The Dinner Sisters: Navigating a Breakout Opportunity—and Devastating Grief

This transcript was auto-generated from an audio recording. Please excuse any typos or grammatical errors.

Elaine Appleton Grant 

When I invited Betsy Wallace, co-host of Dinner Sisters, on the show, it was with a couple of aims in mind. First, with Valentine's Day coming up, I wanted to speak with a cooking show host to see what she had learned about the connection between food and relationships. Second, I wanted to unpack what Betsy and her sister Kate Schulz had created that inspires so much love from listeners. Dinner Sisters is a deceptively simple show. It answers the question that often drives me crazy: what to make for dinner tonight. But it is so much more than that. And learning about the intentional structure underlying this podcast will help you improve your own show, no matter the genre. 

But this episode turned into something very different. And bigger than that, as you will hear. The day of our recording, Betsy had received some troubling news about her dad. She'd already been grieving her mother, who died a year ago. But she wanted to have this conversation anyway. And I'm so grateful. Here then, is an offering: an episode about the things we never talked about. How life gets in the way of creativity, how we must make choices we sometimes don't want to make, and about how grief both interrupts and shapes our creative work. 

I'm Elaine Appleton Grant. And this is Sound Judgment.

Elaine Appleton Grant

Betsy, let's talk about the premise of Dinner Sisters. You started the show with your sister Kate in 2018. You've produced so far about 200 episodes, you've cooked and reviewed more than 500 recipes from popular food blogs, interviewed dozens of New York Times bestselling cookbook authors and competed on season 15 of the Food Network's Great Food Truck Race. 

Clip from Great Food Truck Race

Because this is going to be the hottest season. It all starts right now. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

There are a lot of cooking and food podcasts and obviously a ton of cooking and food television shows. Talk about what you envisioned this would be when you and Kate first thought of doing a podcast together.

Betsy Wallace

Sure. So we were podcast enthusiasts and loved Gretchen Rubin’s Happier podcast with her sister and thought they have such a structured show. I loved the segments in that show. I took out my pen and paper and just wrote, you know—50 seconds to a minute 30, she's doing an intro. A minute 30 to three minutes and 30, they have segment one. And broke down just quite a few episodes of theirs and thought, I love how this is moving. I love how this is paced. I have no idea how to put a podcast together at that point, and we thought, let's do something—a structure—that's fun for us to do. She was in Providence, Rhode Island at the time, and I was in Atlanta. And we thought what if we just cook together each week? And what would that look like as a podcast?

Elaine Appleton Grant

I love that you dissected Gretchen Rubin’s show Happier, not just simply, oh, she has an intro. And then she does this segment and that she does that segment. But you literally broke it down to how long each segment was by the second. That is not something that most people do. Now I have a former business partner who actually did that. She encouraged me to do that with the show that I was creating. And it made an enormous difference in terms of automating the production of the show. But I've never heard of anybody else doing it. Particularly never doing it with somebody else's show.

Betsy Wallace

I still do this. This is a hobby of mine, I will say. If I come across a show that I specifically like, and I like the sound design, there's something about it that the pacing of the show is especially good, I will listen to it once for fun. And then I will go back and I will literally, with a pen and paper, because it's just how I like to process. And I've got a little notebook of just breakdowns of different shows and when they're putting the music behind—because some people have professional like a professional background in audio engineering, and there's a lot of us who are self taught, and if you are self taught a really great way to learn how to put together a podcast is for me, as a visual learner, see how someone else is doing it. And then you can replicate that with your own content. And it gives you just a little boost to start getting your sea legs, right? What does this mean to put together a show? And it's something I loved doing when we were starting, and I I love it today. I mean, I did one maybe a month ago. I listened to an episode and I thought, what are they doing here that's really keeping me engaged? And I went back through and just broke it down in my notebook.

Elaine Appleton Grant

What was it? What was the show?

