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Oct. 10, 2025 - Dr. Oz Podcast
42:15
Full House Star Andrea Barber Opens Up About Depression | Dr. Oz | S11 | Ep 63 | Full Episode
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Time Text
I couldn't be more different than Kimmy Gibler.
She's DJ Tanner's perky best friend.
But all along, hiding a dark sheep.
I would stress out and be so anxious and throw up and be so nervous about doing these scenes.
And what's your relationship with Lori Lochlin like now?
How do you ignore parts of someone's story that isn't relevant to who you think they are?
Plus, on the dish, my daughters are all here with our family's favorite recipes.
Coming up next.
Are you ready for season 11?
Yeah!
Full House, one of the biggest sitcoms of the 90s, and the show's original cast members, John Stamos, Lori Laughlin, uh Bob Sagitt, the Olsen twins, Andrea Barber, were at the height of their fame and success.
The show's cult volume was so big, it was able to recreate itself, reboot itself in a show called Fuller House.
It's on right now.
On set, they were a blended family, sharing all of life's choice.
But offset, there was a cast member struggling internally with anxiety and depression.
Today, Andrea Barber, who plays Kimmy Gibbler, DJ Tanner's bubbly best friend and a fan favorite for eight long seasons, is here.
Come on out, Andrea.
The longest walk in television.
Thank you for coming.
Yeah, tell people to bring running sneakers with them.
I probably should have put on my sneakers before I came here.
So you literally grew up on television.
I remember seeing the show and wondering, you know, how it was to be so young and in front of tens of millions of people every single week.
Kimmy Gibler, interesting character.
Was it a dream come true when you got the role?
Well, I I've been acting since I was five years old.
So for me, when I auditioned for the role of Kimmy Gibler, it was just another audition.
And it was supposed to be a one-time gig.
I was supposed to be on one episode and done.
And it turned into eight years of my life.
So now I can say yes, that that character was a dream come true.
But at the time I was just I was a 10-year-old, and I'm like, all right, another audition, let's do it.
So we would see you and you seemed comfortable in your own skin.
And yet you were starting to experience anxiety.
When did you first realize that it was an issue that you needed to address?
Yeah, I um looking back, I have always been an anxious person.
I just never had a name to put to it or a diagnosis.
But um I can remember being as young as 10 years old, um, wanting to throw up or dry heave before every performance or before a tough scene where I had a lot of lines and dialogue.
Um, but it wasn't until I uh got into my 20s and 30s that it really became more of a an issue and and more debilitating.
So as happy as and silly as Kimmy seemed, those weren't the emotions you were feeling out there.
The thought of you having the vomit before saying her lines is stunning to me.
Yeah, it's weird because I would I would stress out and be so anxious and and throw up and be so nervous about doing these scenes, but as soon as the director would call action, um, all of those insecurities would melt away, and I got to be a different person, a confident person.
It was it was freeing, actually.
In those critical years of adolescence, you gotta have to crutch on somebody.
Who's who are your mentors on the show?
Who's your lean on?
Oh, well, all the we were a very tight-knit family, as as I've talked about before.
Um so all of the adults on the show, Bob Sagitt, John Stamos, uh, Dave Coulier, they were all mentors, but really Lori Lochlin, she was like our our own Aunt Becky on the show, and she she was a mentor to us, and any time we had an embarrassing scene, like a first kiss um on TV.
Like I literally, my first kiss was when I was 13 on camera in front of an audience of 200, in front of my parents.
So I mean that's just not your traditional first kiss scenario, and so you know, you're really nervous.
And so all, you know, all of us, Candice, Jody, and I, we would go to Lori and just be like, what do we do?
You know, how do you do this?
Is there tongue?
Is there no tongue?
Like, what do you, you know, she'd be like, calm down, you know, it's okay, it'll all be fine.
You know, I'll go talk to the boys and just set them straight and just be like, no tongue.
Uh be nice.
And so she was.
I love that she would warn them.
Yeah, really.
So uh obviously she's been at the center of this college admission scandal, everyone's been following the story.
How how did it affect you when you heard it was happening?
And how's the the the Fuller House family rallied around her?
What do you guys try to do?
Oh, I love Lori.
I love Lori so much.
And I talk in the book about her character and how she's just one of the most heartfelt, kind, sensitive, down-to-earth people I've ever met.
And I still think that today.
Book's very well done, by the way.
It's called Full Circle, which I'm gonna come back to in a second, which is very cleverly named.
But I I asked a question, because uh in all of our lives we have people who are friends, who've who you've crushed on, who made mistakes.
So how do you reconcile that?
Because I'm sure you go to dinner conversations and people give you a hard time and say, well, you know, she did something that was wrong.
What do you make of that?
How do you forgive people, or how do you ignore parts of someone's story that isn't relevant to who you think they are?
Well, that's a good question.
