When Jamie Milne started Everything Delish 12 years ago, she had no idea she would become a viral food sensation! Her Instagram has 820,000 followers, Pinterest has 255,00+ and TikTok has 2.5 million. You get the idea.
Whether she’s demonstrating quick recipes, sharing tips or partnering with brands, Milne is all about making cooking delish, accessible and fun.
“Right now with social media, everyone’s constantly trying to chase that virality,” Milne told the Journal. “But when I started, there was no such thing as an influencer … there was no algorithm, so I actually started it for myself.”
Milne grew up in a Jewish household, where Shabbat was not to be missed. The table was filled with guests from friends to family to neighbors.
“From a really young age [I knew] that food and cooking are really at the heart of the table, and they bring so many people together,” she said.
Milne’s mom was constantly cooking; all cookbooks had dogeared pages and were splattered with food.
“My mom would have the craziest food combinations, [but it somehow worked]; she would eat grilled pineapple with cinnamon sugar on it, and then dip it in honey mustard,” said Milne, who didn’t realize the impact of her mother’s creativity in the kitchen.
“It really helped shape me into the cook and the person that I am today, because I love blending these flavors that you wouldn’t necessarily think of,” she said. “My recipes are dishes that you will genuinely find in my house; I’m not cooking for the internet, I’m cooking for myself.”
Milne’s brisket recipe, which is a definite spin on the traditional, is below.
Everything Delish began as a creative outlet for Milne, who was substitute teaching in Jewish schools in Toronto at the time. She was the person everyone turned to for recommendations; she went to McGill in Montreal for university and was well-versed in the food and hospitality scene.
“My friends were just asking me like, ‘Where should we go eat? What should we do? What should I make?‘“ Milne said. “I was like, ‘You know what? I’m going to post everything on an Instagram page, gonna call it Everything Delish and … you can just check out my Instagram page if you wanna know what I’m up to.”
Everything Delish has changed over the years; Milne said she is constantly pivoting and reinventing herself. As certain life events happen, she’s been able to organically intertwine them into her content.
“Things really took off for me during the pandemic because I put myself out there through recipe videos,” she said. “I taught myself how to make a recipe video; I was [only] dabbling in it before.”
Prior to that, she was doing a lot with hospitality, through the lens of food and tourism.
“I wanted to travel the world rather than be at home and do recipes, even though I would sprinkle that in,” said Milne, who genuinely loves to cook. “Then I was at home during the pandemic and everything stopped.
“I started posting these recipe videos … And one of my most viral recipes that gained me a lot of followers at TikTok at the beginning was talking about being really anxious about what’s going on in the state of the world and using cooking as my outlet.”
When asked what it takes to be and remain authentic on social media, Milne said it’s all about how you best serve your audience.
“I always say that the follow button is like currency,” Milne said. “The second that your audience feels that you’re inauthentic or you’re posting something that isn’t true to yourself, they are going to hold that follow button to the highest standard and they’re gonna unfollow you.”
From the get go, Milne has made a commitment to showcase her authentic self, and to lean into the things she loves. Whether she works with a brand, a publication or another person, she has to genuinely believe in it/them.
“People who have been OG followers, they know absolutely everything about my life,” she said. “They know that if I posted that I didn’t like a restaurant or didn’t like a certain food, and then years later I [did] an ad for it, they would remember those types of things.”
A lot of what Milne does is storytelling.
“I always say people come from the recipe or they come for the food, but they stay for the story,” she said. “I really like to share little tidbits of my life through voiceover.
“I don’t show my son’s face on social media – that was just something that my husband and I came together on, something that was very respectful of both of our boundaries – but other than that….”
Milne shares about her life from being Jewish – along with a Rosh Hashanah recipe or Shabbat and what it means to her – to anxiety and fertility.
“Something that I’m really passionate about is endometriosis, [which] I had,” she said. “It has zero to do with food, but also it has so much to do with food, because when we were going through that and when I was recovering from my surgery, I posted about anti-inflammatory foods that were really helping me heal and recover, and I was able to share an anti-inflammatory recipe.”
That video about her fertility journey ended up going viral – over a million views – and she gained more than 100,000 followers from it. Milne got pregnant with her son a year later.
“I want people to know that anyone can do what I’m doing; transparency is everything, authenticity is everything,” Milne said. I always say in my videos, when you do what you love, you will succeed, because I wholeheartedly believe in that.”
Learn more about Jamie Milne – and get recipes – at Everything-Delish.com. Follow @Everything_Delish on social media, including Instagram and TikTok, and subscribe to the Everything Delish Substack.
For the full conversation, listen to the podcast:
Jamie Milne’s Brisket
Serves 4-6
One 5 lb brisket, fat-cap intact
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 sweet onions, roughly chopped
3 tbsp vegetable oil
2 bay leaves
4 medium carrots, peeled and sliced into large chunks
1 can tomato paste (5.5 oz)
2 cups beef stock
1 can crushed tomatoes (28 oz.)
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup red wine
6 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 bunch rosemary
1 bunch thyme
- Preheat the oven to 325F degrees. Generously salt brisket with one tsp of kosher salt per side and set aside. Add vegetable oil to a Dutch oven over medium-high heat and sear both sides of the brisket for 2-3 minutes per side, until seared and golden. Remove from the Dutch oven and place on a wire rack.
- Add white onions into the Dutch oven. Add 1 tsp kosher salt and cook until soft, about 8-10 minutes. Add in minced garlic and cook for another 3-4 minutes until soft.
- Add in tomato paste and deglaze with red wine. Cook down for 4-5 minutes. Mix until combined. Add in crushed tomatoes, beef stock, brown sugar and balsamic vinegar and mix. Season with remaining salt & 1 tsp black pepper.
- Add in chopped carrots and stir into the mixture. Add back in the brisket and cover with the sauce. Add in bay leaves, rosemary and thyme. Cover with a Dutch oven lid and add to the oven for 3-31/2 hours until the brisket is tender.
- Remove from the oven and let cool completely before slicing. Serve and enjoy!
Debra Eckerling is a writer for the Jewish Journal and the host of “Taste Buds with Deb.” Subscribe on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform. Email Debra: tastebuds@jewishjournal.com.
