November 5, 2021 • 40 mins
In this episode, host Geoffrey Zakarian speaks with actress Jessica Collins. Despite working in the TV and film industry for more than two decades, Jessica’s always had a passion for the kitchen – from cooking dinners for her four younger siblings as a teenager, to hosting dinner parties for friends in New York as a young actress. She and Geoffrey explore how culinary school – and the coronavirus pandemic – only deepened her appreciation for quality food and those who grow and prepare it.
Check out Jessica Collins’ website, including her own recipes, here: https://jessicacollins.com
For more information on "Four Courses With Geoffrey Zakarian" follow Geoffrey on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/geoffreyzakarian"
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
My name is Jeffery Z Carrian and you're listening to
four Courses with Jeffery Z. Carrion from I Heart Radio
and four Courses, I'll be taking you along for the
ride while I talk with the top talent of our time.
In each conversation, I focus on four different areas from
my guests life and career. And during those four courses,
I'm going to dig deep and uncover new insights and
(00:26):
inspirations that we can all use to fuel ourselves to
push forward. My guest, but this episode is an Emmy
Award winning actress and former Beauty queen. She's not only
starting to hit TV shows and soap operas throughout her career,
but also graduated from the Coldonbleu with honors, and her
Instagram is full of her family's RV adventures. Without further delay,
(00:50):
let's get into my conversation with Jessica Collins. I'm so
happy to be here. This is really exciting for me.
For our first course, I wanted to ask Esca about
her childhood and Upstate New York. As the oldest daughter
of a hard working single mom, Jessup got her first
taste of the kitchen at a young age, and it
opened your mind to the magic of cooking. You being
(01:12):
the oldest of five, you er so it's like I
call that the second parent, you know, the first the
oldest than you now responsible until they get to responsible age.
But you're always looked upon to be the leader of
the pack. I was. So. I have twin brothers that
are two years younger than me, and I obviously grew
up with them my younger siblings. I was older, so
(01:33):
I didn't grow up with them, but they were very
much a part of my life. They used to come
out for holidays and summer as they would come out,
and my sister especially, we are the two girls we
bookend three boys in the middle. So she and I
are very close. It's a beautiful relationship, but very unique
because I am so much older. But she's a lovely,
(01:55):
lovely twenty five year old woman now. And but we
do have a very unique sister bond. I always asked
this question because I want to know, you're from Schenectady. Yes,
what was it like? Well, I was born in Schenectady,
and then the seventies we actually moved around a lot
to Indiana and then back to New York. But I
(02:16):
went to you know, from a seven on. I went
to school in Amsterdam, New York, which is even smaller.
I come from really humble beginnings, not a lot of money,
a lot of difficult times, just financially. I was a
poor kid from upstate New York. But you know, now
that's what made me who I am. You know, that's
(02:38):
there's so much of my core that comes from that
hard working community and uh and the American dream really
that if you work hard, if you put the work in,
it does pay off. And I'm an example of that
I had. You know, I don't come from a show
business family. I come from you know, are working working,
(03:01):
hard working stuff. Yes, I come from Worcester, Mass I
know eachly, Okay, so you know what I'm talking about. It.
I always remember people ask me what was what would
your childloo look? And I'm like, it was cold, Yeah,
it's really cold. That's funny. That's one of the things
I remember, too, is the you never forget the April
March wet cold is. I don't wish that on anyone,
(03:23):
you know, And you're just waiting for spring, yes, just
waiting for sun. I think people that are dreamers come
from environments like that that they have to and they
have to do something they get their mind off of
how just miserable it is. But I've never been to Amsterdam.
I bene Schenectady and okay, yes, it's close to Schenectady.
It's about, yeah, about twenty minutes from Schenectady. There's all
(03:46):
these little lovely towns Schenectady, Scotia. My dad grew up
in Scotia, my mom grew up in Amsterdam. They're all
about fifteen minutes away. They're just these little, tiny, tiny towns,
you know, gees in Schenectady. So that's right. There's a
lot of mills. All my grandfather's were mill workers. My
parents worked in the mills, my grandmother's, my aunt's. Yeah,
(04:08):
that's yes. So when you were growing up, obviously you
were one of five, but like, how did food get
on the table? That's the first question. And if you
close your eyes and I asked you, whatever age you remember,
if you walked in the house, what was the smell
in the kitchen? What do you remember either cooking or
(04:30):
that was leftover residue. I have a lot of residue
smells in my house, you know, back then that the
wall people, all the smells went into the wallpaper, and yeah,
I want to know what smells came out of your
walls or in your mind, so that when you close
your mind and once in a while we all run
into that smell and you're like, oh my god, I
know that smell. Can you remember that? That's such a
(04:51):
good question. I do. I mean, the first that comes
to my mind. And and no fault, my mother's going
to kill me for this. But it was like a
musky like almost like a little mildewy, you know. It
was that old. We lived in old houses, and it
was damn like you said, and the winters it was
damp like that wet would smell. Is what I remember,
(05:15):
much more than than cooking. My mom was a single mom.
She worked three jobs. Sometimes I was a latchkey kid.
I was starting to cook for my family, not well,
but oh gosh. Around eleven twelve, I was starting to
put things together to help her out and buy About fourteen,
(05:37):
I was making dinner. Dinner was sandwiches and a can
of soup, but I was still responsible for it, so
there weren't these you know, waffs of home cooking. Every
night but my mom did make a really big deal
out of Thanksgiving and Christmas. I don't know where she
got the money. I don't We always had presents, We
always had a turkey and a meal. A really don't
(06:00):
know how she put that all together because she worked
so hard for so little. So when I think of
food smells in my home, I immediately go to the holidays.
And then, you know, my grandmother was an amazing cook,
and my aunt, who my daughters named after, was really
an inspiration of a great baker. Nobody was trained. These
(06:23):
were all home recipes, you know, passed down through the generations.
Things they made, uh, you know, cookbooks and then do
you remember the plastic box with the little cards, So
we had those, and you know, that's actually how I
how I started really cooking cooking is there was a
cookbook and I picked it up, and I've never made
(06:44):
a real meal before. And the first thing I ever
made was from this book. It was spaghetti and meat
balls and homemade apple pie. And I couldn't believe if
you just followed these instructions, this meal appeared and it
blew my mind the whole idea. And and that was
(07:05):
the meal in the moment that really hooked me on
to cooking and baking. So then curiously that didn't resurface
until like two thousand and six or seven. You went
to culinary school. Yes, well, but I didn't stop cooking,
you know, I was cooking was really my escape from
getting knocked around as an actress, uh lose apart or
(07:30):
have a hard day at work, and cooking was where
I could really center myself again and ground myself. I
like to cook in quiet, I like to cook by myself.
I mean that's changed now having kids, but early on
I used to like cooking by myself, and I found
it almost a meditation and a healing for myself. So
even my first New York apartments, I was the girl
(07:52):
throwing dinner parties at twenty for all my friends and
and most of my friends in New York, we were
not local kids, so we all came from somewhere. We
all felt like orphans, and this was a way that
we could come together and have a home cooked meal
and and we were a family. You have a very
studious background. I was you know, London, Howard find acting school,
(08:17):
Royal National theaters. So these are serious serious Why did
you say to yourself. I'm going to London. I want
to do X Y Z, and I need what they provide.
Was it that or just you wanted to have You
wanted to paint yourself as someone who could do anything.
You know, because of my humble beginnings, college wasn't really
an option for me. There wasn't an opportunity financially to
(08:41):
do that. And I was very lucky that I went
to New York City right after high school. I waited
tables for two years and I got a job, and
that changed my life. I got loving a soap opera
in New York. But I always felt I really wanted
to study acting. I still love I mean, I went
to culinary school in my mid thirties. You know, I
(09:01):
love education. I am a learner and I think the
older I get, the better I get at learning new things,
uh and appreciating that I can learn new things. So
I kind of always felt like I was catching up
on something I missed, and I just wanted to find
the best opportunities that I could. The things you're mentioning,
(09:23):
I had to audition for them to get in London.
