Mary Berg: The Next Big Thing

Maureen Holloway  0:00  
Hi there, we are really excited to tell you that this week's episode is brought to you by our friends at Kitchen Stuff Plus. You'll see this is going to tie in really well with this week's guest.

Wendy Mesley  0:11  
Yeah, so thanks so much to Kitchen Stuff Plus, back to school made easy. Here we go.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  0:19  
The Women Of Ill repute with your hosts, Wendy Mesley and Maureen Holloway.

Wendy Mesley  0:24  
So Maureen, did you remember when when you were the next big thing?

Maureen Holloway  0:28  
When I was the next big thing?

I know what you mean, I remember when everything was coming together. It happened at certain points in my career, but I remember the first time realizing wow, I might actually be on the precipice of being famous and yeah, it is happened several times. It's very exciting. It's very stressful. But you, you, you were a big thing. And it was-

Wendy Mesley  1:00  
Very, very large. 

Maureen Holloway  1:02  
Oh my god, Wendy Mesley. You're a legend. Did you remember when you-  

Wendy Mesley  1:05  
Well I don't know you, you were you were a pretty big thing. For me. I remember being young, I remember being interviewed a lot, having my picture taken a lot. Being gossiped about a lot, which was mostly bad, but you know, whatever. I remember CBC, getting me to do some really stupid reality shows that were not me and I was like, I'm a very serious journalist, this is really getting in the way which I look back now and it's in retrospect is so ridiculous. I should have just enjoyed being young -

Maureen Holloway  1:36  
Enjoyed it.

Wendy Mesley  1:37  
We still are, of course. 

Maureen Holloway  1:41  
Hugely, but here's, here's a story. So a few months ago, we put Mary Berg on our list of people we wanted to have on the podcast. Now, in case you don't know, Mary is a cook. She's actually a chef. She's the winner of the third season of a Master Chef, in fact. 

Wendy Mesley  1:56  
Which is kind of a big deal and she's also she's hosted two television cooking shows. 'Mary's Kitchen Crush', 'Mary Makes It Easy'. Mary's in a lot of names, but she's not a trained chef.

Maureen Holloway  2:06  
This is interesting. She has a master's in IT, in information technology and she worked as an insurance broker before quitting that to compete on Master Chef. But do you remember what I said when we decided we were going to try to get her on the show?

Wendy Mesley  2:21  
That she's adorable and everybody loves her, something?

Maureen Holloway  2:24  
I did say that, but I also said that Mary Berg is the next big thing.

Wendy Mesley  2:28  
Yeah, but I don't know wasn't wasn't that from your hairdresser or something?

Maureen Holloway  2:32  
Well, yes, it was, but they always know and it turns out he was right. Mary was recently announced as the host of a new national TV show called 'The Good Stuff With Mary Berg'. It's it's a daily talk show that will launch on CTV in the fall.

Wendy Mesley  2:46  
Yeah, so she's going to take over the time slot that was taken by Marilyn Denis
, she is a legend. She's still on radio so that makes Mary ,the next big thing.

Maureen Holloway  2:57  
The next big thing. So this is a really exciting time. We're so happy to have Mary here to talk about it. Mary? Come out, come out wherever you are.  

Mary Berg  3:12  
Hello.

Wendy Mesley  3:14  
Hey, Mary. How are you? You're not in the kitchen.

Mary Berg  3:18  
I know, I'm in a, I'm in there is a kitchen technically over there, but it's not my kitchen we just wrapped the third season of 'Mary Makes It Easy'- 25 episodes, so I'm sleepy, but we don't actually live in the house while we're filming because production takes up every square inch of my home and property and it is wonderful, but it's also we just can't sleep there. So we usually stay somewhere else.

Maureen Holloway  3:45  
Okay, where to start. You we're on the precipice of first of all of being busier than you've ever been in your entire life.

Mary Berg  3:52  
Yeah, it's a, it's intimidating and terrifying and exciting and pretty much all the things you should feel when you're when you're going into something that you care about. I think I really like working on things that I deeply care about and I'm very honored and lucky that I get to do that so diving into this daytime daily show in a slot that is so well known because I mean Marilyn Denis
 had that slot for she did daytime television for 34 years is incredibly intimidating and very exciting. So I'm just excited to take this next step and this leap and fingers crossed it goes well I'm gonna I'm going to, am I allowed to say like a, not a swear word but like a cuss word?