Um I think it just has to do with unconditional love.
And if you love someone like a family member, um, you can look past.
Everybody has a past.
Everybody has a history, everybody has things that they're not proud of.
Um, and you need to find your tribe and and lean on those people that that love you for who you are.
So there's two members of your cast that I've gotten a little bit of that I want to ask you about.
So Andrea's a Fuller House co-star, Jodie Sweeton has acknowledged that she struggled with drug addiction, and her other co-star who I adore, Candace Cameron Baret is opened up about her eating disorder here on the set, actually.
Do you think the pressure of being on that show, which many of us take for granted because you look so comfortable out there contributed to either of their issues?
I think it's really uh an interesting concept growing up in front of the spotlight.
I don't know if I can say that that's what caused my anxiety and depression.
I think that that's something that was just ingrained in me in the beginning, and it's it would have manifested its way, its way um no matter what.
Um but yeah, I I I it's hard to say.
I don't blame Hollywood for for any of this, but I do acknowledge the additional pressures.
So when we come back, I want to focus on you a little bit.
Because you're very open about what you've been through, and you found some some solutions that I think could benefit a lot of the audience.
When we come back, Annie describes how she found a better way to cope after her anxiety and eventual depression took her to rock bottom.
So stay with us.
Thank you for coming on.
True crime breaking news.
New charges against R. Kelly.
Connected with an illegal marriage to a 15-year-old.
And his girlfriend, Joyce Luna Savage, resurfaces.
Now defending him.
One of his first accusers is here, revealing all she knows.
Plus, the horrific tragedy in Pennsylvania.
A mom accused of hanging for two children, staging their murder to look like a suicide.
All nuaz.
That's coming up tomorrow.
It's hilarious.
That's Andrea Barber playing the role of DJ Tanner's bubbly best friend, Kimmy Gibler on the rebooted series Fuller House, available only on Netflix.
She's here with me getting real about a personal topic that has touched her life anxiety and depression.
So let's get serious about what happened with you.
When did you first realize that this was depression?
Well, you know, anxiety and depression go hand in hand, that you often have one and the other both concurrently.
So for me, um, my issue's always been anxiety.
And so, like I said before, um, I've always been an anxious person, but it it wasn't until I um had my first child that it became debilitating.
And so uh it was after the birth of my second child, Felicity, and it was about nine months after she was born that um I suddenly started spiraling, and I would I stopped sleeping, I stopped eating, I couldn't get out of bed, I was vomiting all the time, um, and I wasn't able to take care of my children much less myself.
Um, and I didn't think of it as depression because I thought, well, postpartum depression that only happens right after the birth.
Yeah.
Um, and it wasn't until I went um to see my daughter's pediatrician that she she asked questions, not just about my daughter, but about me, and she was like, Are you okay?
Like, what's going on with you?
And I told her a little bit about what I was experiencing, and she said, I think you have postpartum depression, and it's it's more important for you to take care of you right now than your daughter, because you know, if you're not healthy, then your daughter won't have a mother.
So that's that's kind of when it began with very sage advice that she gave you.
Yeah.
It gets missed by a lot of folks.
But but but how does that anxiety and depression change with the things going on in your life?
For example, right now, Fuller House said this last season.
Do you have anxiety about what you're doing there?
Um, I I was proactive this time.
This is what I've learned over the last 10 years is you know, 10 or 12 years ago, I didn't have the tools to manage my anxiety and depression because I didn't know I didn't know anything about it.
Um but over the last 10 years, I've done a lot of talk therapy, I've done a lot of reading, I've done a lot of soul searching, and so now I feel like I have the tools to cope with it.
And so I knew with Fuller House ending, this is a significant loss in my life, and I knew I was gonna have a hard time managing that.
So um, so I've been proactive this time, and I'm you know, it managing anxiety and depression um is a lifestyle change.
You can't just take a pill and feel better.
Um you have to you have to manage your lifestyle.
It's a you have to for me it's therapy, it's getting enough sleep at night, it's um eating foods that fuel my body in a healthy way, uh, and it's running too.
Exercise and endorphins, all of these things create a healthy me.
You also talk about meditation.
Meditation, yes.
Prayer.
I mean, there there's a whole slew of things you've touched on.
What has been the most effective tool as you've struggled with anxiety and depression?
Your number one advice.
Um, the biggest thing that helped me was running.
I discovered running late in life.
I've never been an athlete.
I was never I never did sports as a kid.
Um, yeah, I was never athletic.
I hate gyms, they make me visibly distressed.
They cause anxiety and depression for many.
They do, yeah.
So I started running um at the age of like 33 when my friends were signing up to do the Tinkerbell half marathon at Disneyland in California, and I was just like, okay, that sounds like fun.
I don't think I can run that far, but let's try.
And I did it.
Like I ran 13 miles the whole way.
