Not a Sponsor of the Show | A Relaxed Nighttime Wind-Down

In Not a Sponsor of the Show, Marco and Amanda settle into a playful, softly spoken conversation filled with everyday products, spirited opinions, and the ongoing joke that none of these companies are actually sponsoring the podcast. Amanda reflects on her evolving relationship with coffee — including a memorable debate with a less-than-cheerful waiter — while Marco shares his experiments with wine and the distinct personality of Concord grapes. The discussion drifts into crabs, lobsters, and the idea of “specialty tests,” before landing in a sweet and slightly sticky jam-making story complete with small triumphs and gentle mishaps.
As always, this calming podcast unfolds at an unhurried pace, offering a relaxing conversation designed to help you fall asleep, ease anxiety, or quiet racing thoughts at the end of the day. The tone is light, cozy, and comfortably mundane — perfect for background listening while you wind down at bedtime or during a middle-of-the-night wake-up. Nothing here is urgent or overly exciting; it’s simply two familiar voices wandering through small topics, creating a steady, reassuring rhythm to guide you toward rest.

​Not a Sponsor of our Show
(Original airdate: Sept 3, 2025)

Welcome to the Insomnia Project. Sit back, relax and listen as we have a calm conversation that's meant to help guide you or drift you off or maybe even bore you to sleep or relaxation or just chill time. I'm your host, Marco Timpano.

Amanda: I'm Amanda Barker. I just had an exceptional cup of

Marco: cappuccino which Amanda made for me as well.

Amanda: Sip of cappuccino, my very first sip. So every now and then you make a coffee or some whatever tea and you go, d***, that was good.

Marco: Yeah. So there you go. Amanda's on point today.

Amanda: It went into my mouth and I was like, oh. And of course that's because I'm sure I put a lot of sugar, of course. And a lot of milk, a lot of non coffee additives. Do you, you have you ever drank

Marco: black coffee oh, without sugar? No.

Amanda: Like black coffee? Yeah.

Marco: Not that I can think of. No. Like if there's like no sugar around and someone's giving me a coffee like

Amanda: an even espresso instead here.

Marco: No, I always put sugar. You know, I like things sweet.

Amanda: I. I don't know, I'm very jealous. I don't know if jealous is the word. Jealous is actually always a word I've struggled with because I don't know if I've always figured out what it means, but I'll use it in this context. I'm very jealous of people who can drink black coffee. I wish I had that skill. I wish I was like, you know what I'd love just a strong black coffee.

Marco: Do you know, do you always need milk in it or do you always need sugar?

Amanda: I need something. Okay, listen, I mean, milk and sugar for me is the way to go.

Marco: Milk over cream or cream over milk.

Amanda: If we're talking regular drip coffee, cream.

Marco: I see.

Amanda: But I mean, lattes were my gateway into coffee. I didn't drink coffee until I was in my 20s.

Marco: Right.

Amanda: And which is probably more common than I realize. And then I didn't drink. So the first caffeinated non soda drink, like coffee related drink I had when I was in university. This is a long time ago. The popular Canadian chain known as Tim Hortons, they introduced.

Marco: Not a sponsor of the show.

Amanda: No, no. They introduced what they called a French vanilla cappuccino. Now it was none of those things, actually. It was neither French nor vanilla nor cappuccino, but it was delicious.

Marco: Okay.

Amanda: And I was, I think, well, I might have been nine. No, I think I was 20. Yeah, third year. So 20. And I was like, oh, okay, this is like a hot chocolate, but apparently has coffee in it. I can drink this. So that was the only thing I drank in the coffee world for quite a while. And then other places, gas stations, whatever followed suit. So then I would drink those. And then when I was in my mid-20s, sure, I had traveled, I'd moved back to Canada and that was the summer they introduced the ice cap iced cappuccino again, arguably. I mean, it does have ice in it.

Marco: Sure.

Amanda: I wouldn't say it's a cappuccino, it's just a coffee related beverage. But it's delicious and it's still one of my favorite things, as you know.

Marco: Amazing.

Amanda: I don't know, is that an exciting journey to take people on?

Marco: Well, you got cappuccino splained this weekend by a waiter and it was like,

Amanda: my goodness, that waiter just needed to be right about all the things he was not right about. And I was like, are we really having this. Can I say p****** contest?

