publishing vegan books. And so that's why, you know, it's always great if a book continues to sell the way Atomic Habits does. It's been like number one forever. But the presales really are the most important thing. And so that's why I say, if you're going to get it, please get it before August 31st. But of course, These make great. These will make a great gift any time of the year, Christmas, things like that, you know?
Glen Merzer: Yeah. I mean, if you work at a company where there are people you give Christmas gifts to every year, you know, pick up 20 copies.
Chef AJ: And you don't have to be vegan to enjoy these recipes. And that's what I think I was hoping not to even though almost 50 years vegan and proud of it. I was hoping to write a crossover book that people that aren't even interested in veganism would buy because the desserts are for all intents and purposes kosher. They're all gluten -free. Different people have different reasons they eat what they eat. They're dairy -free, they're oil -free, they're salt -free, they're of course, refined sugar -free. I some people think fruit is sugar. I don't because fruit is a whole fruit, food with vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, antioxidants, micronutrients, fiber, and water. So I'm hoping that Barnes and Noble will not put me in a section where nobody can see it so that people that are interested, and there's a whole big sugar -free movement in the world of people that aren't vegan will realize that you don't have to dessert dessert. Or as Dr. Goldhamer would say, at least these won't kill you.
Glen Merzer:Yes. That was Dr. Goldhamer's blurb for us.
Chef AJ: Yeah, he said that's we should have called it, desserts that won't kill you. Yes. They will thrill you though. They will thrill you.
Glen Merzer: Yes. Well, AJ, thank you so much for joining the show. I hope that all my followers, which are a small percentage of all your followers and all your followers will get the book. I hope folks out there, including your followers, would do me the favor of subscribing to this podcast. And let us hope that we have a New York Times bestseller.
Chef AJ: You should show a couple of the pictures before we go away. show a couple pictures.
Glen Merzer: Well, I think so. I'll show some of my favorites.
Chef AJ: I'll show you my favorite too right now.
Glen Merzer:OK.
Chef AJ: Why this one is just I love this photo. This is I just love this photo so much.
Glen Merzer: I love the pages. Whoops. The pages that have multiple photos on like this one of the different nice creams
Chef AJ: and the one with the spoons
Glen Merzer:and the one with the spoons is unbelievable.
Chef AJ: I love this one, too. And of course, the cover is just mouthwatering. we didn't tell the story of the cover. It's Dr. Neil Barnard from PCRM. This cupcake is what started it all. And that's why we put it on the cover for him.
Glen Merzer: Here's the creamy blueberry millet parfait. Whoops. You have the spoon photo.
Chef AJ: I'll get it for you. But I mean, I will get it for you again. The beauty of this book is this one. This actually that's it. The spoon photo. That's a classic executed. But by the way, the categories are really clever. Thanks to Janine Elder. It's like spoon it, sip it, bake it, you know, so you have it. we should talk about Luca. And when people say it's too hard. He took my master class at the age of seven and made the strawberry chocolate cheesecake, which is in the book. So if a seven year old can do it, so can you.
Glen Merzer: And I made one of the recipes, the pumpkin raisin muffins. Yes. So if I can do it. That's right. That's even more amazing than a seven year old.
Chef AJ: Absolutely.
Glen Merzer: Well, I'm glad you agreed with that.
Chef AJ: Well, thanks so much, Glen.
Glen Merzer: Thanks, AJ. Great to see you.
Chef AJ: Thanks so much.
Glen Merzer: Next time I want you to wear the even more colorful chef's coat.
Chef AJ: We'll do that.
Glen Merzer: Thanks, everyone.
Chef AJ: Take care.
Glen Merzer: Bye bye.
Chef AJ: Bye.
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