And you ran 13 miles without practicing?
Well, no, no, no, I trained for it.
No, no, let me not lose.
Oh my goodness.
Let me see those legs.
Yeah, no, I absolutely trained for it, but that's that's where I discovered my strength was training for that half marathon and not sure if I could actually do it, and then actually crossing that finish line.
I I it changed me.
Like that that half marathon transformed me in multiple ways, and it it gave me not only endorphins, but it gave me strength and confidence that if if I can do that, if I can run 13 miles, then I can conquer a lot of other things that are hard.
I think you've got a lot of hidden stress.
Thank you for being here.
And newsbook's called Full Circle from Hollywood to real life and back again.
It's available in stores now.
I'll be sure you go grab a copy.
But for everyone here in the studio, you each get one page.
Enjoy it, share with your friends.
We'll be right back.
Up next, the Queen of Rock and Roll is here.
Miss Patty LaBelle, who is sharing her comfort food secrets.
Is that what I think it is?
Is it pie?
Yes!
We're talking pie.
Okay.
I went and bought the Patty LaBeille Pie.
Okay, so look, ooh, it's so pretty.
Look at that.
Make a video for those that say what it tastes like.
I never tasted so.
here we go Patty.
If anybody knows Patty Bell, tell her in the video.
patty Thanks for the way.
She's not only sold out concerts around the world, but her sweet desserts have also sold out in stores everywhere.
Today, music legend, Patty LaBelle is sharing her comfort food secrets and how to entertain at home without breaking a sweat.
Please welcome my friend, Patti LaBelle.
Thank you.
Oh my goodness, so good to have you back.
Thank you.
Okay.
So there are so many things I could ask you about, but let me just get one issue out of the way.
Last time you were here, we talked about your diabetes.
Right.
A lot of Americans are, you know, about a third of us are pre-diabetic or diabetic.
Oh, yes.
So how are you managing yours?
Much better than I was the last time.
So I'm I'm going.
I'm I'm doing much better.
I'm trying to eat less meat, and I I don't mess with uh carbs.
Oh my goodness.
Nope.
I'm good.
I'm 75.
I want to become 175.
I think you're getting that.
You're not just 75, you're a vigorous vital 75.
You got your new Hallmark show.
Yeah.
Right?
You're touring.
You've got all these fun things.
How do you keep the energy at that level?
I mean, you seem to get stronger as the years go by.
I really do.
I mean, it's it's God.
How do you feed your soul when you're so darn busy?
Because it's not just about managing time, you gotta manage your energy.
My energy helps with my grandbabies, and I get happy from them.
Or when they call me and say, Grandma, what kind of pie should you guys get mine?
So, so the other day I had on one blue hand and one pink hand, and she did hers the same way.
She was biting off of me at two.
Trying to cop my style.
Yeah.
She's got your jeans.
I know, and that makes me happy.
It makes me happy cooking for the world and feeding everybody if I can.
That makes me happy.
Come on, let's talk about this.
Part of the way you do replenish your spirit is to feed your friends.
Whoa, wait.
You got it, you got it, you got it.
What's strength?
Serious.
So I really wanted to find out what your comfort food secrets are.
So we're gonna walk the audience through three simple hacks that we got a surprise at the end.
Okay, first tip is to make sure that the guests are out of the kitchen.
Oh, I hate it.
Now, how do you do that?
I don't like sous chefs.
Uh chefs.
Sous chefs are busy.
Uh Patty, why don't you put that green pepper in that?
I said, no, boo, I don't do it that way.
Leave the kitchen, go eat.
So I make them food and put it in the dining room or their living room, let them go nibble on something while I cook by myself.
But I do want them to cut up some.
So you make a good dip.
This is a good example.
Good spinach dip.
Spinish dip, put the coup d'eau out there.
I know it's a bit healthy ones, you don't have to be quite so healthy if you don't want to.
If you don't want, but I really want to be a little bit more.
I want to too.
So that gets them out of the kitchen.
Yes.
Number two.
Protect your pie.
Now, there's a national treasure here, right?
The sweet potato pie.
Yeah.
Right.
People do they swim away with it.
So how do you protect to make sure that you don't burn the outside of your pies?
Well, you can put that thing around it called aluminum.
Around it like that.
Or just take this.
What was it?
This is a pie tin, so I don't know if you do this, but my wife does this sometimes.
I'm told you too as well.
Cut the end inside out, made on the outside so the inside cooks, the outside doesn't.
You do that.
Oh, you know, neatly, and the and the crust won't burn.
You know that?
You know, actually, I But if you can't afford this, take this.
You know what I mean.
I just burn my crusts.
You do?
They never trust me with pie in my house.
I don't do any baking at all.
I've got two great chefs of my wife and Daphne, my daughter.
Right.
They do all, they actually do what you did here.
They think this looks more elegant.
