Happiness hack: Approach life like an Italian chef | Debi Mazar & Gabriele Corcos | Big Think

Hello everyone, and thank you for joining us on Big Think Live. I'm Jason Olson, one of the editors at Big Think. Today, we have another dynamic duo for you this week, a very flavorful presence of the award-winning chef and author Gabriella Cucinelli and iconic film star Debi Mazar, also a masterful chef in her own right.

Today's topic is life, love, and Italian cooking. You may have seen Gabriella and Debi on their series "Extra Virgin" on The Cooking Channel, and they're also doing their own live streaming lessons on Instagram. I highly recommend these. Gabriella is a Ducati rider and a musician; he was the creator and producer of "Extra Virgin," a New York Times bestselling author, along with Debi, and a James Beard Award recipient.

After studying medicine and enlisting in the Italian Army, Gabriella took dance, making financial and motorcycle sacrifices to study music in Brazil. His love for the drums later led him to travel extensively through Cuba, Europe, and many other places. In 2001, while in Florence, he met Debi. This relationship led him to Los Angeles. It was while living in the U.S., in Los Angeles, where his sort of cooking skills kind of animated or came to the surface. He was sort of a stay-at-home dad while Debi would be doing series and filming, and that’s what made him the Tuscan chef we have today.

Debi Mazar is an American actor and television personality, known for playing assertive, stylish, and sharp-tongued women. She began her career as a hip-hop B-girl in New York City. Her first television appearance was on the pilot for a hip-hop television show "Graffiti Rock" in 1984. Debi later went on to perform in several of Madonna's music videos. She has played in a number of supporting roles in films like "Goodfellas," "The Doors," "Little Man Tate," "Singles," "Bullets Over Broadway," and, of course, "Batman Forever."

She has starred in several TV series including "Civil Wars," "LA Law," "Friends," "Entourage," "Younger," and "Power." In 2018, she played Ava Gardner in a Spanish series called "Our de Madrid," which is now available in the States through MHz Choice streaming service. If you're new to Big Think Live, today's webinar will last for about 30-40 minutes, and we'll start with our discussion with Debi and Gabriella first, followed by the Q&A. Anyone watching can put in questions at any time, and we will get them here.

Thank you for joining us! How are you?

Let's talk about how food and cooking came into your lives individually, because I think those stories are so interesting and distinct for both of you.

Debi: Okay, so for me, I had a mother who had me at 15. We lived with my grandmother in Queens, New York, and my mother couldn't cook. I would go to Jamaica Avenue with my grandmother with the shopping cart. We would go to the butcher, the baker, and come home with stuff. I would sit on a little stool next to the sink and watch my grandma cook.

My house always smelled great. When we moved out of my grandma's house, my mother still didn't have a cook, so I learned a few things from my grandma. But basically, I ended up eating like Swanson's TV dinners, you know, things that a teen mom would cook for her kids. I was given that. We still lived in New York City, and she had a colorful array of friends.

So, in my small project building in Queens, I was surrounded by Chinese, Italian, Puerto Rican, Cuban, and African American cultures. I had an array of smells through my building and friends. I would go to their homes, and they would tell a story or the grandmother or the mother or whatever. I was just really attracted to the different smells, appreciating the different cultures and cuisines in my building.

When I finally moved out on my own, I really liked to entertain. I'm a Leo; my birthday's in August, and I've always liked to have people come to dinner and socialize over a meal. I started traveling as soon as I could over to Italy, Spain, wherever. I just have a love for cooking. That said, he's a better cook; he's a chef. I am not. I'm just a person who likes to cook.

I follow recipes out of cookbooks. I buy gadgets like the Insta Pot; I like to have fun with food, and I like to eat cuisines from different countries. So, he's got like the Tuscan Italian thing covered, and also Mexican, which he learned how to do really well when he was in Los Angeles. But, you know, my love affair with food really kind of came to a head when I met him because he taught me the simplicity of simple ingredients, preparing things fresh with much more simplicity than 3000 ingredients.