Marco: Well, you did. We shouldn't.

Amanda: Do you want to go back and do it?

Marco: No, it's fine.

Amanda: Just that offensive word. So I like how he just grumbles. Yeah. So that's my coffee journey. And then when I was in. When I moved to Ontario, we're talking

Marco: about the waiter that was.

Amanda: I know, I know. But I wasn't done my journey.

Marco: Oh, sorry. It's a long coffee journey.

Amanda: Well, we'd love to hear yours.

Marco: After, I think I was about four and my mother would give me milk, warm milk with a little tinge of coffee in it and some cookies. And that was my breakfast gateway.

Amanda: No wonder you're addicted.

Marco: That was my journey.

Amanda: You basically had it in your bottle.

Marco: Not quite. Not quite. But soon, soon thereafter. I think it's because my parents would drink coffee in the morning and so I would have milk and I think they would just pour a teensy bit in to make me feel included.

Amanda: Yeah. First being first child, you probably wanted to be part of it.

Marco: Oh, I'm sure, I'm sure.

Amanda: I'm sure you did.

Marco: I'm sure.

Amanda: And then when I finally moved to Ontario, this was finishing my journey. I. There was a Starbucks next to my office where I worked for seven years. And so about halfway through that, I. I started going and getting a latte in the afternoon. A lot of people I worked with smoked back then.

Marco: Oh, I see. That's right.

Amanda: So they would get to go outside and have little breaks. And I wanted that, but I didn't really want to smoke. So I would go and buy a, you know, at that time, $5 latte more now, obviously. And I remember somebody joking that I had a latte mortgage because of all the money I spent at Starbucks, which is probably.

Marco: Was that person, the smoker? Because that was.

Amanda: She was. She was one of the smokers. Yes, that's a good point.

Marco: I have two smokers that are at my workplace and they get breaks all the time. They're always going on a smoke break. I'm like, when was the last time I took a random break?

Amanda: I'm going to go for a little promenade.

Marco: I'm going to go for a little, you know, prance walk.

Amanda: And that. That's what we should all be doing is taking a prance walk break. A prance walk.

Marco: Imagine you're walking by.

Amanda: We start a trend of prance walkers

Marco: who walk by office buildings. And there's people prancing around.

Amanda: Oh, my goodness.

Marco: That would be the best. Oh, there must. They must be on a prance walk.

Amanda: Absolutely. So then the question. Oh, the, the waiter. We're going to talk about this waiter.

Marco: Sure.

Amanda: So we had a beautiful weekend. And part of that weekend was a beautiful brunch to honor a friend. And so we, we sat down. We were a little late. We were just late going. It had been the late night the night before. So when we got to the brunch place and they told us they were going to get there but early, and they all did. So when we got there, they were all.

Marco: They had just got made to eating.

Amanda: Yeah, they just gotten their food and. Which of course is fine. So we sit down at the end and this waiter comes over and he's like, have you been here before? We've been there a lot. We go to that place a lot. But that's fine. He didn't know that. And so I ordered a cappuccino.

Marco: As did I.

Amanda: Now, the cappuccino was good, decent. It came in a gigantic cup.

Marco: It was a vat of milk.

Amanda: Yeah. It was a big bowl. So you look at it and you go, okay, not actually a cappuccino, but delicious and serves the scene. And I should mention, it's a French restaurant that does a really great brunch.

Marco: Yes, it does. Not cheap, but it does do a good brunch.

Amanda: And they always take reservations and they have lots of space and they're a nice area of town. So all of that is going for them. And that's why we go there a lot. But the reason I'm not naming it.

Marco: One, not a sponsor of the show.

Amanda: No. And two, this waiter. So then I'm looking and they had a soft shell crab Benedict. And I think he said, are there any allergies that I should know about? And I said. And I was actually like, oh, the soft shell crab Benedict goes. And he. Before I even stopped, he kind of snapped at me and said, we're completely out. We're completely out. I said, oh, that's okay. I can't eat it anyway. He goes, oh, do you have a seafood allergy? Well, no, I don't. I have an exoskeleton allergy, which is a bit different.

Marco: It's a fun allergy, folks, to have the old exoskeleton allergy.

