Whole New You: How Real Food Transforms Your Life, for a Healthier, More Gorgeous You: A Cookbook - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Tia Mowry is an actress and producer known for the sitcom Sister, Sister and now starring in the Cooking Channel’s Tia Mowry at Home. She is also the co-host of the Food Network’s Food Network Star: Kids and the host of the podcast Mostly Mom with Tia Mowry. She is married to Cory Hardrict, and they have one child.

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Kitchen Soldier

My mother loves to cook, and she, my grandmother, and all of my aunties can throw down some serious Southern classics. By the age of six, I was hanging out with them in the kitchen, and it was all about collard greens, mac ’n’ cheese, chicken dishes—-real soul food. I would watch and smell and taste as they performed their magic.

We were a military family—-our mother was a drill sergeant and our father a first sergeant—-so in our household, we all had chores. By the time I was twelve, I was cooking full meals for the family. By thirteen, I had mastered a variety of omelets, pork chops with mustard sauce, and even roasted Cornish hen. They weren’t terribly fancy dishes, but having kitchen duty taught me basic cooking skills, patience, and an appreciation for home--cooked food.

In fact, I adored it. I would get absolutely lost in the kitchen. Because cooking had structure—-bake this for fifteen minutes, add half a cup of that—-I could relax within its boundaries. It was like a dance. To this day, I cook to relieve stress, sometimes to other people’s amusement: When I fired up the stove on my last birthday, ready to start a quinoa dish, my husband, Cory, said, “Tia, you don’t have to cook—-it’s your birthday! Why don’t you just relax?” And I replied, while happily chopping a carrot, “Honey, you don’t understand—- this is my way of relaxing.”

Have I mentioned that I love cooking?

Teen Extremes

My kitchen exploration stalled when my sister Tamera and I started shooting our TV sitcom, Sister Sister at fourteen. Every morning, in the cafeteria at Paramount Studios, I would have a stack of pancakes. And when I say “stack” I mean at least four or five, topped with whipped cream, strawberries, and about a cup of maple syrup. And that was just breakfast.

TV sets are always catered, so I was surrounded by junk food, 24/7. To my teenage self, it was like living in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. Everything I wanted was at my fingertips: Twizzlers, M&M’s, Starbursts, potato chips, you name it. And if something I craved wasn’t there, all I had to do was ask: “Chocolate chip cookies, please?” And they simply appeared. It was heaven.

If heaven leads to health problems, that is.

Nothing was fresh. Everything came out of a package, a bag, or a box. Every time I walked by the food table, I picked something up. And though I didn’t know it at the time, an Oreo here and a bread roll there can lead to some nasty consequences.

I probably would have gained weight if, in my late teens, I hadn’t started to use—-and quickly abuse—-diet pills. I didn’t feel fat, but the pressure of being on television and wanting to look sexy and beautiful took over. I’m not proud of it. I got skinny, true, but the pills caused my heart to race, and I knew in my gut that I was hurting myself. A few years later, after the active ingredient in the pills was connected to a number of deaths, it got pulled from the market.

Around this time, I was also overusing antibiotics. No matter what symptom I presented to a doctor, even when all I had was the common cold, it seemed like I went home with antibiotics. This is really common. Don’t get me wrong: Antibiotics are wonder drugs that have saved millions of lives. But they’re doled out like aspirin. Antibiotics can zap a bacterial infection, but they also kill a lot of the good bacteria in the body, which is a big problem. (We’ll get to that a little later. . . .)

In the last couple years of shooting Sister Sister, I attended Pepperdine University part time. I was still eating lots of junk food and taking the diet pills, but I fell in love with student life. One of my favorite classes, Introduction to Psychology, was taught by a wonderful professor, Dr. Jeff Banks. He was fantastic. Everyone worshipped him because he seemed to understand our feelings and inner lives. His class wasn’t just about grades; it was about life. Corny? Maybe. Meaningful? One hundred percent.

Part of the class was about unloading our own issues, fears, and troubles. I had never told anyone about the pills, but I got honest about them in class. Dr. Banks asked us to write down everything that we wanted to let go of and to make a promise to ourselves to address what was holding us back. I scribbled, “Give up diet pills” on a piece of paper, crumpled it up, and tossed it into the flames of my living room fireplace, just as Dr. Banks had instructed. As I watched the paper crackle and burn, something in me released. I haven’t touched diet pills since that day, and thankfully, I haven’t wanted to.

I did gain some weight, but I didn’t care. By that point, my chest had started to hurt and I had discovered how dangerous the pills really were. I was grateful to be done with the speeding heart and the shame of having a secret. A few pounds were worth it.

La Dolce Vita

When Sister Sister ended its six--year run, I was still in college, but comparatively speaking, I was free. I had more time, less responsibility, and university was opening my mind to totally new things. Up until that point, I’d always had the security of my parents and sharing a home with Tamera, and the structure of the TV show. Now something pushed me to get out of my comfort zone; I wanted to be challenged. So at twenty, I decided to go abroad.

I spent the summer in Italy, and took short trips from there to France, Spain, and Egypt. I was exposed for the first time to new languages, environments, and ways of life. I was stimulated on all levels and through all of my senses by the art, the architecture, and the smells on the streets. I had seen pictures of Michelangelo’s David and the Florence Cathedral, but viewing them up close was another story. A new “me” blossomed. I may have spent my adolescence in front of an audience of millions, but I had been relatively sheltered. On this wonderful extended vacation, I visited the Vatican, sailed up the Nile, and drank my first glass of wine. I felt grown--up and sophisticated.

And the food. My taste buds were on fire! Goodbye, endless candy; hello, succulent chicken and frites in Paris, delicate thin--crust mushroom pizza in Florence (and, of course, gelato all over Italy), handmade bread in Cairo. There’s nothing like it! Everything was made with quality ingredients and introduced me to tastes I’d never known. One of my most vivid memories is from Sardinia, where I was served a whole fish, on a beautiful platter, cooked to perfection. It was fresh, simple, and melted in my mouth.

Mmm . . . 

Europe offered an almost orgasmic culinary experience, and it was there that my real love affair with food began. Until then, food and its preparation had represented a fun part of my childhood responsibilities and then the dangers of weight gain, but they had never been such artful and sensual pleasures.

The cook in me awakened. I asked myself, “What did they put in this?” and “How did they do that?” My inner twelve--year--old, who’d spent so much time in the kitchen, was back with a whole new set of tools and ingredients to explore. I couldn’t wait to get home and start chopping.

Cory was my boyfriend at the time, and he picked me up at the airport after my trip. He could see immediately that I was a...