Speaker 1: My name is Jeffery Z Carrian and you're listening to
Speaker 1: four Courses with Jeffery Z. Carrion from I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and four Courses, I'll be taking you along for the
Speaker 1: ride while I talk with the top talent of our time.
Speaker 1: In each conversation, I focus on four different areas from
Speaker 1: my guests life and career. And during those four courses,
Speaker 1: I'm going to dig deep and uncover new insights and
Speaker 1: inspirations that we can all use to fuel ourselves to
Speaker 1: push forward. My guest, but this episode is an Emmy
Speaker 1: Award winning actress and former Beauty queen. She's not only
Speaker 1: starting to hit TV shows and soap operas throughout her career,
Speaker 1: but also graduated from the Coldonbleu with honors, and her
Speaker 1: Instagram is full of her family's RV adventures. Without further delay,
Speaker 1: let's get into my conversation with Jessica Collins. I'm so
Speaker 1: happy to be here. This is really exciting for me.
Speaker 1: For our first course, I wanted to ask Esca about
Speaker 1: her childhood and Upstate New York. As the oldest daughter
Speaker 1: of a hard working single mom, Jessup got her first
Speaker 1: taste of the kitchen at a young age, and it
Speaker 1: opened your mind to the magic of cooking. You being
Speaker 1: the oldest of five, you er so it's like I
Speaker 1: call that the second parent, you know, the first the
Speaker 1: oldest than you now responsible until they get to responsible age.
Speaker 1: But you're always looked upon to be the leader of
Speaker 1: the pack. I was. So. I have twin brothers that
Speaker 1: are two years younger than me, and I obviously grew
Speaker 1: up with them my younger siblings. I was older, so
Speaker 1: I didn't grow up with them, but they were very
Speaker 1: much a part of my life. They used to come
Speaker 1: out for holidays and summer as they would come out,
Speaker 1: and my sister especially, we are the two girls we
Speaker 1: bookend three boys in the middle. So she and I
Speaker 1: are very close. It's a beautiful relationship, but very unique
Speaker 1: because I am so much older. But she's a lovely,
Speaker 1: lovely twenty five year old woman now. And but we
Speaker 1: do have a very unique sister bond. I always asked
Speaker 1: this question because I want to know, you're from Schenectady. Yes,
Speaker 1: what was it like? Well, I was born in Schenectady,
Speaker 1: and then the seventies we actually moved around a lot
Speaker 1: to Indiana and then back to New York. But I
Speaker 1: went to you know, from a seven on. I went
Speaker 1: to school in Amsterdam, New York, which is even smaller.
Speaker 1: I come from really humble beginnings, not a lot of money,
Speaker 1: a lot of difficult times, just financially. I was a
Speaker 1: poor kid from upstate New York. But you know, now
Speaker 1: that's what made me who I am. You know, that's
Speaker 1: there's so much of my core that comes from that
Speaker 1: hard working community and uh and the American dream really
Speaker 1: that if you work hard, if you put the work in,
Speaker 1: it does pay off. And I'm an example of that
Speaker 1: I had. You know, I don't come from a show
Speaker 1: business family. I come from you know, are working working,
Speaker 1: hard working stuff. Yes, I come from Worcester, Mass I
Speaker 1: know eachly, Okay, so you know what I'm talking about. It.
Speaker 1: I always remember people ask me what was what would
Speaker 1: your childloo look? And I'm like, it was cold, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really cold. That's funny. That's one of the things
Speaker 1: I remember, too, is the you never forget the April
Speaker 1: March wet cold is. I don't wish that on anyone,
Speaker 1: you know, And you're just waiting for spring, yes, just
Speaker 1: waiting for sun. I think people that are dreamers come
Speaker 1: from environments like that that they have to and they
Speaker 1: have to do something they get their mind off of
Speaker 1: how just miserable it is. But I've never been to Amsterdam.
Speaker 1: I bene Schenectady and okay, yes, it's close to Schenectady.
Speaker 1: It's about, yeah, about twenty minutes from Schenectady. There's all
Speaker 1: these little lovely towns Schenectady, Scotia. My dad grew up
Speaker 1: in Scotia, my mom grew up in Amsterdam. They're all
Speaker 1: about fifteen minutes away. They're just these little, tiny, tiny towns,
Speaker 1: you know, gees in Schenectady. So that's right. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of mills. All my grandfather's were mill workers. My
Speaker 1: parents worked in the mills, my grandmother's, my aunt's. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's yes. So when you were growing up, obviously you
Speaker 1: were one of five, but like, how did food get
Speaker 1: on the table? That's the first question. And if you
Speaker 1: close your eyes and I asked you, whatever age you remember,
Speaker 1: if you walked in the house, what was the smell
Speaker 1: in the kitchen? What do you remember either cooking or
Speaker 1: that was leftover residue. I have a lot of residue
Speaker 1: smells in my house, you know, back then that the
Speaker 1: wall people, all the smells went into the wallpaper, and yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to know what smells came out of your
Speaker 1: walls or in your mind, so that when you close
Speaker 1: your mind and once in a while we all run
Speaker 1: into that smell and you're like, oh my god, I
Speaker 1: know that smell. Can you remember that? That's such a
Speaker 1: good question. I do. I mean, the first that comes
Speaker 1: to my mind. And and no fault, my mother's going
Speaker 1: to kill me for this. But it was like a
Speaker 1: musky like almost like a little mildewy, you know. It
Speaker 1: was that old. We lived in old houses, and it
Speaker 1: was damn like you said, and the winters it was
Speaker 1: damp like that wet would smell. Is what I remember,
Speaker 1: much more than than cooking. My mom was a single mom.