Was I think they auditioned all over the world and
took I don't remember like twenty five students or something
that was a big deal to get into a big deal.
So I was I was challenging myself in in that
arena as well in in education. And I've always studied
(09:43):
body movement and voice and you know, certainly acting classes
just to keep you know, to keep myself in shape
as an actress and my brain. And yeah, but at
twenty years old, you you land this incredible role that's
like four or five years. That's amazing. That's very rare
to land that sort of steady gig New York City.
(10:07):
I did a film York it did We we filmed
in a studio. It was amazing. It was fun that
I mean again, that job changed my life. It was
a soap opera. I did it for three years, and
I learned from the best, and I learned discipline and
I learned technique and I was so green when I started.
(10:29):
That was my first acting job. And I worked with
these really you know actors from Broadway and uh, the
lovely actors we had on our show who really encouraged me.
They said, study, study, study. I mean, that was a
very big influence in my life to get better at
my craft and to make that a lifelong thing that
you never stopped studying your craft. In our second course,
(11:09):
I wanted to dig into how Jessica perfected that craft
over the course of her career, especially as the film
industry has evolved to turn out more and more content
on more and more platforms. I started off with a
question I've always wanted to ask on this show. We
do a lot of live TV, and I do a
lot of live to tape, you know our shows. When
(11:31):
we do live stuff, it's so much more difficult because
you're you're thinking out of your body because you can't
mess up a But it's so much more fun. It's
I read I way rather do live because it's just
nothing comes up as it should and nothing ends as
it should, and it's always what it should be. But
(11:53):
I'd love to you to speak about like the difference
between live TV and live theater. What is the difference
between having like three thousand people and having maybe three million,
but that experience in front of the crowd verse you're
still live. But what's the difference there? Because I've always
wanted to ask something, I've never had that opportunity. What's
the difference between theater, and between the two lives, I
(12:17):
don't know that there is a difference. They're both terrifying.
I've always said this, I shouldn't you, I'm never gonna
get hired again. But every single time, right before I
step on stage, if it's live, TV or theater, I
have this little conversation with my it's I'm so terrified,
(12:38):
I'm never doing this again. One of my what difference
myself through this? This is awful? And then I get
out there and something happens. Why we all do it right?
Something happens. You can't explain it. But it's the most
magical thing in the world, and I really have found it.
You have way more experience with this than I do.
(13:00):
But cooking live is like nothing of it because I
totally I can, you know, go out and learn with
my learned lines. I can go out and certainly be myself,
But to go out and cook, it's like going out
with a with a pet or a small child. You
(13:22):
just don't know what's going to happen. And again you
get out there and then it's it's the most amazing
thing in the world. When I do iron chef, I
go back I actually say a prayer, and I do
I ask God. I'm Catholic. I asked God to give
me strength for the next hour. I don't ask me
any more than an hour, because that would be that
would be greedy. Yes, yes, yes, And that show is
(13:44):
the most traumatic show I've ever done. And people ask me,
is it real? Is I'm like, it's so real. It's yes.
We're like miserable before and happy after, but exhausted because
that first when they count down, you're like you want
to like almost get sick, and then once you start cooking,
you like come out of body and just do what
you do. Well, it's the it's the waiting that's just
god awful, right, And I understand that, but I would
(14:06):
imagine that the live audience, people there that you can
see and you hear in the sort of mess of
it all has to be like distracting a little bit.
I mean, it could be great, but you have to say,
I'm not gonna listen to that guy who sneeze twenty
seven times already in the first four minutes. How do
you get beyond that? That's a great question. You know,
(14:28):
you go backstage, you go, hey, do you guys hear
the guys sneeze in twentie unbelievable, but you just do
you just you know. That's part of the gig is
that things are gonna happen again. I think working in
soap operas, unless the wall falls down or something, you
don't do a second you don't do a second take,
(14:48):
you know, so things do happen a crew member sneezes,
or something to draw or prop isn't there when you
need it. And soap sort a lot like theater in
that you shoot it like as one scene and you
don't go back unless something really terrible happens. So you
learn how to work in those moments and and make it.
If somebody forgets aligne, you just keep going. And there's
(15:11):
something kind of fun about that too, about making it
work with what you have in that one. I love
that And I was going to ask you, part of
what I want to get to is, like, you know,
you get to your point in your career, like you
keep getting better and refining. How do you keep sharp
day after day after day doing relatively the same thing.
And I asked this to a lot of Broadway actors
who do the same show every day, and that's the
(15:33):
same answer I give you know, it's different every day.
You're in a good mood, you're in a bad mood.
You just worked out, you feel you feel awful, you
feel good, you feel healthy, you feel your brain is scrambled.
You might have had too many Margarita's that night. How
do you pull that? I'm not talking day over day,
I get that, but like year over year over year
to stay fresh so that the people that are watching
(15:55):
you are actually watching you transform? How do you balance
so when you get off get off stage, You're like,
I don't have to transform. That's that life. I'm gonna
go back. I gotta get groceries. I mean, well, I'll
tell you having a having a kid helps with that.
I can't come home as my character. Uh, nobody wants
(16:17):
that around here. And yeah, the lives are it's it's
obviously the same life, but it's two sides. Uh. I mean,
I think what helps is I really love what I do.
I can't imagine not doing it. I can't. I don't
want to retire. And the more I do it, I've
I've now been acting for over thirty years, and so
(16:39):
I love it more and more every day. So I
think that helps a lot. And yeah, I don't sit
with my roles. Have I credit a lot of my
stuff to the soaps that you just you do it
and you go home, and you know, I'm not sitting
around brooding about my roles. There might be a bad
day or something, or you wish something happened, and you
(17:01):
know it does. It can eat at me if I
think I could have done a better job or it
didn't have the opportunity to do something. But for the
most part, no, I leave usually in a really good
mood and excited to see the work, and I'm mom
when i'm home. So you've you've seen, like, you know,
two thousand sixteen, two thousand seventeen, and you've also seen
(17:24):
the nineties. So in the thirty years, what what's happened
to the industry as far as let's just stay TV focused,
since you have so much depth of experience there, What
has happened to the good and too the maybe not
so good. What is it in your industry that's changed
until two thousand sixteen or seventeen. Oh gosh, wow, so
many things. I'd like to think we have a long
(17:48):
way to go, but I think we're more socially conscious
now and about hopefully. I'd like to think of about
what we're putting out there and how we're portraying people,
how we're portraying women and people of color and different backgrounds,
either getting rid of the stereotypes or at least calling
(18:11):
them out and making fun of them, which is something
we really do on my new show, which I love.
Like you know, it was the eighties. There were stereotypes,
there were prejudices, and we really look those in the
eye and call people on it and with humor, which
I think is always a great way to send your
message out there. I think people are much more willing
(18:34):
to receive it. But yeah, and I think the business
is changing, We're seeing again. I think it has a
long way to go, but people have to behave a
little better than they did when I first started. It
wasn't easy being a young woman in the business for
any of us, and how we were treated and things
that were allowed and things we had to constantly skirt
(18:58):
around to be safe. And you know, so I I
think about my own daughter, and I think about young
actresses coming up and what I can do. I don't
want them to ever go through the things that we
all had to go through and you know, there were
women that came before me that made it better for me,
and hopefully I can do the same for the next generation.
(19:18):
So what what do you I mean? There's so much
content now I try to find something to watch. I'm
so exhausted. It takes ten minutes. Just too there's another network,
it was what happened in twenty four hours is two
more networks up, and like between Netflix and Hulu and
Discovery and all this, it's like, how do you go
in there and grab something and say, you know what,
I got this piece. I know how to extract from
(19:40):
all this noise because it's all noise, and some of
it's amazingly well funded noise. Are you saying how I
pick my my projects to work in or to walk both,
or like, like, how do you know what landscape is
you're working in? With the landscape being so vast, Yeah, well,
the one you're working in, you never know, you kind
of dive in. You know, a television show can change
(20:04):
so much from the time you get your part, and
it actually it does, and that's I think that's happened
to all of us, where you sign on for one
thing and it becomes another, and that can be a
positive or a negative depending And as far as being
a viewer, again, it always comes back to my kid.
