October 1, 2021 • 39 mins
In this episode, host Geoffrey Zakarian speaks with actor Tamera Mowry-Housley. Together they explore the value of structure in childhood, the importance of love and gratitude, her new foray into cooking competition shows, and what it takes to run a successful winery.
Stream Tamera Mowry-Housley’s new show “Baker’s Dozen,” on Hulu here: https://www.hulu.com/series/bakers-dozen-86e9eb70-0a7e-4686-b9d4-81735bd600c6 Her other new show, “Table Wars,” premiers this fall.
For more information on "Four Courses With Geoffrey Zakarian" follow Geoffrey on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/geoffreyzakarian"
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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
My name is Jeffrey Z Carrian and you're listening to
four Courses with Jefferys 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 guest life and career, and during those four courses,
I'm going to dig deep and uncover new insights and
(00:24):
inspirations that we can all use to fuel ourselves to
push forward. My guest for this episode is an actress
and TV personality. She and her twin sister are famous
for their roles as child stars on hit TV and
reality shows in the eighties and nineties. Today, she's hosting
two new cooking competition shows and lives with her husband
(00:45):
and two children and NAPA. Without further delay, let's get
into my conversation with tamaraw Maori Housley. Okay, let me
make sure we're on airplane mode. Airplane mode, we are recording,
and here we go. Hi, how are you? I'm great
For a first course, I wanted to ask Tamara about
(01:06):
her unique childhood as both the child star and army
brat the strong sense of structure her parents instilled in
her at a young age became a strength not only
in her career but also as a parent. Memory to
me is smell. Yes, I walk and I hear that smell.
Oh my god, that that smells just like X y
Z what it was that from you? Okay, So I
(01:26):
actually one doesn't even have to do with food. It's
kind of it's kind of weird. That's fine, Okay. One
is laundry like it, yes, even better. Yes, it reminds
me of of just home. I had an amazing upbringing
my and and being an ex army brat. You move
(01:48):
m brat, you never an X army brat. But someone
told me that too, and I am going to own that.
I'm not going to say X anymore. But it just
I mean, I had a great childhood and I am
so grateful and it couldn't have gone that way in
the sense that, you know, we moved around, you know,
a lot, but I learned a lot about myself. I'm
so grateful I had my twin with me. We moved,
(02:11):
you know, to different schools. It taught me how to adapt,
It taught me discipline, It taught me how to be sociable,
and I'm grateful for that. And my house was always warm.
It always it was a loving place, and I'm so
grateful for that. So when I smell laundry, that is
what I think of. The other is baker's does in
(02:34):
the show that I did with Bill Yasis, who is
another amazing human being. I used to work with Bill.
Uh sir, Yes, it may wear the same same sort
of age bracket. And nice you working in New York
many years before we moved to Washington. What a delightful
man like is? My smile is infectious. He's always like
we laugh all the time, and we would talk like
(02:55):
we would start judging and talking about life before the
cameras would roll that they actually had to separate us.
That's how much we we just we got along. But
the reason why Bill I bring up Bill Yassis is
the baking show. I've always loved to bake. So the
other smell is chocolate chip cookies. When I smell chocolate
chip cookies, I feel like I'm just I feel like
(03:20):
I'm in heaven. I'm so I just get so happy
and I just think of again, warmth and love. My
mom used to always bake you know, the yellow cake
that you would get in the store and chocolate chip
cookies when we would come home from school. Whenever I
see that, like, because I grew up in the eighties,
(03:40):
that cake, it was the cake stand. They had to
like the plastic cover over it, and after a while,
you're like, oh, it's getting really dirty, you know, and
you can't see through it after a while. Right, I
would be so happy to see that again. I always
felt loved and it felt safe, and I realized how
blessed I am to be able to say that, you know,
(04:02):
growing up that I wanted to do that for my kids,
you know, when they come home. And so that's how
I actually got into baking. I saw my mom bake,
but then I wanted to learn how to do it
like from scratch, yeah, freestyle, freestyle, yes, and uh, you
know doing that show with Bill, I gained about ten pounds,
(04:23):
but I said I will gain another ten pounds because
I was the judge that wasn't like this is really good.
I was like, I did that. This is my twelfth
year of Chopped. I'm gonna be honest with you. The
first now, the first year, I gained about five or
seven pounds and then I started eating all my food chopsticks,
and I get so much shit about it. And I
(04:45):
started doing that because I could take one little bite,
one little bite and push it away. But otherwise you're
hungry and you just eat. And then twelve plates of
food later, four days in a row, you're like, uh,
you know, you're like, oh my god, it's all awful,
uniform at least in baking. This sugar and it's frusting.
It's good. It's gonna be good, right, something's gonna be good. Yeah,
(05:07):
a little milk. If it's not good, a little milk,
and you're you're happy. But I so know what you're
talking about. It's so, you know, you tell said two
things you said baking, and then I hear it when
you walk in the door. The dryers on because your
mom is doing laundry. The dryer has been going all day,
and that smell of the evacuation of that air. It
doesn't always get up, it comes out the front and
(05:29):
you know, the dryers going, and that means to me
that it sounds like structure. Gotta cook, gotta clean, gotta cook,
gotta clean. And then your Army Bratton everyone, your mom
and dad were in the army, so like, hello, this
is what you do and you do it every day
and you're like thankful. I always think that happiness is
(05:51):
being useful, Like happiness is like very fleeting. I mean,
I don't know what it is, but like if you're
useful and you do stuff, you feel good. That is
very true. But wow, I never saw that the way
you just explained it. And you're absolutely right. You know,
my parents we are very disciplined, and I think that's
the reason why the Maury's you know, meaning Tia, Taj
(06:15):
and now my brother Tavier, we're all successful in our
own ways, and it's because of our work ethic, it's
because of that structure. It's because of that discipline. We
all could have veered left right, you know, north south
east west, but we had that structure in our life.
And you're totally right. We knew as children growing up.
(06:38):
We knew that when we came home we were gonna
have dinner, we were gonna have clean clothes, and we
would have to be the one to fold them and
put them up. But again, it taught us responsibility, routine,
and having kids of my own, that is what I've learned.
Kids actually need discipline, and it's a form, it's a
(06:59):
form of love, and it teaches them Okay, if I
do this, if I do this, if I do this,
there's a result that comes after it. If you teach
them responsibility, they naturally gain that self confidence like, oh
I achieved this. I did this and come to the
point where my son who's eight, was like, hey, Mom,
we don't have behavioral charts anymore? Can you make one?
I was like, because it gave him something to look
(07:23):
forward to and he knew that he would get, you know,
a reward. But yeah, so that's awesome that that you
said structure. I never saw it that way, but Jesus,
that's it's everything. I mean, I know you grew up
in a Christian household soul that I and and I
think that the sense of I would say empathy, yes,
(07:43):
is something that is so hard to get across to
your kids because you gotta have that sense of empathy
and it takes nothing away from me, actually adds to
you because it actually makes you feel great. That's what
That's what I learned in my Christianity. I'm um Catholic,
and I if I take anything from that, because you
can take what you want from it. You know, you
(08:04):
can be as as devoted or have devoted. But if
you take this sense of empathy, especially as a child,
discipline and empathy equals responsibility, and they cherish it, meaning
they're gonna like when they're eighteen and they are college, like,
what am I going to think of? Well, this is
what my mom taught me. Now I get it. I
(08:25):
will tell you this what I learned about empathy. I
am naturally, I am an EmPATH, and I had to
learn boundaries. And this is the big one that I
want to teach my children because I don't want them to.
I mean, listen, we can only do so much. We
can guide them. They're going to go through, you know,
certain things that we may not want them to go through.