But I'm gonna take this away because it's ugly.
Go ahead.
Nothing you do is ugly.
All right.
And there's this whole issue about the freezer being your friend.
And this is this is a really important issue.
I remember talking about this a couple years ago, and people got upset because it's not true, but you argue that a frozen vegetable is a frozen vegetable, which is just fine.
It's fine if it's fresh frozen.
Yeah.
You know, most of them are.
So, because I'm putting some frozen stuff in my life.
Right.
On sale.
So it works.
Frozen foods work.
They really do.
So I I learned by looking into it, and you brought this up that when you harvest a vegetable when it's ripe.
Right?
It's got all the nutrients in there.
You freeze it, you store it right at that level.
When you get it in your home, it's got all those nutrients.
You haven't wasted away by being shipped in a truck and then stored on the grocery store shop.
I do.
Yeah.
I do it for because it's affordable.
And we waste so much food in America because we don't have the luxury of it.
But you have made it easier for us.
So much so, you actually launched a line with Walmart.
Congratulations.
Hey.
Yes, I have.
It's in the freezer section.
It's this is a this is all patty stuff.
All stuff.
We got you.
For real.
So we got here.
You got the mac and cheese.
Mac and cheese.
We have the biscuits and chicken.
We have the cornbread, sweet and savory.
Oh.
She's gonna keep going.
Oh, yeah, more.
We have greens, we have cow greens mixed with onions and stuff.
And we have black eye peas with smoked turkey.
You know what they have mostly?
They got patterned bell.
I agree with you.
Thanks for being a spirit, a shiny torch of goodness in the country.
Thank you, honey.
God bless you.
I love you.
Bye, everybody.
See you right back.
We'll be right back.
Woo!
I need a bite of something.
Grilled cheese pizza.
Wow.
Literally bigger than I had.
Oh my god.
Gut busting foods you have to see to believe.
That's coming up Friday.
It's the ingredient that's been touted as one of the best things to happen to skincare.
Retinol.
But your relationship to this complex ingredient may be complicated.
What's the right way to use retinol?
And how much do you use and for how long?
Over 5,000 new retinol products have been launched in the last three years.
That's a lot.
With such a wide variety inundating the market, we're setting the record straight today and debunking the biggest retinol myths.
Here to help on behalf of my trusted sponsorship partner Ole, our Oprah magazine beauty director, Brian Underwood, and Olay scientist, Dr. Floppin Rosen.
So when you get down to it, a common belief that a lot of people feel your skin should be red to know your retinol is working.
Brian, is that true?
Well, that is actually a myth.
While some mild redness or flakiness may occur, it really depends on the product, the type of retinol, and of course your skin.
Now, if your face looks sunburned, chances are you've chosen a formula that's far too strong for your skin or you've used it too frequently.
In this case, more is not necessarily better.
But when you use the right product, you should be able to see results within 28 days.
So if you do have redness, if it's a concern for you, you don't want to look like your sunburn, what do you recommend?
So I generally like to recommend a product formulated without fragrance and with built-in hydration to again help minimize any of that potential redness or dryness.
Also, pairing your retinol product with a rich hydrating moisturizer means that even women with dry or sensitive skin can reap the benefits of retinol without risking upset to their skin.
And that's really why I'm here.
Months ago, we at O The Oprah Magazine chose the Olay Retinol 24 night moisturizer as one of our beauty award winners.
So we're really behind this product.
Congratulations, Fucker.
Alright, the next common belief is you can tell how potent the retinol is by how yellow it is and how it is packaged.
Is that true?
Not really.
So in its natural state, retinol or vitamin A is yellow, but it also can intensify in color as it breaks down and degrades, which might happen if a product isn't formulated to be stable, because you don't just want to rely on the packaging alone.
So, you know, initially, whether a product is yellow or not doesn't really tell you anything.
Could be the retinol, could be something else.
The real question is does the product change color over time?
If it does, if it does turn more yellow after a few days, it's a sign that the retinol is degrading, so it won't be nearly as potent.
You did a little experiment.
Got it ready for us, all prepared for your audience to demonstrate these possible color changes.
So my head and my staff just before the show, take out your Olay product and two other uh forms of retinol.
And this is what they look like coming out of the jar, the container.
So you can't tell from this if it's good or bad.
Right, exactly.
So whether you know it's gonna pump, a uh a tube, a jar, you know, initially it might be really wide, like the Olay product, it might be a little yellow, a little yes yellow.
Again, it doesn't really matter.
What matters with retinol is the stability.
So let's maybe have a quick look at these that's the same products.
Those were taken out of their packaging just over 48 hours ago.
And I'm actually gonna maybe start over here.
So product B that we tested against, you know, it was a little sort of yellow to start with, intensified.
It's yeah, it's obvious, but it's not crazy.
But look at product number A. Slight yellow to start with and see what happened in terms of the color change.