Betsy Wallace  

It was an aquarium, it was the Georgia Aquarium. And I'm not gonna remember the name of the show, but a producer here in Atlanta, one of the—I'm here in Atlanta. And a friend of mine has a podcast agency, and they had done a show for the aquarium. And they had all these cool breaks and really organic sounding ad breaks, which I'm always looking for. How are they doing…where are the media? Like, how are they putting together this episode that it's engaging? And there's, where are their ads going? Is it host read? Is it not? What's the structure here that kept all my kids listening in the car? And they loved it. And so I went immediately back and thought, I wonder how are they doing this? What's the timing here? What does this show structure look like? 

Elaine Appleton Grant

I have to say, you're making me feel great. Because when I listened to the show that you gave me—and the way Sound Judgment works is that I asked my guests to share with me an episode that they either loved making, or that was particularly challenging to make. When I was listening to the one that you gave me, which is episode 210, you made spinach lasagna and zabaglione. And it's called a dinner party episode. The thing that I picked up on that I found fascinating about it was how structured it is. It's extremely structured. And that was the piece of it that I thought we can all learn from the structure that you're applying not just to your show in general, but to every 10th episode of your show. And we'll get into that. 

So you're making me feel great, like, oh, okay, I got it.

Betsy Wallace 

There's a lot of structure baked in to our episodes, and also baked in to our whole catalog. Right? That's something that my sister and I both really like, and it gives you this nice kind of cohesiveness as a show, you know, and we always—it sounds cheesy, but that whole you know, be creative within your guardrails?—it had to have guardrails, or we couldn't succeed.

Elaine Appleton Grant

Exactly. So let me play a clip to give people a sense of what this show sounds like. And to get us into that structure.

Clip from Dinner Sisters

I'm Kate Schulz, living and working right outside of Atlanta, Georgia. I'm a passionate cook and recipe collector, always thinking about my next meal, which honestly has been nearly on a minute to minute basis since I did a very long trail run, trail race, this weekend, and I've been doing nothing but eating. So that is more true than ever.

Yeah. I'm Betsy Wallace and live, work, and raise a family here in Atlanta, Georgia. Love dinnertime, can always use help planning and cooking for my family of five. We're on fall break this week. So we've also been doing a lot of eating but for different reasons, just because everyone's home again.

Yeah, our goal, this podcast, we want to cook a little better, learn a little bit about food, and most importantly, figure out what the heck to have for dinner.

Elaine Appleton Grant

This sounds deceptively simple, but it actually, I believe, does a lot of work for both you and the listener. Tell me about the strategy behind always identifying sort of who you are beyond your names. And also, the thing that makes something different every week.

Betsy Wallace

We feel strongly about this intro. You are right. It was a deliberate decision. And we always wanted a new listener to feel comfortable with what the show is, who we are, and what we're doing—while not giving too much so that returning listeners just want to disengage and they don't care. And they've heard it every week. And would you please stop with this canned intro? 

It's just the balance there. And so we have—we kind of fell into this rhythm of introducing ourselves and then letting people clearly know what the show is doing. And we stuck really closely to that. Our episodes will help you figure out what to have for dinner, learn a little bit about food. And we do that through interviews, and we do that through our cooking. But to make it not stale and also to make it relatable. And we don't bank episodes necessarily. We would cook maybe a week or two in advance. But for the most part, we were moving through the seasons with our audience. And so if it was the holidays, it really was the holidays. If it was spring, it really was spring. And that translated also into us connecting those conversations back into the Facebook group, back on Instagram, it gave it that less of an evergreen—you could listen to it anytime—but it give it kind of a sense of time, too.

Elaine Appleton Grant

And a sense of immediacy. Did you think about your personas, who you wanted to be in this podcast to your listeners?

Betsy Wallace

Yeah, it's funny because our listeners, I can't tell you how many times people will say, I'm a Betsy or I’m a Kate. In the Facebook group, they will come on, they will introduce themselves and they'll say I'm a Betsy or I'm a Kate. And that's how they talk to each other, which is so funny, because we have a very different and distinct approach to cooking. Kate was always the—is, you know, is, was, always—the better cook. And I was sort of a resistant cook in in these first episodes. You would hear, I really almost didn't want to learn how to cook. But I was the person cooking at home. And so part of this podcast really was, I thought, well, Kate's gonna plan my meals for me every week, she's going to tell me what to cook. So that that's a benefit for me. I'm cooking dinner anyways, Kate's just gonna make all the menus, and I'll cook along and do this podcast. And so people who either love to meal plan, love food, love recipes, are kind of a Kate. Someone who maybe doesn't love to cook and is not great at it and is kind of messing up in the kitchen a lot is more of a Betsy. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

So you said a couple of things that really resonated. And I don't know if maybe you heard this episode, I had the hosts of Pantsuit Politics on, Beth Silvers and Sarah Stewart Holland. And they said the same thing.