Speaker 1: She worked three jobs. Sometimes I was a latchkey kid.
Speaker 1: I was starting to cook for my family, not well,
Speaker 1: but oh gosh. Around eleven twelve, I was starting to
Speaker 1: put things together to help her out and buy About fourteen,
Speaker 1: I was making dinner. Dinner was sandwiches and a can
Speaker 1: of soup, but I was still responsible for it, so
Speaker 1: there weren't these you know, waffs of home cooking. Every
Speaker 1: night but my mom did make a really big deal
Speaker 1: out of Thanksgiving and Christmas. I don't know where she
Speaker 1: got the money. I don't We always had presents, We
Speaker 1: always had a turkey and a meal. A really don't
Speaker 1: know how she put that all together because she worked
Speaker 1: so hard for so little. So when I think of
Speaker 1: food smells in my home, I immediately go to the holidays.
Speaker 1: And then, you know, my grandmother was an amazing cook,
Speaker 1: and my aunt, who my daughters named after, was really
Speaker 1: an inspiration of a great baker. Nobody was trained. These
Speaker 1: were all home recipes, you know, passed down through the generations.
Speaker 1: Things they made, uh, you know, cookbooks and then do
Speaker 1: you remember the plastic box with the little cards, So
Speaker 1: we had those, and you know, that's actually how I
Speaker 1: how I started really cooking cooking is there was a
Speaker 1: cookbook and I picked it up, and I've never made
Speaker 1: a real meal before. And the first thing I ever
Speaker 1: made was from this book. It was spaghetti and meat
Speaker 1: balls and homemade apple pie. And I couldn't believe if
Speaker 1: you just followed these instructions, this meal appeared and it
Speaker 1: blew my mind the whole idea. And and that was
Speaker 1: the meal in the moment that really hooked me on
Speaker 1: to cooking and baking. So then curiously that didn't resurface
Speaker 1: until like two thousand and six or seven. You went
Speaker 1: to culinary school. Yes, well, but I didn't stop cooking,
Speaker 1: you know, I was cooking was really my escape from
Speaker 1: getting knocked around as an actress, uh lose apart or
Speaker 1: have a hard day at work, and cooking was where
Speaker 1: I could really center myself again and ground myself. I
Speaker 1: like to cook in quiet, I like to cook by myself.
Speaker 1: I mean that's changed now having kids, but early on
Speaker 1: I used to like cooking by myself, and I found
Speaker 1: it almost a meditation and a healing for myself. So
Speaker 1: even my first New York apartments, I was the girl
Speaker 1: throwing dinner parties at twenty for all my friends and
Speaker 1: and most of my friends in New York, we were
Speaker 1: not local kids, so we all came from somewhere. We
Speaker 1: all felt like orphans, and this was a way that
Speaker 1: we could come together and have a home cooked meal
Speaker 1: and and we were a family. You have a very
Speaker 1: studious background. I was you know, London, Howard find acting school,
Speaker 1: Royal National theaters. So these are serious serious Why did
Speaker 1: you say to yourself. I'm going to London. I want
Speaker 1: to do X Y Z, and I need what they provide.
Speaker 1: Was it that or just you wanted to have You
Speaker 1: wanted to paint yourself as someone who could do anything.
Speaker 1: You know, because of my humble beginnings, college wasn't really
Speaker 1: an option for me. There wasn't an opportunity financially to
Speaker 1: do that. And I was very lucky that I went
Speaker 1: to New York City right after high school. I waited
Speaker 1: tables for two years and I got a job, and
Speaker 1: that changed my life. I got loving a soap opera
Speaker 1: in New York. But I always felt I really wanted
Speaker 1: to study acting. I still love I mean, I went
Speaker 1: to culinary school in my mid thirties. You know, I
Speaker 1: love education. I am a learner and I think the
Speaker 1: older I get, the better I get at learning new things,
Speaker 1: uh and appreciating that I can learn new things. So
Speaker 1: I kind of always felt like I was catching up
Speaker 1: on something I missed, and I just wanted to find
Speaker 1: the best opportunities that I could. The things you're mentioning,
Speaker 1: I had to audition for them to get in London.
Speaker 1: Was I think they auditioned all over the world and
Speaker 1: took I don't remember like twenty five students or something
Speaker 1: that was a big deal to get into a big deal.
Speaker 1: So I was I was challenging myself in in that
Speaker 1: arena as well in in education. And I've always studied
Speaker 1: body movement and voice and you know, certainly acting classes
Speaker 1: just to keep you know, to keep myself in shape
Speaker 1: as an actress and my brain. And yeah, but at
Speaker 1: twenty years old, you you land this incredible role that's
Speaker 1: like four or five years. That's amazing. That's very rare
Speaker 1: to land that sort of steady gig New York City.