Very, very significant.
And this, I tell you, is a very expensive product.
It costs over $70.
Oh my goodness.
That's not what you're doing.
So it may have been great if you got it like this, but two days later, it's not.
Yeah, but you're not gonna use it up in like a day, are you?
I'll use it for weeks.
And that's not that's not.
Well, yeah, and and then look at the OLA retinol 24 moisturizer, it's just as wide and beautiful as it was when it came out of the jar, uh, which means it's gonna really gonna be potent, you know, as it was on day one after days and even after weeks.
And you know why?
Because we're hiding the retinol inside the cream and tiny oil droplets.
So that's why it stays so stable and potent.
It's high tech, actually.
You may not appreciate it, but it is.
Brian, another common belief is that people should not use retinols every day.
And again, it's this fear of turning red.
Yeah, that that too is a myth, uh, precisely for the reasons that you said because people are worried that it will turn their skin red.
Now, uh, I generally tend to use a retinol nightly.
So with a good product, you should be able to use a retinol nightly and you should notice results within 28 days.
28 days?
Mm-hmm.
I like that.
What should change in 28 days?
Smoother, more radiant, brighter, tighter, brighter, all the good things.
One of my viewers, Trish is here to tell us what her 28 days was like.
Thanks for being here.
So she's been using the Olay Retinol 24 for the last month.
How would you describe your how you saw yourself before this whole process started?
And I love to hear how the 28 days changed you.
Sure.
My skin had a lot of um dark spots, um, dry discoloration, redness.
Um, I used it every evening.
Um after, you know, properly washing my face.
I applied it every single night.
And I've noticed actually I have not been using foundation as much.
I've noticed the discoloration has gone away.
Yeah, yeah.
Um, I've noticed um a little bit of a little bit of a lift, you know.
Actually, I see it in the picture.
I might I see the lift a little too, but what I really see is the discoloration is gone.
Yes, yes, absolutely.
And I was very, very surprised at the product because um I've always used more, um, not saying this this is not premium, but I've used that $70 product or so that it ends up, you know, going a little bit bad quicker.
Um I've always used those products, so this I was very wonderfully surprised.
It's real value.
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
And you have the moisturizer and you have, yes.
So here's what you're all thinking.
Everyone at home is thinking this.
Yeah, she did great.
But what about me?
Am I right?
Right?
So Dr. Noise has a tool that can simulate what you might expect if you actually use the retinol 24 for 28 days.
Absolutely.
It's called the Olay uh Retinol 24 um simulation.
Um, and it is uh it's an algorithm, but it's based in actual data from two clinical studies, which women between the ages of 25 and 65 took uh part in.
So you have the whole range.
Um, and then basically what it does.
So you go to the website, ole.com, you go to the retinol simulation, it will ask you to upload, to take and upload a selfie.
So that's your baseline, day zero.
And then you can see what your skin might look like after 28 days.
So we're seeing that here.
It's actually on the website, it's gonna be a slider, so you can go back and forth between day zero and day 28, and you can really see those visual results.
Now, of course, the results will depend on your skin type and your skin condition.
But what you might see is your a visible improvement and fine lines and wrinkles, smoothness, brightness, dark spots, pores.
It really makes a difference.
And I mean you could see it and and and and the picture here, and and we know it works.
We know retinol 24 works.
That gives us a good one.
And it gives you results in 28 days and all of that with virtually no irritation.
I love that you're always bringing science to the equation.
Even that little piece of digital technology, so you can actually see how it affects your face.
Right is wonderful.
So I got news for you.
You're all in luck because thanks to my trusted sponsorship partner Olay, everyone is going home with the Olay Retinol 24.
Put it on and look better.
We'll be right back.
Coming up on the dish on us.
It's a family affair.
We're cracking up on our family recipe books and sharing our most beloved recipes with you.
Thank you.
If there's one thing that brings us all together, it's food.
So we're calling everyone to the table to dish on everything.
From the latest food hacks and trends to everyday recipes you could make for dinner tonight.
It's simple, it's celebratory, and most of all, it's about having a great time in the kitchen.
What is going on?
I'm trying to help.
Let's dish.
We're back with the dish others of today.
It's a real family affair because the dish and us foodies are opening up about their own family recipe books, right?
They're revealing their favorites.
So Daphne, what is on the menu?
So Jamika is gonna be cooking up, I cannot wait to taste this, your shrimp oil dinner with Cajun butter that her family makes every week for the big game.
Oh, yes.
Let me in on that tradition.
And from the Oz family kitchen, we are starting with a creamy red lentil soup.
I grew up eating, it's gonna be very familiar to you, Dad, but I can't do it alone.
So here's the deal, guys.
What they didn't teach me in Med school, but I did learn in my wife's kitchen is that food is more than just sustenance.
It's a celebration and a bond between generations.