I don't watch a lot of TV, don't watch TV
when she's awake. So you know, my husband and I
(20:27):
have about an hour to a night, not every night,
to watch TV. So it's very it's very precious time.
What are we going to watch? You know? And it
has to be something we both agree on and and
the world makes a difference to what's going on, you know,
with the pandemic, we decided, oh, no dark stuff. You know,
(20:49):
the world is dark enough. We needed fun and humor
and joy. So in that time, we picked shows that
we're uplifting and escapism and I mean, I will say
I do wish somebody would come along and kind of
combine all these networks to make it easier for us
(21:11):
to find the shows we want to find. It is
very overwhelming and probably one of the reasons I don't
watch a lot of TV is it just it takes
twenty minutes to find a show literally like on the
on the television. So all I get told is we need,
we need more content. I'm like, how is that possible?
You need more content? But you came and watching the
content that exists. Yeah, I mean, I don't know who
(21:32):
could watch all the content. But what is nice is
that there really is, there's becoming something for everybody. You know,
you want to watch a drama, you want to watch
a cooking show, you want to watch a building a house.
There is something for everyone. You want to learn a
new language. I mean, I'm doing this. I'm learning Spanish,
and so I'll put something on with the you know, Spanish,
(21:54):
with the English subtitles. You know. So there's all different
ways to watch content and to learn from it as
well as be entertained, which I think is really great.
You hit the nail on the head. I really during
that got into documentaries because yes, the documentary tells a
story of one person, but it also tells a story
(22:14):
of the time and what was going on around it.
So I think you're right, there is it's nice to
have all that information. It's sort of like being a supermarket.
You know, there's so many products. I guess supermarket. I'm
so overwhelmed myself, and I'm a chef. I'm like, yes,
who needs all this ship That's funny. You know, no
one in my family likes to go to the grocery
(22:35):
store with me. I love it. I not only do
I I could spend hours, but I also apparently I've
been told that I talked to myself the grocery store. Well,
I could give you a couple of numbers for that.
You know you're talking to the wrong person. Actually, So
I love grocery stores. I think it's one of the
(22:57):
greatest times. Is too. I go, I make a list.
I'm very specific and I know what I'm doing. And
I actually did an instagram about how to shop in
a grocery store, like go on Tuesdays, eat before your shop.
I had so many so many people were fascinated by it.
And it's the same thing as you just said about
(23:20):
is it Netflix, is it Hulu? Is it? It's like
it's like shopping. Yes, take a deep breath, sell down,
figure out what you really want, write it down, and
then go go just for that and forget the noise
because you won't be able to It will take you
twenty minutes, and then there's your precious hours down to
an half hour. Exactly. Yes, absolutely. For our third course,
(23:54):
I wanted to continue talking with Jessica about food and
dig into her decision to go back to colony school.
Turns out her year at the Kodamblur only deep into
her appreciation and respect for food and all the people
behind a quality meal. Cooking was always probably my biggest
hobby passion. I would call it. It's funny to call
(24:15):
it a hobby because it is such a part of
my life. So it was always there, Like I said,
from sixteen on, cooking was that's how I came home
and recentered myself. And I always used to say, you know,
one day I'll go to cooking school. One day when
the time's right, one day when the times well, the
time is never right. You're always too busy. To me
(24:35):
that that's a giant commitment. And I was around thirty seven,
thirty eight, and I thought, well, how about now, Why
don't just go now? So I did and I finished.
At the time in l A, they were offering a
night school, so you went six pm to midnight. I mean,
(24:58):
I was a zombie that year because I was also
auditioning and working in the daytime as an actress. But
I was able to finish. I finished with highest honors.
And you know, again it became I love learning, and
it became uh I was so proud of being a
student and learning and you know, getting a's on my
(25:19):
tests and all of that, and I loved it. I
loved it, but it was really what I love about it,
and I know it's it's a personality thing. You have
to understand. If you're organizing, you love organization and lists
and learning and checking things off. That's what cooking is.
It's like before you make a sauce, you have everything
ready and you have to learn that. So it makes
(25:39):
you prepare. You have to prepare before you cook. And
then cooking is a wind fail situation. But even if
you fail, you learn and you can actually eat what
you fail with it. So it's a very strange profession.
You fail a lot, and you fail a lot, you
fail a lot and you feel you know, I don't
think it's an accident that I have paralleled acting and cooking.
(26:01):
There are so many similarities in the two and diving
in and it never comes out the way you think.
Sometimes it comes up better, sometimes you're disappointed. There's a
lot of connection to both of them. And uh and
cooking school. You know, my cooking career is I feel
like it's still just beginning. I want to get. You know,
(26:24):
I've been in front of the camera. I'd like to
get behind the camera with food. I like writing about food.
You know, I always knew that my I was studying
to go into a world of television and writing and
all that side of it. But I was in school
with real you know, people on the line and you
know the guys that like take the pan out without
(26:46):
a potholder, like the tough guys and gals, and and
it was an amazing experience to be part of that world.
And you know, that's something that I would have never said,
I'm not tough enough. I'll just say I am. That
is a it's it's a brutal it's a brutal industry.
And I have so much respect for how hard you know, people,
(27:08):
I don't think people realize how hard they don't know.
I tell people, I'm like, okay, what's it like. I'm like, okay.
So it's a Broadway show and every nights you've played
to a packed house. But it's three shows a day, breakfast, lunch,
and didn't ye the next day You've got to start fresh.
There's no like it's all torn down with the sleep
and then you get back up and do it again,
(27:29):
and then you have a hundred and fifty people that
on your cast that have to be ready to do
the same show. Yea, it's like and there's knives and
there's knives, fire, and it's degrees in front of your face. Yes, yes, yes, exactly.
Don't love it, you're out. Yes, those that succeed love it.
(27:51):
It's like the best best pain in the world, best pain.
So what are you the chief cook? Are you do
you share working with your husband? Are you cooking tonight
for dinner? If so, what are you cooking? Let's see
a great question. Well, I've been cooking all week, so
(28:12):
tonight usually one night a week I do. Yeah, although
you know, I mean, I've really been loving it. I
was in Mexico for three months shooting this show, and
I was it was the best, greatest thing and the
hardest thing because I didn't see my family for three months.
I also didn't have a kitchen for three months. It
was I had a lovely room for there was no kitchen,
(28:35):
and so I didn't cook for three months. And I've
been back now for I think it's about three or
four months. I've been back home, and so I just
all I want to do is cook and make my
own things. And you know, I kept saying when I
was there, I said, I just want to make an omelet.
I don't even want to make it deal, I just
want to make it an egg. Right, if you have
(28:56):
an egg, you have a meal. So let's see I
made it. At the moment. My my husband's really loving
this salmon that I'm making. So last night he got
a beautiful plate of of salmon. That's where do you
go shop? You know. One of the things that happened
in the pandemic. Pandemic really changed my cooking because suddenly
(29:17):
we couldn't get things like a tomato, you know, and
we couldn't get oh today we can't get flour, and
this day we can't get chicken. We forget how we
forget how lucky we are as a as a country,
like we have every amazing how we take things for granted,
and so it really changed my connection to cooking, my
appreciation for ingredients. And I am a huge supporter of
(29:42):
local farmers markets, and I would say at the moment,
seventy percent of our groceries are coming from the farmer's market.
And now when I go to the farmer's market. You know,
I take the family and and my daughter is talking
to the farmers and and she's now picking vegetables fruit,
(30:02):
she's picking the fruit she wants in her school lunch.
Last Sunday we went and she was having she's five.