Amanda: It's like you're complaining about it. I'm allergic to the actual shells. I can't eat the actual shells. I can eat what was Inside the shells, but not these shells themselves. And he said, well, you wouldn't eat the actual. We wouldn't. I said, so with soft shell crab, you eat the shell. He goes, no, you don't eat the shell.

Marco: And.

Amanda: And I said, oh, well, typically you do. That's how I found out about my allergy, actually. And he wanted to debate me. He goes, we wouldn't serve you the shell. And he goes, well, it's not really the shell you're eating.

Marco: The crab has been molted. But it's the molted shell. It's the developing shell that you're eating.

Amanda: Exactly. The developing shell. It still has a crunch to it. Indeed, it's still a shell. And I'm still allergic to it. And here we are back and forth, and it's like, well, they don't have it anyway, so why.

Marco: And I'm just like, I just want my coffee. I just want to drink my coffee in peace.

Amanda: So he had a little of my vat of milk. In your vat of milk. He crab splained me, but fine. And I. And then Marco said, I'm going to order. That looks tasty. I'm gonna order that.

Marco: It was a galette with an egg on it.

Amanda: Yeah. And he said, it doesn't have any goat cheese. I don't like. I don't eat goat cheese. He's not allergic, but he doesn't like it. It'll ruin his meal.

Marco: Yeah, I don't love the taste. I love cheese. I do love cheese.

Amanda: And he said, no, no, it doesn't have any goat cheese. I'm looking at the menu, and I'm like, hang on. I thought I saw that. It did. So I look. Well, it did. So I said, no. So I order. And I said, actually, babe, you can't order that.

Marco: He calls me babe in the restaurant.

Amanda: Well, I don't know if I did, but I said. He's like, no, it doesn't. And then he takes his order. And then I said, except it does have goat cheese in it. It's right here. I don't know how I said it. So then Marco was like, oh, well, no, I'm not gonna order that. Then I just said, so. Then he looks at the menu, and

Marco: he's like, we can do it without. I'm like, no, I want cheese on my galet.

Amanda: Yeah.

Marco: The whole reason you get a galette is because it comes with cheese.

Amanda: So then we both order whatever it is we order. And. Which was good. The food was good.

Marco: Yeah, it's good.

Amanda: And so then he comes by. Now, I've had this big cappuccino, but it's a French place, and I've many times in the past ordered a cafe au lait. So I said, can I get a cafe au lait? He's like, so do you want just milk and coffee? And I was like, excuse me? He's like, do you want. Like, See, every time. Now I'm telling the story. I said, I sound like the jerk, because I didn't really say, excuse me, do you want milk and coffee? And I said, well, yeah, cafe au lait. Like a steamed milk and coffee. I goes, because we. That's just a steam milk and coffee. And I said, okay, yeah, that's what I want. And he's like, because we do. We could do espresso with steamed milk for cafe au lait. And I said, and then he points to my drink, goes, that's a cappuccino. Now he's explaining to me what it is. And at this point, I went, well, no, actually, that's not a cappuccino. And he said, yes, it is. And I said, it's kind of a latte with foam. This is far too big to actually be a cappuccino, like, if we're really going to get into it. And he said, well, we're very generous with our cappuccinos. And I said, absolutely. In Italy, this wouldn't be a cappuccino. Maybe it's a French cappuccino.

Marco: It would be a latte, is what it would actually be. Yeah, actually it would be a latte with foam. Coffee soup is what it would be based on the size zuppa du cafe.

Amanda: So now he's explaining.

Marco: He's coffee splaining.

Amanda: And I was like, you don't get to tell us what a. What a cappuccino is.

Marco: We've only had.

Amanda: I haven't complained about the one you served me, but now that you're. Now that you want to explain it

Marco: to me, We've only had about 15 episodes where we specifically talk about coffee on this podcast. Certainly not. Someone needs to tell the waiter at

Amanda: that restaurant he just was snippy.

Marco: He was in a mood, man.

Amanda: Yeah. And he just wanted to make me wrong, but he was always wrong on the end of the conversation. And I said, well, no, in Italy, it wouldn't be. Is what I said. Call it whatever you want here. And so then he's like, well, yeah, we're generous. And I said, okay. So anyways, I want a cafe au lait. And he's like, so, espresso with steamed milk. And I said, no, I want coffee with steamed milk. Like, I don't understand. They have it on the menu. Just give me the one that you have on the menu.