Gabriella: I became a chef just because of her; I never consider myself a chef. I grew up in Florence, on a farm, and food ingredients were just part of life. So, I never grew out thinking that this one day could be my career. That's just what you do to love your family, to take care of the people around you, to celebrate, to have parties.

I cook because everybody cooked. My grandmother cooked, my father, my mother taught me on fire, my grandmother taught me how to bake, and my mother taught me how to feed my brother, who was younger than me. You know, funny enough, I've never been a great student. I am always, you know, drawn by curiosity, and that kind of propels my knowledge. So, in school, I really never did that well.

My father used to mock me. He's like, "You need to stop studying and go to cook somewhere," because I always loved it. I always cooked for my family. But I felt that, because he was a big professor and a surgeon, he was kind of making fun of a blue-collar adventurer that could have been if I decided to become a cook. So, I wanted to prove him wrong, and that is actually why I enrolled in Medical School.

Then eventually, I fled to meet her, and once I arrived in LA, I had a wife to feed and a first child to feed and my own house with my family. That really turned into just our existence, you know, being together, cooking, and involving the family environment. It was actually her that pushed me to kind of step it up a little bit and put me in front of a camera one day. That little camera that was given to us for our wedding, it all started from there. But I owe it to this muse. The fact that when I'm by myself, if I am by myself, I don't cook.

Debi: He's lying!

Gabriella: Yes, yes, when I am by myself, I don't cook!

Debi: I mean, what was it like when the relationship developed, and you were sort of cooking for each other? Because that's not always like an easy... I mean, I cook. I'm like Debbie; I'm not a professional chef, but I like to cook and do recipes and stuff. But sometimes, sharing the kitchen with someone, you know, you can get territorial. How did that happen?

Gabriella: Nothing really happened. I mean, the truth of the matter is that the kitchen is the one place in my home, in my family's home, and in the way that I grew up, where it's always been sort of the heart of the home. I've always been a flea-market shopper and a gadget person. I love to buy different tools, whether they're vintage or modern utensils.

I mean, I have these wonderful little glass boxes from the 50s where we could store food. We just have fun; we put some music on. There's always music in the kitchen. We always crack open, like you know, a nice glass of wine together, get a little buzz. I have to say, she is, aside from a couple of my really good friends from high school, the only person that I can share my kitchen counter with without getting mad.

When people come over and offer to help, I'm like, "No, you're guests. Don't touch anything. Just here, here's a drink, don't worry, I'll take care of it."

Debi: It’s also a good excuse, especially when you're in a happy relationship, to be close to each other and sort of mingle and improvise on each other and just be happy.

Gabriella: So that's kind of the spirit we have in the kitchen. And obviously, we do have regular dates like everybody else where, you know, it's work, school, homework, and listen.

But our kitchen is always like...

Debi: A dog between our feet.

Gabriella: Yes, always 120 pounds of dog trying to hide under my feet.

It's a delightful mess, and it's been kind of crazy in New York because of all the fireworks and everything.

Debi: Yeah, we've always kept the kids engaged. For years, we had a box of crayons and paper for doodling just so it became a family experience.

Gabriella: Like I remember coming home from location once. I was shooting something; I came home after two weeks, and I had my three-year-old standing on a kitchen chair with a Chef's knife in her hand.

Debi: Oh my God!

Gabriella: What is she doing? She could be impaled!

Debi: But I was saying, "If she can use a knife properly, she's learning how to cook!"

It's really been a great experience involving the kids in the kitchen.

Gabriella: I mean, the funny thing is that for her, it's less about acts of love and more a reaction to the fact that I cook mainly only Italian.

Debi: Yes! She wants to eat Chinese or make different things that usually wouldn’t pop in my mind.

Even her friends, they go for walks in the neighborhood and like to go out for, you know, cheap meals.

Gabriella: But you know, it's just great that both kids have an interest in other flavors, so the kitchen is very active.

It seems sort of like you both have had these different eras and existences together, both as a couple, and then you had two daughters in LA. You were working on a series, and Gabriella was sort of the stay-at-home dad and musician. Then that turned into "Extra Virgin" now, and then...

Debi: ...I find it very interesting that you decided to make the move to New York and create a whole new era for yourselves and your family.