Maureen Holloway  4:42  
You can say whatever you want on this.

Mary Berg  4:46  
I'm, I'm a full-asser. I'm not a half-asser and I'm very excited to full-ass this show.

Wendy Mesley  4:53  
Well, we have a full-asser on the show. We had Marilyn Denis
 on the show and we booked you like we just thought we just thought you were kind of cool and we booked you and now it's announced that you're like you're gonna be in her time slot you're kind of like the new Marilyn.

Maureen Holloway  5:06  
Also and that's a, I actually spoke to Marilyn just a couple of days ago and of course your name came up and she could not be more delighted so it's really important to you know, I've taken over, I've filled big shoes before and I think it really is important to have that passing of the torch if it was I mean, you will you're completely different from Marilyn, but it's a lifestyle show at the same time so there will be comparisons

Mary Berg  5:31  
100% and I think with with Marilyn I was on The Marilyn Denis
 Show a number of times I was a cooking expert on that show and like as you know if you if you know Marilyn she's like the same person she is both on and off camera and she's one of the most supportive and like generous people in this industry. And I think that's it's really saying something because I think it's it's very easy in this industry as really anybody but as being a woman or anything like that a lot of things try to convince you to not be generous a lot of things try to convince you that everybody's your competition and everything's a competition and never has Marilyn ever conveyed anything like that she is so, such a pro and so giving with her information with her knowledge with her learned experiences that it just feels like I've got the best kind of person who's luckily still in the building because she's just across the bridge over in the-

Wendy Mesley  6:27  
Yeah she's doing radio now, right?

Mary Berg  6:29  
Exactly, so I can like literally hop skip and a jump if I, if I need any any advice or anything so it's, it's really amazing and really exciting.

Wendy Mesley  6:40  
So do you know other stuff like thread counts and like we know you know all about pitching but like- 

Maureen Holloway  6:46  
No other stuff. 

Wendy Mesley  6:48  
Yeah, it's like The Good Stuff, or whatever, With Mary, Mary Berg ,right so we know you know what the kitchen but beyond the kitchen like Marilyn knew all this. So are you excited about-

Maureen Holloway  6:59  
Do you know to thread count?

Mary Berg  7:05  
I am, I am like a lifelong trier and learner. You talked about my schooling and I basically continued doing school because I just, I liked learning. I didn't have aspirations to go into like information or anything like that. But I just always loved to learning and I'm really excited to continue to continue that with the good stuff because I think like having people in who are passionate about something even if I have very little inclination towards it, when they first enter is like my dream. I love talking to people who are fascinated by something very niche or specific whether it's gardening or crafting or thread count or how to fold a fitted sheet which I think eludes every human person.

Maureen Holloway  7:51  
Seriously and they're different. Each fitted sheet is different.

Mary Berg  7:55  
The thing that makes me so mad is when you buy the sheets and they come perfectly folded in that little rectangle cube and then you try to do it and never ever again will it be that shape or size.

Maureen Holloway  8:04  
No, no, no you can Marie Kondo the hell out of that and it still It looks like a misshapen loaf of bread, I hear you it's one of the one of the great mysteries of life and an important because we all have to fold fitted sheets.

Wendy Mesley  8:18  
But we really want to talk about your glasse. We don't, we were planning on doing the whole thing without mentioning his glasses and then we ended up talking about glasses and Maureen is like look she's wearing glasses now, I'm wearing glasses.

Maureen Holloway  8:32  
Well I'm wearing readers. Okay, so it's your, it's a trademark and and I think that that's cool, I think that- who was it was Sally Jessy Raphael talk show host of the 80s, she was known for her red glasses and- 

Mary Berg  8:46  
Thank you for not comparing me to Dame Edna. I usually feel like- Not the worst icon, but yeah.

Maureen Holloway  8:56  
But it's now become synonymous, your kind of now with the your your hair, your beautiful hair, but the bangs and the glasses. That's your, your your own avatar. Any regrets? Because that, you're gonna be going with this for a while.