As long as they learn from it and grow, I'll
(08:48):
be fine. And as long as I'm right there to
kind of like support and help them through it. But
I learned a big one for people who have empathy,
which we need in this world too. I think, you know,
help change the world. Uh, in a positive way. You
have to love though with wisdom. You love without wisdom
(09:11):
actually equals ignorance. Wisdom without love is ignorance. So You
could be the wisest person in the world, but if
you don't have love, what is that. You can have
so much love for someone, but if you don't have
wisdom about it, You're constantly gonna get hurt. You're constantly
gonna be get stepped upon. And it took me forty
(09:33):
I'm forty three. Thank you Jesus. I made it in
my authorities and I and I and I love it.
I love my forties now more than than ever. But
I learned the hard way. You have to love with wisdom.
And that is what I'm going to teach my my kids.
Love someone, definitely love love someone, have empathy, be there
(09:53):
for someone, but also be wise and watch as well
as pray. Be be aware of of your surroundings so
that your love Because they say too. We learned this
in psychology. I'm a psych major UH from Pepperdine University.
Loved um that sometimes your strength can be your weakness, right,
My biggest strength is being an impact. Yes, loving people,
(10:17):
wanting to fix them, wanting to be there for them.
But it also became a weakness in my life because
I would let random people in my life take advantage
of that. And and and that is where I feel
it took me a while to learn in our second course,
I had to dig deeper into that connection to mirror
(10:37):
makes between love and wisdom. She and her husband Adam,
will celebrate seventeen years of marriage next January. It all
started with a mutual connection to Pepperdine University. I am
so grateful for my collegiate career. I will tell you this.
Pepperdine they do not play like it is a hard school,
like you have to work hard, though I was working
(10:58):
so hard. I remember coming back and visiting and and
and looking at the library going, oh my gosh. I
took all of this for granted, like I because I
was like in my books, you know, because I wanted
to pass. I'm an overachiever. I don't know if you've
realized that yet, but it is absolutely beautiful. I'm still
(11:19):
friends with my professors. They are that's how you met
your husband. Yes, my my economics professor introduced my husband
and I because my husband played on the Pepper nine
baseball team and he befriended the same professor. So my
professor loves sports, and that's how he met Adam. I
(11:42):
was one of his favorite students. In economics. I don't
know why, I just get it, but I I got
economics sture structured. There you go. Years went on. My
husband stayed friends with him. I stayed friends with him,
and he was like, you know, Tamara, there's a guy
who came in my office looking at your photo and
(12:04):
he wants to meet you. And that's how it happened. Yeah,
my husband and I have been married. I've been together
for sixteen years, been married for ten. And I will say,
you know, marriage is not easy, it's not perfect. But
I absolutely chose right. And I love that man more
(12:25):
than I did when I first married him. I know,
and I always say this, I still like him. I
like him as a human being. He is a good dude.
He is like my number one fan, my number one cheerleader.
And the thing about marriage, the way I see it,
is we're supposed to help each other grow, right, So
(12:48):
I inspire him to be a better person. He inspires
me to be a better person. Like I said, it
doesn't mean that we've had years where we were like, uh,
we're gonna say, marry what is this? It is what
it is. That's that's marriage. But you know, in psychology,
you change every seven years, and you just pray that
(13:09):
you grow together and not you know, grow apart. Marriage
is a risk, and uh, I'm just grateful at this
moment in time. He is the love of my life. Yeah,
And I would have never thought in a million years
I would marry a news reporter who's seven years older
(13:30):
than I am. And he wasn't even my type. That's
what's funny. He wasn't even my type. I was like, Oh,
we're gonna be friends, We'll be friends forever, and then boom,
rag is really a friendship forever. First. I mean, it's
so true what you said, you gotta you gotta stay
in like to stay in love. So true, so true.
(13:50):
And I think sometimes people they missed the boat on
on that one. And it's again like he's changed throughout
the years. I've changed throughout the years, and you kind
of like allow each other grace, you know, and then
you you try to find that balance. But you know,
I'm a woman of faith, and you know that has
(14:11):
always been like my focus in my career and in
in my personal life. And I believe that that that
has helped as well. Yeah, I really, I really, I'm
a strong believer in having this. You know, the family
unit is such a fantastic way to build just about
anything you want to build in life. You have it
right there with you. It don't screw it up, And
(14:33):
to not screw it up is sometimes it's very tempting
to screw it up because you bring your own You
don't have to repeat the mistakes your parents made. And
my parents made big mistakes, but they didn't know any
They didn't know that was their toolbox. You don't have
to use their toolbox. That is a very big when
I've learned that as a parent, I'm like, okay, I
just want to like start yelling at you, but not
(14:56):
going to I am going to pull you aside and
not be rate you in front of everybody. Let's let's
have a conversation about this particular behavior that you I
just witnessed and like, okay, okay. And then when it's done,
I surprised myself that I actually did it and it
felt completely foreign. But I didn't have an embarrassed child,
(15:19):
and I think he got the lesson. But I think
that they they listen right, they listen, They like they
look away, they look away, but you know, they listen right,
and they don't look away when the food's on the table.
By the way, they come right to the table. So
I want to go to a food question because I
know you are you come from structure Christianity, love, and
(15:41):
you must love going around a table and feeding people,
because that's just like, that's like, that's the next block
of of love is food. So what are you doing
with the kids feeding them? How do you take care
of their their table manners and all that. Since you're
doing a show called table Wars, this must come in
very handy. Yes, well, this is my thing. The first
(16:05):
the first thing my husband and I wanted to do
you talk of structure, is I wanted to bring the
family back to the table. You know, with our little
gadgets technology. You have the iPhones, you have the iPad,
the worst. And yes, as a parent, have I been
tempted to say this is a great babysitter. Absolutely? Have
(16:28):
I justified it with well, at least they're watching an
educational you know show. Yes, I though, at the same time,
I'm a true believer of balance. And so our rule
is at the dinner time table, at breakfast or whatever,
please let's not have your phones. I want everyone to
(16:52):
sit and look at each other and actually talk about
how your day was. If we're eating breakfast, it's how
we're going to start our day. We're gonna make some affirmations.
We're gonna be great listeners today, We're gonna be kind,
you know. So that that is my table etiquette. I
am teaching my kids. I mean, it's it was kind
(17:13):
of hard with Aiden as he got older. I realized
he has a texture issue with food. And how we're
combating that is he's actually cooking my such because of
the pandemic, you know, everyone was together, you know, for
for a long time. An our way of getting together
(17:34):
and loving on each other was cooking. And my son
saw his dad do it. My husband is such an
amazing cook. I think he was a chef and his
path life or something. You know, he sees his dad,
he sees his mom. But he wants to do as
we do, and so he started learning. And my son, actually,
at eight years old, can cook breakfast, his own breakfast,
(17:56):
his own lunch, and his own dinner. A wonderful thing.
French toast is his favorite. He can. He likes to
put you know, he likes to cook the bacon, he
cooks the bacon himself like, and I'm like, oh my lord,
I don't want him to get pop. It's gonna happen.
It's gonna happen. It's probably gonna happen once. And he
needs to see how that feels. It did, and now
you know, he's fine. For lunch, he loves this is
(18:17):
what this child does. He gets turkey Deli, turkey and uh.
For dinner, he actually makes his own steak. He gets
rosemary out of the yard, gets garlic, and girls, it's
with some butter. Wow. That's like he's on his own.
