Michelle Obama: The Light Podcast - The Restaurant That Made Antoni Porowski Proud to Be Polish

Episode Date: May 27, 2025

Antoni Porowski, food expert on Netflix's Queer Eye and host of the new show No Taste Like Home, joins Michele to talk about being Polish-Canadian and why he was never allowed in his kitchen growing up. He opens up about why he hasn't spoken to his mother in several years, and how cooking and a shared passion for food connects them to each other. We also learn about the iconic restaurant that helped him settle into his Polish identity and the secret behind a classic Polish recipe: Stuffed Cabbage Rolls!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

She could carry a conversation with anybody. She had charm and charisma, which I think is incredibly rare. And she kind of had everyone wrapped around her finger. And our family was this very vain, beautiful facade of perfection in many ways. And we would get a lot of comments about that growing up. But then it kind of all like dismantled. So I think the food was kind of fueled into like the upkeep of that. Hello, hello, and welcome back to your mama's kitchen.

This is the place where we explore how we're all shaped as adults by the kitchens that we grew up in as kids. And not just the food, all the things that happen there. The laughter, the memories, the sibling rivalries. I'm Michelle Norris. And we have a treat for you today because I'm joined by Anthony Perowski. Now, you have seen him on your TV screens in the reboot of Queer Eye on Netflix. Antony is also a cookbook author. And he is the host of a show on National Geographic.

The show is called No Taste Like Home. And in that show, he travels with celebrities to their ancestral motherlands to taste the food of their youth, their heritage, actually. So I'm so glad to be with Anthony. Thanks for being with us. It's a thrill to be talking to you. I was trying to keep my cool in that intro, but I'm so excited. Me too, me too. Well, you know, we always begin with a simple question.

Tell me about your mama's kitchen. And I have a feeling that the answer for you will be interesting because your family comes from Poland. They move to America when you're fairly young. So it's one of those kitchens where there's a collision of cultures. I assume that they brought Poland with them when they came to America. But as a kid, you probably wanted to eat the food that your classmates ate. So tell me about the kitchen that you grew up in. You were 100% right.

It was actually multiple collisions. So my family is from Poland. And then my father moved to Canada when he was very young and met my mother when he was studying university when he was in med school in Poland. And then they moved together with two kids, my two older sisters. And so I was the first one of my family born outside of Europe in Canada. Then later in high school, I moved to West Virginia with my parents. So there was always this sort of like I'm, when I was in Canada, I felt like I wasn't

Polish enough, but I wasn't fully Canadian. and then when I was in the U.S. and all the kids had like Doritos and like processed food for lunch and sodas, I was so jealous because I didn't because I was showing up with Polish food. And so I didn't feel fully Canadian then

but then suddenly I was like felt more Canadian moving to the States. So it's always been a bit of a mess. So I feel like I understand what a melting pot is pretty well. But the Polish sort of like through line has always been there. First I want to know how this collision of this collision of cultures played out in your home kitchen. Describe the kitchen for me. And I guess which one would you want to talk about? The one in Canada or the one in West Virginia? Let's go with the happier one. Okay. Let's go with Montreal.

All right. So that's one sort of when my family was together and I was there with my sisters. Because when I moved to West Virginia, there was kind of like a schism in the family at that point. Your sisters are much older. Sisters are older. Yeah, I'm the youngest. And growing up, I was, definitely raised in a matriarchal household. So my dad, a physician, worked really long shifts at the hospital as a doctor, and my mother was the one who prepared the food. My parents also traveled a lot. So sometimes we would go with them, but very often we wouldn't. And they would come back and they always brought back different ingredients or recipes or things that they kind of took from their travels. And so that's how I got my diversity exposure to different foods, I think, growing up.

