Peacefully Bringing 65 People to the Table with Tony Shalhoub and Josie Adams

Your Mama’s Kitchen

Tony Shalhoub and his daughter Josie Adams join Your Mama's Kitchen to discuss their family's culinary heritage, the logistics of hosting massive annual reunions in Door County, and the lessons learned

Key takeaways

Tony Shalhoub grew up in Green Bay with nine siblings, eating meals together at a massive curved banquette table while his mother cooked tirelessly without early conveniences like dishwashers or TVs.
His family's basement housed an old stove where aunties baked thin, crispy Syrian bread that drew neighborhood kids to the door.

Main topics

Childhood kitchen dynamics in Green Bay
Lebanese and Syrian culinary traditions

Notable quotes

"It's an act, it's an offering. You do it for the others."

Conclusion

The episode offers a warm, practical blueprint for sustaining large fa

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) I will confess that I have worn a cheese head once or twice in my life. I don't make a habit of it. I don't have any problem with it. But if Speaker 3 (0:10) someone passed you a cheese hat at the stadium in a moment of exuberance, you would gladly put it on your head. Speaker 1 (0:17) I would not say no. Speaker 3 (0:29) Hello, hello, and welcome back to Your Mama's Kitchen. This is the podcast where we explore how we are shaped as adults by the kitchens that we grew up in as kids. And of course, I'm talking about the food, but so much more. All the stuff that happened there. The arguments, the homework that you did at the kitchen table, the stuff that was on at the radio, the way that your mama may have canned or made jelly or made, I don't know, homemade brew, whatever it was. We want to hear about it. And today we're going to hear about it from someone who's really special. Tony Shalhoub is here. He's also going to join us with his daughter, Josie Adams, who's going to jump in the conversation a little bit later. Let me tell you a little bit about Tony before we begin. His name is recognizable because he is an Emmy, Tony, and Golden Globe winning actor. His careers have spanned film, television, and theater. I don't know if I want to say you're best known for your role in Monk because you're known for your role in Monk, but you're also known for your role in Wings, in The Marvelous Mrs. Mizell. You have appeared in dozens of acclaimed films and television projects. You were in The Band's Visit on Broadway. You were in The Heidi Chronicles on Broadway where you met your wife, Brooke Adams. I could go on and on and on and on, but I'm going to stop there so we can begin our conversation. Welcome to your mama's kitchen. Speaker 1 (1:49) Thank you. Martha's. Speaker 3 (1:50) It's vineyard edition. Yes, Speaker 1 (1:52) and I'm so happy to be here, not just because you're here on the island, but because I'm such an admirer of your work. Oh, thank Speaker 3 (1:57) you. Thank you so much. I mean, I have to tell you, we are doing the Summer Arthur's Vineyard, where we both spend time each summer. And I have seen you over the years at Allie's General Store, at the Farmer's Market, and I have had to contain myself. Oh. Because I know that you're with your family, you're doing your thing, and I didn't want to interrupt. But it was really hard for me not to, like, sneak up Speaker 2 (2:20) and say, ah! Speaker 1 (2:21) Thank you. Speaker 3 (2:23) And I also had, when my mother was still alive, I had to, like, literally, in Allie's general story, you were there one day, and I had to, like, body block her. Like, full body block. So she didn't. She was such a big Monk fan. So here at the show, we always begin by, you know, asking that very simple question. Tell me about your mama's kitchen. Your mother was Helen. Yes. Your father was Joe. That's right. You grew up in Wisconsin. Green Bay, Speaker 1 (2:48) Wisconsin. Speaker 3 (2:49) Where it's very cold. I'm from Minnesota. Yes, you know. A long winter. Long winters that start in, what, October and last until June, pretty much. Pretty much Speaker 1 (2:59) snow in June. Yeah, Speaker 3 (3:01) but take me back to Green Bay. Take me back to the street you grew up on. Take me back to the house you grew up in. And tell me about that kitchen. Speaker 1 (3:11) Right. Well, okay. So we grew up in the older part of Green Bay on the east side, old neighborhood. We lived about two and a half blocks from our school, a parochial school, and a church there across from the school. And it was a big... Actually, I thought it was big. I've been back since to look at it. It doesn't really look that big, but it seemed so big to us then. But when my family, when my parents bought this house and moved their, by now, seven children into it, they redid the kitchen because the kitchen wasn't suited to a large