She was having her own conversation with the farmer about
baby ARTI chokes and what they are and what they do.
And you know, so she said, I'd like to get
somebody's mom, and we got them, we brought them home.
She thought it was the greatest thing in the world.
(30:22):
So now baby ARTI chokes or her favorite. But you
know what's great about what you said, I want to
just get back out of the farmers Like it's not
a grocery store. The farmers market. All those farmers, all
those farmers at the market, they're all sounding the same thing,
exactly the same thing, because they're all selling what's in season,
learned to cook what's available, and the story. Yes, and
(30:44):
absolutely you have to be creative. But I think a
lot of people well like woken up by like, oh,
there's not a you know, there's not a pie chart
of ingredients from all over the world. I can get
all the time and my grocery store, and it shows
people what's really fresh and we're just eating. That's how
you're having a tomato in January. Might not be a
good idea, Yes, exactly. I think it makes it exciting.
(31:07):
You know, you a new ingredient. Oh look, it's the
season asparagus now and different fruits, and you know, I
think it keeps it exciting. I learn more about cooking,
and certainly you know the ingredients specifically from the farmers.
You know what's ince when when to buy it? Oh, no,
you want to wait for this. You want to wait.
(31:28):
You know, strawberries, but you know we have a certain
strawberry here that I've been told they come back in January.
And I feel like I'm in the know about these
strawberries from Orange County. And you gotta you have a
fantastic growing season because everywhere we do. Yeah, you're very lucky.
And you know what else is interesting is that the
(31:48):
comments I get is like, you know, I don't go
to the market a lite because it's so expensive. I'm like,
that's because it's real people raising real food that they
picked this morning. Now I know who got up three
and this is the food. There's no crap in it. Yes,
I know, I'm like, I don't know. It's not going
to be inexpensive. It's going to be probably the same
(32:10):
a little bit more. But what you're gonna get is
so much better always. Plus that guy is going to
do it again every day for you. Yes, and it's
really you know, it's it's not that much more expensive.
And you know, listen, I mean, could we could talk
for a whole another hour about I'd love for this
to be available for everyone, because you know, not everyone
can afford fresh vegetables and fruit, and of course not
(32:33):
that shouldn't be something for only the people who have
the money to buy it. You're also putting you know,
as a as a shopper, you're putting money into your community.
You're putting money into your you know, you're helping yourself
as well. Not only are you getting the best ingredients
you can get, but you are It all works together
in helping the community grow. For our fourth and final course,
(33:02):
I got to ask Jessica about her love for r vs,
of all things. If you score through Jessica's Instagram, you'll
see picture after picture of gorgeous r V glamping vacations
with her husband and daughter. I wanted to know, how
did a kid from schennected in New York find your
way into all of this? Turns out this is a
newfound passion. I saw that you're an r V enthusiast. Yes,
(33:26):
where did that? I mean, growing up in Amsterdam, New York.
How did you become an r V enthusiast and RV experience? No, No, no,
one year ago. And nobody's more surprised. No one's more
surprised than me. My husband's been trying to get me
to rent an RV since I met him, and I'm no.
(33:46):
I am FUFI hotels and fancy sheets and towels and
room service. That's how I like to roll, all about
the thread count. And I said that, you know, you
go do that on your own with your buddies or something.
That is not for me. And then the demic happened
and we hunkered down and we were in the house
and at the time with a four year old, that's
(34:07):
you know, I now know I can survive anything. We
constantly have been thinking outside the box and what can
we do? And we rented an RV just to get out,
just to get out, and we're travelers by nature, so
and we hadn't been so this was maybe six months
into the pandemic. We said, let's just I got to
get out and do so. My husband's a writer, so
he we were very lucky that he was able to
(34:29):
work during that time from home. And I was too
afraid to leave the house, so I didn't leave till
the following year. But we rented an r V and
it and it changed our lives and we bought one.
I mean, we basically bought an r V on the internet.
Look at you. We goics Like no, I would have
(34:52):
never thought this was but you know, every I feel
like in our circle, all of our friends, everybody did
like a little maybe not that extreme, but everybody did
something crazy. We have one one of my dear friends,
they sold their house and they moved to Chicago and
they've never been happier. And that was our crazy thing.
We bought an r V and we've fallen in love
(35:13):
with it. That also, like you know, no surprise, the
kitchen in the r V is my domain and I'm
now making recipes for the RV and coming up with
clever things in my kitchen. And that's where we found
joy and freedom and family and togetherness and nature. I mean,
I think just being connected to nature really helped us.
(35:37):
And I say that like I'm some kind of nature
girl and I'm really not. But but this, I mean,
I guess I am. I guess you know, this is
where we really found such healing just being outside and
being in the woods and having our house with us
wherever we go, like traveling in this tiny house. If
I could do it full time for a while, I would.
(35:58):
We can't, I mean that since paying right now. But yeah,
so we take it out about once a month. We
take it out, and your daughter must love it. I
mean it's like she's, yeah, she's got the top bunk
is her Like, oh my god, she's the only one
with her own room. She's got that and shut all
her stuffed animals up there. And she decorated tank. And
(36:19):
so what you have an electric governor is a propane
The oven is propane, and the top is gas too, yeah, gas,
And then there's uh, then there's a microwave, which I'm
probably going to switch out for a little convection of.
And you know, it depends where we are, It depends
what we park somewhere where we have electricity. Sometimes you
(36:42):
have to you switch it up. So sometimes you use gas,
sometimes use propane, and sometimes you use electric. Sometimes you
go outside, you build up, you build a fire outside.
We do that. Yeah you've got side and you rose
top dogs on a fire, which we do that as well.
My daughter has been because she we cook a lot together.
So she spend big into putting things in foil and
(37:04):
throwing him on the fire and then opening it and
seeing what you know, bananas and marshmallows and chokolate and
let's put this together and see what happens. And it's
so fantastic. So it sounds like I always talking about you.
It sounds like your future has some sort of culinary
roadmap attached to it or either pulling it or you're
(37:24):
pushing it or pulling it or what is it? I
don't know what it is. But what do you think?
What's what's in store for you in this this newfound
So what is the next five years you think? And
how is culin are you going to affect it? Because
it's it's what everybody wanted to do in the pandemics,
like everybody became a chef. But I think it's great.
I mean, we all ate and you know, you go
back to you, I said, people go back to the
(37:45):
cab and instincts and you have to eat and go
to the use the toilet. So what did people worry
about the toilet and eating? Yeah, I mean this happened
in my own house. I started cooking with my family more.
I started teaching my dog or how to cook, and yeah,
there wasn't anything to do. So I hope family meals
have come back a little more. I think that's so
(38:07):
important to eat with your family. But getting back to
your question, yeah, I think I'm just scratching the surface.
That be just the beginning of my culinary adventures. And
there's definitely something with the RV and cooking on the
road that is its own unique hobby that I've been
(38:27):
doing the last year. And you know, we do themes.
I mean, we we do New Orleans, like we took
a New Orleans RV trip, and you know, there's the
Christmas trip, there's the we took the Unicorn trip, and
they all have food related things going on with them.
So food is such a part of our family and
(38:48):
such a part of our lives. I think that's a
show right there. I mean I'm sorry, Yeah, I mean
that would be fantastic. I think you have a point there.
I think you've got something I really do, and I
think it's, if I may say so, organic, even though
I hate that word, very organic. Well, Jessica, thank you
(39:09):
so much. Sure you have a long day ahead, maybe
hit in the market for the weekend. Thank you very much. Thanks,
thank you for sharing some time on Four Courses. I
really really appreciate it. And they have a fantastic weekend.
This was so much fun. Thank you for having me.
Thanks very much for listening to Four Courses with Jeffrey
z Curian, a production of I Heart Radio and Corner
(39:31):
Table Entertainment. Four Courses is created by Jeffrey Zicarian, Margaret Securion,
Jared Keller, and Tara Helper. Our executive producer is Christopher Hesiotis.