Speaker 1: I did a film York it did We we filmed
Speaker 1: in a studio. It was amazing. It was fun that
Speaker 1: I mean again, that job changed my life. It was
Speaker 1: a soap opera. I did it for three years, and
Speaker 1: I learned from the best, and I learned discipline and
Speaker 1: I learned technique and I was so green when I started.
Speaker 1: That was my first acting job. And I worked with
Speaker 1: these really you know actors from Broadway and uh, the
Speaker 1: lovely actors we had on our show who really encouraged me.
Speaker 1: They said, study, study, study. I mean, that was a
Speaker 1: very big influence in my life to get better at
Speaker 1: my craft and to make that a lifelong thing that
Speaker 1: you never stopped studying your craft. In our second course,
Speaker 1: I wanted to dig into how Jessica perfected that craft
Speaker 1: over the course of her career, especially as the film
Speaker 1: industry has evolved to turn out more and more content
Speaker 1: on more and more platforms. I started off with a
Speaker 1: question I've always wanted to ask on this show. We
Speaker 1: do a lot of live TV, and I do a
Speaker 1: lot of live to tape, you know our shows. When
Speaker 1: we do live stuff, it's so much more difficult because
Speaker 1: you're you're thinking out of your body because you can't
Speaker 1: mess up a But it's so much more fun. It's
Speaker 1: I read I way rather do live because it's just
Speaker 1: nothing comes up as it should and nothing ends as
Speaker 1: it should, and it's always what it should be. But
Speaker 1: I'd love to you to speak about like the difference
Speaker 1: between live TV and live theater. What is the difference
Speaker 1: between having like three thousand people and having maybe three million,
Speaker 1: but that experience in front of the crowd verse you're
Speaker 1: still live. But what's the difference there? Because I've always
Speaker 1: wanted to ask something, I've never had that opportunity. What's
Speaker 1: the difference between theater, and between the two lives, I
Speaker 1: don't know that there is a difference. They're both terrifying.
Speaker 1: I've always said this, I shouldn't you, I'm never gonna
Speaker 1: get hired again. But every single time, right before I
Speaker 1: step on stage, if it's live, TV or theater, I
Speaker 1: have this little conversation with my it's I'm so terrified,
Speaker 1: I'm never doing this again. One of my what difference
Speaker 1: myself through this? This is awful? And then I get
Speaker 1: out there and something happens. Why we all do it right?
Speaker 1: Something happens. You can't explain it. But it's the most
Speaker 1: magical thing in the world, and I really have found it.
Speaker 1: You have way more experience with this than I do.
Speaker 1: But cooking live is like nothing of it because I
Speaker 1: totally I can, you know, go out and learn with
Speaker 1: my learned lines. I can go out and certainly be myself,
Speaker 1: But to go out and cook, it's like going out
Speaker 1: with a with a pet or a small child. You
Speaker 1: just don't know what's going to happen. And again you
Speaker 1: get out there and then it's it's the most amazing
Speaker 1: thing in the world. When I do iron chef, I
Speaker 1: go back I actually say a prayer, and I do
Speaker 1: I ask God. I'm Catholic. I asked God to give
Speaker 1: me strength for the next hour. I don't ask me
Speaker 1: any more than an hour, because that would be that
Speaker 1: would be greedy. Yes, yes, yes, And that show is
Speaker 1: the most traumatic show I've ever done. And people ask me,
Speaker 1: is it real? Is I'm like, it's so real. It's yes.
Speaker 1: We're like miserable before and happy after, but exhausted because
Speaker 1: that first when they count down, you're like you want
Speaker 1: to like almost get sick, and then once you start cooking,
Speaker 1: you like come out of body and just do what
Speaker 1: you do. Well, it's the it's the waiting that's just
Speaker 1: god awful, right, And I understand that, but I would
Speaker 1: imagine that the live audience, people there that you can
Speaker 1: see and you hear in the sort of mess of
Speaker 1: it all has to be like distracting a little bit.
Speaker 1: I mean, it could be great, but you have to say,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna listen to that guy who sneeze twenty
Speaker 1: seven times already in the first four minutes. How do
Speaker 1: you get beyond that? That's a great question. You know,
Speaker 1: you go backstage, you go, hey, do you guys hear
Speaker 1: the guys sneeze in twentie unbelievable, but you just do
Speaker 1: you just you know. That's part of the gig is
Speaker 1: that things are gonna happen again. I think working in
Speaker 1: soap operas, unless the wall falls down or something, you
Speaker 1: don't do a second you don't do a second take,
Speaker 1: you know, so things do happen a crew member sneezes,
Speaker 1: or something to draw or prop isn't there when you
Speaker 1: need it. And soap sort a lot like theater in
Speaker 1: that you shoot it like as one scene and you
Speaker 1: don't go back unless something really terrible happens. So you
Speaker 1: learn how to work in those moments and and make it.
Speaker 1: If somebody forgets aligne, you just keep going. And there's
Speaker 1: something kind of fun about that too, about making it
Speaker 1: work with what you have in that one. I love
Speaker 1: that And I was going to ask you, part of
Speaker 1: what I want to get to is, like, you know,
Speaker 1: you get to your point in your career, like you
Speaker 1: keep getting better and refining. How do you keep sharp
Speaker 1: day after day after day doing relatively the same thing.
