Talk a little bit about that, if you don't mind.

Sure.

So about almost 10 years ago, my brother Brian passed away of an overdose and.

He never liked shellfish.

He hated it.

He would cry, screaming, crying if we went to a fish restaurant.

When we went out for sushi, he ate chicken or beef.

Sugar and in particular, Sydney mints.

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Oh, that's such a good question 'cause there's actually, there's not a one, there's not one answer to that.

I think, um, we're seeing a lot more disconnection and isolation in our community, which is, you know, probably with the rise of technology and certainly since COVID with people being isolated.

And the attachment...

So this is generalization, okay? So there's always a spectrum a- across this, but as a general rule, the human-animal bond has intensified over the last few decades where companion pets are now, the, the bond is stronger and companion pets really are family members.

And if you think back, if I think back to the early days of my career, dogs were not sleeping in people's beds.

They were outside in the kennel.

I love that.

Can you talk about that and, and maybe how that sort of kind of thinking still affects you?

Yeah, I mean, my...

So obviously, as a kid...

I mean, I guess not all kids love chocolate.

Uh, but as a kid, I loved chocolate a lot, and because it was also so, uh, it was special.

It's, you know, like now for me, is chocolate special? I could go in the fridge.

I have it there.

... yeah, your, your, your part of it more than him, but...

And I was wondering if you could speak a little bit about that.

Yeah.

So because basically I wouldn't be a food writer without the vegan micro bakery.

Like it sort of took over my life.

And this it was a weird moment already in my life where I was like still living on Long Island, but I was working at New York Magazine and I was copy editing.

And like at that time.

When we were copyediting the digital, like, the website at NYMAG, we were working 10 hours a day, and we had no lunch breaks, and we could, like, could barely even go to the bathroom.

Well, yeah.