Four Courses is produced by Jonathan Habs Dressler. Our research
is conducted by Jesslyn Shields. Our talent booking is by
Pamela Bauer at Dogtown Talent. This episode was edited and
(39:53):
written by Priya Mahadevan and mixed by Joe Tistle. Special
thanks to Katie Fellman for help as we cording engineered
For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i
heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
My name is Jeffery Z Carrian and you're listening to
four Courses with Jeffery Z. Carrion from I Heart Radio
and four Courses, I'll be taking you along for the
ride while I talk with the top talent of our time.
In each conversation, I focus on four different areas from
my guests life and career. And during those four courses,
I'm going to dig deep and uncover new insights and
(00:26):
inspirations that we can all use to fuel ourselves to
push forward. My guest, but this episode is an Emmy
Award winning actress and former Beauty queen. She's not only
starting to hit TV shows and soap operas throughout her career,
but also graduated from the Coldonbleu with honors, and her
Instagram is full of her family's RV adventures. Without further delay,
(00:50):
let's get into my conversation with Jessica Collins. I'm so
happy to be here. This is really exciting for me.
For our first course, I wanted to ask Esca about
her childhood and Upstate New York. As the oldest daughter
of a hard working single mom, Jessup got her first
taste of the kitchen at a young age, and it
opened your mind to the magic of cooking. You being
(01:12):
the oldest of five, you er so it's like I
call that the second parent, you know, the first the
oldest than you now responsible until they get to responsible age.
But you're always looked upon to be the leader of
the pack. I was. So. I have twin brothers that
are two years younger than me, and I obviously grew
up with them my younger siblings. I was older, so
(01:33):
I didn't grow up with them, but they were very
much a part of my life. They used to come
out for holidays and summer as they would come out,
and my sister especially, we are the two girls we
bookend three boys in the middle. So she and I
are very close. It's a beautiful relationship, but very unique
because I am so much older. But she's a lovely,
(01:55):
lovely twenty five year old woman now. And but we
do have a very unique sister bond. I always asked
this question because I want to know, you're from Schenectady. Yes,
what was it like? Well, I was born in Schenectady,
and then the seventies we actually moved around a lot
to Indiana and then back to New York. But I
(02:16):
went to you know, from a seven on. I went
to school in Amsterdam, New York, which is even smaller.
I come from really humble beginnings, not a lot of money,
a lot of difficult times, just financially. I was a
poor kid from upstate New York. But you know, now
that's what made me who I am. You know, that's
(02:38):
there's so much of my core that comes from that
hard working community and uh and the American dream really
that if you work hard, if you put the work in,
it does pay off. And I'm an example of that
I had. You know, I don't come from a show
business family. I come from you know, are working working,
(03:01):
hard working stuff. Yes, I come from Worcester, Mass I
know eachly, Okay, so you know what I'm talking about. It.
I always remember people ask me what was what would
your childloo look? And I'm like, it was cold, Yeah,
it's really cold. That's funny. That's one of the things
I remember, too, is the you never forget the April
March wet cold is. I don't wish that on anyone,
(03:23):
you know, And you're just waiting for spring, yes, just
waiting for sun. I think people that are dreamers come
from environments like that that they have to and they
have to do something they get their mind off of
how just miserable it is. But I've never been to Amsterdam.
I bene Schenectady and okay, yes, it's close to Schenectady.
It's about, yeah, about twenty minutes from Schenectady. There's all
(03:46):
these little lovely towns Schenectady, Scotia. My dad grew up
in Scotia, my mom grew up in Amsterdam. They're all
about fifteen minutes away. They're just these little, tiny, tiny towns,
you know, gees in Schenectady. So that's right. There's a
lot of mills. All my grandfather's were mill workers. My
parents worked in the mills, my grandmother's, my aunt's. Yeah,
(04:08):
that's yes. So when you were growing up, obviously you
were one of five, but like, how did food get
on the table? That's the first question. And if you
close your eyes and I asked you, whatever age you remember,
if you walked in the house, what was the smell
in the kitchen? What do you remember either cooking or
(04:30):
that was leftover residue. I have a lot of residue
smells in my house, you know, back then that the
wall people, all the smells went into the wallpaper, and yeah,
I want to know what smells came out of your
walls or in your mind, so that when you close
your mind and once in a while we all run
into that smell and you're like, oh my god, I
know that smell. Can you remember that? That's such a
(04:51):
good question. I do. I mean, the first that comes
to my mind. And and no fault, my mother's going
to kill me for this. But it was like a
musky like almost like a little mildewy, you know. It
was that old. We lived in old houses, and it
was damn like you said, and the winters it was
damp like that wet would smell. Is what I remember,
(05:15):
much more than than cooking. My mom was a single mom.
She worked three jobs. Sometimes I was a latchkey kid.
I was starting to cook for my family, not well,
but oh gosh. Around eleven twelve, I was starting to
put things together to help her out and buy About fourteen,
(05:37):
I was making dinner. Dinner was sandwiches and a can
of soup, but I was still responsible for it, so
there weren't these you know, waffs of home cooking. Every
night but my mom did make a really big deal
out of Thanksgiving and Christmas. I don't know where she
got the money. I don't We always had presents, We
always had a turkey and a meal. A really don't
(06:00):
know how she put that all together because she worked
so hard for so little. So when I think of
food smells in my home, I immediately go to the holidays.
And then, you know, my grandmother was an amazing cook,
and my aunt, who my daughters named after, was really
an inspiration of a great baker. Nobody was trained. These
(06:23):
were all home recipes, you know, passed down through the generations.
Things they made, uh, you know, cookbooks and then do
you remember the plastic box with the little cards, So
we had those, and you know, that's actually how I
how I started really cooking cooking is there was a
cookbook and I picked it up, and I've never made
(06:44):
a real meal before. And the first thing I ever
made was from this book. It was spaghetti and meat
balls and homemade apple pie. And I couldn't believe if
you just followed these instructions, this meal appeared and it
blew my mind the whole idea. And and that was
(07:05):
the meal in the moment that really hooked me on
to cooking and baking. So then curiously that didn't resurface
until like two thousand and six or seven. You went
to culinary school. Yes, well, but I didn't stop cooking,
you know, I was cooking was really my escape from
getting knocked around as an actress, uh lose apart or
(07:30):
have a hard day at work, and cooking was where
I could really center myself again and ground myself. I
like to cook in quiet, I like to cook by myself.
I mean that's changed now having kids, but early on
I used to like cooking by myself, and I found
it almost a meditation and a healing for myself. So
even my first New York apartments, I was the girl
(07:52):
throwing dinner parties at twenty for all my friends and
and most of my friends in New York, we were
not local kids, so we all came from somewhere. We
all felt like orphans, and this was a way that
we could come together and have a home cooked meal
and and we were a family. You have a very
studious background. I was you know, London, Howard find acting school,
(08:17):
Royal National theaters. So these are serious serious Why did
you say to yourself. I'm going to London. I want
to do X Y Z, and I need what they provide.
Was it that or just you wanted to have You
wanted to paint yourself as someone who could do anything.
You know, because of my humble beginnings, college wasn't really
an option for me. There wasn't an opportunity financially to
(08:41):
do that. And I was very lucky that I went
to New York City right after high school. I waited
tables for two years and I got a job, and
that changed my life. I got loving a soap opera
in New York. But I always felt I really wanted
to study acting. I still love I mean, I went
to culinary school in my mid thirties. You know, I
(09:01):
love education. I am a learner and I think the
older I get, the better I get at learning new things,
uh and appreciating that I can learn new things. So
I kind of always felt like I was catching up
on something I missed, and I just wanted to find
the best opportunities that I could. The things you're mentioning,
(09:23):
I had to audition for them to get in London.
Was I think they auditioned all over the world and
took I don't remember like twenty five students or something
that was a big deal to get into a big deal.