Montreal also, I think it should be noted as like a very multicultural diverse environment. I think there were probably like four white kids in every elementary school grade when I look back at the photos. And we had this beautiful tradition as St. Lawrence in the suburbs of Montreal where I was raised called the buffet, buffet de Nassions, like the buffet of nations, where you would bring your mother's dish, your father's dish from whatever country they came from, from their respective countries. and everyone kind of broke bread in the school cafeteria. And so I was exposed to Iranian food and Lebanese food and Portuguese fish stew and all kinds of fun stuff. I love that. I was kind of open-minded to that kind of stuff, but I was very picky at home. And surprisingly, we ate Polish food, but it was more exploring foods from different cultures.

Because that was sort of, I think, my parents' way of teaching us that there's a world out there and you need to work your ass off so you can experience it. you know, so you can do this for yourself whenever you get older, which I think was a beautiful lesson. But yeah, very matriarchal household. I was not allowed to cook. My mother was in charge of the kitchen, and so I would watch on the other end of the kitchen island. You were not allowed to cook. The kitchen was her domain. Her domain, yeah. I could barely go to the fridge for a snack, like I had to ask her. Oh, can I open the fridge? Which I just realized now. Yeah. Yeah. I was raising that we can get into it. I'm, I have questions, so we're going to get into it. So was that because, you know, sometimes you hear that because food, there wasn't enough food. So you just can't

go in the kitchen and take whatever you want. Sometimes that happens where you can't just go in the refrigerator or the cupboards because this is my kitchen. I have my stuff the way I want it. I don't want you messing things up. It was the latter. And sometimes it's cleanliness. Like, don't bring your little grubby hands in the kitchen and leave marks all over everything. Which version of that. It was number two and number three. Okay. So my mother liked to, yeah, my mother like to do things a certain way. And I certainly, for better or worse, have taken on that habit where I'm not really great at asking for help. I love explaining things to people and teaching them. And it's something that I take a lot of joy in because I'm so passionate about it. But like, I like my onions cut a certain way. I relate.

Yeah. Okay. I do. I do. I do. I like things put away in a certain order. Yeah. And it's so interesting because I was just telling you how I would watch my mother and cook. And I love doing it because I was able to kind of take in all of this information and experience it as a viewer. When friends come over now, the way that my apartment is set up is that I have these little bar chairs on the other end of the island. I love it when they kind of just sit there with like their glass of wine or their drink and they just watch me cook. and I get to have my own little cooking show.

They're asking me a bunch of questions. I make them try sauces. And I'm like, okay, do we need a little bit more pepper here? A little bit more salt. And it's something that I really enjoy doing. So I'm a bit of a control freak, but also I love, and this is, I think, where we kind of connect. I take such joy in preparing something for someone, especially if it's something that

they've never had before that I get to teach them about. Or my new favorite thing, whenever I have. When I have people over for dinner, it's sort of like, what have you not had in forever and like, what do you want me to make? And I have a friend who came over a few weeks ago. Well, it is until you have to execute on said ask because a friend of mine came over and I was like, for your birthday gift, because I didn't get her a gift. I'm a terrible gift giver.

And I'm much more of like an active service experience guy. And I was like, you're coming over and I'm making you whatever you want. So she wanted a traditional Vietnamese fuga with chicken. and northern Vietnamese nems, just these beautiful little dumplings with pork and all these veggies and the classic sauce that goes with it. I've never made any of these things.

Well, the dumplings are, that's to get the right consistency and the cut for everything that you put inside and the consistency of the dumpling. How did it go? That wasn't even the hardest part. That one was fine. It was this broth,

this clear broth that had absolutely like no sediment or no anything. It was just like the clearest with just like slight notes of a tiny bit of clove and cinnamon, but not overpowering because she's a big food person. So I really have to step up. I spent a day researching reading all of these family blogs and the debate as to like coriander seed or you just put the cilantro stem, which is better. And then I had to make some executive decisions and kind of go rogue.

But it worked out really well. It was really a beautiful meal. She was really touched by, and I was just excited that I, she got me to do something that I've never made before that I've enjoyed so many times and have taken for granted how much time goes into it. You got to wash that chicken three separate times in the sink and clear out the pot just so that it's, it was, yeah, it was, but that's my favorite thing to do because I think it's a fun challenge.