Recording of Beth Silvers

When I meet people face to face, often a listener will say to me, you know, I'm really more of a Sarah, but I've appreciated your voice so much. And I think wow, I just never think when we're sitting and recording that people are so eager to identify with one or the other of this kind of binary that they perceive in us. But I do think that contrast is what makes the show.

Elaine Appleton Grant

Who knew that this was a thing. I wonder how many co-hosted podcasts people are doing that with?

Betsy Wallace

I heard that and I thought, I identify with that. I know how that is as a co host. It's such a fun feeling to relate to your audience like that. And it's also a funny kind of moment of self reflection when you think, oh, this is what they think a Betsy is, this is a Betsy.

Elaine Appleton Grant

Are they always right? Or do they get it wrong sometimes?

Betsy Wallace

I'm like, Well, I mean, I try sometimes in the kitchen, guys.

Elaine Appleton Grant

I'm not a complete screw up. Oh, that's a riot. That is so interesting. 

You know, I wanted to say one other thing about that intro clip. You both introduce yourselves, and then Kate says, our purpose with this show is to cook a little better, learn a little bit about food, and most importantly, figure out what the heck to have for dinner. From the get go, did you always announce the purpose of the show?

Betsy Wallace 

It's been a very consistent theme. And that's something that, again, we kind of picked up from Gretchen Rubin, and the Happier podcast. And she talks a lot about structure and values and these underpinning how do you pull yourself back into a cohesive theme and use that to keep the relationship going and to keep working together as two sisters. And so that was a lot of the pre-work we did before we started the podcast.

Elaine Appleton Grant 

What I want to do now is let's get a little bit further into the structure. And then I want to get back to the connection between this show, the relationship with your listeners, and the relationship in your family. Let me ask you this. You could have chosen an episode where you were interviewing a New York Times bestselling cookbook author or you could have chosen a standard episode. It's just Wednesday or whatever day it comes out. And tonight we're making you know, this chicken dish. But you chose a 10th episode. And you don't just structure each individual episode. You structure a whole season or the whole—curating the entire set of episodes, which is a very unusual thing, and really smart thing to do. Let me play that clip.

Clip from Dinner Sisters

Which if you know and have been with us for a little bit, that is a dinner party, every 10 episodes, we celebrate the podcast and do two recipes that could you could make for dinner party. I find them everywhere: popular food blogs, internet chefs, anywhere I can find a recipe. And we'll have the recipes this week. Any tips, the smorgasbord, which is actually a top recipe. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

So again, very clearly, almost as if it were a class telling your listeners what to expect. How did you conceive of every 10th episode, you're doing a quote, dinner party, which I assume means project recipes. And then toward the end of this episode—it's not a lightning round, but they're very structured questions that take you on a reflection back through the previous 10 episodes. Tell me where that structure came from.

Betsy Wallace 

It's funny that you relate this to a class because Kate, my sister is—curriculum and instruction is her background, right? So she was a teacher. She works now as a consultant. But this is at the core of her work. And as her professional, personal everything. That's how she structures. It probably has seeped into this podcast to some extent, as you've picked up on. And so we wanted, personally, every 10 episodes to be a dinner party, because it celebrated for us and for the listeners that we had made it another 10 episodes. It's not a small feat, right? Especially at the beginning, we thought, maybe we'll make it 50 episodes, but every time we get 10 episodes, that's a celebration, that is an accomplishment. That's something that we should pause and celebrate. And as hosts, that was kind of our internal kind of pat on the back, was to do the dinner party.

