Food, Music and Zen with Tiffany: Wellness, Reinvention and Balance, Part 2

Introduction and Tiffany's Wellness Journey 0:00

Welcome to Energize and Revitalize with Dr. Amy. I'm Dr. Amy Cooper-Smith, a doctorate prepared nurse practitioner, and this show is about empowering you to live a radiant, healthy, and balanced life. This is the second part of my interview with a very special guest. I first met this guest during the COVID pandemic. In Flagler County, we had reopened many of our businesses, but we were still social distancing. People were scared. We didn't know how this was going to play out. We were isolated. The social isolation led to increased anxiety and depression.

I was running a business and wasn't sure how the pandemic was going to affect us long-term. I was feeling quite a bit of stress and anxiety myself. Then I saw a Facebook post announcing an outdoor concert featuring this guest. I was excited. I had been a fan of hers for many years. She has been performing since the 1980s and has made many guest appearances on reality shows and more. I contacted my friends and we made plans to attend this event. After the show, I met my guest. She was so warm and inviting.

She also had an interest in wellness. She visited me at Amethyst Wellness, and we collaborated to put on a fabulous wellness event. Welcome to part two of my interview with 1980s pop icon Tiffany. Tiffany has been in town and has put on a few performances. I hope some of you got to see her. Tiffany took time out of her busy schedule to join me at Amethyst Wellness for a powerful discussion about her journey in the music industry and what she's up to now. If you caught part one, you know we covered some really fun ground.

Tiffany is on a wellness journey. She shared her interest in alternative medicine, uses for her favorite crystal, the amethyst, and her latest project, Let Zen My Friend. This venture is a series of wellness gatherings where Tiffany shares her wellness journey with her fans. She is gathering wellness experts in the community and joining them together to educate and promote well-being.

Pandemic Disruption and Relocation 2:25

We ended part one on a pretty powerful note Tiffany was talking about the excitement of preparing for a world tour in 2020. She had worked tirelessly and her efforts were finally paying off. Then the pandemic hit and everything was put on hold. In part two, Tiffany shares how she navigated those troubling and disappointing times. How she took disappointment and turned it into opportunity. Tiffany shares how she's continued to reinvent herself. what wellness means to her these days, and the exciting projects that she's bringing to fans, from her cookbook and Spiceline, to what's next on her tour schedule.

Let's jump right back in. So we were I had a new album all of it was like yeah and we started to on the you know i was here torn in america just doing some smaller shows and i started getting text my my tour manager garrick his wife is a nurse in philadelphia and she started saying yeah the. Like the, you know, the hazmat people were just here, they're shutting down wings of the hospital. I think this is something happening really serious, because we heard trickles. So then it got to be more serious, more serious.

I ended up getting stuck in LA because now I don't want to travel. I sent for my fiance, who's in England at the time. I said, I think they're shutting down the world. So we both get stuck in LA. He flies to LA. We're there. We start, you know, going from Airbnb. They were shutting that all down because I don't have a place in LA anymore. Otherwise born and raised there. And of course, family, I moved them all to Nashville, so that didn't help me. So I was like, I don't know, we'll stay at Airbnb.

We stayed at the beaches at first because vitamin D self, you know, social distance, all of that. Then that started to close up. So then I took us to the desert out by Palm Springs. Um, then I ended up taking us to Lake Havasu, which I do have a cousin there and they weren't shut down there yet. So I rented a house there, Airbnb, uh, and we stayed there for quite a bit of months, you know, two months. And by this time, A day after day after day with COVID and not letting up. And this is becoming a thing.

I was getting depressed. I felt so alone. My family was in Nashville. They were social distancing together. I had my home. I had my pets. I didn't know. I didn't feel comfortable getting on a plane. I didn't feel comfortable renting a car, driving. I don't know what that's going to be like. Is it Mad Max out there? Don't know. Because the 40 is just a stretch of nothing. I didn't really feel comfortable with that. My fiance felt the same. He's got his family in the UK. It was just very worrisome.

And I started cooking just that's my my comfort it's always been my comfort you know sometimes a good thing sometimes not a bad thing but I come from a long line of great cooks from the Arabic side to the German side to living in East L.A. to my family being from the south Oklahoma Arkansas area and I just thought I'm going to cook I'm going to make my grandma's recipes. And I thought, well, I'm going to share them with fans because that's what people seem to be doing. That's how my company lets food with Tiffany started, which is my cooking club again.

So now I'm doing all of this. I'm just posting it. I don't know what I was doing, but it was making me feel comforted, therapeutic, very therapeutic, you know, and we were eating good, you know, we were having fun by the pool. We did have a place by the pool. So I was just experimenting with food, trying different things, where I was making my spices. I was like, I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm making different blends and having fun. We had a lot of time. And I ended up coming back to Nashville four months later.

