Hello my lovely Golden Ticket readers!
On this Black Friday when everyone is selling you something, I thought I’d give you something.
The above audio is a really fun interview I did on Monday this week for my “Best of Laguna Beach” radio show with one of my longtime personal/business development clients, Chef Mary Schoenlein. The interview is such great insight into an indomitable, imaginative spirit that I knew it would be inspiring to you, too.
Mary and I first met when she and her husband, Pat, were in the final throes of operating their very successful counter service restaurants - Mary’s Marvelous – in the Hamptons of New York. In the three years since, I’ve worked with Mary as she’s considered and chosen new directions for her life.
Mary is a very, very special spirit. You’re going to love getting to know her on this audio replay. PLUS, she’s given all of us one of her all-time favorite holiday recipes, Sour Cream Coffee Cake (see it attached under the Show Notes). This Wednesday, I made two batches of it and delivered four toasty loaves to neighbors this week - it is absolutely fabulous.
Here are my show notes from my Best of Laguna Beach post:
Welcome to my Thanksgiving holiday special for you! On Monday (11/25) at KXFM Radio 104.7, I interviewed Celebrity Chef Mary Schoenlein, renowned Founder of Mary’s Marvelous, a 2002-2021 can’t-live-without-it breakfast and lunch spot in the posh Hamptons of New York.
Mary has recently resurrected Mary’s Marvelous at her brand new Substack blog. Readers all over the world are, once again, flocking to see what this Celebrity Chef has to say about life lessons around cookin’ and food, and many of her most well-loved recipes.
SHOW SUMMARY & NOTES
We talk about how Mary and her native-Manhattan-raised husband searched all over the country to put down stakes of their own … and ended up in the Hamptons.
Mary talks about what got her started in cooking and her initial apprenticing journey, which included her abrupt ask to work for a well-known chef and catering to famous musicians at their concerts (don’t miss her funny story about Diana Ross).
Mary quickly shares her ascent in the cooking world, from Upper New York to a sudden Manhattan move, then a 2-star Michelin restaurant apprenticeship in Versailles, France, before landing in The Hamptons for Dean and DeLuca’s famed Red Horse Market.
“Every day you aim at being at least as good as you were the day before, if not better that the day before.”
The ONE food item invention of Mary’s that led to a distributed product line and the decision to open an entire restaurant.
Mary talks about her most addictive food items … including the infamous Mary’s Marvelous Blueberry Muffin and the numbers they would sell daily in a summer weekend.
How Mary and Celebrity Chef Ina Garten (The Barefoot Contessa) became friends and cooked with each other, and what Ina would typically purchase at Mary’s Marvelous.
What Mary and her husband, Pat, experienced on the day they closed Mary’s Marvelous.
“I didn’t realize the impact that Mary’s Marvelous had on people.”
Mary talks about her massive plan for her brand new Substack blog …
We further talk about Mary’s Butternut Squash and Asian Pear recipe and her best-selling Sour Cream Coffee Cake recipe she’s providing to all of my listeners and readers here:
We finish with Mary’s “second life” in Manhattan … the wonderful mother-in-law, Barb, that she misses (and the amazing thing Barb actually did for a living in Manhattan) … and a hysterical story about a recent Monday gone wrong with her three dogs in Central Park.
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