So I was I was challenging myself in in that
arena as well in in education. And I've always studied
(09:43):
body movement and voice and you know, certainly acting classes
just to keep you know, to keep myself in shape
as an actress and my brain. And yeah, but at
twenty years old, you you land this incredible role that's
like four or five years. That's amazing. That's very rare
to land that sort of steady gig New York City.
(10:07):
I did a film York it did We we filmed
in a studio. It was amazing. It was fun that
I mean again, that job changed my life. It was
a soap opera. I did it for three years, and
I learned from the best, and I learned discipline and
I learned technique and I was so green when I started.
(10:29):
That was my first acting job. And I worked with
these really you know actors from Broadway and uh, the
lovely actors we had on our show who really encouraged me.
They said, study, study, study. I mean, that was a
very big influence in my life to get better at
my craft and to make that a lifelong thing that
you never stopped studying your craft. In our second course,
(11:09):
I wanted to dig into how Jessica perfected that craft
over the course of her career, especially as the film
industry has evolved to turn out more and more content
on more and more platforms. I started off with a
question I've always wanted to ask on this show. We
do a lot of live TV, and I do a
lot of live to tape, you know our shows. When
(11:31):
we do live stuff, it's so much more difficult because
you're you're thinking out of your body because you can't
mess up a But it's so much more fun. It's
I read I way rather do live because it's just
nothing comes up as it should and nothing ends as
it should, and it's always what it should be. But
(11:53):
I'd love to you to speak about like the difference
between live TV and live theater. What is the difference
between having like three thousand people and having maybe three million,
but that experience in front of the crowd verse you're
still live. But what's the difference there? Because I've always
wanted to ask something, I've never had that opportunity. What's
the difference between theater, and between the two lives, I
(12:17):
don't know that there is a difference. They're both terrifying.
I've always said this, I shouldn't you, I'm never gonna
get hired again. But every single time, right before I
step on stage, if it's live, TV or theater, I
have this little conversation with my it's I'm so terrified,
(12:38):
I'm never doing this again. One of my what difference
myself through this? This is awful? And then I get
out there and something happens. Why we all do it right?
Something happens. You can't explain it. But it's the most
magical thing in the world, and I really have found it.
You have way more experience with this than I do.
(13:00):
But cooking live is like nothing of it because I
totally I can, you know, go out and learn with
my learned lines. I can go out and certainly be myself,
But to go out and cook, it's like going out
with a with a pet or a small child. You
(13:22):
just don't know what's going to happen. And again you
get out there and then it's it's the most amazing
thing in the world. When I do iron chef, I
go back I actually say a prayer, and I do
I ask God. I'm Catholic. I asked God to give
me strength for the next hour. I don't ask me
any more than an hour, because that would be that
would be greedy. Yes, yes, yes, And that show is
(13:44):
the most traumatic show I've ever done. And people ask me,
is it real? Is I'm like, it's so real. It's yes.
We're like miserable before and happy after, but exhausted because
that first when they count down, you're like you want
to like almost get sick, and then once you start cooking,
you like come out of body and just do what
you do. Well, it's the it's the waiting that's just
god awful, right, And I understand that, but I would
(14:06):
imagine that the live audience, people there that you can
see and you hear in the sort of mess of
it all has to be like distracting a little bit.
I mean, it could be great, but you have to say,
I'm not gonna listen to that guy who sneeze twenty
seven times already in the first four minutes. How do
you get beyond that? That's a great question. You know,
(14:28):
you go backstage, you go, hey, do you guys hear
the guys sneeze in twentie unbelievable, but you just do
you just you know. That's part of the gig is
that things are gonna happen again. I think working in
soap operas, unless the wall falls down or something, you
don't do a second you don't do a second take,
(14:48):
you know, so things do happen a crew member sneezes,
or something to draw or prop isn't there when you
need it. And soap sort a lot like theater in
that you shoot it like as one scene and you
don't go back unless something really terrible happens. So you
learn how to work in those moments and and make it.
If somebody forgets aligne, you just keep going. And there's
(15:11):
something kind of fun about that too, about making it
work with what you have in that one. I love
that And I was going to ask you, part of
what I want to get to is, like, you know,
you get to your point in your career, like you
keep getting better and refining. How do you keep sharp
day after day after day doing relatively the same thing.
And I asked this to a lot of Broadway actors
who do the same show every day, and that's the
(15:33):
same answer I give you know, it's different every day.
You're in a good mood, you're in a bad mood.
You just worked out, you feel you feel awful, you
feel good, you feel healthy, you feel your brain is scrambled.
You might have had too many Margarita's that night. How
do you pull that? I'm not talking day over day,
I get that, but like year over year over year
to stay fresh so that the people that are watching
(15:55):
you are actually watching you transform? How do you balance
so when you get off get off stage, You're like,
I don't have to transform. That's that life. I'm gonna
go back. I gotta get groceries. I mean, well, I'll
tell you having a having a kid helps with that.
I can't come home as my character. Uh, nobody wants
(16:17):
that around here. And yeah, the lives are it's it's
obviously the same life, but it's two sides. Uh. I mean,
I think what helps is I really love what I do.
I can't imagine not doing it. I can't. I don't
want to retire. And the more I do it, I've
I've now been acting for over thirty years, and so
(16:39):
I love it more and more every day. So I
think that helps a lot. And yeah, I don't sit
with my roles. Have I credit a lot of my
stuff to the soaps that you just you do it
and you go home, and you know, I'm not sitting
around brooding about my roles. There might be a bad
day or something, or you wish something happened, and you
(17:01):
know it does. It can eat at me if I
think I could have done a better job or it
didn't have the opportunity to do something. But for the
most part, no, I leave usually in a really good
mood and excited to see the work, and I'm mom
when i'm home. So you've you've seen, like, you know,
two thousand sixteen, two thousand seventeen, and you've also seen
(17:24):
the nineties. So in the thirty years, what what's happened
to the industry as far as let's just stay TV focused,
since you have so much depth of experience there, What
has happened to the good and too the maybe not
so good. What is it in your industry that's changed
until two thousand sixteen or seventeen. Oh gosh, wow, so
many things. I'd like to think we have a long
(17:48):
way to go, but I think we're more socially conscious
now and about hopefully. I'd like to think of about
what we're putting out there and how we're portraying people,
how we're portraying women and people of color and different backgrounds,
either getting rid of the stereotypes or at least calling
(18:11):
them out and making fun of them, which is something
we really do on my new show, which I love.
Like you know, it was the eighties. There were stereotypes,
there were prejudices, and we really look those in the
eye and call people on it and with humor, which
I think is always a great way to send your
message out there. I think people are much more willing
(18:34):
to receive it. But yeah, and I think the business
is changing, We're seeing again. I think it has a
long way to go, but people have to behave a
little better than they did when I first started. It
wasn't easy being a young woman in the business for
any of us, and how we were treated and things
that were allowed and things we had to constantly skirt
(18:58):
around to be safe. And you know, so I I
think about my own daughter, and I think about young
actresses coming up and what I can do. I don't
want them to ever go through the things that we
all had to go through and you know, there were
women that came before me that made it better for me,
and hopefully I can do the same for the next generation.
(19:18):
So what what do you I mean? There's so much
content now I try to find something to watch. I'm
so exhausted. It takes ten minutes. Just too there's another network,
it was what happened in twenty four hours is two
more networks up, and like between Netflix and Hulu and
Discovery and all this, it's like, how do you go
in there and grab something and say, you know what,
I got this piece. I know how to extract from
(19:40):
all this noise because it's all noise, and some of
it's amazingly well funded noise. Are you saying how I
pick my my projects to work in or to walk both,
or like, like, how do you know what landscape is
you're working in? With the landscape being so vast, Yeah, well,
the one you're working in, you never know, you kind
of dive in. You know, a television show can change
(20:04):
so much from the time you get your part, and
it actually it does, and that's I think that's happened
to all of us, where you sign on for one
thing and it becomes another, and that can be a
positive or a negative depending And as far as being
a viewer, again, it always comes back to my kid.
