Laura Prepon on Acting, Directing, & Cooking Simply

the age of fifteen. She has regionally launched a line of her own kitchen products, and for more than two decades, she's starting TV shows and films loved by millions. Without further delay, please enjoy my hilarious and warm conversation with actor, director, mother and passionate home cook Laura Prepond. How are you hi? How are you? I am great? Thank you for to time. Are you in Brooklyn? I am in Brooklyn. You have way too many trees outside of your window to be

in New York right now. I know those are palm trees. I'm actually in St. Barts. No, I'm kidding. I wish I was. I'm in Florida. Oh okay, yeah, because I'm like, that's way too sunny and way too many trees to be New York. For my first course with Laura Prepond, she tells me about her amazingly unique upbringing, from a mother's ambitious and obsessive culinary experiments to moving to Europe alone at the age of fifteen. It seems like your mom,

from what I'm understanding, was completely addicted to mayhem. She was okay with that. Is that accurate statement or was it just that she didn't really have any desire to control it. When people hear about how I was raised, there just like, what how did you turn out? Somewhat sane? But I loved it. I mean my mom was this just eccentric chef, honestly. So there were five of us. I was the youngest, and all she wanted to do was cook. That's all she did. She would We lived

in Jersey. My father was a surgeon and he was, you know, at the hospital all day, and my mother would go to the best restaurants in New York. She had as a God's guy that was like dog gear zag it's called She would like underline the restaurants as she wanted to go to. She would go to them, she would try the food, she would annoy the chefs.

She would literally go back and annoy the chefs to tell them like imagine some woman from Jersey going in the back kitchen and try to figure out how you like made you know your frogois or whatever it was. And she would come home and perfect the recipes until the morning. So we never had bed times. We would go to sleep for school. She would wake us up

around midnight. All five of us would pile into the kitchen and she would have this crazy spread in something like all castrol issues on pot trades at midnight us. So we would come in to this epic feast like literally every night. And then aside from the feast, she would have her culinary obsession like peeking duck. Like she would make peeking duck. I would walk into the kitchen at two o'clock in the morning and she would have a duck on the counter with a bicycle pump pumping

air into the duck. She would Jeffrey, it was it was crazy, Like she would unravel a wire hanger, poke it through the duck's eyes. Make a hook and hang it in the bedroom in her boudou with the fan blowing on it like this, you know, Like I would go into her closet and there will be a duck. You're rubbing your eyes going like what, like you're in a horror film? What what do you see? Like hanging animals? And then you have to take a fork and knife and you know, try to eat it one in the morning.

This is how I was raised, so I didn't know any different. Like my friends were not allowed to sleep at our house because they didn't trust our situation. The only way I can describe her is like this culinary sorceress. Like she would just be in the kitchen creating some

crazy dish. I remember when she was making homemade sushi and she would drive up to this Japanese supermarket an hour and a half away from our house, and she would like push in with the sushi chefs and pick out her toro, like she literally and we would all pile in the car and go to this the Japanese fish market. Seeing all this as a child, it helped inform me in the kitchen. I mean, I would just follow her around the kitchen watching her cook. I was

obsessed with cooking. I loved being in the kitchen. But one thing I gotta say is like, as example, like my family loves coming to our house for holidays because my mother would make the most fabulous food and insane, insane stuff. But I don't have a single memory of spending time with her at a single holiday because she was always in the kitchen cooking and making these extravagant meals, everything from scratch. That was like drilled into my head

as a kid, like from scratch. But the thing is is like what if you can't even enjoy it and be present. I mean, you have three kids, you get it, Like you can't even be present to enjoy the holiday with your kids, It's kind of like what is the point? So I, very early on as a youngster, was like, I so appreciate what she's doing. It's so inspiring and magical, but there's got to be a more practical way to

do this. And that's really where my whole philosophy with food was born, was by watching my mother never having time with her and being like, there's gotta be a way to have both. And that's when I really kind of honed in on like how I prepare my food in a specific way so I could be with my family. Truthfully, it's kind of incredible and it's kind of fascinating. You're