He's on his way. That's really good. He's independent. It
(18:38):
sounds like they're all very independent. And you know, I
don't have to tell straight to see that where that
came from. For our third course, I wanted to ask
(18:59):
Tamara about her two new cooking competition shows, an exciting
shift from acting and hosting talk shows. She says all
that experience listening and empathizing on set helped prepare her
for this latest chapter. I'm so grateful for the real
because it did train me to, you know, be a
great listener. It's just who I innately am. I love
(19:21):
people and I love listening to understand I don't like
listening to Judge and with table Wars, I I loved
seeing the contestants like truly think of an idea and
map it out, put it together, and then you see
the final products. You see the final result, and you
(19:43):
can see how some struggled with, you know, executing that.
That's a skill in itself, by having an idea and
actually executing it exactly how you wanted it to be,
even if you had to pivot right, which most of
them had to do every single challenge. And then also
it's all about again what I've learned in being an
(20:04):
army Bread, It's all about you're running a marathon. You know,
it's it's not a sprint, so you have to make
sure that you keep your momentum going. You don't want
to burn out, you know. You see people just start
off so hard that they burn out towards the end
when you're like damn, like you were killing it. It
was so interesting on all, you know levels, I was
(20:26):
learning at the same time as judging, but also you
you get to know these these contestants. Yeah, what I
I also say that, especially on Chopped, it's the same
thing is that when you're judging someone you're actually responsible
for their feelings, and it's it's kind of weird. You've
got to judge them fairly, but you've got to be
honest with them because they were lying on you. To
(20:48):
be honest. They're actually they're actually in this. They're nervous,
they're throwing up backstage, they're like shaking, they don't realize
it's happening, and they really want to do the right thing.
And so you you feel very responsible for them. And
so when you give them feedback, then they feel good
about the feedback. They get better, their level of confidence
(21:10):
goes up, their nervousness goes down, doesn't all go away,
but they can perform in a much higher letter. You
get a better result. You get a better result. And
it's not from banging him on the head. It's I'm saying,
you know what this is. You're onto something here. You
gotta clean up aisle four, but this aisle is really
where you want to live. Make your life around this,
(21:31):
and you're gonna have some success in the future. If
they hear that, like, okay, I've been validated, and validation
and not those kind of shows is very important and
they couldn't have picked a better people about. I mean,
your validation skills are remarkable because you it's well you
you've been validating things your whole life in a real
way that is based on all the structure, and you
(21:52):
understand results, and so that brings what does it bring?
It brings wisdom and intelligence. And so that's why this
is such a different show for you. And I'm so
excited to see it. I don't when is that if
you the season shot already, So we shot the entire
season and it's gonna air this fall. How many episodes? Six?
(22:15):
We did six? What's interesting because when I was shooting,
I thought we did eight. Well, if you get a pilot,
you only did. Yeah, we only did. But it is
I will tell you this, out of all the shows
that I've done, it is the most visually stunning show.
(22:36):
It is the shots everything, I mean, the fashion between
Martha me, well, it's like it's like a candy that
bedforge of candy land up her house and that I mean,
you have so much b roll there, it's insane. It
was it was like I said, I cannot wait, Like
(22:57):
I just want the world to see this so that
we can go and do it again. That's how much
fun I had, and it did not. I will tell
you this every single time. And this is the ultimate
goal we want for our lives. Right. You wake up
with excitement, You're like, I get to go to work today.
Like that is how I felt every single day. It
(23:18):
was so and Martha, Chris and I we laughed so
hard every single day. I happen to have a very
great relationship with both Martha, she's judged a lot with
me on Chopped. I. Oh, she's a very good friend
of myself and my wife's. We've been her guest at
(23:39):
her house many times and it's epic. And she's one
of the few remaining divas, right, and I mean in
a very good way. Because if you don't know this
about Martha, I have spent enough time with hers. There's
very few people in my life as a chef of
forty years that intimidate me. She's one of them. Because
(24:02):
her knowledge of everything. I don't mean food, I mean flowers, baking, gardening, trees, birds, animals,
seed history, you know, magazine, technology, writing, comprehension, TV production.
I mean, it's like I can't even begin she said, Oh,
(24:23):
I said, I hear you writing a book. I said, yeah,
you know, my daughters and we wrote a book. It
was great, and I said, which was which one? I
you know how many you have? I was my third
one and said, oh, I'm writing my ninety one. Thanks. Thanks.
I really felt good. I you are definitely I know
you are a true friend of Martha's because you literally explained.
(24:44):
You explained her perfectly. There's a running joke that when
we did the show, I wanted to make sure that
the prompter I could see it. She could see it
with no glasses on. By the way, her them re
and her eyesight better than mine. Yes, she I was like,
(25:07):
how the hell is this? How is this possible? And yes,
she would explain. I always said this to the contestants
on the show. You better know your stuff. You better
not be pretending, because Martha knows everything and she will
see everything. Her attention to detail is amazing because that
(25:30):
you see is what you get. And she actually I
don't know if this compliment meant anything because she's Martha,
but I said, you are one of the few. Whereas
now I feel like people are building brands that are
kind of fake. You know, it's all on Instagram so
they can create whatever they want. I said, what you
(25:50):
see is what you get with you, Like you literally
know your stuff. You know how to cook, you know
how to make an amazing drink. And let's not forget
her ashen she's the real deal. I did a couple
of demos with her and I was like rolling something
out next to her, and she's rolling out she said,
are you doing it wrong? Stop? Let me show you
just like that, Like I was like in the audience
(26:12):
is like laughing hysterically, but she has no, there's no
let me just say that gently button. No, it's like
that's wrong. Let me show you what are you doing?
And it's so refreshing for me to get corrected by
her because it wasn't. She wasn't trying to embarrass me,
and she's just saying, no, this isn't. You're not doing
it right, let me show you. I think that's why
we really got along. It's because, I mean, you know,
(26:35):
I come from a place my mother has been always
just one hundred, Like she was the one where if
you didn't want to hear the truth, you ask her
for advice, you don't ask her. So it's beautiful, that's beautiful, right.
But I think that's the reason why we got along initially.
It's because real Se is real like I. I recognized.
(26:57):
I recognized that in her, and she recognized at in me.
I mean there were times where the director would tell
us where to move and I was talking, you know,
to Chris, and I wasn't paying attention, so that when
they said action, I would move into the spot. Martha
literally she would like, move girl, You're not in the
You're not in the right spot. It's like, you know what, Martha,
(27:21):
you are right. But yeah, I love Martha. I love
doing this show. She said. It feels like I have
known you forever, and that is exactly what what it
felt like. The chemistry was just beautiful and she was fun.
She was fun. For our fourth and final course, I
(27:53):
got to speak with Tamara about wine. She and her
husband own a winery and Napa Valley, which the San
Francisco Chronicle called Napa's liveliest tasting room in two thousand nineteen.
While Adams from a winemaking family, it's a brand new
adventure for Tamara, complete with its own excitement, challenges, and
life's lessons. Tell me about Housley Vineyards. I know you
(28:13):
have a winery yes, we do. I can't believe I'm
even saying that. And people are always like, well, why
to marry you? You married into you know, the Housley family.
It's just that going into it, I was just like,
they have amazing wine. I freaking love it. I was
grateful just for that. I never thought my husband and
(28:34):
I would be owning it. So it's called Century Oak Winery.
It's actually located in Lodi, and I had been visiting
ever since I, you know, met Adam. I would actually
be a part of the harvest. I love wine, you know,
I wanted to learn about it. I actually helped bottle
but it's not until now, well two years ago, that
(28:57):
I actually got involved and we opened up a tasting
room in downtown Napa because I thought, you know, when
people think of wine, you know, new wine drinkers, they
automatically assumed like Italy and Nappa. Right, It's like, oh,
there's wine in Italy. Oh there's wine and Nappa. There's
that place, yeah, Nappa that people have, you know, lots
(29:20):
of wine. So I was like Adam, so many people
now know that we have wine, and you know, they
visit Nappa, but there's nowhere to actually taste our wine.