Mary Berg  9:10  
Honestly, I don't love my forehead. So the bangs are more of a commit, a life commitment for me in general. I tried the no bang thing for a while. Not my not my best, my best time and the glasses. That's the only prescription that I have that actually is deemed kind of cool. Like no one thinks it's cool if I bust out my puffer or anything like that. So also, the idea of eye surgery is good for anybody who wants to get it- terrifying, terrifying.

Maureen Holloway  9:39  
I was just going to say the glasses, so I didn't know, like I'm blind as a bat and I wasn't diagnosed until I was like 12 or 13 and then my mother got me horrible horn rimmed glasses, which at the time were not cool. And so I finally figured out I got contact lenses but before I did to have astigmatism so I couldn't wear contacts. So when I was in university, boys don't make passes at girls. So I would, I would wear my glasses in class and then I would whip them off to walk to my next class and so that I would not look like a girl with glasses and as it turns out, there'd be all these cute boys who'd be like, 'Hi Mo', and I wouldn't see them, I wouldn't acknowledge them. So I got this reputation of being a terrible snob. So, so yeah, then I got contact lenses, and everyone fell down and adored me for the rest of my life. So that's my experience with glasses.

Mary Berg  10:31  
I think it's like like a very Clark Kentian, dating strategy..

Maureen Holloway  10:34  
Sure, well now their cool. Now I know people who don't mean glasses who wear glasses. 

Oh yeah. There are a lot of people there are, both of those things you mentioned, there are some people on the internet who are really convinced that this is a wig and that these are and neither of those are true. I was born with too much hair, which is not a problem, but if I don't actually style it, it is I kind of look like, you know, the girls in the Dilbert cartoons like all their hairs-

Look very geometric, but curly, yes.

Mary Berg  11:10  
Very triangular, it's somehow keeps getting bigger it's on a day like today, humidity out the wazoo I would be at a loss. I just, I've worn glasses since I was about, like I was in grade one when I got my first pair of glasses, but I always wanted glasses. So I think I might have cheated on that initial optometry exam and then have resigned myself to a life of glasses by ruining my eyes by wearing unnecessary glasses. I had Harry Potter glasses before Harry Potter existed, and a mushroom cut. So I've been banged for life. And my mum dressed me in sweater sets and kilts. Very cute now, but all I wanted was like the big flowery couch dresses that little girls wore when I was a kid.

Wendy Mesley  11:54  
I have a daughter and she sort of has, she doesn't have as much hair as you, but I have a large forehead and I like the bangs idea and so I would cut her hair and but she had like a mushroom mushroom cut that just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Because there would like be these strands and so like how do you know when to stop? What, because she ended up with like bangs around the back of her head.

Mary Berg  12:17  
Oh, that was especially during like, peak 2020-2021 where hair salons weren't really a thing and everything like that. I started looking like a Ramone, like. Where my bangs kind of were doing like this around my face, which was like not not the best look, but I very rarely will cut my own bangs, but when I do, it's often at the worst possible time. I'll be like, I gotta be on TV tomorrow. I've had a glass of wine. Let's cut my bangs.

Maureen Holloway  12:54  
You're gonna be in hair and makeup for the good part of your life moving forward and that's all part of it. Wendy, it's back to school time again. 

Wendy Mesley  13:04  
Who's going back to school? 

Maureen Holloway  13:06  
Well, all the kids are. I still have one who's headed back to school. Does law school count? 

Wendy Mesley  13:10  
If he needs food storage. 

Maureen Holloway  13:12  
Oh, you are so right. He does, along with dishes and glasses and a water bottle and a laundry hamper and-

Wendy Mesley  13:18  
You should send him Kitchen Stuff Plus. They're having a back to school event so you can get all that stuff there. 

Maureen Holloway  13:23  
You know, I have raised my children to take food storage very seriously. 

Wendy Mesley  13:27  
Food storage really? 

Maureen Holloway  13:29  
Yep. Because if you store food properly, then lunches are ready made for the next day. It's grab and go. You save time and money and everybody's happy. Food storage. That's what they should teach in school to hell with a law.

Wendy Mesley  13:41  
You'll find the right lid and so much more at Kitchen Stuff Plus' back to school event. Kitchen Stuff Plus, back school, made easy.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  13:50  
The Women Of Ill Repute.