the youngest and you have such vivid memories. Did your do your siblings remember as kindly as you do, or did they think like my moms out to lunch, you're loving it and she's like, you know, mom, what do you do? And can you just wrap it up for tomorrow? I'll have it. I'll have it when I get home. Out of five siblings, are personalities are very very different. I think that I thrived in this freedom, and I

think that some of my siblings needed more structure. So I think it just depends on the personality, you know. For me, there were times that were a little like like my like my hands and my head in my hands, like mommy please, like I remember we had to do. I was in Spanish class and we had to do like a polock. So parents were bringing in like boxed piea mix, like rice ERRONI like whatever, like your parents

had to bring in a dish. And then my mom comes in with twenty five individual handmade flaws in little containers, and twenty five times she flipped the flon custard out and let the sauce dripped on the side in a hand. We were like ten, and all the perils were just like looking at my mother like beside themselves, and the kids didn't even know what to do with this like perfect flaw. Jeffrey. It was so this one was like that where I'm just like, oh my god, like this

is why people don't sleep over our house. It's comical. I mean, I would love to sleep over you. I was. I was a kid. All that food fantastic. The timing is off, like Friday and Saturday, it's okay, right, right, exactly. Not This was like a Monday Tuesday, so you were like sleep deprived on Monday and Tuesday walking into school because getting up and then eating and going back to bed must have been like kind of traumatic. Honestly, Jeffrey, I didn't know any different. I didn't. It's just what

we did. It's just what we did, and it was you know, my mother just didn't conform, which I really appreciated, and I think that it's part of the reason why I ended up in this wonderful racket that I'm in, because you know, we grew up in a Super Belts in New Jersey. You know what I mean, Like when I first got into acting and stuff, I had never even considered it. And because my mom was so you know, just didn't conform any status quo. It was really inspiring as a kid, you know, and it it made me

think I could really do anything I wanted. Even though there wasn't like a lot of like Shepherd ng along. It was kind of just like, Okay, go figure it out. But she let me go do it, you know what I mean. I love the fact that your mom had this zagging thing. That's a great I mean, that's when Zaggy was printed. We remember that that the original red Guy was something you got in the mail every every year. She was obsessed dog Gear. I was obsessed to you know.

And it was everyone's bible. And there were obsessive people that brought it to the restaurant and would open it up and say, I want to duck Laranche that you had the men you said you had. And many times it was outdated and we didn't you know, we don't have any when they get angry at you. But the people that carried that book were the most interested in food of anybody. That came in. They were real food, easy, and they ate well and they drank well. So it

was difficult sometimes. But love that you're basically talking about your mom's going in back and she's ordering for aggress. She's spending money, you know, she's spending real dollars at a restaurant. And she if she goes alone, did she go alone or with someone else with a friend. It would depend. Sometimes it was just by herself because it was what she liked to do, you know, it was her that was her passion. And then coming home and

you know, sometimes I would go with her. There's times w she would take me out of school and I would go to like when she was going to the Gotham Bar and grill and she'd take me with her. Oh, it was incredible, and she was tasting it on a completely different level. But when we would come home and then she would make the recipe and it would be better.

I mean, that's what was so crazy is she wanted to talk to the chef to find out what they were doing so that she could come home and see if she can make it better, which is insane because you know, it's like, you guys work so hard to craft these incredible dishes. But that was her thing. Like she would go home, she would trying to make it and try to improve upon it if she felt she could. You mentioned, you know, at fifteen, you left and you

started modeling, and you went to Italy. So you you're coming from a situation where you're basically have the run of the house, no rules, and then you went to Italy. And I would think it's a normal person that would be scary, But I don't presume that you were too scared. You just figured it out because you were always getting curveballs all the time. You just figure your curveballs out, and you know, people like yourself get to read the

situation really fast and adapt. How is that experience being alone at fifteen? As I said, like I wanted to be a doctor like my dad. And when I said earlier that I had never thought of acting, that's true, Like I had never thought about it. My eldest sister was working as a managing fashion editor for a magazine in Manhattan, and she was like, why don't you, you know, go into this agency and see about modeling? And I was like, why would I ever? Why would I ever