I think we should actually open up a tasting room
in downtown Napa, and that is exactly what we did.
It's been around for two years, but a Central Oak
Winery has been around for twenty years. Art and Judy
(29:43):
have been growing grapes for forty four so they definitely
know their stuff. So once my father in law said, hey,
we he was actually gonna sell it, and Adam and
I were like, no, we want to get out of
l A. This would be a great way of doing it.
My husband wanted to get out of news. We were like,
we'll handle it, We'll take it over. And I have
(30:04):
to say, it has been so much fun just learning
the you know, the process. It is a lot of
work the business side. You know. I am learning, But
my husband he was born into it, so it comes
to him just like brushing his teeth every day. It is.
It is something so so easy. Um. But the tasting
room is called Howsley Napa Valley. We didn't set out
(30:27):
for it to be the most popular tasting room in Napa.
We didn't set out for it to be the most
inclusive tasting room in in Napa. We just set out
to have a tasting room that we are passionate about
and that we love. And we are the type of
people where we love everybody. We really do. We genuinely
love people. We love wine, and we wanted to welcome
(30:49):
all to experience, you know, tasting it. I wanted when
people visited the tasting room for it to be an experience.
I wanted them to feel comfortable, which is the reason
why I designed it as when you walk into the
right it feels like a living room. I love interior design,
so I incorporated that, you know, within it. I wanted booths.
(31:10):
I wanted people to stay awhile and that is exactly
what you know Hasley Nappa has become. And to have
people come from Oakland who have lived in Oakland for
years and say, I've never come to Napa because I
just felt like I wouldn't feel welcomed. That means the
world to me. People who you know, have never tried
(31:33):
wine this way or felt like maybe it was going
to be too expensive, can really enjoy, you know, an
amazing glass of you know wine. And we have so
many different varietals which I love. So we're not just
specifically focusing on like cab a lot while our winemaker
is a woman. So I believe in you know, women empowerment.
(31:53):
And as you know, working in food, there aren't a
lot of women winemakers. No they're not. And it's such
a fantastic Mattia. It's but you know, you have to
be a certain type of human to understand the trials
and tribulations of winemaking, because every year isn't good, every
harvest isn't good. You totally dependent on God and the weather.
(32:15):
You're sitting around and waiting. It's kind of a beautiful
thing and I think it teaches you gratitude. People don't
understand farming is so difficult. I'm learning that aspect of it.
I will so difficult, and I don't care who you are.
You like, give someone an acrea okay, you can have
everything you grow and you gotta eat off of the land,
(32:35):
and they're like, I don't want it because it's just
you need. You need to wait, you need patients, gratitude, structure,
all that stuff you learn. So it sounds like to me,
this is all right up your alley, Like you know
you're made, You're made for winery and entertaining and and
all this stuff has come full circle and now you
seem to be glowing and just in a very good place.
(32:56):
I am. And and you know, when when people see
the glow or they you know, they see the happiness,
they do think, oh my god, she must have an easy,
perfect life. But again we're going back to structure. The
thing is is I had to work hard to where
I am right now. And what I mean by working
hard is not not only just like you know, physically
(33:16):
doing the work. I had to mentally do the work,
you know, dealing with haters that can find you, you know,
on on Instagram, dealing with you know, backstabbers, being betrayed,
and you know, a business. I had to go through
all those life lessons to be where I am today.
(33:38):
And I'm a true believer of wherever there is life,
there is hope. So whatever you have gone through and
may have knocked you down, but don't stay down. I
don't care how hard it is. You know, there have
been times where I felt like I was like digging
myself out of a hole mentally, because again, like I said,
I loved, I loved, but I did not love with
(34:01):
wisdom sometimes and I got hurt, and that's kind of
like the worst feeling when you when you've been betrayed,
loving and trying to help. But also in the business.
I was on a show where I would speak of
unity and love and not everybody wants to hear that,
and okay, I can respect that, but that's my mission.
(34:21):
That's my ministry. And you know, some people may their
ministry is no, we've got a fight, But my way
of fighting is with love, and that wasn't always received
being in an interracial marriage like that still to this day,
surprisingly is not always received. Dealing with the Internet taking
(34:42):
stories and turning it around and attacking your character when
my character means everything to me, people trying to, you know,
take you down. That was hard getting out of that.
But I am in a good place now because I
did the work. Nothing worth anything is too easy. I
(35:03):
agree with you, and you seem very much that you're
You're very useful and you take care of a lot
of people, and you're used and to be useful to others.
It sounds crazy, but it's the most it's the happiest place.
When I can be of use to someone and help them,
I'm like, oh, that's very gratifying, and I don't and
it's it's note about money or this, so that it's
(35:23):
it's in five minutes, it's you're thinking about how gracious
you feel, and the reason why I feel gracious. It's
that gracious gratitude and being useful that I think a
lot of parents may skip. And I think it's one
of the most important lessons that we can give our
kids because we're so imperfect. And once they do that,
they find their own lane. And that's all you can
(35:45):
really do because otherwise you were a helicopter mom or dad,
and you don't want to be that. We don't. We
don't want to be that. But I always say gratitude
is the precursor to happiness. You were talking about happiness
and that when I discover heard that the gift of gratitude,
staying in gratitude even when you are going through your
(36:06):
life lessons, that gets you to the other side. And
I also learned life doesn't happen to me, it happens
for me. So when these things are are happening, good
and bad, what is the lesson here? What are we
being taught so that I can grow? But most importantly,
what can I teach? You? Know? I always say to
(36:28):
what I'm going through is not just for me, It's
not just for myself. It's so that we can, you know,
help our brother, our sister, our friends, our children when
they go through it, and we can speak of our experience.
And you also talk about being imperfect. Right, I actually
got closer to my parents when I realized that they
(36:49):
are imperfect. You know, I used to be so frustrated
that I used to say, you guys are so strict.
You guys are so strict. We look sometimes growing up
as our parents knowing it all. The reality is they
did neither. So thinking that way, you have grace. You
have grace towards your parents, and you have grace with
your with yourself in the process of of parenting. And
(37:14):
there you know your parents they always want you to
do better than they did, and so they don't want
you to make the same mistakes. Right, we are imperfect.
We make mistakes, and so did our parents, and we
always want to learn from that and do better. We
have to, And that's the way. That's the way that
I think we bring joy to our family. That stuff happens,
(37:38):
you know, when you're sitting around the table. I tell
my kids, you're lucky to be sitting around at the
same table, and you have to feel lucky and feel
gratitude at that time because you're going to be doing
this in fifteen or twenty years and you're gonna pull
from all this and hopefully you get a few few
points from your parents, just a few, just a few, right.
(38:01):
I really have enjoyed this sort of free, willing conversation.
I think we touched about everything on everything, and I
love your attitude and I'm so happy for your shows,
and you seem like so together and so you know,
you have a real good spirit and you you put
that out there and I appreciate it and I feel
it right away that I saw you and your smile
(38:24):
and my this person, this person has gratitude. And so
I'm gonna end with that. I do. I don't have
everything together, but my thing is is I do live
life with gratitude and empathy and I'm learning along all
the way and I love people. And this has been
fan fantastic. Thanks very much for listening to Four Courses
(38:49):
with Jefferys Zcarrion, a production of I Heart Radio and
Corner Table Entertainment. Four Courses is created by Jeffers Zcarrion,
Margaret Zacarrion, Jared Kelly, and Tara Helper. Our executive producer
is Christopher Hesiotis. Four Courses is produced by Jonathan Haws Dressler.