I get to learn. And then I get to show my love to them with something that like all the intention is put into just making it for that person. Like, nothing makes me happier. We've established, I have a question about washing the chicken three times. That's interesting just in itself. But that's not what we're here to talk about. So I'm going to move on.

We've established that you're a great cook and a good friend. And it seems like a lot of that came from the kitchen that you grew up and watching your mom, watching her technique. You said that you'd like to find joy in the kitchen. Was the kitchen a joyous space for her? Yes and no. Okay. I think it brought her a lot of joy because it's something she was really good at.

Also, mind you, my mother's still around. I don't have a relationship with her. We haven't spoken in over a decade at this point. Over a decade. Yeah, not my choosing. And so it was something like she was clearly in her element and she was in her zone. And we had a very chaotic, loud, household with a lot of emotional outbursts.

And that was the time when she was just most focused and happiest. It's the time when I'm the happiest. I have like pretty bad ADD. And that's the one time where I can really just kind of hyper focus on the task at hand and not get distracted by anything. And so it brought her joy, but there was still so much stress around it with getting dinner on the table at a very specific time. And this was all kind of self-imposed.

all of us were just kind of like excited to sit at the table and laugh and gossip and talk about our days. But she put this tremendous amount of pressure on herself to just execute the perfect meal. And she really did. She is an exceptional cook. We never went to culinary school, raised three kids that never had any training. Apparently speaking to my sister recently, she told me, she was like, did you know that her mom had no idea how to cook when she married your dad? Like she really learned everything herself. She grew up, I think it was. in a pretty affluent household and had all those needs met. And this was something that she kind of figured out on her own, which I really respected. I was, I'm especially touched when people learn a hobby later on in life,

you know, that reminder that you never stop learning. So it was sort of these really highs and lows of like beautiful food and smells and ingredients that I'd never seen and getting to learn about different cultures, but also this like amount of stress for like being able to sit down at 5.30 p.m. at dinner. And it had to be ready. And it was like the tension was there. So it was a mixed bag. Was that self-imposed or did your father come home from his job and expect dinner waiting at 5.30 p.m.?

No. My dad is like the chillest guy ever. Sometimes he would be there. And if he were working, he would just have leftovers afterwards if he came home a little later. This was really, she was the kind of, she ran that house. It was really, it was really, it was really, about her. I know that there must have been stuff going on. I mean, my parents are divorced now. And ironically, I wasn't very close with my father growing up and we speak multiple times a day now.

That's life, right? Kind of wild. But yeah, it was her. It was, it was her. I hope you don't, I know you have a touchy relationship with your mom or no relationship. So I hope you don't want me asking questions about her. But I, I'm listening to you talk about her. Forster, what's her name? Yanina. Beautiful name. Joanne in English. Yeah.

For women of a certain generation, there was so much pressure put on them. All those women's magazines that we recall, you know, here in America it was Women's Day and better homes and gardens, which suggested your home is not good enough. It needs to be better. McCalls, you know, there was this expectation laid on women's shoulders to be perfect, to have the perfect home, to have the perfect flower arrangements, to set the perfect table. And a lot of women who didn't work outside the home, you know, really absorbed a lot of that. When you look back, was this the place where maybe, you know, in another life, she might have done something else, but all of that energy went into the kitchen?

and went into feeding her family and went into setting the perfect table and went into providing what to her felt like nutrition, you know, for her family. I even thought of that. Wow. Okay. You said we're going to go there. No, and I'm grateful for it. I think it's important to have these talks. You never know if there's one person out there who can relate to any of this. And clearly I'm on a journey. I'm learning so much from you and your perspective right now. And I think, you know, if it can be helpful to anybody that's why we do what we do or that's why I do what I do. She came from a very educated household. Her father was a physician as well. Her mother was a professor and she got pregnant

very young in Poland and she was in med school when she met my father and she never completed her studies. And so I would safely assume that she had very different dreams than the life that she ended up having. And leaving Poland was not easy for her. It was, she loved it there. And my understanding is she lives there now, in between Switzerland, where my middle sister lives. And so she ended up going back.