want to do that? Like and I had no desire to do it, and my mom loved the idea because my mom was very fabulous, like she went to sleep with her face on, her hair and makeup was perfectly done. She would literally go to sleep with her face on, and she would wear jewelry. Because she grew up extremely, extremely poor, my mom wanted people to know that she had money, so she loved the idea of me going

to this casting for modeling. She loved it. So I went in and I and they ended up, you know, after a little bit of back and forth, and they told me I had to lose weight whatever, and then once I did, they were like, we're going to send

you to Milan. And for me, I saw it as an opportunity to because even though I my mom was totally inspiring to me, and I I knew that there was something that I needed to get away from, Like even as a youngster, I knew that I needed to go on where like I needed to get out, you know what I mean. So I took it and I ran with that, and I my mom was like, okay, I was a freshman in high school and she was like a job out of school. She drove into the airport.

I had the name of a man written on a scrap of paper that I was supposed to call it when I got there. She had no idea where I was going or who I was going to meet. Did you ever see the movie Taken? But this is I mean, you know what I mean? Like it wasn't it was different back then? She was like, great, I can get reservations in Rome, and I can get some report that once she's over there. But you went alone. Yeah, no, she dropped me off of the airport I was walking through.

But Jeffrey, this is what's so crazy, is like now is a mother. I look back and I'm like, are you insane? I would never I would never let my kids do that at fifteen. But then again, if she didn't, I wouldn't be where I am now. My life path wouldn't have taken that route. I would bet you she knew you were gonna be okay. I would bet you they had this sense, you know, I know my daughter's gonna be good. This one can handle it. You know, it's interesting that you say that, because as a parent

now you do kind of you sense that, right. So, whether that's what it was or she was just like have fun, like whatever. But I dropped out of school and moved him along. I lived there for about a year and a half. Oh wow, I jumped around like I would do some jobs, you know, like I was able to do like a little stint in Paris, little stint in London. But it was crazy, like even in London. I remember, I found a place to live and all the women were always really nice to me, and I

was always the youngest. Like my nickname in Italy was Queen Duchy, which is fifteen. Like all the locals call me Queen to Chy because I was just this American girl by myself. Like I look back at it now, I'm just, oh my god, I cannot believe how dangerous that actually is, you know, because I'm like taking the Metro on the bus and the tram and all the stuff on myself. But um, in London, I'm in this this apartment that you can rent by the day or

the week. And I realized after I'm there for like a week, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like a brothel, Like I'm staying in a brothel. And I didn't even and everyone was really nice, but I would find it's insane I was find myself in these situations just like this is. And I remember my apartment in Milan was like so not great and I would call my mom in the middle of the night because there were so many cockroaches. I was like, what do I do, Like I'm scared, and she said, when you go to the bathroom,

look away and turn the lights on. They don't like the light. But it's weird because like this, this whole experience, it's a big part of who I am. And you know, in Milan is where I first started acting because I got this audition for an Uncle Ben's rice commercial and I ended up booking it. I didn't work much as a model, but I loved my experience over there. It was my first kind of real introduction with like food prep because I would go to the local market, I

would get a bunch of food. I would come home and I would batch cook all my food and like reimagine it in a couple of different ways. But um, I booked a sancle Ban's rice commercial. I did the job and I called my mom in Jersey like I want to try this acting thing, and she said okay. So I came home, I dropped everything in Milan. I came home and she's like, so, what do we have to do. I'm like, I have to learn how to act.

So she literally, Jeffrey, she opened a Yellow Pages and we just pointed at a teacher in New York and I started taking lessons and then within a year I booked that seventies show. Wow, that's like a that's like a wingman. Yeah, that's a mom and a wingman and like a shrink all at once. For our second course, Laura tells me about her drive to learn and master her craft of acting into wrecking. So in nineteen, before you were nineteen, you're on the seventy show, huge hit,

and then you decided to go to film school. You saw like, Okay, I want to see how this works because I know I can do it better. Yeah, I mean not like my mom and the restaurant, Like I can improve upon this. But but like that kind of what I was getting, you know, But I knew you know what it was though. There was just something inside of me that when I first saw, first of all, our director on that seventy show. His name is David Trainer.