Our research is conducted by Jescelyn Shields. Our talent booking
(39:10):
is by Pamela Bauer at Dogtown Talent. This episode was
edited and written by Priya Mahadevan and mixed by Joe Tisdall.
Special thanks to Katie Fellmon and Tamara Mauri Housley for
help as recording engineers. 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 Jeffrey Z Carrian and you're listening to
four Courses with Jefferys 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 guest life and career, and during those four courses,
I'm going to dig deep and uncover new insights and
(00:24):
inspirations that we can all use to fuel ourselves to
push forward. My guest for this episode is an actress
and TV personality. She and her twin sister are famous
for their roles as child stars on hit TV and
reality shows in the eighties and nineties. Today, she's hosting
two new cooking competition shows and lives with her husband
(00:45):
and two children and NAPA. Without further delay, let's get
into my conversation with tamaraw Maori Housley. Okay, let me
make sure we're on airplane mode. Airplane mode, we are recording,
and here we go. Hi, how are you? I'm great
For a first course, I wanted to ask Tamara about
(01:06):
her unique childhood as both the child star and army
brat the strong sense of structure her parents instilled in
her at a young age became a strength not only
in her career but also as a parent. Memory to
me is smell. Yes, I walk and I hear that smell.
Oh my god, that that smells just like X y
Z what it was that from you? Okay, So I
(01:26):
actually one doesn't even have to do with food. It's
kind of it's kind of weird. That's fine, Okay. One
is laundry like it, yes, even better. Yes, it reminds
me of of just home. I had an amazing upbringing
my and and being an ex army brat. You move
(01:48):
m brat, you never an X army brat. But someone
told me that too, and I am going to own that.
I'm not going to say X anymore. But it just
I mean, I had a great childhood and I am
so grateful and it couldn't have gone that way in
the sense that, you know, we moved around, you know,
a lot, but I learned a lot about myself. I'm
so grateful I had my twin with me. We moved,
(02:11):
you know, to different schools. It taught me how to adapt,
It taught me discipline, It taught me how to be sociable,
and I'm grateful for that. And my house was always warm.
It always it was a loving place, and I'm so
grateful for that. So when I smell laundry, that is
what I think of. The other is baker's does in
(02:34):
the show that I did with Bill Yasis, who is
another amazing human being. I used to work with Bill.
Uh sir, Yes, it may wear the same same sort
of age bracket. And nice you working in New York
many years before we moved to Washington. What a delightful
man like is? My smile is infectious. He's always like
we laugh all the time, and we would talk like
(02:55):
we would start judging and talking about life before the
cameras would roll that they actually had to separate us.
That's how much we we just we got along. But
the reason why Bill I bring up Bill Yassis is
the baking show. I've always loved to bake. So the
other smell is chocolate chip cookies. When I smell chocolate
chip cookies, I feel like I'm just I feel like
(03:20):
I'm in heaven. I'm so I just get so happy
and I just think of again, warmth and love. My
mom used to always bake you know, the yellow cake
that you would get in the store and chocolate chip
cookies when we would come home from school. Whenever I
see that, like, because I grew up in the eighties,
(03:40):
that cake, it was the cake stand. They had to
like the plastic cover over it, and after a while,
you're like, oh, it's getting really dirty, you know, and
you can't see through it after a while. Right, I
would be so happy to see that again. I always
felt loved and it felt safe, and I realized how
blessed I am to be able to say that, you know,
(04:02):
growing up that I wanted to do that for my kids,
you know, when they come home. And so that's how
I actually got into baking. I saw my mom bake,
but then I wanted to learn how to do it
like from scratch, yeah, freestyle, freestyle, yes, and uh, you
know doing that show with Bill, I gained about ten pounds,
(04:23):
but I said I will gain another ten pounds because
I was the judge that wasn't like this is really good.
I was like, I did that. This is my twelfth
year of Chopped. I'm gonna be honest with you. The
first now, the first year, I gained about five or
seven pounds and then I started eating all my food chopsticks,
and I get so much shit about it. And I
(04:45):
started doing that because I could take one little bite,
one little bite and push it away. But otherwise you're
hungry and you just eat. And then twelve plates of
food later, four days in a row, you're like, uh,
you know, you're like, oh my god, it's all awful,
uniform at least in baking. This sugar and it's frusting.
It's good. It's gonna be good, right, something's gonna be good. Yeah,
(05:07):
a little milk. If it's not good, a little milk,
and you're you're happy. But I so know what you're
talking about. It's so, you know, you tell said two
things you said baking, and then I hear it when
you walk in the door. The dryers on because your
mom is doing laundry. The dryer has been going all day,
and that smell of the evacuation of that air. It
doesn't always get up, it comes out the front and
(05:29):
you know, the dryers going, and that means to me
that it sounds like structure. Gotta cook, gotta clean, gotta cook,
gotta clean. And then your Army Bratton everyone, your mom
and dad were in the army, so like, hello, this
is what you do and you do it every day
and you're like thankful. I always think that happiness is
(05:51):
being useful, Like happiness is like very fleeting. I mean,
I don't know what it is, but like if you're
useful and you do stuff, you feel good. That is
very true. But wow, I never saw that the way
you just explained it. And you're absolutely right. You know,
my parents we are very disciplined, and I think that's
the reason why the Maury's you know, meaning Tia, Taj
(06:15):
and now my brother Tavier, we're all successful in our
own ways, and it's because of our work ethic, it's
because of that structure. It's because of that discipline. We
all could have veered left right, you know, north south
east west, but we had that structure in our life.
And you're totally right. We knew as children growing up.
(06:38):
We knew that when we came home we were gonna
have dinner, we were gonna have clean clothes, and we
would have to be the one to fold them and
put them up. But again, it taught us responsibility, routine,
and having kids of my own, that is what I've learned.
Kids actually need discipline, and it's a form, it's a
(06:59):
form of love, and it teaches them Okay, if I
do this, if I do this, if I do this,
there's a result that comes after it. If you teach
them responsibility, they naturally gain that self confidence like, oh
I achieved this. I did this and come to the
point where my son who's eight, was like, hey, Mom,
we don't have behavioral charts anymore? Can you make one?
I was like, because it gave him something to look
(07:23):
forward to and he knew that he would get, you know,
a reward. But yeah, so that's awesome that that you
said structure. I never saw it that way, but Jesus,
that's it's everything. I mean, I know you grew up
in a Christian household soul that I and and I
think that the sense of I would say empathy, yes,
(07:43):
is something that is so hard to get across to
your kids because you gotta have that sense of empathy
and it takes nothing away from me, actually adds to
you because it actually makes you feel great. That's what
That's what I learned in my Christianity. I'm um Catholic,
and I if I take anything from that, because you
can take what you want from it. You know, you
(08:04):
can be as as devoted or have devoted. But if
you take this sense of empathy, especially as a child,
discipline and empathy equals responsibility, and they cherish it, meaning
they're gonna like when they're eighteen and they are college, like,
what am I going to think of? Well, this is
what my mom taught me. Now I get it. I
(08:25):
will tell you this what I learned about empathy. I
am naturally, I am an EmPATH, and I had to
learn boundaries. And this is the big one that I
want to teach my children because I don't want them to.
I mean, listen, we can only do so much. We
can guide them. They're going to go through, you know,
certain things that we may not want them to go through.