Elaine Appleton Grant

And so just to sort of do the time lapse of what this episode sounds like, and everybody should go listen to it, is you guys introduce what you're cooking, or what you cooked, I should say, in this case, that lasagna and a zabaglione for dessert. Kate runs through the recipe. And when I heard that, I was like, wow, this is a really unusual—this is not very hosty. I'm going to read you a recipe. But it's very practical—oh, okay, I want to know, and it says where it came from, I think it might have been food and wine. So you can go find it. And then you each talk about how you made it and what that was like, which was really fun, because you did it very differently. You both had frustrations, but they were different frustrations. 

You both then talk about well, how’d it go over? So Kate had a partner or a guest who she served it to. You talk about your family and your husband, who doesn't actually like lasagna. And how initially he wasn't gonna even—you know—I'm gonna eat something different. But he wound up loving it. It was just sort of fun. It's very real. It's a review. It's not just, we're gonna do it, it's a review. 

Then you get to the end and the end particularly intrigued me. As I said, you've got these very structured—we're not just going to reflect on the last 10 episodes, but we're gonna reflect in a very specific way.

Clip from Dinner Sisters

Drumroll please, or not. Let's not do a drumroll. Let's just talk about our overall favorite, which, Betsy, it's got to be my love, the hot charred cherry tomatoes, Episode 206! With cold yogurt, hot cherry tomatoes that you've roasted until they're almost blackened in the oven with lemon and thyme and oregano and garlic and olive oil, maybe garlic. And then you put it on cold yogurt. Oh my gosh, I want some right now. It was so good.

Elaine Appleton Grant  

This is not the first question. There were other questions that you go through. This is sort of the grand finale. Okay, what's your favorite one of the last 10 episodes? 

The things that were interesting to me about that one particular clip. First of all, it is not easy to bring things to life in audio that are inherently visual and sensory. You know, we see it, we smell it, we taste it. Because you're not actually cooking, we're not hearing sizzling, we're not hearing getting pans out. How much do you guys think about talking about those senses in the way that Kate did right then?

Betsy Wallace

We don't spend a lot of time specifically talking about that, because it comes very naturally to Kate. That is how she talks. If you had a conversation with her today, about the lunch she had, you would want to go have that lunch. It’s just, she has a natural love for food that just comes out and resonates with people, which has made this whole thing a lot easier. I think we've definitely gotten better at it, we've realized that the language you use—we're more careful about saying things now, describing things as delicious or describing things with the five words you hear people talk about food with. You know, it's delicious, it tasted, you know, great. There's a couple that we just try to stay away from because they're so overused. And it doesn't give your listeners any idea about how it actually tasted. So we are more intentional about it than we used to be. And I think that just comes from trial and error. And listening to your episode.

Elaine Appleton Grant 

What I am recalling is that I used to run a daily interview program for a public radio station, and we would get pitched and we would do cooking shows. So we would go visit a chef. So that's obviously a time when we had to describe what are we seeing what are we smelling. 

But we would also get pitched artists, or tours of an art museum or something else that is completely visual. And we were deliberate about it. I am touring this van Gogh exhibit, let me tell you what I'm seeing in this picture, of the brushstrokes and the colors and the light hitting this and, you know. And when you were interviewing somebody, you would want to ask those questions. Tell me what you're seeing in these brushstrokes that I'm seeing here. And you would prompt people to do that. And so I did hear that. And it is something that I try to coach people to do in almost every case, right? Take me back to that time when you were in this particular place. And let's—I won't use the word sensory because it's too obvious, it's too overt—but what did it feel like? What did it smell like? What do you what did you notice? 

Betsy Wallace

When we competed in the food truck race, one of the things that you have to do. You film your episode for the two days. And then the third day is spent in the hotel, and you do the voiceover. You sit for five hours, and your producer will ask you, okay, you pulled up to the parking lot. Here you are, describe what you're doing. And one of the things that you have to do is, you're in the food truck, you're making your burger. We had a burger we made, and she said someone had to first person describe it from beginning to end. So you could do the voiceover as you're cooking right. So they would cut it over the thing. It had to be first person present tense. So it would say, I am mixing the seasonings into the ground beef. I am frying this up. I am making the topping, I am doing this. And our other competitors, we would hear afterwards, it was extremely frustrating for people. It's hard to stay in present tense, it's hard to describe food, they would do 15 takes of this. 