He was phenomenal. He directed every single episode except for the pilot, so he directed like a hundred and nine episodes,

like he was our father figure. He was wonderful. I learned so much from him about dealing with different personalities because we were all very young and we all had very different personalities, and he balanced all of our personalities in such a wonderful way that we never felt like, you know, not taken seriously, We never felt invalidated for having an idea that was ridiculous, like the way that he dealt with us as actors. I studied him because I couldn't believe how he and a lot of it

with directing. It's like do you deal with so many personalities on a daily basis? It's something that a lot of directors fail at that they can't balance, you know, trying to work with these different kinds of people. And I always love that part of the job. And David was just so a wonderful study with that. But I didn't have a g. E. D. Because I didn't go to high school. So I tracked down this guy. I

would not leave him alone. And he worked at a local film school close to where we filmed in um Studio City, and I met with him and was like, will you please put me through your curriculum. I don't have a g e Z, but I want to be a director, and I wouldn't leave him alone. And after like three times, he's like, finally, fine, Fine, I will put you through my program. And I got all my

film gear. I did all the same assignments. I basically he saw how serious I was about it that he literally would put me through the same thing that he put his college kids through during the day, and we would go and I went to night school. Um. He ended up producing my first short film. He's no longer with us, but he was a wonderful teacher. And then from there I just kind of did boots on the

ground experience with my own film gear. I directed a short film, I started doing this web series called Nigh Rows that I was a one woman crow. Um, and then I just kept kind of honing it, and then I ended up directing multiple episodes of Orange as a New Black. So it's just been, um, it's been a process, but I I love it. I absolutely love it. So this is all happening as you're doing full scale productions TV,

full scale movies. Girl, this is all happening. So you're you're in and out of this world directing and acting at the same time. Never like letting on that you're trying to do anything to disrupt anything. You just you're a worker. You're a worker, obvious like you're up, You're an organized worker. You get ship done. No, it's obvious. It's like, how do you decide what you're going to do and what you're not gonna do? Do you have any like like, oh, yeah, I'm not doing X y Z.

I would never do that. This is what I want to How do you feel? How does that happen? It's different for everybody, you know, but for me, because I booked the Sebody Show at such a young age, I was able to be in a position where I could choose things based on material. While I was on the seventies show, as we just talked about, I was hustling trying to like, you know, I was doing full school at night. I sold my first show that I executive produced as when I was like twenty three was a

poker show because I was obsessed with poker. But it really is a material based you know, as example, when Orange is the New Black came along, nobody knew what Netflix was. Um House of Cars hadn't aired yet. They had one show called Lily Hammer, which no one it wasn't in the zeitgeist, like no, but he knew what Netflix was. So when I got the pilot for Orange is the New Black, I read it and I knew

immediately that it was special. And the role of Alex Voss was so incredible, you know, like the Genji Cohen who wrote it is just she's a phenomenal writer. But when I read the pilot, it just stands out from everything else, and when you read these characters and how incredible the show was, and no one could ever expect it to become the rocket ship that it did, which

was just a phenomenal experience. But that was one of those things in my gut, I'm like, I have to be a part of this, and then Alex is just she's part of me. I just love her so much. And I ended up getting it and it was just an actually an absolute dream come true. But that was one of those things Netflix was not what it was.

We came up like House of Cards, you know, air we aired right after them, and you know, we helped kind of pave the way for what is now current, the way that people consume television like we were pioneers with that, and that's a wonderful thing to be a part of. When you look at where we've come in the last ten years, it's just it's insane and we

were part of that. We didn't we used to, you know, back when you're like, oh wait, I gotta wait for my episode to come out once a week, like every new episode, and now it's just everything that your fingertips. Being a part of that, like Boots on the Ground, was really really a wonderful experience to be a part of. Do you prefer directing or acting? I asked this question. I it's people ask me, so you like cooking or writing restaurants, and I'm like, I don't, you know, it's