Now, you're going to Italy in about two weeks and making...

Gabriella: Leather, open-air markets.

Debi: ...yes, I mean, for 20 years, since we met, we always fantasized about one day being in Tuscany.

We started working on the family, so it was wonderful. Every time that we went back to Italy for Christmas or summertime, we always came back home to the United States.

But I didn't want to raise my daughters in LA. LA was a great place because I got there at a time when it still had remnants of another past time. There were still older stars to tell the stories, a studio system in place, and there was no internet at that point.

Gabriella: So I felt like I got the best years while I was there.

Debi: Yes, when I started having a family, I felt like I wanted my daughters to have eyes in the back of their heads.

Gabriella: New York is a place that gives them that, so I got them through high school, but now...

Debi: ...we feel a little bit like gypsies, really. I like to reinvent myself every decade and go on new journeys. I want to get to Italy and be like, "Oh wow, let me go to this place and do that."

Gabriella: Let me start creating some different type of art or, you know, inventing something.

Debi: We planned all this before the global pandemic; we had a lot in place.

Gabriella: Now, with everything shutting down, we are getting nervous.

Debi: ...because we don't know if the kids will be doing online schooling or what will happen in the airports.

I had COVID already, and so has my youngest daughter, so I feel slightly protected.

Gabriella: But we don't know enough about this virus to know how long those antibodies will last and if I could get reinfected again.

Debi: It's a very scary time here in the United States with this virus. But I'm just trying to have faith in love and the fact that we are searching for greener pastures.

This is going to be our green acres moment!

Gabriella: I wanted to ask you about COVID. What was the most revealing or surprising part of that experience for you?

Debi: I mean, I'm sure all of it was unexpected, but was there anything that was really sort of eye-opening?

Gabriella: For me, it was the smallness of how vulnerable we are as a human race. I got every symptom except I didn’t get COVID toes; that's the only thing I didn't get.

I got every side effect and symptom. My lungs felt like someone was invading them by like day five.

Debi: The incredible pain, shortness of breath, weakness... eventually I cooked a chicken.

Gabriella: But I couldn’t taste anything; it ended up being like vegetable broth and simple foods because I just couldn't taste.

It just made me feel very small, very vulnerable. It took about a good 40 days, twenty of them being really sick and another twenty shedding the virus.

It taught me that I wouldn't want anybody else to get it. I'm stunned at the amount of ignorance in people who don’t want to wear a mask or take precautions.

Debi: Right now, you can go back to your life eventually, but let’s wait for the vaccine before infecting people.

I think the protests after George Floyd's death were very important. Young people have to speak their truth; it's their future.

As a parent, it was scary when my daughter was calling out, but thankfully she had antibody cells.

Gabriella: The other one wasn't as active with that, but it was just scary because we still don’t know what that’s going to be.

Now I think you just have to believe in your family and love, trying to stay busy and creative as much as possible.

Debi: Yeah, to be cooped up for five months has made me majorly eccentric.

Gabriella: My hair is going gray; I've had to embrace it because no... I'm not having my colorist come over!

Debi: We haven't killed each other yet. It’s been interesting playing cook and nurse, finally getting to the point where we try to rejoin the planning.

We’ve been working for a year now to try to figure it all out. I hope we can have a decent life.

I'm not worried about engagement; I just feel like you can live anywhere. You can disconnect.

Gabriella: Oh my God, the ultimate New Yorker!

Debi: I've always gone; I've always left, and I think these common experiences prove that we can be productive and part of our community even without this big swan song ending.

Gabriella: It’s just the next chapter.

I think it's really important to share the fact that in life, there are certain moments when it’s nice to grab the bull by the horns and make a choice to change your life if it fits.

We’re both very similar in the sense that we don’t like to have regrets.

Debi: If there's something that you can do for yourself or others, it helps you grow.

Gabriella: It also helps the relationship because we're always pushing ourselves to do things.

Debi: And it is a different lifestyle in New York—so different!

Gabriella: Yes, I'm not going to waste any time!

Debi: You know, I've always been the ultimate New Yorker—I don't mind telling anyone!

When I moved my children back here, I was kind of excited to bring them up in New York City.