family. And they moved that stove down in the basement during the renovation, which, as all renovations, Speaker 1 (4:02) as happens with all renovations, took longer than it was supposed to. And so, again, this is prior to my birth, but my older siblings have told me there was a month or two where they had to eat in the basement because the kitchen was gutted and being rebuilt. And so they used this stove and they must have held the old refrigerator down there too, although when I was growing up, it was gone. Speaker 1 (4:31) Tim, shout out. Kind of a primitive table, I guess. And my mother somehow worked miracles in the Speaker 3 (4:39) basement. And Speaker 1 (4:40) I write about this in the book. Great, great, great breads were baked in that by the old aunties. Loaves of Syrian bread were baked in that oven in the Speaker 3 (4:51) basement. We're going to talk to them about that because our family had a kitchen. the basement also really and they called it the summer kitchen because when it was too hot to bake upstairs they often baked downstairs but but first tell me more about the kitchen we'll get to well Speaker 1 (5:04) it wasn't really a kitchen kitchen it was actually the room with the furnace and it had it just had this stove and then when the kitchen was upstairs was finished and new appliances were put in there they very wisely and possibly arbitrarily held on to that old stove and they in the basement. It was hooked up to gas, it wasn't really in the way, so they figured, just keep it for a backup maybe. Speaker 2 (5:31) And Speaker 1 (5:32) then later on, it turned out that these old aunties of ours would come and bake bread down there. And it was, it turned into kind of a heavenly, a heavenly place. If Speaker 3 (5:46) you're listening to this, you can't see Tony's face, but when you talk about them baking bread, I mean, look at that smile. That's such a obviously warm memory for you. Speaker 1 (5:55) Very, very warm. Because of the way, you know, these two characters were from the old country and they were just so... sort of exotic to us and did not speak much English. But we're always like flipping the bread and flipping the dough in the air. And they were, I wouldn't say they were warm and fuzzy exactly to us. They were working hard and it was hot down there probably. But they were really good at what they did. And they made an incredible product, which we... Munched on for weeks afterwards because they would they would You know stock us with with these literally like stacks and stacks of this flat Syrian bread loaves, thin, crispy Syrian bread. And so I do have fond memories. Well, first of all, it filled the house with the most incredible, you know, fresh baked bread smell. Not just the house, but that smell would seep into the outdoors and then neighborhood kids would gather because they knew what was going on. Speaker 3 (7:09) Oh, and they get a taste of the bread? And they would all Speaker 1 (7:11) get a taste. Yeah. Yeah, so it was fond memories. Speaker 3 (7:14) So you host a show where you travel the world looking for bread right now. Is that the origin story? Is that how it began? Speaker 1 (7:20) That's part of the origin story, yes. Breaking Bread, which CNN gave us six episodes for the first season. Now we're waiting to see if it's going to go further. But, yeah, it was a kind of bread was... it played a big role I think in my childhood. I remember my father loved bread, all kinds of bread, mostly fresh bakery bread. And because he grew up in Lebanon before and then during the First World War, bread was scarce when the war hit. Speaker 1 (8:06) Food was scarce for him and his siblings, and then his parents died during that period. And so the hunger was a very, very deep and profound memory for him. And he loved food and he savored food. But bread to him was like the thing. It was that thing sent from God or something. And I could watch him just... devour an entire loaf of bread in a sitting. And he wasn't like a heavy guy. He was a big guy, but he was not. He was healthy. And he just had this, the way he relished it. Speaker 1 (8:53) And appreciated it. I think gave us a real, I think that was really the way they modeled for us. You know, giving us an appreciation for the good stuff and how much work and effort went into the good stuff. Speaker 3 (9:08) There were 10 kids in the household. Speaker 1 (9:10) That's right. I'm the second youngest of 10. Speaker 3 (9:12) The second youngest of 10. Okay. So take me into that kitchen upstairs. Yeah. After the renovation. Did y'all eat in shifts? Speaker 1 (9:20) No, no, we ate all together. So what they did, because there were so many of us, they designed it in such a way, there was a big banquette on one side of the kitchen, very large. And it was at a curved bench, you know, and a big white