Marco: He probably was confused because you had a cappuccino, the espresso. So he wanted to make sure that you were getting what you. Okay, I guess.

Amanda: That's terrible.

Marco: He probably assumed you wanted what you just had. And then you got into your little cappuccino debate of 2025.

Amanda: And, well, since he was gonna crab splain me, I couldn't.

Marco: One thing you don't do, and that's crustacean splain my wife. Because that happened once with lobster. And you may remember that Amanda's from Boston and from New Brunswick, two arguably lobster capitals of the world. And we had a waiter try to explain tail versus claw and what meat

Amanda: was better, because he was like, for this, for more money, you can get two claws. And I was like, but for less money, you can get a tail and a claw. So why wouldn't I do the less money Tail in a claw.

Marco: This was the special lobster fest.

Amanda: And he's like, well, the claw meat is very good, actually. It's very succulent. Claw meat is actually. And I went, no, no, I know what a lobster claw tastes like, and that's fine, but I'm not gonna pay more money for a claw when I can get a tail. In the hierarchy of lobsterdom, that's not how it's gonna work.

Marco: There you go.

Amanda: So, yeah, that's the tales of crustaceans at restaurants.

Marco: On a brighter note, sure, Amanda had picked so many grapes recently. And for the record, in the hierarchy of fruits that Markle enjoys and doesn't, grapes is on the bottom. I think it's just under passion fruit, which I'm allergic to is grapes. And Amanda picked 10 pounds of grapes she brought home, and I was like, what? And not like, beautiful or. No, I shouldn't say beautiful.

Amanda: They were actually beautiful.

Marco: They were. They were exceptionally beautiful, but they weren't eating grapes. They weren't, like, seedless.

Amanda: Yeah. They're not your red seedless or your white seedless grapes.

Marco: No. They were Concord grapes or Merlot grapes that you make wine from.

Amanda: Now is Merlot from the Concord grape. I didn't think it was.

Marco: No, Merlot grapes are Merlot grapes, and Concord grapes are Concord grapes.

Amanda: These are Concord grapes.

Marco: Okay. Because they're a bit sweeter, but the skin is very thick, and it has a lot of seeds, and it is a bit of a chew versus, versus some of the grapes you might.

Amanda: It's one of those grapes that you can pop into your mouth and put the skin aside, which I would think of as like a wine grape, but it also has a fair seed in it. So it's not an easy grape to eat.

Marco: No, it's meant to do other things. So Amanda brings ten pounds of these grapes home and I just look at her and I'm like, what are we going to do with them? And ten pounds of beautiful looking, like perfect pick.

Amanda: I mean really, like at its. When you draw grapes.

Marco: Yeah, it's at its peak. Like that was the day to pick them. Most certainly.

Amanda: Yeah, for sure. Now here's my question to you because you know a little bit more about winemaking than I do.

Marco: Thank you.

Amanda: Do you, can you make a wine? I mean, I suppose you can, but do you make a wine from Concord grapes?

Marco: You could. It's not going to be. It's not going to be. It's going to be a bit sweeter. It's going to be. I, I think if I'm not mistaken, and you can look this up, I think Menischewitz wine is made with Concord grapes.

Amanda: Oh, interesting.

Marco: I could be wrong though. I don't want to offend anyone, but I know that there's probably some wine that's made with Concord grapes. I would imagine it would be a filler grape. So you would blend it with other grapes to create volume or to create sweetness.

Amanda: I see.

Marco: Now, I have never worked with Concord grapes when making wine and I should say when I made wine, once again, I was maybe 13 year old. 13 years old and my dad was making wine and I was just commanded to do certain wine making things like grab the, grab the crate of grapes and throw them in here, turn this to crush the grapes. I make my father sound like a cartoon character, but he's. He wasn't that pleasant when he was telling us to do stuff. But he wasn't a man on a wine mission. So. Yeah. My experience with wine making is as a young child or as a child with my dad. And then I did wine tours in Italy on a bicycle. So I didn't actually do anything. I just kind of explained what the process was when our, our guests asked about it.

Amanda: So a few things. First off, Manischewitz is from Concord.

Marco: Oh, great. I'm glad I got that right.