I will tell you, Kate could just sail through that. Because we had spent three years describing how to make a dish in a way that was appealing to a listener that they couldn't lay over those prep shots in the food truck. And so it was really a funny full circle moment for us because they said okay, this is going to be hard, we're going to do this, this is exactly what you need to do. And it was skill development you never knew you needed.

Elaine Appleton Grant 

I love that. I love that and it's such a pulling back the fourth wall. 

I am guessing that the development of your Facebook community, and the fact that the Food Network found you, and your journey into the Great Food Truck Race, are connected. So let's start with, when you started the podcast, did you imagine that you would start a community also?

Betsy Wallace

We didn't, and the community did not come immediately. And Kate was actually a little bit resistant to the community, only because she thought, I don't want to manage a Facebook group. That sounds like a pain. All I've heard about managing Facebook groups is moderating and people who are just causing problems and booting them out and all this kind of thing. And we thought, well, let's just try it, see it, if we hate it, we can stop. 

And it just became such a wonderful way for us to connect with people, and know that what you're putting out there is resonating, and you're hearing back from people. And now it's a two way street. And we were so dependent on that, both for feedback, in terms of what are people liking to cook? Sometimes we'll put an episode out and a whole bunch of people will say, oh, that one recipe! We didn't even think that would be the one to stick that week. And it'll be the throwaway, in our opinion, the throwaway recipe, that will resonate with everyone. You just don't know unless you're hearing from people. But also it gave us so much energy to keep going. Because you're getting that energetic feedback from your listeners, that is just indescribable until you feel it. And it just keeps you going. And I think that was the only reason that we have done this as long as we have.

Elaine Appleton Grant

I was going to ask you that. Because you said three years, 200 episodes, ish? That's hard to do. It's very, very difficult to keep something going and especially something that requires the workload that you created for yourselves with three recipes every week. 

And so that's the key is that you built a Facebook group that now has some 700 people in it. And I should say, this is about a year since your last active episode, which is something that we'll get into. And they are still saying, I want to listen, how are you? There was a little glitch in hosting recently, apparently. And they said, we can't find your—we can't find these episodes! I need to listen! What happened? A year after the show has been truly active. That's… How far into the show were you when you decided let's just try it?

Betsy Wallace

Well, I know it's at Episode 13, because we have a listener, Dorothy, who we have never met, but she has been with us, and she will say since episode 13. And that was right when we started the Facebook group. And she was there and she consistently—we would release the episodes on Sunday, very, like everything else, structured. We would release the episodes on Sunday. And by Monday Dorothy would be telling us which recipe she might make that week. And then by later in the week, she would have cooked at least one and she would share with the group. And there were often times where Dorothy would say, you know what, nothing appealed to me this week.

Elaine Appleton Grant 

What would you do?

Betsy Wallace

Well, Kate and I, it was so funny, because on Monday mornings, we would say, Oh, I just I can't wait to see what what the reaction is here for the recipe picks and if Dorothy's going to weigh in, if she's going to make something, if she's already made something. Sometimes, you know, it would be she'd already have it planned. And we had quite a few people. And then we all got to know each other. And during COVID, we would Zoom and cook together and it just became such a community. And it didn't feel like Kate and I were cooking and presenting so much as it was we were cooking together with people. Ours was sort of the platform that people were jumping off of to cook together, in a group of people who they otherwise might not have found.

Elaine Appleton Grant 

So what's the connection between having started the Facebook community and being found by the Food Network? Well just just explain that journey really briefly.

Betsy Wallace

So they found us on Instagram also. So the Instagram and Facebook were the first ways we were found by the Food Network. And I think on Instagram, it was probably using the hashtags, right? I think because you're searchable that way. And then once we were found, there was an easy way to do some good research, right? So you could see there's Instagram, you could see there's an active Facebook group, you can hear us on the podcast, even though the volume of each one of those individually wasn't huge, the quality of the content across those platforms was enough to say, these two could go on TV. Maybe let's check this out.