Speaker 1: And I asked this to a lot of Broadway actors
Speaker 1: who do the same show every day, and that's the
Speaker 1: same answer I give you know, it's different every day.
Speaker 1: You're in a good mood, you're in a bad mood.
Speaker 1: You just worked out, you feel you feel awful, you
Speaker 1: feel good, you feel healthy, you feel your brain is scrambled.
Speaker 1: You might have had too many Margarita's that night. How
Speaker 1: do you pull that? I'm not talking day over day,
Speaker 1: I get that, but like year over year over year
Speaker 1: to stay fresh so that the people that are watching
Speaker 1: you are actually watching you transform? How do you balance
Speaker 1: so when you get off get off stage, You're like,
Speaker 1: I don't have to transform. That's that life. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go back. I gotta get groceries. I mean, well, I'll
Speaker 1: tell you having a having a kid helps with that.
Speaker 1: I can't come home as my character. Uh, nobody wants
Speaker 1: that around here. And yeah, the lives are it's it's
Speaker 1: obviously the same life, but it's two sides. Uh. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think what helps is I really love what I do.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine not doing it. I can't. I don't
Speaker 1: want to retire. And the more I do it, I've
Speaker 1: I've now been acting for over thirty years, and so
Speaker 1: I love it more and more every day. So I
Speaker 1: think that helps a lot. And yeah, I don't sit
Speaker 1: with my roles. Have I credit a lot of my
Speaker 1: stuff to the soaps that you just you do it
Speaker 1: and you go home, and you know, I'm not sitting
Speaker 1: around brooding about my roles. There might be a bad
Speaker 1: day or something, or you wish something happened, and you
Speaker 1: know it does. It can eat at me if I
Speaker 1: think I could have done a better job or it
Speaker 1: didn't have the opportunity to do something. But for the
Speaker 1: most part, no, I leave usually in a really good
Speaker 1: mood and excited to see the work, and I'm mom
Speaker 1: when i'm home. So you've you've seen, like, you know,
Speaker 1: two thousand sixteen, two thousand seventeen, and you've also seen
Speaker 1: the nineties. So in the thirty years, what what's happened
Speaker 1: to the industry as far as let's just stay TV focused,
Speaker 1: since you have so much depth of experience there, What
Speaker 1: has happened to the good and too the maybe not
Speaker 1: so good. What is it in your industry that's changed
Speaker 1: until two thousand sixteen or seventeen. Oh gosh, wow, so
Speaker 1: many things. I'd like to think we have a long
Speaker 1: way to go, but I think we're more socially conscious
Speaker 1: now and about hopefully. I'd like to think of about
Speaker 1: what we're putting out there and how we're portraying people,
Speaker 1: how we're portraying women and people of color and different backgrounds,
Speaker 1: either getting rid of the stereotypes or at least calling
Speaker 1: them out and making fun of them, which is something
Speaker 1: we really do on my new show, which I love.
Speaker 1: Like you know, it was the eighties. There were stereotypes,
Speaker 1: there were prejudices, and we really look those in the
Speaker 1: eye and call people on it and with humor, which
Speaker 1: I think is always a great way to send your
Speaker 1: message out there. I think people are much more willing
Speaker 1: to receive it. But yeah, and I think the business
Speaker 1: is changing, We're seeing again. I think it has a
Speaker 1: long way to go, but people have to behave a
Speaker 1: little better than they did when I first started. It
Speaker 1: wasn't easy being a young woman in the business for
Speaker 1: any of us, and how we were treated and things
Speaker 1: that were allowed and things we had to constantly skirt
Speaker 1: around to be safe. And you know, so I I
Speaker 1: think about my own daughter, and I think about young
Speaker 1: actresses coming up and what I can do. I don't
Speaker 1: want them to ever go through the things that we
Speaker 1: all had to go through and you know, there were
Speaker 1: women that came before me that made it better for me,
Speaker 1: and hopefully I can do the same for the next generation.
Speaker 1: So what what do you I mean? There's so much
Speaker 1: content now I try to find something to watch. I'm
Speaker 1: so exhausted. It takes ten minutes. Just too there's another network,
Speaker 1: it was what happened in twenty four hours is two
Speaker 1: more networks up, and like between Netflix and Hulu and
Speaker 1: Discovery and all this, it's like, how do you go
Speaker 1: in there and grab something and say, you know what,
Speaker 1: I got this piece. I know how to extract from
Speaker 1: all this noise because it's all noise, and some of
Speaker 1: it's amazingly well funded noise. Are you saying how I
Speaker 1: pick my my projects to work in or to walk both,
Speaker 1: or like, like, how do you know what landscape is
Speaker 1: you're working in? With the landscape being so vast, Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: the one you're working in, you never know, you kind
Speaker 1: of dive in. You know, a television show can change
Speaker 1: so much from the time you get your part, and
Speaker 1: it actually it does, and that's I think that's happened
Speaker 1: to all of us, where you sign on for one
Speaker 1: thing and it becomes another, and that can be a
Speaker 1: positive or a negative depending And as far as being
Speaker 1: a viewer, again, it always comes back to my kid.