And the city had changed; it got very expensive—we can talk about that!

But the rawness of New York City got taken away.

Gabriella: Yes, it got cleaned up.

Debi: It probably is better for some things, but I live in a city where it is alive and electric, and I hope it will return to that at some point.

Gabriella: I personally enjoyed it a lot.

Debi: And I have to say, Hudson Yards is interesting, but I feel no subway really goes over here.

Gabriella: Right!

Debi: Many people love modern architecture. I happen to be one of them!

But it became too much; there are cranes everywhere and construction sites, and half the buildings are not occupied.

We have major infrastructure problems here. I mean, I come from some kind of office!

Gabriella: To totally fix it!

Debi: Yes, they didn't design the highways to take into consideration all of the rideshare or people coming in.

It's just a big mess.

Gabriella: Yes, it all needs to be fixed.

Debi: Gabriella! This is slightly off-topic, but I was curious—how are movies from the States perceived in Italy, like "The Godfather," "Serpico," or even "The Sopranos"?

Gabriella: I think that everywhere around the world, when you're growing up and you're not in America, everything from there comes with a certain aura.

As far as movies growing up for me, I remember my first movie in theaters was "The Hulk," and then "Star Wars." I grew up watching American comedies, and Eddie Murphy was one of my heroes.

I arrived in America from Florence to Hollywood, and everything shifted very fast. I was married to someone part of that world.

Over the years, many Italian actors lent their voices to American movies, which has slowly disappeared over time.

It’s impossible for me now to watch any adult movies in English or any other language without hearing that replaced voice; it loses that intensity.

Now, for the organized crime movies, there's that idea of the story being exciting.

Debi: And the reality is, for many, it's devastating for the country.

We really went into someone’s side, and a movie like "Goodfellas," I only realized the girl from the music video was you!

Gabriella: So, we should get to the questions.

Maybe, to start, could you give us three things our viewers could do this summer to add a little Tuscan flair to their hosting or meals?

Debi: We're doing a lot of outdoor social events, so with that in mind...

Gabriella: Well, something that has changed for me this week is that all of a sudden, I'm having white wine with peaches every time I have lunch.

It's a hardcore Southern Naples thing—my mother used to do it with red wine.

But I’m from Tuscany where red wine is dominant.

Debi: So, the white wine, along with peaches, is something easy you can do outside.

Gabriella: We like to set up a cute table outside with music—create a nice atmosphere.

Have fresh fruits around, light food like grilled zucchini, and fresh fruit salads.

That's the kind of fun; keep it very simple!

Debi: Yes, don't overthink it!

Gabriella: And when cooking at home, use olive oil and garlic, but start slow, not like chefs on TV.

It’s better to let those flavors build and not to use barbecue sauce before grilling.

Debi: How did you navigate the transition into a business relationship?

Gabriella: I found my husband to have a natural talent in front of the camera.

I might correct him, and we always have a good sense of humor with each other.

Debi: Yes!

When we got our TV show, I was more controlling. I was trying to protect my kids and the choices.

Gabriella: I'd say we always pick each other up, criticizing in a way to help each other grow.

Debi: And we never went to bed mad!

Gabriella: I mean, it’s a symbiosis to have both of our interests in one place, and the audience can see it.

Debi: Before we wrap up, any simple kind of Italian mantra you want to share with our viewers about the philosophy of cooking?

Gabriella: Keep it simple.

The act of feeding should never be a pressure.

It takes time, but it’s a simple act of love.

Debi: Wonderful. And hey, I’m three episodes into "Nuestra de Madrid."

It’s such a great experience learning and working in Spain; it was a way to return to acting.

Gabriella: Yes! It was a wonderful experience.

Debi: Thank you so much for taking the time out, and I know you have a big move coming up!

We appreciate your insights and your hospitality with us.

Gabriella: Nice to talk to you!

Debi: I hope to see you in Tuscany someday!

Gabriella: You'll come visit!

Debi: And wear masks, please!

Thank you, everyone, for joining us, and please tune in again on July 7th, where Sally Krawczyk will be talking about personal finance in volatile times. Bye-bye!