Amanda: Concord grapes. And I double check something too. I always feel affinity for Concord grapes because I really grew up with Concord grape everything. Concord grape jelly, Concord grape Jam.

Marco: Notice how Amanda says Concord. Oh, you say it, like, with the

Amanda: Massachusetts accent, because that's where Concord grapes are from.

Marco: Concord, Massachusetts.

Amanda: They are.

Marco: There you go.

Amanda: Yeah. And that's a big cranberries for us, obviously, Massachusetts and cranberries. There's a big connection there. But also Concord grapes.

Marco: We had wonderful cranberry wine, if you remember, years back. Anyway, sorry, back to the Concord grape. So I was right. Menischewitz has made.

Amanda: You were right. And so. But here's the thing. We don't make wine friends. I don't have a winemaking facility in this. We have a studio, not a winery, downstairs.

Marco: And also, you need the right equipment to make wine. It's quite a process, or process, depending on what.

Amanda: And if you've ever gone to someone's house and they're like, here's the wine I made, and it's been nasty. Or beer. Have you ever done that? Like, people are like, here's our wine. And you're like, oh, my, that's awful.

Marco: Well, to be quite honest with you, my dad and all his friends who made wine, made quality wine.

Amanda: They made good wine. I drank your dad's wine. It was great.

Marco: I can't think of.

Amanda: But. But, you know, even I have a

Marco: friend, Stephen, who used to make beer, and it was really good.

Amanda: I think the Italians figured out wine and beer probably, too. And fermentation.

Marco: Oh, I would say that a great number of people, not just Europeans, make great wine. You know, it really depends on knowing how to do it. Like, how to having the equipment and fermenting it, etc. Etc.

Amanda: I just know I've been to people's houses in my past, and they're like, we made this beer, or we made this wine and it has not been good. Or, here's a bottle of our wine for Christmas. And you're like, oh, my, that's not good. So that would. Anyway, you and I both know enough about good and bad that we know we wouldn't make anything good, Right?

Marco: So we've had. We have all these Concord grapes in our kitchen.

Amanda: A ton. I was like, so we've talked about this organization a few times this summer. So I'm part of an organization called Not Far from the Tree. And we go around, you pay $10. That's it. To be part of this. And you get asked to go to picks, and you pick fruit, and you divide that haul of fruit between the homeowner yourselves and a food bank. Food bank gets half always. Or food bank or food organization or organization that can do Something with it. In this case, the grapes went to, I think, a woman's ymca where I assume they're going to go ahead and make a jam or jelly or something for them.

Marco: Or wine.

Amanda: Or wine, I guess. But I'm going to go ahead and assume a jam or jelly or they just eat them. Because people do eat them. Our nephew, we were, you know, he's 10, and we were like, he's like, ooh, grapes. And we were like, yeah, but you're not gonna like these grapes. Well, seed skin. He was made to eat grapes, that kid. His Mediterranean blood was like, here we go. And he just inhaled tons of those grapes.

Marco: He just ate them, skin and all, seeds and all.

Amanda: And he was like, I couldn't believe it. But, you know, they don't keep forever. So I had them only a few days and I was like, I've gotta do something with these. So we made 23 jars of jam. Jelly, but I actually think it was jam.

Marco: Oh, it's. That's jam.

Amanda: I think it came out more like jam.

Marco: What's the difference between jam and jelly?

Amanda: That's technically jelly, but reads more like a jam.

Marco: I don't get what that even means.

Amanda: Okay, so a jam, my understanding is a jam is sort of macerated fruit that has been sort of mashed into maybe a bit of a. I don't want to use this word, but gelatinous spread. But mashed into a fruit spread, like you can, you can taste the strawberries, there's chunks of the cherries in it. Whatever it is you're having. That's typically a jam, a jelly, which is what I was doing with these and is you boil, boil, boil it all together and you take all the seeds and skins and stems and everything else out of it so that you've made basically a juice. You boil that juice down, you create a syrup with it, and then from that syrup you add natural fruit pectin.

Marco: Okay.

Amanda: Which makes it into the jelly.

Marco: All right, this is what.

Amanda: And sugar.

Marco: This is what foodnetwork.com, not a sponsor of the show says the difference between a jam called the show, not a sponsor, versus jelly. Jams and jellies are both soft. Is your soft sweet spreads made from fruit? Is it a sweet spread made from fruit?