As long as they learn from it and grow, I'll
(08:48):
be fine. And as long as I'm right there to
kind of like support and help them through it. But
I learned a big one for people who have empathy,
which we need in this world too. I think, you know,
help change the world. Uh, in a positive way. You
have to love though with wisdom. You love without wisdom
(09:11):
actually equals ignorance. Wisdom without love is ignorance. So You
could be the wisest person in the world, but if
you don't have love, what is that. You can have
so much love for someone, but if you don't have
wisdom about it, You're constantly gonna get hurt. You're constantly
gonna be get stepped upon. And it took me forty
(09:33):
I'm forty three. Thank you Jesus. I made it in
my authorities and I and I and I love it.
I love my forties now more than than ever. But
I learned the hard way. You have to love with wisdom.
And that is what I'm going to teach my my kids.
Love someone, definitely love love someone, have empathy, be there
(09:53):
for someone, but also be wise and watch as well
as pray. Be be aware of of your surroundings so
that your love Because they say too. We learned this
in psychology. I'm a psych major UH from Pepperdine University.
Loved um that sometimes your strength can be your weakness, right,
My biggest strength is being an impact. Yes, loving people,
(10:17):
wanting to fix them, wanting to be there for them.
But it also became a weakness in my life because
I would let random people in my life take advantage
of that. And and and that is where I feel
it took me a while to learn in our second course,
I had to dig deeper into that connection to mirror
(10:37):
makes between love and wisdom. She and her husband Adam,
will celebrate seventeen years of marriage next January. It all
started with a mutual connection to Pepperdine University. I am
so grateful for my collegiate career. I will tell you this.
Pepperdine they do not play like it is a hard school,
like you have to work hard, though I was working
(10:58):
so hard. I remember coming back and visiting and and
and looking at the library going, oh my gosh. I
took all of this for granted, like I because I
was like in my books, you know, because I wanted
to pass. I'm an overachiever. I don't know if you've
realized that yet, but it is absolutely beautiful. I'm still
(11:19):
friends with my professors. They are that's how you met
your husband. Yes, my my economics professor introduced my husband
and I because my husband played on the Pepper nine
baseball team and he befriended the same professor. So my
professor loves sports, and that's how he met Adam. I
(11:42):
was one of his favorite students. In economics. I don't
know why, I just get it, but I I got
economics sture structured. There you go. Years went on. My
husband stayed friends with him. I stayed friends with him,
and he was like, you know, Tamara, there's a guy
who came in my office looking at your photo and
(12:04):
he wants to meet you. And that's how it happened. Yeah,
my husband and I have been married. I've been together
for sixteen years, been married for ten. And I will say,
you know, marriage is not easy, it's not perfect. But
I absolutely chose right. And I love that man more
(12:25):
than I did when I first married him. I know,
and I always say this, I still like him. I
like him as a human being. He is a good dude.
He is like my number one fan, my number one cheerleader.
And the thing about marriage, the way I see it,
is we're supposed to help each other grow, right, So
(12:48):
I inspire him to be a better person. He inspires
me to be a better person. Like I said, it
doesn't mean that we've had years where we were like, uh,
we're gonna say, marry what is this? It is what
it is. That's that's marriage. But you know, in psychology,
you change every seven years, and you just pray that
(13:09):
you grow together and not you know, grow apart. Marriage
is a risk, and uh, I'm just grateful at this
moment in time. He is the love of my life. Yeah,
And I would have never thought in a million years
I would marry a news reporter who's seven years older
(13:30):
than I am. And he wasn't even my type. That's
what's funny. He wasn't even my type. I was like, Oh,
we're gonna be friends, We'll be friends forever, and then boom,
rag is really a friendship forever. First. I mean, it's
so true what you said, you gotta you gotta stay
in like to stay in love. So true, so true.
(13:50):
And I think sometimes people they missed the boat on
on that one. And it's again like he's changed throughout
the years. I've changed throughout the years, and you kind
of like allow each other grace, you know, and then
you you try to find that balance. But you know,
I'm a woman of faith, and you know that has
(14:11):
always been like my focus in my career and in
in my personal life. And I believe that that that
has helped as well. Yeah, I really, I really, I'm
a strong believer in having this. You know, the family
unit is such a fantastic way to build just about
anything you want to build in life. You have it
right there with you. It don't screw it up, And
(14:33):
to not screw it up is sometimes it's very tempting
to screw it up because you bring your own You
don't have to repeat the mistakes your parents made. And
my parents made big mistakes, but they didn't know any
They didn't know that was their toolbox. You don't have
to use their toolbox. That is a very big when
I've learned that as a parent, I'm like, okay, I
just want to like start yelling at you, but not
(14:56):
going to I am going to pull you aside and
not be rate you in front of everybody. Let's let's
have a conversation about this particular behavior that you I
just witnessed and like, okay, okay. And then when it's done,
I surprised myself that I actually did it and it
felt completely foreign. But I didn't have an embarrassed child,
(15:19):
and I think he got the lesson. But I think
that they they listen right, they listen, They like they
look away, they look away, but you know, they listen right,
and they don't look away when the food's on the table.
By the way, they come right to the table. So
I want to go to a food question because I
know you are you come from structure Christianity, love, and
(15:41):
you must love going around a table and feeding people,
because that's just like, that's like, that's the next block
of of love is food. So what are you doing
with the kids feeding them? How do you take care
of their their table manners and all that. Since you're
doing a show called table Wars, this must come in
very handy. Yes, well, this is my thing. The first
(16:05):
the first thing my husband and I wanted to do
you talk of structure, is I wanted to bring the
family back to the table. You know, with our little
gadgets technology. You have the iPhones, you have the iPad,
the worst. And yes, as a parent, have I been
tempted to say this is a great babysitter. Absolutely? Have
(16:28):
I justified it with well, at least they're watching an
educational you know show. Yes, I though, at the same time,
I'm a true believer of balance. And so our rule
is at the dinner time table, at breakfast or whatever,
please let's not have your phones. I want everyone to
(16:52):
sit and look at each other and actually talk about
how your day was. If we're eating breakfast, it's how
we're going to start our day. We're gonna make some affirmations.
We're gonna be great listeners today, We're gonna be kind,
you know. So that that is my table etiquette. I
am teaching my kids. I mean, it's it was kind
(17:13):
of hard with Aiden as he got older. I realized
he has a texture issue with food. And how we're
combating that is he's actually cooking my such because of
the pandemic, you know, everyone was together, you know, for
for a long time. An our way of getting together
(17:34):
and loving on each other was cooking. And my son
saw his dad do it. My husband is such an
amazing cook. I think he was a chef and his
path life or something. You know, he sees his dad,
he sees his mom. But he wants to do as
we do, and so he started learning. And my son, actually,
at eight years old, can cook breakfast, his own breakfast,
(17:56):
his own lunch, and his own dinner. A wonderful thing.
French toast is his favorite. He can. He likes to
put you know, he likes to cook the bacon, he
cooks the bacon himself like, and I'm like, oh my lord,
I don't want him to get pop. It's gonna happen.
It's gonna happen. It's probably gonna happen once. And he
needs to see how that feels. It did, and now
you know, he's fine. For lunch, he loves this is
(18:17):
what this child does. He gets turkey Deli, turkey and uh.
For dinner, he actually makes his own steak. He gets
rosemary out of the yard, gets garlic, and girls, it's
with some butter. Wow. That's like he's on his own.
He's on his way. That's really good. He's independent. It
(18:38):
sounds like they're all very independent. And you know, I
don't have to tell straight to see that where that
came from. For our third course, I wanted to ask
(18:59):
Tamara about her two new cooking competition shows, an exciting
shift from acting and hosting talk shows. She says all
that experience listening and empathizing on set helped prepare her
for this latest chapter. I'm so grateful for the real
because it did train me to, you know, be a
great listener. It's just who I innately am. I love
(19:21):
people and I love listening to understand I don't like
listening to Judge and with table Wars, I I loved
seeing the contestants like truly think of an idea and
map it out, put it together, and then you see
the final products. You see the final result, and you
(19:43):
can see how some struggled with, you know, executing that.