That's what today's all about.
So I figured having just one of my daughters here wasn't enough.
I'm one of them all here.
Arabella and Zoe are both coming out.
Woo!
Woo!
Adios!
Yay!
This is just a ploy.
A ploy by a desperate father to get his daughters near him.
I don't know why it is so difficult.
I speak for all the dads out there.
Once you guys reach college age, just disappear.
I you call mom, you talk to her.
No, no, we call the house and you answer and you say hello and go ahead.
Or you pretend to be mom.
Yes, I do.
Hello!
Oh I just lost my voice.
Your father's making me laugh so much.
That's true.
Well, how many dads out there here says the first thing when your daughter calls is, where's mom?
Right?
It doesn't leave a lot of opening for conversation.
Anyway, Daphne.
Well, it's there, we're the three sisters, then we have a little baby brother on the other end.
He's not such a baby anymore.
He's you know 20 years old, he's and he's about this high.
Anyway, growing up, I didn't I kind of took for granted how many different kinds of eaters mom had to cook for at the same Oz family dinner table.
This is us, gosh, I mean that's good.
Awkward fans.
Yeah, awkward phase.
Some of us never left.
Um but you know, we would what she kind of did to make uh everyone happy was we would have this beautiful central family bowl, and then a lot of sides or garnishes, things that people could use to customize their meals and make it appropriate.
We had some vegetarians, we had gluten-free at some time.
So um cooking does not have to be complicated, and that is something that I learned first and foremost from our mother.
Um, make it delicious, make it feel like comfort, um, and and it does not have to make you exhausted or stressed out.
So we are gonna make this one of our sort of family stables, especially in cold weather months.
This creamy red lentil soup.
It's so easy and so flavorful.
And I feel like Zoe, this is maybe one of your all-time favorite dishes.
You batch cook this.
I make this every well, I make it every week, but I only get to eat it if my dad misses it in the fridge.
He takes it from me every time I make it.
I labor away and then it's gone the next morning.
So it's so good.
It's even better when you can steal it from the fruit.
Take it as a compliment.
It does.
Food tastes better if it's someone else's.
Who agrees with that?
Right?
It's it's the best.
Eating someone else's hard work is fantastic.
That's what I'd say.
We anything anyone else has made is delicious.
Absolutely.
I think that takes it to the next level.
And it's really good as a leftover.
It just like gets more and more flavorful.
You have to mix it because it separates, but you can just eat a cold, no dirty dishes to clean up out of the Tupperware.
Yes, I like that.
Exactly right.
Cold Tupperware.
You've taught us what well, that's something.
I mean, I don't know if you girls remember as much, but I have such distinct memories of dad taking all like 12 Tupperwares with you to the hospital because they were days you wouldn't come home if you were doing an operation overnight.
So he would like stockpile like a little chipmunk all of his meals that he would take to the office.
Oh my gosh.
Before security was like a real thing.
You were bringing all God only knows what was in these topper.
Wow.
We made a lot of fun.
But you know what?
It you it serves you to always be prepared.
And you oh you were you are always the one I will go to if I'm absolutely famished on a family trip.
Um, anyway, let's cook some lentil soup, shouldn't we?
So, what I have going on here to show you guys how you'll enjoy it cold and out of a tupperware and stolen from somebody else, are some onion sauting with coconut oil.
And Zoe, I feel like you can make this in your sleep, but Jamika's gonna cut up some beautiful red bell peppers to throw in here.
That adds a lot of sweetness, and it's a great way just to incorporate.
I mean, you could put spinach in here, you could put any kind of vegetable you have, and I feel like that's sort of the beauty of soup, is you can really use up whatever's going on in your fridge.
I've got some toasted cumin seed.
Um, it looks a little dry, like you can see, right in there, so you can add a little bit more um coconut oil, a little bit more olive oil.
You just want to toast those spices, and you cannot as soon as they start to rise up and you can smell them with that beautiful, almost smoky and citrusy flavor of the cumin, you know that you've toasted it through.
Smells good.
I also oh yeah, right, and I also like to toast my lentils.
These are red lentils going in.
Red lentils are already um uh parkooked for you, so this soup cooks really fast, also, which is nice.
Um, and it makes them super, super creamy, which I think is part of the indulgent factor here, Even though it's really just a rich, proteiny, delicious vegetable soup.
And then tomato, squashed tomato going in here, too.
And if you wanted to, because you have it, this is not part of my mother's recipe, but a splash of wine.
Oh, gandalo.
Mom would just drink the wines.
Why waste it in the lentils?
Exactly.
I'm going in.
Thank you, Jamika.
Those are gorgeous.
A nice pinch of salt, always, of course.
Not too much, because you don't want to, you know, you want to be able to leave room to salt it afterwards if you have to, but a bit while those vegetables and lentils are cooking up.