Elaine Appleton Grant  

And consistency, just showing up every week. Every week. Yeah, exactly. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

So let's talk about the elephant in the room that nobody ever talks about. About a year ago, you had your last active episode, to the great sadness, I think, of your community and listeners. It coincided with when you were on the Great Food Truck Race. And you and I have met before. I knew you also took another very big podcasting job. And so I assumed that those were the reasons for what we call in the industry, pod fade. Okay, they've done this for a few years, even though people love it, there's an active community, there's no show. But it turns out that those are not actually the reasons why you stopped the show. So do you want to talk about that?

Betsy Wallace 

Sure. So we took a hiatus to go in the food truck, which we told our listeners. It's going to be a couple of weeks, we're doing a special project, we can't say anything about it. We'll tell you more when we get back, this is going to be really wonderful and exciting for everyone. And we got back from the food truck. And we had all these plans while we were in LA—we were shooting in LA—about how we were going to promote the show and grow the show. And this was going to be kind of a stepping off point into the next Dinner Sisters 2.0. And about a week after, my mom was having back pain, and went into the emergency room. 

And we found out it was stage IV terminal lung cancer. And it was just—shook everything. And anyone who's had that kind of diagnosis with a family member. Your whole world sort of stops and starts. You can't make sense of anything, and you're trying to immediately dive into help, and everything just kind of goes out the window. So we were dealing with this great opportunity for the show. At the same time we were dealing with this really, really difficult news. 

And kind of making things more complicated, my dad has pancreatic cancer. And we were—he was sort of end stage with that. So we have a complex medical situation that's now made just almost impossible. And something had to give. And in this case, it was the Dinner Sisters, which was almost unbelievable timing. There was just no other way to do it. It was one of the hard things about a show that is hosted by two sisters. If there's a family issue or emergency, there's you can't swap out a co host. We had to kind of press pause. And again it went back to our values, right? Sisters first and families first, here, and we needed to hit pause. And we needed to communicate it to our listeners in a way that also was sensitive to our family who had different levels of comfort as far as how much of their story they wanted shared.

Elaine Appleton Grant

And how did you communicate with your listeners?

Betsy Wallace

So we have an email newsletter. We sent an email out, we posted in the Facebook group, and we posted on Instagram. It was really hard for us to record an episode, just emotionally. That was just something that we just couldn't do. It was too hard. We didn't. Yeah. 

And I think we wanted to? I think with us, being sisters, with the situation being with our mom, who was a huge—we talked about her all the time in the show. It felt really hard to do that. And we just, we just couldn't. 

I mean, you want to feel like you could be superhuman and take care of business. And one of the themes here that we've had is our show is so structured. Our show runs really smoothly. Everything about it is planned and executed week after week. And we just couldn't do it.

Elaine Appleton Grant

I'm so sorry about both of your parents. Your mother passed away relatively quickly after that diagnosis. Am I correct?

Betsy Wallace

She did. It was about, I think 10 weeks? Kate and I immediately went to Oshkosh, which is where we're from, in Wisconsin. We actually—there is an episode where we record and say, we're in Oshkosh. And we're both here in the same room. And we're recording together because we're dealing with some family issues. And because we didn't know at that time what was going to happen. And I actually, Elaine, in my files, have an episode that we recorded, that just was never released. Because things changed with my mom and the recording itself is so—it's just laughing and funny, and we were in a totally different place, and I thought: I can't even bring myself to edit this right now. You know, I can't, this doesn't… 

By this time, our audience had kind of knew, we communicated things, and it felt so out of place that we said, we're just going to take a hiatus. And that episode has just not—we just never released it.

Elaine Appleton Grant

So here we are, as I mentioned before, getting very close to Valentine's Day. And you said that the relationship between you and your sister changed dramatically as a result of the podcast. When you think back about this time, finding out about your mom, going through her illness, her death, not being able to bring yourselves to do the show, what's the relationship between how you grew as sisters during the show—and what it was like to not do the show while you were going through all this? I mean, obviously, on the one hand, it was too difficult to do. But what was it like to not have that in your life?