And so it couldn't have been easy to leave home, drop your dreams, have a child at a very young age. I believe she was 21 or 20. And then another one a few years later. And so I think adjusting to that must have been hard. And what you said kind of like winded me a little emotionally because it's like, yeah, like where was all that energy going to go to? I mean, that school is like tough stuff.

And then in communist Poland on top of that during that time, her herself coming from, you know, a pretty toxic upbringing. I would say a very toxic upbringing, actually. A lot of abuse and a lot of betrayal and that kind of stuff. And so it couldn't have been easy. And that energy is there. We have to put it somewhere and she put it towards food. You know, I wonder if in some way you knew that as a kid.

Because for a lot of us, the kitchen was a place where women had full agency. And I mean, I myself remember watching my mom in the kitchen and thinking she moves differently in the kitchen than she does anywhere else. Yeah. You know, like she's bigger in the kitchen. And even as a kid, I understood that. I definitely felt that with my mother. It was sort of, it kind of extended socially as well. My parents would entertain and go to like balls and things like that.

And she is the, the greatest host that ever was, spoke multiple language, knew every single. angle of politics and was so well read. She was reading three novels at the same time. Oh, no, not novels. She liked biographies. She didn't like fiction. It was all about autobiographies. And she could carry a conversation with anybody. She had charm and charisma, which I think is incredibly rare. And she kind of had everyone wrapped around her finger. And our family was this very vain, beautiful facade of perfection. many ways and we would get a lot of comments about that growing up, but then it kind of all like

dismantled. So I think the food was kind of fueled into like the upkeep of that, of that in many ways. Not to say that it didn't have any depth because that was really my happiest moments were sitting at the table with my family, specifically breakfast and breakfast was a big deal in our family, really big deal. Everyone contributed in their own way. Yeah. You said something, everything dismantled. What do you mean by that? I think, you know, when I moved, when we moved to West Virginia, both my sisters stayed. And that was the moment where my family was basically separated for the first time, where we were kind of, we had a home in Montreal, we had a home in West Virginia.

There was a lot of back and forth. My mother was trying to juggle both. She had already left Poland, which she didn't want to do. And she certainly did not want to be in the U.S. living in a gated community where she didn't drive. She didn't have access to all like the international markets and cafes and like the diversity that Montreal had. Not to say West Virginia doesn't have beautiful things, but no one's accusing them of, of, of, a lot of diversity and the parts where we lived at least. And so I think that was really hard for her.

And then, you know, when my parents, they split up a couple of times. They split up the first time when I was, when I was in high school. and then got back together and then split up again. It was a lot of back and forth. But that move to the U.S. is really what shifted everything for the family. It was like the beginning of the end in many ways. So you talked about Montreal being the happier kitchen. What was different about the kitchen when you moved to that gated community in West Virginia?

Was she trying to create a place of agency in that kitchen also? It would for me and my dad. We never had anyone. We hardly ever had anyone over. She didn't entertain as much. It was harder for her to connect with people there. And she kind of closed herself off and stayed at home a lot. Junior high there started at a shocking hour.

It was like 5 a.m. or 5.30. Wait, you had to be at school at 5 a.m? Yeah, at 5 or 5.30. It was a crazy early time I remember because I had to get up and it was still pitch black outside. And my mother would make me a Belgian waffle, hand-wipped cream, with macerated berries and a lot of fresh mint. My guy had this every morning. I was a lucky kid, but I was swimming a lot, so my body can handle it.

And like other things, but that was like my sweet treat that I was always really excited about. And she would make me this beautiful breakfast. And then I would come home and then we would have dinner whenever we would be together. But his shifts were longer in the U.S. So she still made incredible food. But a lot of times she was in Montreal. So it was me and my dad alone. And so I was kind of like left to fend for myself or I would just eat at like,

the country club because we lived on a golf course. Woe is me. But still, you're lonely. At the time, you think this is the coolest thing ever. I'm eating at a country club. I'm putting stuff on my dad's tab. But then you kind of grow up. And I used to have up all these parties.