And then my sisters are working away on the sweet potato, which again, when you bite into that, and it offers this little like sweet give back.
It is so yummy.
Okay, so throw some of those sea potatoes on in here.
Go on.
And lovely.
How much skin of them?
Go ahead.
All of them.
Why not?
All the sweet potatoes.
Alone simmer it in four.
So I'm gonna add about eight cups of water, and then we're gonna simmer this for 30 to 45 minutes.
The longer you let it simmer, the creamier and smoother it's gonna get.
And you can always add a little bit more liquid if you like a Zoe, you kind of like it like a porridge, a little bit.
And like it really thick.
Really thick.
Yeah.
If you wanted it brothier, you could just add a little bit more water.
And you can also add veggie broth if you wanted to, um, chicken broth or bone broth if you wanted to.
So that that's about as covered as you want.
You cap it and let it simmer for those 45 minutes.
Et voilà.
That's how I'm used to seeing it.
You've eaten it now.
Yeah.
I feel like you guys, you guys were, you know, helpful in cleaning up more than in the cooking.
That is not true.
Sea cooks, I don't, I I eat.
Um, and then it just which is a valuable skill.
Thank you.
Then just to finish it off, guys, because of course you want this to be a really filling, hearty, beautiful bowl.
We're going in with a full can of coconut milk.
And trying not to splatter on either any of my sisters' beautiful clothing.
Um, once you add the coconut milk, just don't bring it up to a boil, so you don't want to break the soup, but it is ready to go just like this.
You guys have some over here.
Jamika, I'm gonna serve you hot out of the pot here.
You spoil me.
Because this is your first time cutting.
I feel almost wrong having this without mom here.
I know.
Yeah, I'll eat mom's share.
And a little crusty bread to make it a meal.
Let's see what you guys think.
Jamika, tell us honestly, because you've never had this before.
Maybe you have, but no, no, no, not prepared by these beauties right here.
Mmm.
Perfect.
Feel like it is perfect.
Hold on.
It's a little hint of sweetness with the peppers and the onions, but it's not too much.
And I do love the earthiness of the lintel.
Like this is really good comfort food.
Which is better eating yours.
I like it.
When we come back.
Thanks for being my beautiful wine.
I'll eat theirs in the break too.
When we come back, Jamaica's favorite family football food, which is shrimp.
Stay with us.
We'll be right back.
We're back with a dishonor, and Jamica Basot is about to make her family favorite.
It's what she serves when the whole clan gets together for football.
Oh, yes.
So what are you making?
Why is your famine level with football?
Well, I'm doing my famous shrimp boil.
Look at the whole crew.
Oh my gosh, that's a lot of bows.
Okay.
Oh my goodness.
Yes.
And the thing is, I'm doing my shrimp boil, so it's with all the fix in, so it's like a low-country shrimp boil, and everybody comes to the table when it's seafood involved and when there's football.
Because we love some good college football.
We talk trash, we get in your face.
Like we just adore it.
That is our time to do everything together as a family.
Just love it.
Alright, so walk us through it.
Alright, so first you will start with a pot here.
And we have boiling water.
And you just want to salt your your water liberally because this is gonna be the base for what you're gonna drop all your shrimp and everything else in there, right?
And then we have in some garlic.
You take a whole head of garlic, you drop it in there, cut it in half.
So we're building with our flavors here.
Some bay leaf going in there.
You can have fun with it.
Just kind of play with your flavors.
We have peppercorns, we have a little heat.
Cut a dot, yes.
We'll do some citrus.
You have to have some lemon in there.
Cut the other one for me too.
So we'll drop it straight in the pot.
So you're gonna let that simmer, and you want to taste it, make sure that it has the heat that you want.
It's gonna be a Little salty, but it's okay because it's gonna flavor all of our ingredients, okay?
So we have that going.
Now we get to the fun part, right?
So we have you can do fresh or frozen corn.
Daphne, you want to drop that in up there?
Thank you.
And you want to the important thing when you're doing this, you want to make sure that everything is about the same size, okay?
And we have the potatoes going in as well, red potatoes.
And this is I think so important here, and this adds so much flavor.
We have smoked undoubted sausage.
Yes.
And you can do turkey sausage, chicken sausage, but I browned it just a little bit to expose that flavor.
You get all of that goodness in there, and you pour that in.
So all of that starts to marry together.
Oh, and some onions as well, please.
So you see, it's a beautiful pot, but we're just building flavor upon flavor upon flavor.
And then she let that go for about 10 to 12 minutes just until the corn and the potatoes are tender, and then the jumbo jumbo, the shrimp, all right?
And we're leaving the tail, the the tail on and the skin on because I like to let people do a little work when they're at my house, right?
Because you get the hands busy, then they can't really get, you know, when the team loses, you can't really get violent because you got shrimp in your hand.
So, which team do you root for?