I don't watch a lot of TV, don't watch TV
when she's awake. So you know, my husband and I
(20:27):
have about an hour to a night, not every night,
to watch TV. So it's very it's very precious time.
What are we going to watch? You know? And it
has to be something we both agree on and and
the world makes a difference to what's going on, you know,
with the pandemic, we decided, oh, no dark stuff. You know,
(20:49):
the world is dark enough. We needed fun and humor
and joy. So in that time, we picked shows that
we're uplifting and escapism and I mean, I will say
I do wish somebody would come along and kind of
combine all these networks to make it easier for us
(21:11):
to find the shows we want to find. It is
very overwhelming and probably one of the reasons I don't
watch a lot of TV is it just it takes
twenty minutes to find a show literally like on the
on the television. So all I get told is we need,
we need more content. I'm like, how is that possible?
You need more content? But you came and watching the
content that exists. Yeah, I mean, I don't know who
(21:32):
could watch all the content. But what is nice is
that there really is, there's becoming something for everybody. You know,
you want to watch a drama, you want to watch
a cooking show, you want to watch a building a house.
There is something for everyone. You want to learn a
new language. I mean, I'm doing this. I'm learning Spanish,
and so I'll put something on with the you know, Spanish,
(21:54):
with the English subtitles. You know. So there's all different
ways to watch content and to learn from it as
well as be entertained, which I think is really great.
You hit the nail on the head. I really during
that got into documentaries because yes, the documentary tells a
story of one person, but it also tells a story
(22:14):
of the time and what was going on around it.
So I think you're right, there is it's nice to
have all that information. It's sort of like being a supermarket.
You know, there's so many products. I guess supermarket. I'm
so overwhelmed myself, and I'm a chef. I'm like, yes,
who needs all this ship That's funny. You know, no
one in my family likes to go to the grocery
(22:35):
store with me. I love it. I not only do
I I could spend hours, but I also apparently I've
been told that I talked to myself the grocery store. Well,
I could give you a couple of numbers for that.
You know you're talking to the wrong person. Actually, So
I love grocery stores. I think it's one of the
(22:57):
greatest times. Is too. I go, I make a list.
I'm very specific and I know what I'm doing. And
I actually did an instagram about how to shop in
a grocery store, like go on Tuesdays, eat before your shop.
I had so many so many people were fascinated by it.
And it's the same thing as you just said about
(23:20):
is it Netflix, is it Hulu? Is it? It's like
it's like shopping. Yes, take a deep breath, sell down,
figure out what you really want, write it down, and
then go go just for that and forget the noise
because you won't be able to It will take you
twenty minutes, and then there's your precious hours down to
an half hour. Exactly. Yes, absolutely. For our third course,
(23:54):
I wanted to continue talking with Jessica about food and
dig into her decision to go back to colony school.
Turns out her year at the Kodamblur only deep into
her appreciation and respect for food and all the people
behind a quality meal. Cooking was always probably my biggest
hobby passion. I would call it. It's funny to call
(24:15):
it a hobby because it is such a part of
my life. So it was always there, Like I said,
from sixteen on, cooking was that's how I came home
and recentered myself. And I always used to say, you know,
one day I'll go to cooking school. One day when
the time's right, one day when the times well, the
time is never right. You're always too busy. To me
(24:35):
that that's a giant commitment. And I was around thirty seven,
thirty eight, and I thought, well, how about now, Why
don't just go now? So I did and I finished.
At the time in l A, they were offering a
night school, so you went six pm to midnight. I mean,
(24:58):
I was a zombie that year because I was also
auditioning and working in the daytime as an actress. But
I was able to finish. I finished with highest honors.
And you know, again it became I love learning, and
it became uh I was so proud of being a
student and learning and you know, getting a's on my
(25:19):
tests and all of that, and I loved it. I
loved it, but it was really what I love about it,
and I know it's it's a personality thing. You have
to understand. If you're organizing, you love organization and lists
and learning and checking things off. That's what cooking is.
It's like before you make a sauce, you have everything
ready and you have to learn that. So it makes
(25:39):
you prepare. You have to prepare before you cook. And
then cooking is a wind fail situation. But even if
you fail, you learn and you can actually eat what
you fail with it. So it's a very strange profession.
You fail a lot, and you fail a lot, you
fail a lot and you feel you know, I don't
think it's an accident that I have paralleled acting and cooking.
(26:01):
There are so many similarities in the two and diving
in and it never comes out the way you think.
Sometimes it comes up better, sometimes you're disappointed. There's a
lot of connection to both of them. And uh and
cooking school. You know, my cooking career is I feel
like it's still just beginning. I want to get. You know,
(26:24):
I've been in front of the camera. I'd like to
get behind the camera with food. I like writing about food.
You know, I always knew that my I was studying
to go into a world of television and writing and
all that side of it. But I was in school
with real you know, people on the line and you
know the guys that like take the pan out without
(26:46):
a potholder, like the tough guys and gals, and and
it was an amazing experience to be part of that world.
And you know, that's something that I would have never said,
I'm not tough enough. I'll just say I am. That
is a it's it's a brutal it's a brutal industry.
And I have so much respect for how hard you know, people,
(27:08):
I don't think people realize how hard they don't know.
I tell people, I'm like, okay, what's it like. I'm like, okay.
So it's a Broadway show and every nights you've played
to a packed house. But it's three shows a day, breakfast, lunch,
and didn't ye the next day You've got to start fresh.
There's no like it's all torn down with the sleep
and then you get back up and do it again,
(27:29):
and then you have a hundred and fifty people that
on your cast that have to be ready to do
the same show. Yea, it's like and there's knives and
there's knives, fire, and it's degrees in front of your face. Yes, yes, yes, exactly.
Don't love it, you're out. Yes, those that succeed love it.
(27:51):
It's like the best best pain in the world, best pain.
So what are you the chief cook? Are you do
you share working with your husband? Are you cooking tonight
for dinner? If so, what are you cooking? Let's see
a great question. Well, I've been cooking all week, so
(28:12):
tonight usually one night a week I do. Yeah, although
you know, I mean, I've really been loving it. I
was in Mexico for three months shooting this show, and
I was it was the best, greatest thing and the
hardest thing because I didn't see my family for three months.
I also didn't have a kitchen for three months. It
was I had a lovely room for there was no kitchen,
(28:35):
and so I didn't cook for three months. And I've
been back now for I think it's about three or
four months. I've been back home, and so I just
all I want to do is cook and make my
own things. And you know, I kept saying when I
was there, I said, I just want to make an omelet.
I don't even want to make it deal, I just
want to make it an egg. Right, if you have
(28:56):
an egg, you have a meal. So let's see I
made it. At the moment. My my husband's really loving
this salmon that I'm making. So last night he got
a beautiful plate of of salmon. That's where do you
go shop? You know. One of the things that happened
in the pandemic. Pandemic really changed my cooking because suddenly
(29:17):
we couldn't get things like a tomato, you know, and
we couldn't get oh today we can't get flour, and
this day we can't get chicken. We forget how we
forget how lucky we are as a as a country,
like we have every amazing how we take things for granted,
and so it really changed my connection to cooking, my
appreciation for ingredients. And I am a huge supporter of
(29:42):
local farmers markets, and I would say at the moment,
seventy percent of our groceries are coming from the farmer's market.
And now when I go to the farmer's market. You know,
I take the family and and my daughter is talking
to the farmers and and she's now picking vegetables fruit,
(30:02):
she's picking the fruit she wants in her school lunch.
Last Sunday we went and she was having she's five.
She was having her own conversation with the farmer about
baby ARTI chokes and what they are and what they do.
And you know, so she said, I'd like to get
somebody's mom, and we got them, we brought them home.
She thought it was the greatest thing in the world.