Speaker 1: I don't watch a lot of TV, don't watch TV
Speaker 1: when she's awake. So you know, my husband and I
Speaker 1: have about an hour to a night, not every night,
Speaker 1: to watch TV. So it's very it's very precious time.
Speaker 1: What are we going to watch? You know? And it
Speaker 1: has to be something we both agree on and and
Speaker 1: the world makes a difference to what's going on, you know,
Speaker 1: with the pandemic, we decided, oh, no dark stuff. You know,
Speaker 1: the world is dark enough. We needed fun and humor
Speaker 1: and joy. So in that time, we picked shows that
Speaker 1: we're uplifting and escapism and I mean, I will say
Speaker 1: I do wish somebody would come along and kind of
Speaker 1: combine all these networks to make it easier for us
Speaker 1: to find the shows we want to find. It is
Speaker 1: very overwhelming and probably one of the reasons I don't
Speaker 1: watch a lot of TV is it just it takes
Speaker 1: twenty minutes to find a show literally like on the
Speaker 1: on the television. So all I get told is we need,
Speaker 1: we need more content. I'm like, how is that possible?
Speaker 1: You need more content? But you came and watching the
Speaker 1: content that exists. Yeah, I mean, I don't know who
Speaker 1: could watch all the content. But what is nice is
Speaker 1: that there really is, there's becoming something for everybody. You know,
Speaker 1: you want to watch a drama, you want to watch
Speaker 1: a cooking show, you want to watch a building a house.
Speaker 1: There is something for everyone. You want to learn a
Speaker 1: new language. I mean, I'm doing this. I'm learning Spanish,
Speaker 1: and so I'll put something on with the you know, Spanish,
Speaker 1: with the English subtitles. You know. So there's all different
Speaker 1: ways to watch content and to learn from it as
Speaker 1: well as be entertained, which I think is really great.
Speaker 1: You hit the nail on the head. I really during
Speaker 1: that got into documentaries because yes, the documentary tells a
Speaker 1: story of one person, but it also tells a story
Speaker 1: of the time and what was going on around it.
Speaker 1: So I think you're right, there is it's nice to
Speaker 1: have all that information. It's sort of like being a supermarket.
Speaker 1: You know, there's so many products. I guess supermarket. I'm
Speaker 1: so overwhelmed myself, and I'm a chef. I'm like, yes,
Speaker 1: who needs all this ship That's funny. You know, no
Speaker 1: one in my family likes to go to the grocery
Speaker 1: store with me. I love it. I not only do
Speaker 1: I I could spend hours, but I also apparently I've
Speaker 1: been told that I talked to myself the grocery store. Well,
Speaker 1: I could give you a couple of numbers for that.
Speaker 1: You know you're talking to the wrong person. Actually, So
Speaker 1: I love grocery stores. I think it's one of the
Speaker 1: greatest times. Is too. I go, I make a list.
Speaker 1: I'm very specific and I know what I'm doing. And
Speaker 1: I actually did an instagram about how to shop in
Speaker 1: a grocery store, like go on Tuesdays, eat before your shop.
Speaker 1: I had so many so many people were fascinated by it.
Speaker 1: And it's the same thing as you just said about
Speaker 1: is it Netflix, is it Hulu? Is it? It's like
Speaker 1: it's like shopping. Yes, take a deep breath, sell down,
Speaker 1: figure out what you really want, write it down, and
Speaker 1: then go go just for that and forget the noise
Speaker 1: because you won't be able to It will take you
Speaker 1: twenty minutes, and then there's your precious hours down to
Speaker 1: an half hour. Exactly. Yes, absolutely. For our third course,
Speaker 1: I wanted to continue talking with Jessica about food and
Speaker 1: dig into her decision to go back to colony school.
Speaker 1: Turns out her year at the Kodamblur only deep into
Speaker 1: her appreciation and respect for food and all the people
Speaker 1: behind a quality meal. Cooking was always probably my biggest
Speaker 1: hobby passion. I would call it. It's funny to call
Speaker 1: it a hobby because it is such a part of
Speaker 1: my life. So it was always there, Like I said,
Speaker 1: from sixteen on, cooking was that's how I came home
Speaker 1: and recentered myself. And I always used to say, you know,
Speaker 1: one day I'll go to cooking school. One day when
Speaker 1: the time's right, one day when the times well, the
Speaker 1: time is never right. You're always too busy. To me
Speaker 1: that that's a giant commitment. And I was around thirty seven,
Speaker 1: thirty eight, and I thought, well, how about now, Why
Speaker 1: don't just go now? So I did and I finished.
Speaker 1: At the time in l A, they were offering a
Speaker 1: night school, so you went six pm to midnight. I mean,
Speaker 1: I was a zombie that year because I was also
Speaker 1: auditioning and working in the daytime as an actress. But
Speaker 1: I was able to finish. I finished with highest honors.
Speaker 1: And you know, again it became I love learning, and
Speaker 1: it became uh I was so proud of being a
Speaker 1: student and learning and you know, getting a's on my
Speaker 1: tests and all of that, and I loved it. I
Speaker 1: loved it, but it was really what I love about it,
Speaker 1: and I know it's it's a personality thing. You have
Speaker 1: to understand. If you're organizing, you love organization and lists
Speaker 1: and learning and checking things off. That's what cooking is.