Oh, now let me tell you, I am an Alabama girl, born and raised in Alabama.
So in Alabama, Alabama!
I had this whole Atlanta National thing going for you.
Well, I'm born and raised in Alabama, but see here's the thing.
When you come out of the womb, you gotta make a decision.
You are either for Alabama or for Auburn, because we are all college football town, right?
You have to choose.
And it was so crazy.
One year my dad went rogue.
I tell you, that was a tough year.
We almost disowned him.
So let me show up a football for a second while this is cooking up.
Yes.
Why is football season or any fact your sports season the best celebration they have with a family?
Well, it's it takes all because I think the holidays are the big time when family comes together, but when it's football, it's just we have one common thing in mind, and that is to yell at the TV, put all of our best juju towards the quarterback so we can bring home that win.
It's just a collective fun, good time, and then we got good food.
You can't.
I think it's easier than a birthday.
Let's face it can go wrong.
So simple.
And being oddly gratifying about watching other people work really hard while you eat deliciously.
So we have our shrimp going in there.
You're just gonna leave them until they start to change color, and then we have the Cajun spicy butter.
Oh, now this hold onto your waistline because this is where the fun begins.
Daphne has melted butter in our pot, and we're gonna add in a little bit of cayenne pepper.
We have minced garlic, we have some paprika, some uh obey going in there.
Oh, I just love all of this.
And we add a little bit of salt too.
And what this is going to do is flavor it.
So you can have it on the side dipping, or you can kind of just put it all over the top.
Like we have a ball with this butter sauce.
It is like, you just can't get enough.
Add a little bit of parsley in there.
You write in the butter?
Yes, yes, yes.
Yum.
Oh, yes.
This is your flavored butter that's gonna change your life.
Change your seafood from now on.
Oh, yes.
I can't get over that.
And this is gonna make my fingers nice and nice and nice and cheap.
I tell you, you can't even tell it's butter.
Look at that caramel color.
That's how you get no, it's the right color with that cayenne and that paprika.
I'm sorry, you put this on cardboard, it's gonna taste delicious.
All right, this butter is going to get drizzled over the top of all of that seafood and corn.
We'll let these flavors come together, sit, and try it when we come back.
Do not leave it.
True crime breaking news.
Two charges against R. Kelly.
Connected with an illegal marriage to a 15-year-old.
One of his first accusers is here, revealing all she knows.
That's coming up tomorrow.
My dad is back grabbing some beers because Jamika is about to reveal the finished dish, her family's favorite football watching dinner.
Woo!
Oh what?
A little something extra for the pot here.
I knew you were gonna order this anyway.
And you're dressed for the occasion.
Very nice.
This man is ready to eat.
He's getting after it.
Okay, so you show us how we played it all up.
All right, so you'll have your table, you can spread out some newspaper, parchment paper, whatever you have.
Because this is the simplest thing you'll ever gonna come across, and you just dump it all out.
Oh, yes.
Catch it, catch it, catch it.
Watch those fingers.
All right, get all that shrimp down there, yes.
Now hang on one second, because we made that cajun butter.
Where does that go?
Oh, you know, I didn't forget about that.
You better not forget about it.
This is the love here.
Okay.
Maybe before you add that, this thing's so sweet.
Oh, without that.
You got the sweet corn, but why would you want to forget about this?
Okay.
See Daphne's being cute with it.
When I'm at my house, let me tell you what we do.
You take that right there, and you do that slow pour all.
Oh, look at that.
There's nothing wrong with that.
Yes.
Oh my goodness.
That's how you do that there.
All right.
Oh, look how beautiful and golden it's gotten.
Yeah, it's better with that, you're right.
And oh, now if you see the butter getting away from you, that's when you get some bread, some French bread, you come in and sof all of that up.
So nothing gets away from you.
Oh wow, and that scent is so tender and juicy.
It's perfectly cooked.
Oh my gosh.
So what's your favorite football food, Daph?
Wings.
Spicy wing.
I tell you, I love chili, but this would compete with it.
It's got the same convenience factor, but I gotta love that Cajun sauce.
All right.
So we have some pics of game day foods gone wrong.
All right, you ready for this everybody?
All right.
This football cake looks uh a bit deflated.
Aw.
That's the losing teams cake right there.
They tried that up in New England a lot, by the way.
These football beveled eggs look like they've been to hell and bad.
You see what I did there, Jamika?
I got it.
Can I tell you sometimes food crafting, you should just make a regular little make a regular dish, don't bother with it.
Well, but this then you'll get you'll love this next one.
It's my favorite of all.
It's the cake for a game I'd never want to go to.
The super bowel.
Wait, wait, wait.
Go, go, go.
Hilarious.
It's okay.
It's a crappy cake.
I wouldn't make that.
You can find all today's recipes on Dr. Oz dot com slash the dish.
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