Betsy Wallace

I think at first it's a relief, right? Because even though it's enjoyable, there's a component of preparation and work that goes into podcasting that maybe we don't talk about enough, I think as podcasters. Because sometimes it feels like you're just the assumption from listeners is that it's easy to just talk about what you had for dinner this week. But there's a lot of work that goes into it. So the initial relief, we could feel. And then it was funny, because we would have these discussions about dinner, because you talk about it anyways. And there was sort of almost a grief component to that too, because we thought, it's hard to not do what you want to do. It's hard when you…

We sort of lost that moment, too, maybe? I don't—everything—there's a plan, I don’t know if it's the universe, or whoever it is. But there’s, I think, some grief mixed in about losing that momentum we had and losing the joy of doing a fun, creative project together. And when you're doing things that are hard, like hospice and death and grief, the creative projects do give you a lot. 

And so this is where we are right now. Right? So my dad is about to go into hospice, we've had the sort of like one-two hit this year, which has made it extremely difficult. But you need things to fill your cup up, too. But how do you work that back in? And how do we do that as sisters in a way that feels good? 

And that sort of has a joy component and has that healing component, and what we don't know and what we're talking about, is what does that look like for our show? I think it will look different. I think we want it to look kind of the same. There's a lot of comfort in that, too, you know. So how does this look different? And the same? is a question that we've been talking about when we have space and time to do it. And we're just trying to give ourselves that space and time and thankfully, our audience, they have been so gracious and understanding and generous, and their sympathy and empathy through this, and mostly through the Facebook group? That does make us want to continue with our listeners and continue as sisters. We just don't—it's hard to know what's next.

Elaine Appleton Grant 

Sure. It's such a hard thing to go through no matter what, and so many mixed emotions and time. And what's life giving and what's not life giving. And who's your first loyalty to? In your case, you're very clear. Sisters, family. When you're a co host with someone who's not family, then those loyalty questions become even harder, I think. Or you're not a co host, you're on your own, and things happen. And best laid plans, big plans have to be pulled away. And do you get those moments back again? There are a lot of priority questions. 

And I think pod fading is such a negative term. What would you say now to people who aren't seeing why, after three episodes, or 10 episodes or 200 episodes, they didn't make that next one?

Betsy Wallace

I think it is personally easiest for me to communicate with our listeners. And we have found that in response, they are kind and they understand, and they know what's happening. I think there is this assumption that if you don't stay on the hamster wheel, that it will all disappear, and you can never get it back. And that has absolutely not been my experience. So I would encourage others to take a break if you need a break. And also let people know if you need to take a break. And if you're comfortable sharing why I think that's helpful if people can get to get some context. But you also don't need to. 

And I think it lets us take a more expansive view of what it means to be a creator, and also a person with a family and with other obligations, and with complicated things that are happening. And it was good for me to know that our listeners understood that. 

I personally after going through this cannot stand any hot take article about pod fading. And about giving up or, you know, you didn't have it in you to keep going. Because I think it's such a cruel thing to say to someone when you don't know why they might have done this. And there's shame associated with it. And there's all sorts of things, right, that are wrapped up here, to someone who put themselves out there, and who made something, and who started. And just because you start also doesn't mean that you have to do this forever.

Elaine Appleton Grant

It's something we never talk about. We don't talk about grief, and podcasting, and the creative process. And perhaps there is no better time than close to Valentine's Day, when for so many of us grief plays a role in our creativity, in who we love, what we miss, how we bolster each other, you know, between sisters, between listener and a host, between co hosts. So I'm curious now that we've talked about the easy stuff, the structure, and we've talked about some of the harder parts of all this. What do you think about sharing is the hardest part, when we share how we feel about the things that are closest to us?

Betsy Wallace

It's hard, although we show up as our real self. We're very topic oriented. I'm talking about my dinner, with some of—you know—some family things thrown in there. But it's not the most vulnerable show. And then we run into these things because we're doing a weekly show, because we're sisters. Even when Kate moved across country, she ended a relationship. There was a lot of grief that went with that. And we had to talk about, what are we going to say? Do you want to tell people that intro is going to change? Because you moved? How do you want to address that? And when my mom passed, that is coming up for us now, is we think, what are we going to do? I think getting sort of back on the horse. And just recording with Kate. I've recorded a lot since then. This is what I do for a living. But recording with Kate. I don't know. I mean, I think it's gonna be hard.