And then you grow up and you're sort of like, wait, where were my parents? Like, I was really lonely in that big old house, you know? You never know what goes on, you know, inside someone's walls. Because from the outside, it must have looked like the coolest thing in the world. He's just... throwing stuff on a tab. And I know you probably, you know, looked good and the facade was probably there, right? Head to toe, Abercrombie and Fitch. The account number was 2025 at the Glade Springs

Country Club. They had the best hot chocolate after tennis practice. Yeah, collar popped. Exactly. Exactly. I can see it. Wow. You see me. Yeah. I feel very naked right now. But you just never know, because, you know, at an early age, and especially if you're a kid that comes from a home where the relationship is rocky and you're concerned about the outside world, you learn how to wear the mask. Right. And it fits, you know, really well. And at some point, you stop taking it off.

And that just kind of becomes what you present to the outside world. When you describe your mom making those waffles, now I understand why breakfast was so special. I mean, you guys really did it up for breakfast. We did it up. The waffles was a new addition in West Virginia. In Montreal, it was more because we're Polish. there was a lot of charcutory. So a lot of kibasa and cabanos,

which is basically like a fancy slim gin. And Polish and French ham. In West Virginia, we had heavenly ham, which was a Virginia ham, which I love so much because it was flaky. What is heavenly ham? It's just basically like a baked ham and it's pineappley and it's overly sweet and just a caramelized crust on the outside with the little cloves sticking out and it was slaky and juicy.

Cut on the bias? Yes. With the diagonals? Yes. That's right. Much better than that Polish slimy ham I was forced to endure as a child. But no, we would have like soft scrambled eggs. We would make a massive fruit platter.

Fruit were so important. Fresh papaya with a bit of lime juice and a touch of sugar just to get rid of that barfey smell a little bit and always kiwis, always eat the kiwis last because they ruin your taste buds for all the other fruit. And I'm glad you said about papaya because papaya does have kind of a... It does. I'm sorry. Yes, it really does. but that's what it is.

Yeah. But when you, I was just in Mexico and when you have it there, it's very different. I don't know why we can't get that here. What was a traditional Polish meal like? Winter months, which is like nine out of 12 months in Canada, basically. I'm from Minnesota, so I relate. Oh, you get it. You get it.

Yeah, I get it. Got it. So it would often be the winter months because in the summer it was a lot of like Mediterranean fair and that kind of stuff. And Polish food is very time concerned. These are a lot of stews, cabbage rolls, which are very laborious. We never really ate brogis. We would buy them from grandmothers in like shops.

It was something for some reason that my mother didn't really make. She also tried to eat really healthy. And so she would take these classics, like even croquete, which are simple crepes filled with meat or a wild mushroom mixture. Typically they're rolled up and then battered and then deep fried and served with a creamy mushroom sauce. But with her, she would just roll up the craps with either like venison or what kind of meat, whatever meat was available or whatever she had,

and then have like a really light, like a white wine mushroom sauce. So she figured out how to make it a little more, a little more chic, a little lighter on the old tum-tum. But it was very, it was just like stewy food. And that was my favorite. When you walk in the house, you're probably always smelling something, bubbling on the stove. Always.

At least two things, because she was making food for dinner, but also preparing something like a hunter's stew, had to cut and we would leave it in the in the in the the sort of like the cold storage room in the in the basement or in the garage because it's always better the next day right when you eat it kind of like a chilly or or or or beef stew or whatever it is so she'd already be preparing the next thing and it was always the next thing that I was really excited about because then it would sit in the garage and I can go pick the little pieces of meat out while she was upstairs getting ready to go out or something oh she must have loved that you and you probably thought you got away with it and she she she knew that you were in there. Every single time. Because they always know. Of course they always know. So you weren't able to cook, but you know so much about food now and you give of yourself

so generously. And from what I understand, a lot of what you learned was working in the food industry. Like you went to work in a Polish restaurant and learned the things that your mom wasn't able to teach you standing side by side with her. Tell me about that restaurant. How did you find it? What did you learn? So it was actually, it was a friend of the family, but I call her Chocha, Auntie.