Amanda: It is.

Marco: Sugar or pectin.

Amanda: I used both.

Marco: Okay. The main difference between jam and jelly is that jam is made with fruit, whereas jelly is made with fruit juice. As a result, jam and jelly have different characteristics. Texture. Jam has a semi firm consistency and the cooked down fruit lends it a chunkier texture. Whereas jelly has a firmer consistency than jam and is uniform in texture. Jelly is more translucent than jam. But both jams and jellies are used as spreads. So that helps define. And I think you're right, it is kind of more of a jam than a jelly.

Amanda: It is. Even though I cooked it like a jelly and I used a jelly process, possibly because I put so much pectin right in it, it really kind of reads more like a jam, which I prefer. So I'm happy about that. But I did remove all, or at least most anyways of this. I mean, I tried to remove all of the skins and certainly all of the seeds. So none of that exists in it. It's just. But I think it's because I put so much pectin in.

Marco: I see, I see.

Amanda: So that it really almost started and I really boiled it down so I really kind of touched. Started to chunk up in a way.

Marco: It took a long time.

Amanda: It took forever.

Marco: And the house actually smelled like what it smells like when you make wine.

Amanda: Yeah.

Marco: So that's, that's really, you know, it brought memories of that back to me. Amanda, to be honest with you, in

Amanda: the cottage, we did it. It did take all day, though. It was an all day affair.

Marco: Pleasant, pleasant memories, I will say.

Amanda: I've already gifted three jars of jelly

Marco: jam and we got to some to

Amanda: call it jelly jam.

Marco: We got to sample it and it was actually quite good.

Amanda: So we gave it to our friends and they're like, oh, let's try it now. And then I was like, actually we should it because before I give it anymore, I need to try. Because you spend the day making this thing. The last thing you want to do is sit down to a little jar of it. Like you don't want to eat it.

Marco: Now. My, my thing was, did it seal? Like did. Was there a vacuum seal? And I know there's several ways to do that. I know when we would make tomato sauce, we would put them in a drum, big barrel, I should say, and heat it for hours and hours and hours. I know that when I've seen my mother make jams, as long as you tighten it while it's still warm, but really tighten it. So.

Amanda: And it has to be pretty hot.

Marco: Yeah, it has to be. It has to be hot. Like basically, Amanda poured the, the liquid jam jelly into the jar. I, I sealed it, then I sat it on the, on a cheesecloth, on a, A dishcloth. What do they call dish towels?

Amanda: Yeah, tea towels In Canada. They call Them tea towels.

Marco: Tea towel. And then I waited a few minutes and then silicone glove. Silicone, you know, don't burn your hands in the oven glove. What do you call those? Oven mitt.

Amanda: Yeah, I like don't burn your hands in the oven glove.

Marco: I have to describe it. And then I took that and I and I gave it one more crank and it really close and I could see that it was concave the top right. And so I was kind of satisfied that this probably means that it was sealed.

Amanda: It was sealed. Yeah, we would have known. They would have popped back up.

Marco: And then I sealed it with a kiss on the top of the jam jar.

Amanda: No, he did not.

Marco: Okay, well, that's 23. 23 kisses to 23 people. All right, folks, that is the end of our podcast. Before we go, I just want to remind our listeners who want to take advantage of the ad free system that we have going on right now. A lot of listeners want this podcast to be ad free. So if you go to insomniaproject.supercastca you can subscribe and for 10 days you'll get it free to see if it's for you or not. And then there will be a monthly charge of I think $5 Canadian if that's for you, if it's not. And you just enjoy listening to the podcast as is. Of course, we always welcome any listeners. And if you have friends or family who you think might enjoy or colleagues or people who are seem stressed on the street, let them know about our podcast because the more listeners, the better. Of course we welcome you into the Insomnia project family, if you will.

Amanda: Absolutely, absolutely. But yeah, so many people have been asking for it. So we, Marco did a lot of work to make sure that that could happen.

Marco: Yeah, it was like really making trying to get the best system for our listeners. And please let me know how Supercast works for you folks, because once again, they're not a sponsor of the show and I want to make sure that it, it does work for our listeners. And on that note, we hope you have a lovely rest of your day, afternoon or evening depending when you listen and we hope you're able to listen and sleep.