Maureen Holloway  13:52  
It is crazy when you think about it that when I went to school and studied it and was an insurance broker. I mean, that's not the path to what you're going to be doing now or what you are doing now. I don't know if a lot of people realize you came to cooking in a sad way, a bad thing happened. Tell us about that.

Mary Berg  14:10  
Yeah. When I was four, I was in a car accident with my family and my mom was really injured. My brother got a really bad head injury and my dad passed away. It was one of those things that happened. Obviously it shapes who you are, but I've always been someone who I like to try to figure out how to help and so pretty early on when I turned about, my mom, my mom is an amazing mom and she can fold a fitted sheet she is amazing and she started her own business and she was an entrepreneur and did so many amazing things but things she hated the most and I saw it she hated cooking and after my dad passed away, I watched the like sigh of relief come over her when neighbors or friends would bring over a literal like laundry baskets of things to put in the freezer casseroles or prepared things to pop in the fridge to heat up that night just in the microwave or in the oven and it kind of clicked in with me that taking something off someone's plate by putting it on to their plate is such a great way to very subtly say that you care about them and to show them that you really want them to have just an okay day. So I really quickly kind of started taking over the kitchen. I think it was about seven when I started kind of really getting into there. When I was four I started doing things like breakfast in bed for my mom, but I wasn't old enough to pour milk yet. So it would be some water. Yeah, it was very, it was very bare bones.

Wendy Mesley  15:44  
So you're a little better on Master Chef.

Maureen Holloway  15:47  
She can pour milk.

Mary Berg  15:49  
I think I've learned something from them, yeah. 

Wendy Mesley  15:53  
Oh, that's so nice. I wish you know, it's so your, your mom must be so proud of you. It would be nice if your dad could see you too.

Mary Berg  16:01  
She's in your pjs right now. So my mum, she she lives with us. We have an in- law suite when we're in our normal house. So when we move out, she moves out with us and stuff, but she loves staying in her pajamas very late into to the day.

Maureen Holloway  16:15  
You know what, she's earned that right I when I do it, I would be in my pajamas until you know, dinnertime.

Mary Berg  16:21  
Yeah. 

Maureen Holloway  16:22  
But then I would change. 

Mary Berg  16:23  
As long as you change once in the day, you're fine. 

Maureen Holloway  16:25  
Just so you know, I have standards. I have standards from both my parents are gone now, but they had a fractious marriage and my father and mother were separating all the time. And anyway, I'm the eldest of four to make a long story short, I ended up taking over the kitchen. When I was home during the summer I was boarding school the winter, I have complicated back life. The first thing I learned to make and I made it every night and for an entire summer was a tuna casserole. Because it's what you always have, right?

Mary Berg  16:52  
I love a tuna casserole. Oh.

Maureen Holloway  16:55  
I can tell you right now it was a can of Campbell's mushroom soup, celery, noodles and a can of tuna and some mayonnaise and then grated cheese and crackers on top. You're welcome. 

Mary Berg  17:06  
Perfection. Recipe perfection like don't don't muck with it if it's not broken. Oh my gosh. Delicious.

Maureen Holloway  17:14  
So what was your standard? What was your standard dish when you were younger? When you were first starting out in the kitchen?

Mary Berg  17:21  
I mean, I think I rival you in terms of like pantry, grab and go did this one thing, it was it was very it was very, I think Weight Watchers friendly thing too, because that was a big thing in, when I was growing up and stuff like that. So it was a chicken breast that you'd seer and then you get a bottle of low fat, Italian dressing, the no name brand, not the good brand. And then you would just dump it into the pan and let it cook down into a sauce. It actually was delicious, but that was like Italian chicken that was a multiple nights a week would happen. I loved making crepes which was very strange. I went through like a series crepe phase where I would put anything in a crepe and we'd eat it. Put it in a crepe and it's gonna be good.

Maureen Holloway  18:12  
Hot dogs, right? Wendy, even you could do this.

Wendy Mesley  18:21  
Well, yeah, I mean, I think my mom had like, she my mom had like four she worked full time and she wasn't really into cooking and so I wasn't into cooking and you know, rah rah women don't cook and now it's great. Like women can do whatever the hell they want. And they can love their mums and they can love cooking and but my mum had like four meals, I think it was salisbury steak and those frozen steaks and-

Maureen Holloway  18:44  
What is that? What is salisbury steak?