(30:22):
So now baby ARTI chokes or her favorite. But you
know what's great about what you said, I want to
just get back out of the farmers Like it's not
a grocery store. The farmers market. All those farmers, all
those farmers at the market, they're all sounding the same thing,
exactly the same thing, because they're all selling what's in season,
learned to cook what's available, and the story. Yes, and
(30:44):
absolutely you have to be creative. But I think a
lot of people well like woken up by like, oh,
there's not a you know, there's not a pie chart
of ingredients from all over the world. I can get
all the time and my grocery store, and it shows
people what's really fresh and we're just eating. That's how
you're having a tomato in January. Might not be a
good idea, Yes, exactly. I think it makes it exciting.
(31:07):
You know, you a new ingredient. Oh look, it's the
season asparagus now and different fruits, and you know, I
think it keeps it exciting. I learn more about cooking,
and certainly you know the ingredients specifically from the farmers.
You know what's ince when when to buy it? Oh, no,
you want to wait for this. You want to wait.
(31:28):
You know, strawberries, but you know we have a certain
strawberry here that I've been told they come back in January.
And I feel like I'm in the know about these
strawberries from Orange County. And you gotta you have a
fantastic growing season because everywhere we do. Yeah, you're very lucky.
And you know what else is interesting is that the
(31:48):
comments I get is like, you know, I don't go
to the market a lite because it's so expensive. I'm like,
that's because it's real people raising real food that they
picked this morning. Now I know who got up three
and this is the food. There's no crap in it. Yes,
I know, I'm like, I don't know. It's not going
to be inexpensive. It's going to be probably the same
(32:10):
a little bit more. But what you're gonna get is
so much better always. Plus that guy is going to
do it again every day for you. Yes, and it's
really you know, it's it's not that much more expensive.
And you know, listen, I mean, could we could talk
for a whole another hour about I'd love for this
to be available for everyone, because you know, not everyone
can afford fresh vegetables and fruit, and of course not
(32:33):
that shouldn't be something for only the people who have
the money to buy it. You're also putting you know,
as a as a shopper, you're putting money into your community.
You're putting money into your you know, you're helping yourself
as well. Not only are you getting the best ingredients
you can get, but you are It all works together
in helping the community grow. For our fourth and final course,
(33:02):
I got to ask Jessica about her love for r vs,
of all things. If you score through Jessica's Instagram, you'll
see picture after picture of gorgeous r V glamping vacations
with her husband and daughter. I wanted to know, how
did a kid from schennected in New York find your
way into all of this? Turns out this is a
newfound passion. I saw that you're an r V enthusiast. Yes,
(33:26):
where did that? I mean, growing up in Amsterdam, New York.
How did you become an r V enthusiast and RV experience? No, No, no,
one year ago. And nobody's more surprised. No one's more
surprised than me. My husband's been trying to get me
to rent an RV since I met him, and I'm no.
(33:46):
I am FUFI hotels and fancy sheets and towels and
room service. That's how I like to roll, all about
the thread count. And I said that, you know, you
go do that on your own with your buddies or something.
That is not for me. And then the demic happened
and we hunkered down and we were in the house
and at the time with a four year old, that's
(34:07):
you know, I now know I can survive anything. We
constantly have been thinking outside the box and what can
we do? And we rented an RV just to get out,
just to get out, and we're travelers by nature, so
and we hadn't been so this was maybe six months
into the pandemic. We said, let's just I got to
get out and do so. My husband's a writer, so
he we were very lucky that he was able to
(34:29):
work during that time from home. And I was too
afraid to leave the house, so I didn't leave till
the following year. But we rented an r V and
it and it changed our lives and we bought one.
I mean, we basically bought an r V on the internet.
Look at you. We goics Like no, I would have
(34:52):
never thought this was but you know, every I feel
like in our circle, all of our friends, everybody did
like a little maybe not that extreme, but everybody did
something crazy. We have one one of my dear friends,
they sold their house and they moved to Chicago and
they've never been happier. And that was our crazy thing.
We bought an r V and we've fallen in love
(35:13):
with it. That also, like you know, no surprise, the
kitchen in the r V is my domain and I'm
now making recipes for the RV and coming up with
clever things in my kitchen. And that's where we found
joy and freedom and family and togetherness and nature. I mean,
I think just being connected to nature really helped us.
(35:37):
And I say that like I'm some kind of nature
girl and I'm really not. But but this, I mean,
I guess I am. I guess you know, this is
where we really found such healing just being outside and
being in the woods and having our house with us
wherever we go, like traveling in this tiny house. If
I could do it full time for a while, I would.
(35:58):
We can't, I mean that since paying right now. But yeah,
so we take it out about once a month. We
take it out, and your daughter must love it. I
mean it's like she's, yeah, she's got the top bunk
is her Like, oh my god, she's the only one
with her own room. She's got that and shut all
her stuffed animals up there. And she decorated tank. And
(36:19):
so what you have an electric governor is a propane
The oven is propane, and the top is gas too, yeah, gas,
And then there's uh, then there's a microwave, which I'm
probably going to switch out for a little convection of.
And you know, it depends where we are, It depends
what we park somewhere where we have electricity. Sometimes you
(36:42):
have to you switch it up. So sometimes you use gas,
sometimes use propane, and sometimes you use electric. Sometimes you
go outside, you build up, you build a fire outside.
We do that. Yeah you've got side and you rose
top dogs on a fire, which we do that as well.
My daughter has been because she we cook a lot together.
So she spend big into putting things in foil and
(37:04):
throwing him on the fire and then opening it and
seeing what you know, bananas and marshmallows and chokolate and
let's put this together and see what happens. And it's
so fantastic. So it sounds like I always talking about you.
It sounds like your future has some sort of culinary
roadmap attached to it or either pulling it or you're
(37:24):
pushing it or pulling it or what is it? I
don't know what it is. But what do you think?
What's what's in store for you in this this newfound
So what is the next five years you think? And
how is culin are you going to affect it? Because
it's it's what everybody wanted to do in the pandemics,
like everybody became a chef. But I think it's great.
I mean, we all ate and you know, you go
back to you, I said, people go back to the
(37:45):
cab and instincts and you have to eat and go
to the use the toilet. So what did people worry
about the toilet and eating? Yeah, I mean this happened
in my own house. I started cooking with my family more.
I started teaching my dog or how to cook, and yeah,
there wasn't anything to do. So I hope family meals
have come back a little more. I think that's so
(38:07):
important to eat with your family. But getting back to
your question, yeah, I think I'm just scratching the surface.
That be just the beginning of my culinary adventures. And
there's definitely something with the RV and cooking on the
road that is its own unique hobby that I've been
(38:27):
doing the last year. And you know, we do themes.
I mean, we we do New Orleans, like we took
a New Orleans RV trip, and you know, there's the
Christmas trip, there's the we took the Unicorn trip, and
they all have food related things going on with them.
So food is such a part of our family and
(38:48):
such a part of our lives. I think that's a
show right there. I mean I'm sorry, Yeah, I mean
that would be fantastic. I think you have a point there.
I think you've got something I really do, and I
think it's, if I may say so, organic, even though
I hate that word, very organic. Well, Jessica, thank you
(39:09):
so much. Sure you have a long day ahead, maybe
hit in the market for the weekend. Thank you very much. Thanks,
thank you for sharing some time on Four Courses. I
really really appreciate it. And they have a fantastic weekend.
This was so much fun. Thank you for having me.
Thanks very much for listening to Four Courses with Jeffrey
z Curian, a production of I Heart Radio and Corner
(39:31):
Table Entertainment. Four Courses is created by Jeffrey Zicarian, Margaret Securion,
Jared Keller, and Tara Helper. Our executive producer is Christopher Hesiotis.
Four Courses is produced by Jonathan Habs Dressler. Our research
is conducted by Jesslyn Shields. Our talent booking is by
Pamela Bauer at Dogtown Talent. This episode was edited and
(39:53):
written by Priya Mahadevan and mixed by Joe Tistle. Special
thanks to Katie Fellman for help as we cording engineered
For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i
heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
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