And, and again, everybody was trying to get back together, but it was still shut down everything. So now I'm back at home. And my boyfriend has a really good friend who is a music engineer. But he loves food. He's a foodie like me. His name's Tom Vrim. And we were spending some time with him. You pick your social distance crowd, you know, who you coveted with. And that was it. Tom was one of that because we were still doing music. We could actually go to his house. And that's very therapeutic.

Cooking, Spices, and TIF Takeovers 7:10

And I get a little Bing on my messenger for Instagram from a wonderful woman inviting me to come down here to Flagler Beach. She's been watching my socials and saying, look, I do a lot of marketing. for all the restaurants out here in Flagler Beach, Daytona, Ormond Beach. And I'm just trying to give people some ideas of how to stay in business. We have to come back to reality. We have to regain our life. And we're not shut down here. But we are social distancing and complying, and that way, having some common sense.

But we're moving forward. And we'd love to invite you to come down and do some music in some restaurants. We're just trying to think outside the box. And I thought, well, okay, I don't know this person, but it sounds fantastic. I do have family in Florida. So if this goes south, I'm not alone, you know? And I thought, sounds, sounds like a chance, you know? I mean, we were talking and I really liked her personality. So I took a chance. We, we drove down to Flagler beach and that's here we are. I, I met Karen.

Yes. And, um, and then took on her world with all these lovely people, including yourself. And this has now become part of my life is we call them now TIF takeovers. They're a thing. Um, I haven't stopped and, and I really found a new passion, food and music. I saw how people lit up. in COVID by just connecting again. Yes. Having a wonderful meal provided by all these great restaurants around here. And Karen designing a wonderful evening. And then I was doing music and hosting, sharing stories, just, you know, whatever, just being in the moment.

I love intimate cost concerts anyway. So it just worked. And I thought, I don't want to give this up. So now there are TIF takeovers. It's really my primary Um, I don't want to say business because I still tour the world and I do a lot of retro festivals and I do a lot of stuff and I will continue to do that. But this is really my passion. I love TIFF takeovers, um, which next year we'll be here a lot. Karen's opened up a new place called Sharboozies. I can't wait to try that. Uh, so that's my new home guys.

You'll find me at Sharboozies doing acoustic stuff. They can find me there too. Yeah. And, and I have the Spice line. So we're going to feature the Spice line there. Spices. Well again that was something i started in covid just experimenting with different things i love to just mix it up. you know i love spicy but you know i thought well what about a little bit of mexican you know arabic what is that like i love zatar because it's very earthy it's very grounding it's very lebanese and it's very you know mediterranean and but what can i make different in there you know i just don't want plain zatar so i put sesame seed in mine I put a little bit of you know little bit more lemon zest in mind just because i love lemon i love kalamata olives i love all of that i base it off my Lebanese chicken.

which it had actually already been published in a cook cook like a rock star. So when my my fans were already like doing some of my food and I hadn't realized that because I talked a lot about it in interviews. I love to cook. I love to do this. I did Guy Fieri, um, virtual reality shows. So when I actually put like my bio together for let's be with Tiffany, I went, Oh, I've been doing this for a long time. I didn't know. I'm legit. And so yeah, we put the spice line together. They are bottled here in Flagler, in Flagler Beach.

I didn't know that. Yes. So I'm very, very excited about that. So it's not me bottling my own stuff. This is professionally done. They service a lot of the restaurants here, all throughout Ormond, Daytona, Palm Coast. Can we buy them? You can buy them on yes let's see what tiffany okay or tiffany tunes dot com i put everything on my home page but then now let's see what tiffany really is kicking off i've got pop life the cookbook full circle again when does that come out. It's available for pre-order next March, physically in your hand by June of next year.

But we start a lot of promotion at the end of this year. We've just done all the plating, all the food, all the recipes are all uploaded and being put in a book form. We did all the photography just recently. But again, coming from Karen, coming from Flagler, coming from doing these make sure to take to take over which i am giving them a name. because my, you know, my agent really was like going, what are you doing performing at restaurants and stuff like this? What is this? And I was like, well, this is a different show.

It's not the big tip shows, but I think it's a thing. Food and music is a one-stop shop and I really love this and I really want to make this legit. So now it is it's booked out. It has its own price. It has a writer, if you will.

Pop Life Cookbook and Recipe Development 12:40

It's a real thing. We're gonna pause for a break from our sponsor. You're listening to Energize and Revitalize with Dr. Amy. Don't go anywhere, we'll be right back. Before the break, Tiffany shared how she responded to the COVID pandemic. She talks about the invention of TIF takeovers, intimate gatherings featuring great food and music, and how they were invented right here in Flagler Beach. I went to several of those shows and each time they had a special feel. We talked in part one about the importance of togetherness.