one and the same. But sometimes it''s good, sometimes it's not quick. But what do you prefer? If there is a preference? I love directing, like direct The thing I love about directing is it's all encompassing. It's everything. When I'm directing, I think like an actor, but I'm also, you know, telling the story visually as well through the camera, so and you have to get all of these pieces

moving together, and it's extremely challenging. And I love that, and I thrive on having to come up with those solutions and being able to tell this story while you're getting all of these departments to like think in line with what your vision is. It's phenomenal to have something in your head that then gets on the screen. You're dis like, oh my god, but it's like it's wonderful. And acting is a piece of it, you know what I means. So when I'm acting, I don't have to

worry about all this other stuff. I can just focus on that craft directing. The only thing I can really explain it is it is all encompassing and I and I kind of thrive in that kind of experience. Acting is just a very different It's just a very different muscle. But what I will say is I've always appreciated good actors, but as a director, you live and die by how good your actors are. I mean, you really do. And as a director, working with great actors is just like

an orange. With these actresses that are just absolutely phenomenal, I was just like, I am so blessed to be able to direct these women right now, and some men, but it was mostly women. You know. It was absolutely incredible. But as an actor, you don't have to worry about like you're making your day, you know what I mean, Like you don't have to have a clock and a producer like breathing down your neck all day like and

making your day. And like there's a snowstorm, we lost a location, like this actor is sick, this person is you know whatever, a family tragic, Like it's all it's so much to juggle. So as an actor, I can show up and do my job and I'm like, you get to worry about everything else. I get to this act now that I have two young children, Like would

I take a directing job right this second? It wouldn't have to check a lot of boxes for me because you're gone before the sun comes up, your home when the sun is down, and you're thinking when you're laying down about what you missed. For a third course, Laura and I discussed something that we now have in common, selling cooking products on TV. Laura has teamed up with hs AND to launch prep on Kitchen, their exclusive collection

designed to make preparing your meals easy and fun. I want to talk about your new line on HSN Prep on Kitchen, which is a fantastic name. Thank you tell me this is HS and I worked where with QBC, which is the same company. Oh yeah, fantastic. I love doing it, doing it for two years now and my wife actually runs everything and she um is the person

that came up with the first product. And I just didn't know how much I would love it as soon as you get on air, because you're almost like a stand up comedian and a salesperson at this him I mean, and you have authentic relationship to what you're sounding because, as I understand, you're selling things that brought you back to your time in Milan where you're cooking for yourself

and doing all this stuff. Not to mention mom who had her own Like, it's gonna be so fantastic to tell those stories and just watch the stuff fly out of there because it's gonna thank you. Every product needs a story. Everyone has a bowl, everyone has a knife, everyone everyone has everything. But it has to be a connection. And that's really I'm very excited. Tell us a little bit about it and how this sort of I kind of know now and I know you, I kind of know how it came about, But tell me what I

don't know. I have been sketching the line for years, Like I have little scraps of like different renderings of products and whatever, really all based on things that I

would come up against in the kitchen. Like as example, one of my pieces that I'm launching with is this cutting board, the prep board, my prep on kitchen prep board, and I created this arm that attaches this biodegradable compostable bag to it because whenever I'm food prepping, I would always get like bigger and bigger cutting boards because it would get filled with shavings and I wouldn't want to like interrupt everything to go over to the garbage and spill it out and then come back or go put

in my compost or whatever it is, or if I didn't want to do that, I would just work on like smaller and smaller spaces of a cutting board. Like by the end, I'm like chopping carrots on the corner of the board, and I was like, there's gotta be a better way to do this. So then I started just tucking a bag under the edge of my cutting board and just scraping all the things in there, and I finally was like, there has got to be a better way to hold this bag upright, I don't want

it hanging out the counter. I don't want it hanging down here where my legs are because I want to be able to freely move around. Because I mean, you can speak to this like when you're cooking, you get in a flow, you know what I mean. In any friends of mine who work and for national kitchens, they're like you kind of it's like a dance and you have to get into the rhythm of it and the