Elaine Appleton Grant 

I think you being so generous in sharing what you're going through now, what you've been through, it's going to help a lot of people.

Betsy Wallace  

Yeah, I think the more we can talk about it, being okay to grieve, being okay to pause for family. It's okay to pause when life doesn't go the way you think it should. And I am. I'm grateful. Give me a second.

I am grateful that we decided to not compartmentalize and do the show and keep it very separate from what was happening, right? We could have just said, show’s about dinner, we're making dinner every week anyways, let's barrel through. And I don't think it would have served our audience because we wouldn't have been showing up as our whole person. That probably wouldn't have been as engaging because we wouldn't have been, you know, we wouldn't have been there with our full selves. And I honestly don't think it would have been good for us emotionally, going through that, to pull the focus away from being fully present with my mom. And that's time that we won't get back. And it's time that I think was spent absolutely in the best way and our heads were where our feet were. And we were there with her. And we were doing that. And we pressed pause, and it was okay.

Elaine Appleton Grant 

I always end this show with some Lightning Round questions. I'm going to not ask as many. But I will ask you, how has hosting Dinner Sisters changed you in a way that you didn't expect?

Betsy Wallace 

I think I…

I think my faith in taking a leap, whether that was with my sister to do this show, because we really thought that it could damage our—I mean, we had no idea that this was going to be a good thing. And then also engaging the audience. We didn't know what we were going to hear from them. They could have hated—we were worried that we were going to get feedback that it was terrible, or that no one would say anything. 

And every time we've sort of taken those leaps, we've just gotten so much positive energy and positive feedback. And I think my belief in people has shifted. The people who have shown up for us through this podcast, I am amazed at the depth of those relationships that have formed through this. And we always say that our takeaway from this is that our relationship as sisters has deepened, and just our relationship with this creative project that filled us up and filled everyone else up? That experience I couldn't have gotten anywhere else.

Elaine Appleton Grant

That sounds like a good place to stop. 

Betsy Wallace

Yeah. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

Betsy, thank you. This has been a surprising and deeply moving episode to to record with you.

Betsy Wallace

Thanks for having me. It was a we. We had a discussion.

Elaine Appleton Grant

We went places. Neither one of us expected I think and and I'm very grateful for it. And I wish you and your family the very best of luck. 

Betsy Wallace

Thank you. 

Elaine Appleton Grant

At the end of every episode, I usually share instructional takeaways from these conversations. today. I just want to tell you what happened with Betsy. The day we recorded, Betsy's father was wrestling with a decision of whether to enter hospice. In January he died peacefully. 

Until recently, Betsy and Kate continued to struggle with whether to restart Dinner Sisters and if so, for how long? In the meantime, their listeners in the Facebook group continue to check in. Just this week fan Lorelei Stubblefield wrote, I really miss listening to the Dinner Sisters. I hope your family is doing well and that you will be back soon. But perhaps because Betsy had shared about her mom's illness and death, they’re patient. A few months ago, listener Nancy Kohrs LaRoche wrote: take as much time as you need and know you've got fans who will happily wait.

The waiting will soon be over. The sisters have decided to launch a new six episode season on Sunday, April ninth. It is likely to be their final season. 

That's all for today. For takeaways on purpose, structure, values and community, visit our blog post. The link’s in the show notes. Or go to podcast allies.com. If you haven't yet signed up for our Sound Judgment newsletter, all about creative choices in audio storytelling, with some juicy nuggets of news and insights about podcasting and public radio, you’re missing out. The link to subscribe is in our show notes. 

Thanks for being with me on Sound Judgment. Please follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. If you liked this episode, please share it with a friend or on social media and give it a rating and a review. It all helps! 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies. It's produced by me, Elaine Appleton Grant. Sound design and editing by production manager Andrew Parrella. Our cover art is by Sara Edgell. Podcast management by Tina Bassir. Coming up on the next episode, Juleyka Lantigua, CEO of LWC studios and host of Latina to Latina. This is a rollicking conversation about the show, which just topped 2 million downloads, and how she founded and is growing one of the most powerful woman-owned podcast and film studios in the industry. See you then.