Mary Berg  18:47  
It's a hamburger? It's a hamburger with mustard on it.Yeah, it's a hamburger-

Wendy Mesley  18:51  
It was awful. I don't I don't cook, but thank God my husband likes to do the grocery shopping and the cooking and he feels up all the melons and everything. So it's you know, whatever, whatever gets you off. And Maureen is a great cook-

Maureen Holloway  19:04  
But wait, did your, Liam fills up all the melons?

Wendy Mesley  19:07  
He feels them up, yeah, he goes to the grocery store and he like grabs them. 

Maureen Holloway  19:11  
Oh, he feels up the melons.

Wendy Mesley  19:14  
Yeah, no, he's uh, yeah, it's kind of weird. But, but yeah, he he really like going to a market for two or three hours. It's like, I look in the fridge and I go, 'Oh, peanut butter'. He'll look in the fridge and it will be 'oh, there's this', it's so it's so I'm like you have Mary you have no formal training, but is it- Is it a skill, is it like I think that my husband has like he has a nose. I think there's a certain talent. It's not just learned- 

Maureen Holloway  19:40  
Or a gut. You've got something, what is what is it you call it Wendy? 

Wendy Mesley  19:44  
It's a wibble.

Yeah so what is that, like is that a?

Mary Berg  19:49  
So the wibble is more of a business like like, it's a business thing, but in the kitchen, I think yes, there are things you can 100% learn and there's things that some people are just inherently better at then someone, someone else. I have my, one of my best friends Renee does not consider herself much of a cook. But anytime she makes anything, she nails it like she's Mozart, I'm Sally Airy, like I try and she's just like, brilliant, off the hop. And I'm like, rude, but okay. But I, I'm very type A I like things orderly I like things done a certain way and in the kitchen, that's the like one place that that side of my brain shuts off. If I make a bit of a mess, if I drop something, if things don't go exactly how I want them to go, that's like one area in my life that I don't then want to walk into the lake about like, I'm just like, 'Okay, this is fine'. So I think for me, like the main secret in the kitchen is just letting go. Because there's really, there's only so many things that can go wrong in the kitchen and all of them are remedy-able, like all of them, you can fix with like a pizza, or cereal or peanut butter, like you'd like you can just order something. But pretty much everything else is just kind of trial and error and letting go of the exact measurements, especially with regards to cooking, not so much baking. But letting go of exact measurements, letting go of following the recipe to a tee just kind of like going where your gut takes you. That to me is like my main secret in the kitchen. It's just the only place that this shuts off a little bit and that's what works for me.

Maureen Holloway  21:23  
This is going back to Master Chef, but it could apply to anything really, because you're embarking on a whole new adventure now as well, where you'll have to bring skills that you have to develop to the table, literally. Like when you were on Master Chef and you were competing against people who went to culinary school and who have pedigrees. Were you ever criticized? Were you ever intimidated? Were you ever unsure of yourself? Or did you just say, 'I got this, I'll brazen it out'. 

Mary Berg  21:50  
Every single time I walked into that kitchen, but every single time so you walk in, it's a set so the back of it's all plywood, and you're like, 'Okay, here we go'. And we go in the doors and as soon as I walk in, I'd be like, I don't even know how to boil water. How's this gonna go? Like I brain fall out, but to be honest, that's when I do my best work in the kitchen is when my whole brain has just fallen out my butt and I'm ready to go. So I think just being able to let go in that kitchen was great and being so distracted by the amount of stuff going on the amount of stuff that goes into a production I was not prepared for and I found it fascinating. So I always felt like there were other things happening, which made me feel like I could kind of fall into the background and just cook. But to be honest, when I started to overthink, when I started to question myself when I started to try to cook for what I thought other people wanted me to do, whether it was being kind of trendy or listening too hard to what the judge said to someone else's dish and trying to apply that to my own dish, that's when I tripped up. It was when I over analysed and overthought things which to me was like a huge, I mean I was 25 on Master Chef, which is like a baby. And I learned a lot in that kitchen, learned a lot about letting go and just letting things happen and letting the chips fall where they may and just try your best and whatever happens after it happens. If you tried your best you had a good time. It's all good. So I was intimidated for sure. But I tried really hard to just let that let that fall up by the wayside and just go with the fact that I technically if you asked me for instructions on how to boil water, I wouldn't be able to get them to you.