The isolation caused by the pandemic contributed to worsening feelings of depression and anxiety. By developing TIF takeovers, Tiffany found a creative outlet for herself, but she also helped the wellbeing of the community. In the continuation of our talk, Tiffany shares the story behind the development of her upcoming cookbook, Pop Life. But through that, a friend of mine contacted me and went, Hey, I know this chef in Vegas chef Alicia and I'm just wondering if there's a pairing there for you because she's like, you know, not, you know, officially trained like culinary school, but she's really literally killing it.

She's an amazing chef. And she's kind of learning now with all the chefs, backtracking, learning, going to classes, doing stuff like that. And she's just really making it happen in Vegas. And I think more than anything, you guys could be really great girlfriends. I said, I'm always into making friends. So again, full circle, we met, we did a TIF takeover in Vegas. It just like was completely booked. Fans loved it. I loved working with her. And that's my partner now on Pop Life Cookbook. So you wrote it together.

We wrote it together. What you're getting in that is the foodie part of me. You're getting my heritage. You're getting my travel story. So in the cookbook, there's going to be a lot of pictures that have never been seen. Me on the road, me with the band, because I've always been cooking at Airbnb's for the band. You have to, I can't do a lot of processed food. So I always rent an Airbnb when we're on the road and we have at least one or two nights where I cook and we eat real food. I call it real food.

I just have to do that. Otherwise I get out of pocket. So you get that, you get the photos of that, you get the band stories, you get all these things that I really don't share in the cookbook with Pop Life. But it really is about reworking 80s foods for all my 80s people out there. It's, remember Stouffer's Pizza? Well, we've reworked it. And it's using a lot of fresh new ingredients because now that I've been doing some of the 80s food, there was a lot of colors there. Yes. There's a lot of process there.

I think there's more process now than then, but you know, still when I started to put stuff together, I went, Ooh, this is all can package. Wow. And again, a lot of colors. So we've taken that fun, but used real foods. Nice. And also you're getting the high end. chef with chef Alicia. Um, she is bringing some really great recipes and I'm learning again. I, you know, there was one, I totally screwed up one of her recipes. I didn't read it right. And I was meant to do something and we're in there in the kitchen and they're taking pictures and filming it.

I just popped in that ingredients and I was like, Oh, I don't, Think this is where she's like, that's fine. This will rework it. I go, girl, I'm messing up your high end stuff. I am so sorry. And we do that too. You know, learning how to fix it. It was great. But you know, she works a lot with, you know, cheeses and making bechamel and all of that. Which again, this not something that I usually do. I usually don't do a lot of dairy, but she's taught me how to take that out. Then make it lighter.

You don't have to use that change that cheese to, you know, I'm forever grateful, but the taste is there. and the presentation. So we're judging up 80s food where there is some decor in the book as well. You know, who doesn't want like black candles and like a runner that's black and white, right? So it's a little more high end. It's not again, like 80s neon, but it's like it's old sunset strip Boulevard. It's me being an LA girl. So just a little go-to that you should have on hand for the insta party.

Because we're back at it now. I think people need that fun as well. You know, we should be gathering in our homes. We work hard enough. Our homes should be our sanctuary. And, you know, I think that was something that the 80s really had. People went out, but they really took pride in their home and they had a lot of parties in their home. There was the fondue, if you remember. There was like all there's those jello molds. There was all of that and was all about gathering. And it was all about showing off a little bit the lazy Susan.

My mother loved lazy Susan's. Um, you know, so we're getting back to that of how to make a party or even your dinner on a Tuesday night. Not so common by adding a little bit of a little bit of that and hopefully my spices. Do you have a favorite recipe in the book? Uh, you know, gosh. I do our puffy cheesy burgers, which is so so different. So you're taking puff pastry. Okay. And you're putting all of that in the puff pastry rolling it up. and then putting whatever toppings you want. Of course, we've used ketchup and mustard, but we put the pickles into the burger.

And you can do that for turkey burgers as well. You can do plant-based, if that's beyond meat, if you want to do. But they're little, tiny, little, fun, little pop-sized burgers. I love that. Having that puff pastry, it's so easy to make. I always say a lot of these things in the Pop Life Cookbook fun to make with your party members or with your family when they're game day any of that doesn't have to be slaving in the kitchen and have it ready. With your kids they love to do pastries and do like that you know I used to love to cook with my grandma she's Lebanese and we did a lot of rolling grape leaves we did a lot of making you know making stuff the spinach pies I used to love doing that with her she put on her soap operas.

Put my station together and i would do that and i was just a kid it was a lot of fun so these are things that you can also do with kids and then the end result is just yummy yummy fun little bites it's good to have that quality time because we just kind of miss that now.