flow of it. And when I'm cooking, I love getting as the flow and I don't want to break it up by having to like bring this board over the garbage and whatever. So I create, you know, I create a design whatever word you want to use. This cutting where that holds a bag in place, so you can just push all your food scraps into this bag. You're the clean cutting space. Um, you're the clean prep space. And you can just get in your rhythm and go and then afterwards your bag goes into the garbage or

if you compost, it goes in your compost. You're solving a problem, which is what it's all about. When you're selling a product, it's like, this is the problem. The problem is you run on a room and the problem is you don't want to mess everything up, and your problem is you don't want to cut yourself. I love that,

thank you. Similar to that, I mean, you know, I have my my nylon tools, which are which I love, Like I wanted a spoon and a bigger fork, and my my turner has like the sides on it, like everything is geared to words, things that I would run into in the kitchen and that I wanted solutions for. And I pitched this too, you know H s N. And they totally saw my vision and they just they loved it. So you know now here we are. But I had a whole like I remember when I first

went to find UM to get my branding agent. His name's Andy Cohen. He's awesome and he's the one who helped me meet with H s N. When I pitched him. I came in with a bag. I had a cutting board in it. I had all of my food storage glass containers in it, and I put it on the thing and I did like a whole demo like this is my problem in the kitchen. I want to find

a solution for all this up. And I'm like and he got it, and then he ended up taking me on and then we went and got hs N. H s N has been awesome, Like they totally get my vision for it, and it's been wonderful. Well, if you if you do hs N one place, you're gonna have to visit where I live in Tampa because that's where they films. Is Yeah, well soon hopefully. Yeah. No, they're gonna get back in there by what do you what is it in the fall? Or my my launch is

on May seven. It's such a fun thing and I see the excitement in your face, So you're gonna do great at it because that's who you were. But thank you. I mean, I've been working on this for years. I'm really really excited about it. For our fourth and final course, my conversation with Laura continues with some of my favorite food questions. Can a home kitchen be prepped like a professional kitchen? What diet can help us perform out our best?

Can cocktails ever being healthy? I was watching your food videos on YouTube. I love your margaritea recipe. Most margarite is too sweet, and I wanted just wanted to mention that to you because most people it's just a sugar rush. Right. Well, thank you one thing I'm trying to figure out is some of the best margaritas I've had, they're shaking so hard that you almost get some like little shavings of ice. I can't figure out how to get that, and I how you get Do you know how to get those

shavings in there? You're probably gonna need a silver plated, heavy duty shaker. You're gonna need ice that it's very square, and then you're gonna need to put more ice than you want. The only problem with that and shake it for quite a while. The only problem with that is that when you end up shaking it too much, you delude the drink. What I usually do is shake it with very little ice and pour it over ice, so it really stays the same. Jeff Morrow says non delution,

but it's non delution. But you can shake it. You just keep shaking it and you're gonna get it. I'm gonna do the next time. I appreciate you commenting on on my margarita. I mean, it's a class a recipe. Everyone knows it, but thank you. So I appreciated comment on that for one reason because everyone who's a young and hip drinks tequila and everybody else who's young and hip and on is either on keto or no sugar.

So I'm figuring that there was a diet, a dietary um sort of choice to make something that is pseudo healthy because we have alcohol, but it is it because you take very good care of your like knowing that you've been eating for bra and caviare as a nine year old, are you now sick of all that luxury food and giving back to the basics. It's funny that you bring up the keto thing, because I find that when I talked to people who are doing Keto and Caveman and all this stuff whatever you want to call

that diet, for me what it is. And I don't even do keto or anything. I try to do this moderation. But one of the biggest tools that I took from the keto kind of lifestyle is literally insulin. It's that you don't eat for long periods of time so that your insulin doesn't spike. From my understand saying, and all the research I've done on the body, which is quite a bit in certain regards, is that you can't really gain fat without insulin, right, So keto really lowers your

insulin insulin levels. And for me, that's my main thing is I allow myself to drink alcohol if I want to, everything in moderation, and I eat carbs, fat, proteins, vegetables, I eat everything, but I really try to keep my insulin in check where I don't snack anymore specifically because and based on keto and all this other stuff, even if you think about food, your insulin can spike. I