I didn't realize I wasn't biologically related to her, who was a friend of my dad's, who bought a restaurant called Stash Cafe, which was just a cafe owned by this guy's stash, and she converted it to a Polish restaurant. She needed furniture. A church happened to burn down, and they saved all of the furniture and the pews. And so they had church pews inside this restaurant with these ox blood red lampshades. and Polish art deco movie posters from like Tamaral Lampizka all over the place. It's just, it still exists.

A pianist plays every night. It is the most charming. The seats are really uncomfortable, but the food is incredible. And these grandmas are sitting in the basement, all Polish, one Ukrainian when I was there. And my parents were like, you're getting a job there when I started university. My dad worked there as a server. His brothers did. My actual aunties did.

Both my sisters did all my, it's a Polish rite of passage if you're in Montreal. And so I would go there and always 30 minutes early. I was always late for everything growing up because I was a jerk and had no consideration for others. But I would show up early so I could have like a proper bowl of borsh and some parochies that I would throw into the borsh, the meat ones, of course, dollops of full fat, sour cream, all the chives I can possibly fit in there. Happy place.

The smells in there were just like, you couldn't be in a bad mood. So did you actually work in the back of the house in the kitchen? or were you serving? I was a server. No, yeah, yeah. I was a server on the main floor. And what did you learn about Polish food as a server? What I learned about Polish food as a server?

Interesting. I've been asked what I've learned. Well, it actually wasn't. We would get Polish people who would come in, but it was a lot of tourists. So I wouldn't lunch shift often just because I was working at an Italian restaurant at night. I was saving up money just so I could move to New York and become an act. in a Scorsese show on HBO. It hasn't happened yet, but don't worry.

We're still trying. There's still time. There's still time. And so I did the lunch shift and there was always like a different special. And so it was business people coming in and they had like 45 minutes to eat. So it was like very rush. And again, from my ADD, that was perfect because I, those, that three hour shift would just kind of fly by. But watching these women, these women cook in sort of like the effort, the quality of the food there,

I say this subjectively because I've worked there, I've been to a lot of Polish restaurants. they weren't using cabbage as filler. They were always generous with the meat portions, the care that they put into everything. It was perfectly seasoned, aka heavily salted, which is just how I like things. And there was, even though it was mass produced, you felt like you felt that the love was there in that food, which is so rare for a restaurant to actually feel that care. And it was a small restaurant, but there was just something so, so comfort. there. You would go down and I would ask them for food. And I've worked at sushi restaurants in high-end

places. And usually you go to a kitchen, you're like, hey, can I have a bite? I'm starving. They look at you like, get up. It's like, we're in the middle of service. But these women would be like, please sit on the, sit on the apple box. And like, here, let me give you a bowl. Like, here's a napkin. Don't mess up your shirt. Like they were like moms. They were moms. Yeah. I love that, that image of these, these grandmas in the kitchen. Just serving up literally home cooked food, but from a restaurant. Yeah. Yeah. Did that experience change you? 100%.

I, prior to that, I really struggled with my Polish identity, woke up every day wishing I were Italian or Greek or French or something that kind of felt cooler. But being there and working among, my coworkers were basically my age, except for a couple of career servers who were older than I was. But they were my age. They had these super Polish names and they seemed to just be proud of being Polish, which was very novel to me, and they would hang out afterwards and speak Polish, which I only spoke

Polish at home. I had no interest in speaking anywhere else. And it just kind of like normalized and made it sort of like, I grew to kind of accept where I came from because of my environment. And I'm not going to say I was running around with a Polish flag on my T-shirt, but it just made me, it just kind of like settled into my bones that it was like, oh, this is who you are. Did your family closely watch what was going on in Poland and the resurgence in Poland? The resurgence, are we talking communist there? Yes, when communism shifted, like Wellesah. I imagine that they were probably watching all of that very, very closely.