Speaker 1: It's like before you make a sauce, you have everything
Speaker 1: ready and you have to learn that. So it makes
Speaker 1: you prepare. You have to prepare before you cook. And
Speaker 1: then cooking is a wind fail situation. But even if
Speaker 1: you fail, you learn and you can actually eat what
Speaker 1: you fail with it. So it's a very strange profession.
Speaker 1: You fail a lot, and you fail a lot, you
Speaker 1: fail a lot and you feel you know, I don't
Speaker 1: think it's an accident that I have paralleled acting and cooking.
Speaker 1: There are so many similarities in the two and diving
Speaker 1: in and it never comes out the way you think.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it comes up better, sometimes you're disappointed. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of connection to both of them. And uh and
Speaker 1: cooking school. You know, my cooking career is I feel
Speaker 1: like it's still just beginning. I want to get. You know,
Speaker 1: I've been in front of the camera. I'd like to
Speaker 1: get behind the camera with food. I like writing about food.
Speaker 1: You know, I always knew that my I was studying
Speaker 1: to go into a world of television and writing and
Speaker 1: all that side of it. But I was in school
Speaker 1: with real you know, people on the line and you
Speaker 1: know the guys that like take the pan out without
Speaker 1: a potholder, like the tough guys and gals, and and
Speaker 1: it was an amazing experience to be part of that world.
Speaker 1: And you know, that's something that I would have never said,
Speaker 1: I'm not tough enough. I'll just say I am. That
Speaker 1: is a it's it's a brutal it's a brutal industry.
Speaker 1: And I have so much respect for how hard you know, people,
Speaker 1: I don't think people realize how hard they don't know.
Speaker 1: I tell people, I'm like, okay, what's it like. I'm like, okay.
Speaker 1: So it's a Broadway show and every nights you've played
Speaker 1: to a packed house. But it's three shows a day, breakfast, lunch,
Speaker 1: and didn't ye the next day You've got to start fresh.
Speaker 1: There's no like it's all torn down with the sleep
Speaker 1: and then you get back up and do it again,
Speaker 1: and then you have a hundred and fifty people that
Speaker 1: on your cast that have to be ready to do
Speaker 1: the same show. Yea, it's like and there's knives and
Speaker 1: there's knives, fire, and it's degrees in front of your face. Yes, yes, yes, exactly.
Speaker 1: Don't love it, you're out. Yes, those that succeed love it.
Speaker 1: It's like the best best pain in the world, best pain.
Speaker 1: So what are you the chief cook? Are you do
Speaker 1: you share working with your husband? Are you cooking tonight
Speaker 1: for dinner? If so, what are you cooking? Let's see
Speaker 1: a great question. Well, I've been cooking all week, so
Speaker 1: tonight usually one night a week I do. Yeah, although
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, I've really been loving it. I
Speaker 1: was in Mexico for three months shooting this show, and
Speaker 1: I was it was the best, greatest thing and the
Speaker 1: hardest thing because I didn't see my family for three months.
Speaker 1: I also didn't have a kitchen for three months. It
Speaker 1: was I had a lovely room for there was no kitchen,
Speaker 1: and so I didn't cook for three months. And I've
Speaker 1: been back now for I think it's about three or
Speaker 1: four months. I've been back home, and so I just
Speaker 1: all I want to do is cook and make my
Speaker 1: own things. And you know, I kept saying when I
Speaker 1: was there, I said, I just want to make an omelet.
Speaker 1: I don't even want to make it deal, I just
Speaker 1: want to make it an egg. Right, if you have
Speaker 1: an egg, you have a meal. So let's see I
Speaker 1: made it. At the moment. My my husband's really loving
Speaker 1: this salmon that I'm making. So last night he got
Speaker 1: a beautiful plate of of salmon. That's where do you
Speaker 1: go shop? You know. One of the things that happened
Speaker 1: in the pandemic. Pandemic really changed my cooking because suddenly
Speaker 1: we couldn't get things like a tomato, you know, and
Speaker 1: we couldn't get oh today we can't get flour, and
Speaker 1: this day we can't get chicken. We forget how we
Speaker 1: forget how lucky we are as a as a country,
Speaker 1: like we have every amazing how we take things for granted,
Speaker 1: and so it really changed my connection to cooking, my
Speaker 1: appreciation for ingredients. And I am a huge supporter of
Speaker 1: local farmers markets, and I would say at the moment,
Speaker 1: seventy percent of our groceries are coming from the farmer's market.
Speaker 1: And now when I go to the farmer's market. You know,
Speaker 1: I take the family and and my daughter is talking
Speaker 1: to the farmers and and she's now picking vegetables fruit,
Speaker 1: she's picking the fruit she wants in her school lunch.
Speaker 1: Last Sunday we went and she was having she's five.
Speaker 1: She was having her own conversation with the farmer about
Speaker 1: baby ARTI chokes and what they are and what they do.
Speaker 1: And you know, so she said, I'd like to get
Speaker 1: somebody's mom, and we got them, we brought them home.
Speaker 1: She thought it was the greatest thing in the world.