Maureen Holloway  23:35  
It's remarkable really is it, it's like I was savant cooking. 

Mary Berg  23:39  
Yeah very much so.

Maureen Holloway  23:40  
And control. I've had anxiety issues all my life and I that's one of the reasons why I like I like cooking. I like being in a kitchen.

Wendy Mesley  23:47  
Yeah, and you suffered from anxiety, too. It was a way of of dealing with that. Like I'm in the kitchen, I'm my I'm busy. I'm doing stuff. Yeah.

Mary Berg  23:57  
You get to make something you get to, you do still get that level of control, but it's not- I find in the kitchen, there's just less things prescribing control, like yes, there's a recipe, yes, there's things you should listen to and yes, there's like do's and don'ts, but I find in the kitchen, like I'm the boss, and I don't question that and it's like, everything's going to be fine. I've got this under control and I think that's for me the reason why I love doing it and it is definitely a huge anxiety release for me.

Wendy Mesley  24:27  
So you're the boss. I would like you to resolve an issue between my husband the cook and me the eater. I and I don't know whether it's my mother is probably because I spend a lot of time in in Quebec, where butter, butter, hint, hint, butter is a big thing. My husband I think he thinks he's from somewhere else because it's like olive oil. So what's better olive oil or butter?

Mary Berg  24:55  
I love both. I find you can do more things with butter. Because butter is like obviously yes, you can bake with olive oil and things like that, but I love butter because it can melt you can obviously use it as something to pour other vegetables and toss and cook butter does burn quicker it burns and olive oil doesn't burn because there's milk fat solids. So if you're using like ghee or clarified butter that won't burn, so that's great. I think if I were to have to choose one, I would choose butter. 

Wendy Mesley  25:23  
Yay. I'm gonna call them right now.

Mary Berg  25:29  
Butter, like what it does how it creates that the golden brown it gets really nice golden brown because the butter itself actually also turns golden brown. It also creates like, it's a medium that things can be suspended in as opposed to oil, which isn't really so for baking. You can get air in it.

Wendy Mesley  25:48  
Yeah. Oh, yeah I'm down with, boo oil. So Mo, it's back to school time again.

Maureen Holloway  25:58  
It's a lovely time of year for so many parents, but it can also be stressful. 

Wendy Mesley  26:03  
School lunch, right? 

Maureen Holloway  26:04  
Oh, exactly. You need lunch bags, water bottles, scrambling around to find the right storage containers.

Wendy Mesley  26:09  
Yeah, but you know, some people do it really well. Their kids have bento boxes, cutlery containers, chopsticks.

Maureen Holloway  26:15  
You know, you can get all of that and so much more at Kitchen Stuff Plus' back to school event.

Wendy Mesley  26:21  
When I went back to school I think was just like a paper bag with maybe a stale sandwich in it.

Maureen Holloway  26:25  
Oh, so lucky. I just had a raw potato.

Wendy Mesley  26:29  
We all want to make this lovely time as stress free and cost effective as possible. So head to Kitchen Stuff Plus to get everything you need. 

Maureen Holloway  26:36  
Even chopsticks. 

Wendy Mesley  26:37  
There's no raw potatoes though.

Maureen Holloway  26:39  
Too bad Kitchen Stuff Plus, back to school made easy.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  26:44  
The Women Of Ill Repute.

Maureen Holloway  26:46  
You have a lovely husband whom you love. Is he, is you mentioned him and there's pictures of him and he's an engineer or something, isn't he? He's, what does he do? 

Mary Berg  26:56  
He works in architecture. So he does, teah, he's that BIM specialist, Building Information Modeling specialist. Yeah, there, anytime I look at your screen, I'm like, I don't understand.

Maureen Holloway  27:08  
I don't understand. No, I have my husband's an engineer and I don't know what he does. But this is going to be, I mean you guys have been together for a while this is you're, you're, you're going to be swallowed, you know this by this this this machine. That's because you're it's not just the Daily Show, you're going to continue with the cooking shows, you're still putting out cookbooks, you finding time to talk to people like us. Are you guys prepared for this? So you know, this is, your life's going to be a roller coaster even more so.