Wellness, Support, and Future Plans 19:45

We do, you know, and a lot of times it's like you're making something that maybe the kids don't want to make, you know, or whatever. But this, again, you can put anything you want. We put, of course, we did a take on the classic cheeseburger. But you can go ahead and do turkey burgers, you know, chicken burgers. We've I have like some Portobello sandwiches in there that are really, really great because I was asked to do an event Then what about my veggies and i thought gosh this is all burgers and this is all turkey burgers and this is all what about just a really great grill portobello.

And i marinated in the in the lebanese chicken. marinade um omitting the chicken of course and it came out so good so it's actually my burgers which i'm not really my expertise is not burger i can make anything but this particular place in the camden club they mostly serve burgers so i was asked to do three different styles of burgers i did the thai turkey sliders and burgers i did the um portobello and i did just a regular classic bruschetta burger which is a little bit more in depth they were like what are you doing to us but it has bruschetta all on top of it it's really really good then it's just with regular minced meat but it ended up being on the menu now so now i have like something on a menu officially you know gaining those these little victories for me have been highlights so every time i do something that people tell me You want to do what I'm like, well, I'm going to prove you wrong.

And now it's all connecting the dots. So let's end. My friend is growing now. Um, thank you. You're my first podcast about it. I have my first event in the UK. You heard it here first, everyone. I did. I heard it from you've heard it first here. Um, And thank you for being part of my world. Definitely. I've been so happy we got to connect while you're here in town and you definitely, you know, every time I'm here, we try to make a point to talk and see each other and come in here from anything topical literally to inside, you know, the wellness bar inside.

So, uh, this is a one-stop shop. If you're in the area and, um, I, I, I'd love, I love Amy, she's part of Team TIFF. But thank you for taking me in on your world as well, and for keeping me in the game, because I mean, it really is, you need these people around you. that you know ground you that are there to help you when you get out of give you advice you know say try this you know even my face as you know you'll see it in my face definitely it all shows and you know that's that's a really big thing for me is to have the support.

You know, support team. Oh, well, I'm again, I'm so happy to have you here. And I where can people find more about you? What you're doing and how that can they connect with you? Well, at tiffanytunes.com for all things tiff world. That will take you to let's send my friend that'll take you to let's meet with Tiffany. There's a lot of let's get together. And of course on my socials Instagram let's see what Tiffany let's end my friend you know i'm just gonna be living out loud. And just enjoying and enjoying even for me again the imperfections to be able to as a celebrity.

be you know I guess a little bit more translucent to come on here with no makeup and just be like okay this is the day we're just I'm gonna show the real me to you know guys I'm having a hard day or I'm having a flare-up or hey guys it's a great day you know or wow this is not what we planned we're stuck at the airport all of that I think for me I kind of Strive to be, I don't want to say the word perfect, but have everything looking right. Right. Which, you know, usually is not right. It makes you more related.

It makes me really frustrated. Yeah. Um, but I think, you know, that's the thing is I've just taken on to say, look, let's send my friend is really an avenue that I can just be me. and show the good, the bad, the working on it. And it's good for my mental health. So it really is that avenue. So I encourage people to come be a part of it and find other people in your community as I'm connecting people that work for you. And just exposing people. Again, I've got a lot of travel. But next year, I will be going to Japan.

We're talking about going back to the Philippines. And it's making the time to talk to practitioners, go to Chinese medicine. I do a lot of Chinese medicine. I love it. But I mean, I, you know, it's overwhelming to me. I don't know everything. I just do what they tell me. And I go, Oh, that work. That feels different. But you know why it works. I can't tell you. I'm learning now part of the journey. It's part of the journey. All right. Well, I look forward to seeing everything you do. It's always so exciting.

Thank you. That will wrap up my interview with Tiffany. I hope you enjoyed it. I really appreciate that Tiffany took time to share her story with me and our listeners. As I listened to her, I felt that she was so relatable as she shared her struggles. How do we set boundaries and take care of our own wellness so that we can be present for others? Does that resonate with you? Let's figure this out together. I'm excited to share this wellness journey with all of you. There is so much to look forward to.

We've got TIF takeovers this fall. Tiffany's cookbook will be available next summer. And of course, maybe we'll have a Let's ZUN event right here in Flagler. Thanks to our listeners for tuning in to Energize and Revitalize with Dr. Amy. If there are topics you would like to hear about, please send an email to radiantpodcasts2025 at gmail.com. Check out past episodes on Amethyst Wellness YouTube. We are now featured on Apple podcasts in all your favorite platforms. Please subscribe and leave a five-star review with a quick comment.

It really helps us reach more listeners like you. I'll be back next Saturday morning at 7.30 with more expert insights and practical strategies to help you live your healthiest, most energized life. Until then, stay healthy and here's to your best life.