formica top long table that slid into that booth. Speaker 1 (9:49) And then so a few chairs would be dotted around the outside, but mostly it was that wooden bench. I can see it so vividly. And you would just scooch around until the thing was full. And another really deep-seated memory, when we were very little, and if you were stuck sort of on the inside of the booth, instead of asking 14 people to move so you could get out, you just crawled under the table. Speaker 3 (10:15) Oh, if you had to use the bathroom or something? Yeah. If you had to go to the Speaker 1 (10:18) bathroom, if you wanted to get to the refrigerator, if you were finished eating and it was time, you just scooted out until you were too big to do that. So that was one side of the kitchen. And then the other side, of course, was the stove, which my mother was... Always at. She lived at that stove. God. Speaker 1 (10:39) When I think of how much help we didn't give her and should have given her, I don't know. She was tireless. Speaker 1 (10:50) And I hope she... I like to think she liked it, although by the time my older siblings were kind of up and out, you know, and the younger of the younger five were coming up. Speaker 3 (11:04) I Speaker 1 (11:05) think she was kind of over it. You know, she was always asking us, what should I make? I'm out of ideas. Just like, give me, help me out here. Just throw anything out there and I'll... Speaker 1 (11:18) But she never flagged. She really did. She really did it well. Another kind of key memory of that kitchen was that We didn't have a dishwasher for many years when I was growing up. It was when we finally got a dishwasher, it was a big deal. If Speaker 3 (11:38) you have 10 kids, why do you need a dishwasher? Speaker 1 (11:40) Well, that was my father's argument until the day they moved it in there. And, you know, there was an effort to spread the work out. You know, you take turns doing the dishes. Somebody's washing, somebody's drying. I did it last night. It's your turn. No, I did it this morning. The dishwasher then finally kind of like that, those battles subsided. And wow, I think that was the most revered appliance in the kitchen once that came in. Speaker 3 (12:12) That's a game changer. Yeah. Yeah. I grew up with a dishwasher. My mom took the dishwasher out. Ah. And we only had three kids. And she said, I have daughters. Why do I need a dishwasher? I could use the storage space. Dishwasher gone. With 10 people at the table. 10 kids at the table and two adults. Sometimes you have friends. Were you able to ask friends over? Speaker 1 (12:33) There were friends there a lot. Okay, because sometimes when Speaker 3 (12:36) you have a table that big, there's not room for others. But you had a lot of people at the table. We had Speaker 1 (12:41) a Speaker 3 (12:41) lot of Speaker 1 (12:41) people there. Yeah, you just crowded in. But all my older siblings had friends. I was a young one. We had little friends coming in. That was the thing about, I think, our kitchen. It was always open. It wasn't even mealtime. It was just the center of the house, really. You know what? It's funny how nowadays, and I think you'll concur. Speaker 1 (13:07) You know, people would drop in, which I don't think people do that really anymore. Speaker 3 (13:12) You barely locked your door at some point. Speaker 1 (13:15) Right. We never locked our door. But I'm just saying, you know, now you text or you Speaker 3 (13:20) call Speaker 1 (13:20) somebody. You Speaker 3 (13:20) have play dates or Speaker 1 (13:20) something. Come here. We're going to be there Tuesday at 11 o'clock. Then it was just like open door. It was a revolving door. Especially if the food was good, you know. The food was good. The coffee, my mother always had the coffee on. Speaker 1 (13:36) But it was sort of like just people just drop in. Relatives, surely, but neighborhood people, friends, it was kind of great. Speaker 3 (13:46) Is that where you first learned how to be funny? Speaker 1 (13:48) In my family? Yeah, for sure. Speaker 3 (13:51) Was that your first audience? Speaker 1 (13:52) Built-in audience. Constantly there. And my older, they're all funny. They're all really. And a lot of their humor kind of sort of filtered down to me, I think. Speaker 1 (14:11) I am definitely not the funniest. I can promise you that. Speaker 3 (14:15) And you're pretty funny, so that must be a Speaker 1 (14:18) hoot when you Speaker 3 (14:20) all get together. Speaker 1 (14:21) But there was always, you know, we're always kind of entertaining each other in a way because there were so many. You know what I mean? And by the way, we were talking about the dishwasher before. We also did not have a television. when I was growing up. Was Speaker 3 (14:37) that a parental strategy? Speaker 1 (14:38) He just didn't want it.