Mary Berg  27:40  
I do and I think we are like, I know, it doesn't seem like it. I haven't really like a distinct line between like, I'm very open. I'm very public, everything like that, but then I have a very distinct line. And this side over here, the private side is is really special and the fact that Aaron, my husband, gets to be part of so much of my public life as well, I think really, really helps because he is like inherently part of it, which is great. When we first met, he played in bands like he toured across the country and he played in band, he's a drummer and did all that stuff. So he kind of had the time where his life was constantly taking them on the road. He also used to work in theater, so he was working crazy hours and everything like that. Whereas I was kind of a steady Eddy and we did a little bit of a switch when this whole stuff happened. So I think we've kind of had both sides of it and fit fulfilled both sides of kind of that duality in a relationship. So I think I think we're good. We are very good at talking. It's taken years to get because he was not much of a talker. You can't you can't get mad at someone if they don't, if they can't read your mind. No one can even, no matter how well you know someone no matter how closely you live with someone, they don't know what you're thinking. So I'm pretty open. Like some mornings, I'll just wake up and I'll be like that today, nope. Let me know and then he's not gonna question when I'm snarking or whatever and I think that's really kind of key, but he's that he's such a key. Like, I don't want to say rock because like we're like everybody says that. But he's really the thing, that kind of amazing sounding board. Great recipe. Well, he's actually a terrible recipe tester because he just likes everything. 

Maureen Holloway  29:24  
He just likes everything, I know same, same. 

Mary Berg  29:26  
Rude, yeah.

Wendy Mesley  29:30  
I've been married for 30 years. Maureen's been married for more than that. 

Maureen Holloway  29:34  
Almost 38 years. 

Wendy Mesley  29:35  
And we're still yeah, we're still figuring it out. So yeah, so so good luck. I mean, maybe there are these magic couples that the moment they see each other everything is everything is clear and, and nothing ever changes, but what I don't know. I don't I don't, the older I am, the more I'm realizing that's not true. So you guys will figure it out. There's one more really, really big thing I need you to solve a family dispute, so it's how much when you put alcohol in something in your cooking with alcohol, how much alcohol is left? Like, can you get drunk on the alcohol that is in the cook.

Mary Berg  30:10  
You'd have to eat a lot of it and I think the food would counteract the alcohol like I think, but when you put alcohol and food, not all of it does evaporate, not all of it cooked off. Not all of it evaporates. like alcohol and cooking is interesting because it's, it's because it's alcohol and it evaporates. So if you open a bottle of gin and just left it open for eight years, that most of the alcohol would evaporate from that you know what I mean? So when you're cooking with it, the evaporation is happening, but then also the heat cooks off some stuff and burns it off, but there's always going to be a little bit left I don't think you can get drunk unless ratting like that vodka to that vodka sauce at the tail end.

Wendy Mesley  30:50  
We have alcohol, we we have had a guest on Stephen Marsh who used to be on a panel that I was on and we had alcohol which was very much against CBC rules that you would ever have alcohol on television. But will you have alcohol- well your daytime show so.

Maureen Holloway  31:05  
 So?

Mary Berg  31:08  
I love a wine. 

Maureen Holloway  31:10  
White for breakfast, Rose for lunch, red for dinner, I mean come on.  

Mary Berg  31:15  
I'm a chilled red. 

Maureen Holloway  31:16  
A chilled red? So like like why do you like like pinos or like a lighter-

Mary Berg  31:22  
A lighter chilled, thin red, I call him a summer read delish. And then in the winter I love like a thick buttery shard, that's like, it's like- 

Maureen Holloway  31:32  
Wow, yeah, nice. Okay, I got one more question. What are you having for dinner tonight?

Mary Berg  31:37  
So we're in, what I call in like Apocalypse meal mode, because we're moving out of this house back into our old house. So to stave off having to bring a bunch of groceries home we're just like bare minimum. What do we have in the fridge? How do we eat this up so raiding the pantry kind of. I mean, honestly, we do you have one can of tuna and macaroni. So I might try to-

Maureen Holloway  32:01  
Tuna casserole? Don't, yeah make sure you get that mushroom soup that glutinous that's really important that you have that as well.