Speaker 1: So now baby ARTI chokes or her favorite. But you
Speaker 1: know what's great about what you said, I want to
Speaker 1: just get back out of the farmers Like it's not
Speaker 1: a grocery store. The farmers market. All those farmers, all
Speaker 1: those farmers at the market, they're all sounding the same thing,
Speaker 1: exactly the same thing, because they're all selling what's in season,
Speaker 1: learned to cook what's available, and the story. Yes, and
Speaker 1: absolutely you have to be creative. But I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people well like woken up by like, oh,
Speaker 1: there's not a you know, there's not a pie chart
Speaker 1: of ingredients from all over the world. I can get
Speaker 1: all the time and my grocery store, and it shows
Speaker 1: people what's really fresh and we're just eating. That's how
Speaker 1: you're having a tomato in January. Might not be a
Speaker 1: good idea, Yes, exactly. I think it makes it exciting.
Speaker 1: You know, you a new ingredient. Oh look, it's the
Speaker 1: season asparagus now and different fruits, and you know, I
Speaker 1: think it keeps it exciting. I learn more about cooking,
Speaker 1: and certainly you know the ingredients specifically from the farmers.
Speaker 1: You know what's ince when when to buy it? Oh, no,
Speaker 1: you want to wait for this. You want to wait.
Speaker 1: You know, strawberries, but you know we have a certain
Speaker 1: strawberry here that I've been told they come back in January.
Speaker 1: And I feel like I'm in the know about these
Speaker 1: strawberries from Orange County. And you gotta you have a
Speaker 1: fantastic growing season because everywhere we do. Yeah, you're very lucky.
Speaker 1: And you know what else is interesting is that the
Speaker 1: comments I get is like, you know, I don't go
Speaker 1: to the market a lite because it's so expensive. I'm like,
Speaker 1: that's because it's real people raising real food that they
Speaker 1: picked this morning. Now I know who got up three
Speaker 1: and this is the food. There's no crap in it. Yes,
Speaker 1: I know, I'm like, I don't know. It's not going
Speaker 1: to be inexpensive. It's going to be probably the same
Speaker 1: a little bit more. But what you're gonna get is
Speaker 1: so much better always. Plus that guy is going to
Speaker 1: do it again every day for you. Yes, and it's
Speaker 1: really you know, it's it's not that much more expensive.
Speaker 1: And you know, listen, I mean, could we could talk
Speaker 1: for a whole another hour about I'd love for this
Speaker 1: to be available for everyone, because you know, not everyone
Speaker 1: can afford fresh vegetables and fruit, and of course not
Speaker 1: that shouldn't be something for only the people who have
Speaker 1: the money to buy it. You're also putting you know,
Speaker 1: as a as a shopper, you're putting money into your community.
Speaker 1: You're putting money into your you know, you're helping yourself
Speaker 1: as well. Not only are you getting the best ingredients
Speaker 1: you can get, but you are It all works together
Speaker 1: in helping the community grow. For our fourth and final course,
Speaker 1: I got to ask Jessica about her love for r vs,
Speaker 1: of all things. If you score through Jessica's Instagram, you'll
Speaker 1: see picture after picture of gorgeous r V glamping vacations
Speaker 1: with her husband and daughter. I wanted to know, how
Speaker 1: did a kid from schennected in New York find your
Speaker 1: way into all of this? Turns out this is a
Speaker 1: newfound passion. I saw that you're an r V enthusiast. Yes,
Speaker 1: where did that? I mean, growing up in Amsterdam, New York.
Speaker 1: How did you become an r V enthusiast and RV experience? No, No, no,
Speaker 1: one year ago. And nobody's more surprised. No one's more
Speaker 1: surprised than me. My husband's been trying to get me
Speaker 1: to rent an RV since I met him, and I'm no.
Speaker 1: I am FUFI hotels and fancy sheets and towels and
Speaker 1: room service. That's how I like to roll, all about
Speaker 1: the thread count. And I said that, you know, you
Speaker 1: go do that on your own with your buddies or something.
Speaker 1: That is not for me. And then the demic happened
Speaker 1: and we hunkered down and we were in the house
Speaker 1: and at the time with a four year old, that's
Speaker 1: you know, I now know I can survive anything. We
Speaker 1: constantly have been thinking outside the box and what can
Speaker 1: we do? And we rented an RV just to get out,
Speaker 1: just to get out, and we're travelers by nature, so
Speaker 1: and we hadn't been so this was maybe six months
Speaker 1: into the pandemic. We said, let's just I got to
Speaker 1: get out and do so. My husband's a writer, so
Speaker 1: he we were very lucky that he was able to
Speaker 1: work during that time from home. And I was too
Speaker 1: afraid to leave the house, so I didn't leave till
Speaker 1: the following year. But we rented an r V and
Speaker 1: it and it changed our lives and we bought one.
Speaker 1: I mean, we basically bought an r V on the internet.
Speaker 1: Look at you. We goics Like no, I would have
Speaker 1: never thought this was but you know, every I feel
Speaker 1: like in our circle, all of our friends, everybody did
Speaker 1: like a little maybe not that extreme, but everybody did
Speaker 1: something crazy. We have one one of my dear friends,
Speaker 1: they sold their house and they moved to Chicago and
Speaker 1: they've never been happier. And that was our crazy thing.