That's a skill in itself, by having an idea and
actually executing it exactly how you wanted it to be,
even if you had to pivot right, which most of
them had to do every single challenge. And then also
it's all about again what I've learned in being an
(20:04):
army Bread, It's all about you're running a marathon. You know,
it's it's not a sprint, so you have to make
sure that you keep your momentum going. You don't want
to burn out, you know. You see people just start
off so hard that they burn out towards the end
when you're like damn, like you were killing it. It
was so interesting on all, you know levels, I was
(20:26):
learning at the same time as judging, but also you
you get to know these these contestants. Yeah, what I
I also say that, especially on Chopped, it's the same
thing is that when you're judging someone you're actually responsible
for their feelings, and it's it's kind of weird. You've
got to judge them fairly, but you've got to be
honest with them because they were lying on you. To
(20:48):
be honest. They're actually they're actually in this. They're nervous,
they're throwing up backstage, they're like shaking, they don't realize
it's happening, and they really want to do the right thing.
And so you you feel very responsible for them. And
so when you give them feedback, then they feel good
about the feedback. They get better, their level of confidence
(21:10):
goes up, their nervousness goes down, doesn't all go away,
but they can perform in a much higher letter. You
get a better result. You get a better result. And
it's not from banging him on the head. It's I'm saying,
you know what this is. You're onto something here. You
gotta clean up aisle four, but this aisle is really
where you want to live. Make your life around this,
(21:31):
and you're gonna have some success in the future. If
they hear that, like, okay, I've been validated, and validation
and not those kind of shows is very important and
they couldn't have picked a better people about. I mean,
your validation skills are remarkable because you it's well you
you've been validating things your whole life in a real
way that is based on all the structure, and you
(21:52):
understand results, and so that brings what does it bring?
It brings wisdom and intelligence. And so that's why this
is such a different show for you. And I'm so
excited to see it. I don't when is that if
you the season shot already, So we shot the entire
season and it's gonna air this fall. How many episodes? Six?
(22:15):
We did six? What's interesting because when I was shooting,
I thought we did eight. Well, if you get a pilot,
you only did. Yeah, we only did. But it is
I will tell you this, out of all the shows
that I've done, it is the most visually stunning show.
(22:36):
It is the shots everything, I mean, the fashion between
Martha me, well, it's like it's like a candy that
bedforge of candy land up her house and that I mean,
you have so much b roll there, it's insane. It
was it was like I said, I cannot wait, Like
(22:57):
I just want the world to see this so that
we can go and do it again. That's how much
fun I had, and it did not. I will tell
you this every single time. And this is the ultimate
goal we want for our lives. Right. You wake up
with excitement, You're like, I get to go to work today.
Like that is how I felt every single day. It
(23:18):
was so and Martha, Chris and I we laughed so
hard every single day. I happen to have a very
great relationship with both Martha, she's judged a lot with
me on Chopped. I. Oh, she's a very good friend
of myself and my wife's. We've been her guest at
(23:39):
her house many times and it's epic. And she's one
of the few remaining divas, right, and I mean in
a very good way. Because if you don't know this
about Martha, I have spent enough time with hers. There's
very few people in my life as a chef of
forty years that intimidate me. She's one of them. Because
(24:02):
her knowledge of everything. I don't mean food, I mean flowers, baking, gardening, trees, birds, animals,
seed history, you know, magazine, technology, writing, comprehension, TV production.
I mean, it's like I can't even begin she said, Oh,
(24:23):
I said, I hear you writing a book. I said, yeah,
you know, my daughters and we wrote a book. It
was great, and I said, which was which one? I
you know how many you have? I was my third
one and said, oh, I'm writing my ninety one. Thanks. Thanks.
I really felt good. I you are definitely I know
you are a true friend of Martha's because you literally explained.
(24:44):
You explained her perfectly. There's a running joke that when
we did the show, I wanted to make sure that
the prompter I could see it. She could see it
with no glasses on. By the way, her them re
and her eyesight better than mine. Yes, she I was like,
(25:07):
how the hell is this? How is this possible? And yes,
she would explain. I always said this to the contestants
on the show. You better know your stuff. You better
not be pretending, because Martha knows everything and she will
see everything. Her attention to detail is amazing because that
(25:30):
you see is what you get. And she actually I
don't know if this compliment meant anything because she's Martha,
but I said, you are one of the few. Whereas
now I feel like people are building brands that are
kind of fake. You know, it's all on Instagram so
they can create whatever they want. I said, what you
(25:50):
see is what you get with you, Like you literally
know your stuff. You know how to cook, you know
how to make an amazing drink. And let's not forget
her ashen she's the real deal. I did a couple
of demos with her and I was like rolling something
out next to her, and she's rolling out she said,
are you doing it wrong? Stop? Let me show you
just like that, Like I was like in the audience
(26:12):
is like laughing hysterically, but she has no, there's no
let me just say that gently button. No, it's like
that's wrong. Let me show you what are you doing?
And it's so refreshing for me to get corrected by
her because it wasn't. She wasn't trying to embarrass me,
and she's just saying, no, this isn't. You're not doing
it right, let me show you. I think that's why
we really got along. It's because, I mean, you know,
(26:35):
I come from a place my mother has been always
just one hundred, Like she was the one where if
you didn't want to hear the truth, you ask her
for advice, you don't ask her. So it's beautiful, that's beautiful, right.
But I think that's the reason why we got along initially.
It's because real Se is real like I. I recognized.
(26:57):
I recognized that in her, and she recognized at in me.
I mean there were times where the director would tell
us where to move and I was talking, you know,
to Chris, and I wasn't paying attention, so that when
they said action, I would move into the spot. Martha
literally she would like, move girl, You're not in the
You're not in the right spot. It's like, you know what, Martha,
(27:21):
you are right. But yeah, I love Martha. I love
doing this show. She said. It feels like I have
known you forever, and that is exactly what what it
felt like. The chemistry was just beautiful and she was fun.
She was fun. For our fourth and final course, I
(27:53):
got to speak with Tamara about wine. She and her
husband own a winery and Napa Valley, which the San
Francisco Chronicle called Napa's liveliest tasting room in two thousand nineteen.
While Adams from a winemaking family, it's a brand new
adventure for Tamara, complete with its own excitement, challenges, and
life's lessons. Tell me about Housley Vineyards. I know you
(28:13):
have a winery yes, we do. I can't believe I'm
even saying that. And people are always like, well, why
to marry you? You married into you know, the Housley family.
It's just that going into it, I was just like,
they have amazing wine. I freaking love it. I was
grateful just for that. I never thought my husband and
(28:34):
I would be owning it. So it's called Century Oak Winery.
It's actually located in Lodi, and I had been visiting
ever since I, you know, met Adam. I would actually
be a part of the harvest. I love wine, you know,
I wanted to learn about it. I actually helped bottle
but it's not until now, well two years ago, that
(28:57):
I actually got involved and we opened up a tasting
room in downtown Napa because I thought, you know, when
people think of wine, you know, new wine drinkers, they
automatically assumed like Italy and Nappa. Right, It's like, oh,
there's wine in Italy. Oh there's wine and Nappa. There's
that place, yeah, Nappa that people have, you know, lots
(29:20):
of wine. So I was like Adam, so many people
now know that we have wine, and you know, they
visit Nappa, but there's nowhere to actually taste our wine.
I think we should actually open up a tasting room
in downtown Napa, and that is exactly what we did.