Mary Berg  32:12  
Gloopy is one of my favorite words in the kitchen. Some things are just gloopy. It sounds bad. But-

Maureen Holloway  32:17  
But absolutely. Mary, I don't have the details on 'Good Stuff With Mary Burke'. When does it start?

Mary Berg  32:23  
So we're actually we're going into a pre production is already happening now. Going into rehearsals in August, it will be premiering in September. 

Maureen Holloway  32:31  
All right, because everything will be coming up Mary, there'll be a Mary Berg month.

Mary Berg  32:35  
That's amazing. I know and then in October, my next cookbook coming out and also in September, I think in September, Mary Makes It Easy, third season that we just wrapped is coming out. So it's, yeah, it's gonna be a busy fall.

Wendy Mesley  32:49  
So all the books sound easy, but but your life is going to be very, very full. So I'm glad that you've that you think you have, we'll see.

Maureen Holloway  32:57  
We'll see and we're really glad you found the time to talk to us. You are adorable. And everybody does love you and you are the next big thing whether you realize it or not. So congratulations.

Mary Berg  33:09  
Thank you so much. I love working hard on the things that I do and I'm I'm thrilled and I know the Daily Show is daily, but ours are slightly less than- 'Mary Makes It Easy' as like 4am to 7:30pm. So I feel like I got, I just did three months of that. So I'm like, okay, I can sleep in, which is kind of nice. 

Maureen Holloway  33:26  
We'll see. Yeah, we'll see how easy Mary makes it.

Wendy Mesley  33:32  
We love talking to you, Mary. So we're gonna let you go, but all the best it's going to be it's going to be wonderful. Yeah.

Mary Berg  33:38  
Thank you so much. I really had a great time. You both are just lovely. I'm excited that I got to solve the butter olive oil debate. He'll be like I hate that Mary Berg.

Maureen Holloway  33:52  
And he'll be the only one. Well, what did I tell you?

Wendy Mesley  33:59  
She's the next big thing.

Maureen Holloway  34:00  
She's adorable and everybody loves her. She's the next big, yeah, you can see why I'm you can see absolutely why she's going to be hugely successful. I would be shocked if she was. 

Wendy Mesley  34:11  
Yeah, well, and it sounds like she's got she's got she's building the kitchen. She's got a supportive husband. She's, she loves what she's doing. So it all sounds great and it probably will be great. I'm sure it'll be a lot harder work than then she thinks or maybe she's one of those people that can just you know, I know what I'm doing. I'm gonna show up and I'm gonna do it so either way I'm gonna she'll be fine.

Maureen Holloway  34:34  
Yeah I'm sure she will. There was the busiest time in my life and I was doing mornings at CKFM mix 99.9. I was doing mornings, I was doing, I was doing showbiz on a show called Entertainment Tonight and then I got a comedy show called the Dish Show and I was doing all three at once. And so the day would start at four in the morning and sometimes we would go to 11 at night and it was the most fun I ever had.

Wendy Mesley  35:02  
The same thing when I was in Ottawa, and for a few years afterwards, I worked six or seven days a week, and I kind of thought that was normal and then I had kids, well, a kid, a kid known as kids, and life changes a little bit because it's so all consuming, but, but yeah-

Maureen Holloway  35:18  
Did I mention I had a kid too? I also had a kid. 

Wendy Mesley  35:20  
You had two.  

Maureen Holloway  35:22  
No, I hadn't I hadn't had Ronin this was this was in 1992 to put a fine point on it but yeah, I was never busy you know what they say when you want to get something done give it to a busy person because they just they get it done and there's a certain momentum that I think Mary Berg has that is carrying her through and you know, also being delightful and and funny and breezy and makes it easy so it for her.

Wendy Mesley  35:48  
Yeah, and she's got great glasses and they're in now you should bring back those horn rings.

Maureen Holloway  35:55  
But boys don't make passes at girls who wear glasses. 

Wendy Mesley  35:58  
Isn't it seldom, seldom make passes.

Maureen Holloway  36:00  
Alright, I guess I got time for the odd pass.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  36:06  
Women Of Ill Repute was written and produced by Maureen Holloway and Wendy Mesley. With the help from the team at the Sound Off Media Company and producer Jet Belgraver.