Speaker 1: We bought an r V and we've fallen in love
Speaker 1: with it. That also, like you know, no surprise, the
Speaker 1: kitchen in the r V is my domain and I'm
Speaker 1: now making recipes for the RV and coming up with
Speaker 1: clever things in my kitchen. And that's where we found
Speaker 1: joy and freedom and family and togetherness and nature. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think just being connected to nature really helped us.
Speaker 1: And I say that like I'm some kind of nature
Speaker 1: girl and I'm really not. But but this, I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess I am. I guess you know, this is
Speaker 1: where we really found such healing just being outside and
Speaker 1: being in the woods and having our house with us
Speaker 1: wherever we go, like traveling in this tiny house. If
Speaker 1: I could do it full time for a while, I would.
Speaker 1: We can't, I mean that since paying right now. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so we take it out about once a month. We
Speaker 1: take it out, and your daughter must love it. I
Speaker 1: mean it's like she's, yeah, she's got the top bunk
Speaker 1: is her Like, oh my god, she's the only one
Speaker 1: with her own room. She's got that and shut all
Speaker 1: her stuffed animals up there. And she decorated tank. And
Speaker 1: so what you have an electric governor is a propane
Speaker 1: The oven is propane, and the top is gas too, yeah, gas,
Speaker 1: And then there's uh, then there's a microwave, which I'm
Speaker 1: probably going to switch out for a little convection of.
Speaker 1: And you know, it depends where we are, It depends
Speaker 1: what we park somewhere where we have electricity. Sometimes you
Speaker 1: have to you switch it up. So sometimes you use gas,
Speaker 1: sometimes use propane, and sometimes you use electric. Sometimes you
Speaker 1: go outside, you build up, you build a fire outside.
Speaker 1: We do that. Yeah you've got side and you rose
Speaker 1: top dogs on a fire, which we do that as well.
Speaker 1: My daughter has been because she we cook a lot together.
Speaker 1: So she spend big into putting things in foil and
Speaker 1: throwing him on the fire and then opening it and
Speaker 1: seeing what you know, bananas and marshmallows and chokolate and
Speaker 1: let's put this together and see what happens. And it's
Speaker 1: so fantastic. So it sounds like I always talking about you.
Speaker 1: It sounds like your future has some sort of culinary
Speaker 1: roadmap attached to it or either pulling it or you're
Speaker 1: pushing it or pulling it or what is it? I
Speaker 1: don't know what it is. But what do you think?
Speaker 1: What's what's in store for you in this this newfound
Speaker 1: So what is the next five years you think? And
Speaker 1: how is culin are you going to affect it? Because
Speaker 1: it's it's what everybody wanted to do in the pandemics,
Speaker 1: like everybody became a chef. But I think it's great.
Speaker 1: I mean, we all ate and you know, you go
Speaker 1: back to you, I said, people go back to the
Speaker 1: cab and instincts and you have to eat and go
Speaker 1: to the use the toilet. So what did people worry
Speaker 1: about the toilet and eating? Yeah, I mean this happened
Speaker 1: in my own house. I started cooking with my family more.
Speaker 1: I started teaching my dog or how to cook, and yeah,
Speaker 1: there wasn't anything to do. So I hope family meals
Speaker 1: have come back a little more. I think that's so
Speaker 1: important to eat with your family. But getting back to
Speaker 1: your question, yeah, I think I'm just scratching the surface.
Speaker 1: That be just the beginning of my culinary adventures. And
Speaker 1: there's definitely something with the RV and cooking on the
Speaker 1: road that is its own unique hobby that I've been
Speaker 1: doing the last year. And you know, we do themes.
Speaker 1: I mean, we we do New Orleans, like we took
Speaker 1: a New Orleans RV trip, and you know, there's the
Speaker 1: Christmas trip, there's the we took the Unicorn trip, and
Speaker 1: they all have food related things going on with them.
Speaker 1: So food is such a part of our family and
Speaker 1: such a part of our lives. I think that's a
Speaker 1: show right there. I mean I'm sorry, Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: that would be fantastic. I think you have a point there.
Speaker 1: I think you've got something I really do, and I
Speaker 1: think it's, if I may say so, organic, even though
Speaker 1: I hate that word, very organic. Well, Jessica, thank you
Speaker 1: so much. Sure you have a long day ahead, maybe
Speaker 1: hit in the market for the weekend. Thank you very much. Thanks,
Speaker 1: thank you for sharing some time on Four Courses. I
Speaker 1: really really appreciate it. And they have a fantastic weekend.
Speaker 1: This was so much fun. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Thanks very much for listening to Four Courses with Jeffrey
Speaker 1: z Curian, a production of I Heart Radio and Corner
Speaker 1: Table Entertainment. Four Courses is created by Jeffrey Zicarian, Margaret Securion,
Speaker 1: Jared Keller, and Tara Helper. Our executive producer is Christopher Hesiotis.
Speaker 1: Four Courses is produced by Jonathan Habs Dressler. Our research
Speaker 1: is conducted by Jesslyn Shields. Our talent booking is by
Speaker 1: Pamela Bauer at Dogtown Talent. This episode was edited and
Speaker 1: written by Priya Mahadevan and mixed by Joe Tistle. Special
Speaker 1: thanks to Katie Fellman for help as we cording engineered
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.