It's been around for two years, but a Central Oak
Winery has been around for twenty years. Art and Judy
(29:43):
have been growing grapes for forty four so they definitely
know their stuff. So once my father in law said, hey,
we he was actually gonna sell it, and Adam and
I were like, no, we want to get out of
l A. This would be a great way of doing it.
My husband wanted to get out of news. We were like,
we'll handle it, We'll take it over. And I have
(30:04):
to say, it has been so much fun just learning
the you know, the process. It is a lot of
work the business side. You know. I am learning, But
my husband he was born into it, so it comes
to him just like brushing his teeth every day. It is.
It is something so so easy. Um. But the tasting
room is called Howsley Napa Valley. We didn't set out
(30:27):
for it to be the most popular tasting room in Napa.
We didn't set out for it to be the most
inclusive tasting room in in Napa. We just set out
to have a tasting room that we are passionate about
and that we love. And we are the type of
people where we love everybody. We really do. We genuinely
love people. We love wine, and we wanted to welcome
(30:49):
all to experience, you know, tasting it. I wanted when
people visited the tasting room for it to be an experience.
I wanted them to feel comfortable, which is the reason
why I designed it as when you walk into the
right it feels like a living room. I love interior design,
so I incorporated that, you know, within it. I wanted booths.
(31:10):
I wanted people to stay awhile and that is exactly
what you know Hasley Nappa has become. And to have
people come from Oakland who have lived in Oakland for
years and say, I've never come to Napa because I
just felt like I wouldn't feel welcomed. That means the
world to me. People who you know, have never tried
(31:33):
wine this way or felt like maybe it was going
to be too expensive, can really enjoy, you know, an
amazing glass of you know wine. And we have so
many different varietals which I love. So we're not just
specifically focusing on like cab a lot while our winemaker
is a woman. So I believe in you know, women empowerment.
(31:53):
And as you know, working in food, there aren't a
lot of women winemakers. No they're not. And it's such
a fantastic Mattia. It's but you know, you have to
be a certain type of human to understand the trials
and tribulations of winemaking, because every year isn't good, every
harvest isn't good. You totally dependent on God and the weather.
(32:15):
You're sitting around and waiting. It's kind of a beautiful
thing and I think it teaches you gratitude. People don't
understand farming is so difficult. I'm learning that aspect of it.
I will so difficult, and I don't care who you are.
You like, give someone an acrea okay, you can have
everything you grow and you gotta eat off of the land,
(32:35):
and they're like, I don't want it because it's just
you need. You need to wait, you need patients, gratitude, structure,
all that stuff you learn. So it sounds like to me,
this is all right up your alley, Like you know
you're made, You're made for winery and entertaining and and
all this stuff has come full circle and now you
seem to be glowing and just in a very good place.
(32:56):
I am. And and you know, when when people see
the glow or they you know, they see the happiness,
they do think, oh my god, she must have an easy,
perfect life. But again we're going back to structure. The
thing is is I had to work hard to where
I am right now. And what I mean by working
hard is not not only just like you know, physically
(33:16):
doing the work. I had to mentally do the work,
you know, dealing with haters that can find you, you know,
on on Instagram, dealing with you know, backstabbers, being betrayed,
and you know, a business. I had to go through
all those life lessons to be where I am today.
(33:38):
And I'm a true believer of wherever there is life,
there is hope. So whatever you have gone through and
may have knocked you down, but don't stay down. I
don't care how hard it is. You know, there have
been times where I felt like I was like digging
myself out of a hole mentally, because again, like I said,
I loved, I loved, but I did not love with
(34:01):
wisdom sometimes and I got hurt, and that's kind of
like the worst feeling when you when you've been betrayed,
loving and trying to help. But also in the business.
I was on a show where I would speak of
unity and love and not everybody wants to hear that,
and okay, I can respect that, but that's my mission.
(34:21):
That's my ministry. And you know, some people may their
ministry is no, we've got a fight, But my way
of fighting is with love, and that wasn't always received
being in an interracial marriage like that still to this day,
surprisingly is not always received. Dealing with the Internet taking
(34:42):
stories and turning it around and attacking your character when
my character means everything to me, people trying to, you know,
take you down. That was hard getting out of that.
But I am in a good place now because I
did the work. Nothing worth anything is too easy. I
(35:03):
agree with you, and you seem very much that you're
You're very useful and you take care of a lot
of people, and you're used and to be useful to others.
It sounds crazy, but it's the most it's the happiest place.
When I can be of use to someone and help them,
I'm like, oh, that's very gratifying, and I don't and
it's it's note about money or this, so that it's
(35:23):
it's in five minutes, it's you're thinking about how gracious
you feel, and the reason why I feel gracious. It's
that gracious gratitude and being useful that I think a
lot of parents may skip. And I think it's one
of the most important lessons that we can give our
kids because we're so imperfect. And once they do that,
they find their own lane. And that's all you can
(35:45):
really do because otherwise you were a helicopter mom or dad,
and you don't want to be that. We don't. We
don't want to be that. But I always say gratitude
is the precursor to happiness. You were talking about happiness
and that when I discover heard that the gift of gratitude,
staying in gratitude even when you are going through your
(36:06):
life lessons, that gets you to the other side. And
I also learned life doesn't happen to me, it happens
for me. So when these things are are happening, good
and bad, what is the lesson here? What are we
being taught so that I can grow? But most importantly,
what can I teach? You? Know? I always say to
(36:28):
what I'm going through is not just for me, It's
not just for myself. It's so that we can, you know,
help our brother, our sister, our friends, our children when
they go through it, and we can speak of our experience.
And you also talk about being imperfect. Right, I actually
got closer to my parents when I realized that they
(36:49):
are imperfect. You know, I used to be so frustrated
that I used to say, you guys are so strict.
You guys are so strict. We look sometimes growing up
as our parents knowing it all. The reality is they
did neither. So thinking that way, you have grace. You
have grace towards your parents, and you have grace with
your with yourself in the process of of parenting. And
(37:14):
there you know your parents they always want you to
do better than they did, and so they don't want
you to make the same mistakes. Right, we are imperfect.
We make mistakes, and so did our parents, and we
always want to learn from that and do better. We
have to, And that's the way. That's the way that
I think we bring joy to our family. That stuff happens,
(37:38):
you know, when you're sitting around the table. I tell
my kids, you're lucky to be sitting around at the
same table, and you have to feel lucky and feel
gratitude at that time because you're going to be doing
this in fifteen or twenty years and you're gonna pull
from all this and hopefully you get a few few
points from your parents, just a few, just a few, right.
(38:01):
I really have enjoyed this sort of free, willing conversation.
I think we touched about everything on everything, and I
love your attitude and I'm so happy for your shows,
and you seem like so together and so you know,
you have a real good spirit and you you put
that out there and I appreciate it and I feel
it right away that I saw you and your smile
(38:24):
and my this person, this person has gratitude. And so
I'm gonna end with that. I do. I don't have
everything together, but my thing is is I do live
life with gratitude and empathy and I'm learning along all
the way and I love people. And this has been
fan fantastic. Thanks very much for listening to Four Courses
(38:49):
with Jefferys Zcarrion, a production of I Heart Radio and
Corner Table Entertainment. Four Courses is created by Jeffers Zcarrion,
Margaret Zacarrion, Jared Kelly, and Tara Helper. Our executive producer
is Christopher Hesiotis. Four Courses is produced by Jonathan Haws Dressler.
Our research is conducted by Jescelyn Shields. Our talent booking
(39:10):
is by Pamela Bauer at Dogtown Talent. This episode was
edited and written by Priya Mahadevan and mixed by Joe Tisdall.
Special thanks to Katie Fellmon and Tamara Mauri Housley for
help as recording engineers. 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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