mean there's studies that show that. But for me, is like if you just don't eat for hours between your meals, it's a form of intermittent fasting and you keep your insulin super low. So that is pretty much now as a working mom, you know, trying to figure out the easiest way to stay healthy while doing all my food prep, while being able to you know, have a cocktail if I want my insulin is really the key for me. So what are you cooking now? I'm curious what's in

your larder? What I normally do is I get a bunch of vegetables and proteins and I kind of half prep everything so that it's ready in my fridge so I can easily cook. So I always have like my staple, like workhorse veggies. You know a lot of cauliflower. There's a ton of zucchini. Now, I prepare my fridge in a way where it makes it easy to want to use it. I basically do what you might do in your restaurant, Like I literally prep my kitchen like I'm

going into a Friday night at a restaurant. It is so funny that you I mean, my gosh, it's no trouble at all if you if you take a little time, you know, you once you get the food home, it's half the work. You've got to take care of it when it goes in the fridge. Otherwise. You know those mushrooms you bought in the plastic wrapper, you put them in the back without realizing that they're gonna be stinky in the day. It's a living organism, you know. It's

it's there is work involved in cooking. There is, and people need to know that, you know what I mean. But it's so worth it. It's like cooking for my family, my friends. It fills me with it fills me like, it fills me with such joy, like I I love. The kitchen to me is the heartbeat of the home.

Everything surrounds food like, if you think about your family life, how much time is spent like perched at the countertop in the kitchen or around the dining table with your family or you know, whatever it is, there's always food involved. It all kind of ties into my kind of philosophy of how I live, which is I want to be the most efficient in the kitchen so that I can have more time with my family. I mean, my kids are growing so quickly, and especially at the age year

kids are ound. Oh my gosh, Like I see time because I see my kids grow so like my son's about to walk any day, and I'm just like the problem with the kids that that the good problem is like my kids this year, just last year, they wrote a cookbook together and it was best selling cookbook. And what was great about it was it was a family cookbook and we wrote it pre pandemic. We had no idea what was going to happen. But they that cooks together, right, Yeah,

it's themselves just by just by observing. So remember even if you don't think they're looking, they're watching, they're smelling, they hear, they get it, they get it, and it's that's just such a gift you give them to let them sort of be around the food always, whether you're preparing it, shopping, imagine shopping, preparing, eating, and then cleaning up. It's part of it. Also, that's four segments of life

that everything happens, Every conversation happens in that. For four segments you are, you're cooking, and you have a family. Everything happens in those four and then might be fights at the table, but at least you're at the table, right. I'd basually tell people all the time, three four meals minimum a week at the table. As difficult, that is it as it is. It's worth everything in Your children will mimic that because they will have that as a good memory most of the time, and they'll mimic it

with their kids. It's just the way it is. I think it's beautiful, and it sounds like you're doing a yeoman's job of deconstructing your mother's So yeah, shall I say thank you into a more healthy You're channeling them while being an incredible actor, while directing, and while like now going to be an hscent store. I just want to thank you so much. I had a great interview, but I'm also so happy to talk to you and I can't wait to see you on his and I

really really mean that. Thank you. I so appreciate it, and good luck with everything. I know you have so much going on, but I'm a big fan and I really appreciate you having me on your podcast. Oh You're very sweet. Have a great day. I don't know what you haven't put dinner, but bonapet. Thanks Jeffrey, you as well. Okay, bye bye, Thanks very much for listening to Four Courses with Jeffers and carrying a production of I Heart Radio

and Corner Table Entertainment. Four Courses is created by Jeffrey Zacharion, Margaret Sacarrion, Jared Keller, and Tara Helper. Our executive producer is Christopher Hesiotis. Four Courses is produced by Jonathan Haws Dressler. This episode was edited by Joe Tisdale. Our research is conducted by Jescelyn Shields. This episode was engineered by Molly Swanson and Laura Prepond. Our talent booking is by Pamela

Bauer and Dogtown Talent. For more podcast from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.