Totally. I mean, even when my father was there, and he has stories of, he's an interesting character. Because I get to see parts of him now with everything that's going on and his sort of fears about, you know, know, with this current, let's call it an administration, where he kind of like he's on edge, because I'm a Canadian citizen and he's seen it before. And sort of like the being careful, not that we like say anything controversial on the phone, but like he only speaks Polish on the phone. And it's like you kind of feel that like tension of that muscle memory is definitely ingrained in him. Yeah, he's someone who holds onto that stuff a lot. We have so much.

bread in our freezers in Vermont. It's wild. Really? Because he's worried about, you know, but he's always been like that since he was a child. That was, that's something that's been in him, you know. His father was in a concentration camp as a Catholic. My mother's father as a Catholic was in a concentration camp. So it's like we never wasted anything.

Like all that stuff is still, I have, I definitely have some of that as well. You know, that's a conversation for another time. But a lot of people have come to America from authoritarian backgrounds, you know, they are experiencing vertigo and PTSD and sort of foreshadowing right now that is playing out and lots of interesting ways. When you see the signs,

sorry, I went off the deep end there. No, no, no, no. This is that wherever we go, it's always interesting. When you worked at the restaurant, by the way, which is a great name, Stash, you know, and the whole story, a guy named Stash opens a restaurant and then a church burns, it's just, there's a whole film to be made about that.

Oh, yeah. When you worked there, I'm wondering if that made it easier because I read that at some point when you started to make a name for yourself, it was suggested that you change your name. And I'm wondering if the pride that grew up inside of you when you were working at that restaurant and saw the cool guys who hang out afterwards and carried yourself in a different way as a young man with a background that reaches back to Poland, if you said, no, I'm not going to change my name, in part because of that experience of the restaurant. That would be the noble version of the story. But the truth, in fact, is I graduated from

the neighborhood playhouse here in New York after two years. And I was like, Antony Praski, the only roles I was going in for was either French waiter or a Polish terrorist. And so, I was like, what if I changed my last name? And I wanted to change it to, I use it as an alias now, so I'm not going to share exactly what it is. But my first name, I was going to change, my parents were going to name me Philippe, Philip, F-I-L-P. And so that was going to be my first name. And then the other one I was going to change to something that sounded very American. And I remember when I told my dad in person, I think his face went beat red. And he's not someone, he's even killed. He's very emotional and he'll cry at happy and sad things very quickly, but he got pissed. And I think the line was,

I'm not going to tell it verbatim, but it was like our country was off the map for more than 400 years and we've retained our customs, our language and our heritage. You are not. And I was like a, I was like a 28 year old. Like I was able to do whatever I wanted at that point. And he was like, you were not changing your name.

And that's an end of discussion. And I was like, okay. I felt a chill. I'm so glad I didn't. I felt a little chill on my shoulder when I said. Because if you meet him, it's like, how is he capable of that? He's really the sweetest guy ever. He's a teddy bear.

But yeah, he was not impressed. And I'm so glad that I didn't. In my family, May is one long celebration. There's always a niece or a nephew graduating. We have a birthday in May. And of course, there's May Day and Mother's Day. Mother's Day brunch can be one of the most delicious meals of the year. And Whole Foods Market is the best place to source your ingredients.

This year, we might keep it simple and do a big, beautiful salad full of color and flavor. Well, everything in the salad can come from Whole Foods Market. I'll use the 365 by Whole Foods Market salad kit as the base. Maybe add some ripe strawberries, a little bit of fresh asparagus. Hmm, sounds delicious. Maybe we'll do some grilled chicken breasts with a little lemon and dills surrounded by spring veggies. And you should know that Whole Foods chicken has no antibiotics ever. I love looking for those yellow low-price signs throughout the store to know I'm getting the best deals on my ingredients.

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I can keep filling it for weeks and it never smells. What really surprises me is the peace of mind. I used to feel guilty every time I tossed out wilted spinach or half-eaten leftovers. Now I just drop them into the bin, open the lid, drop them in, and I know that they're going to a better place. You can use the grounds in your garden or feed them to your chickens, but me, I have Mill, get them to small farms for me so farmers can grow more food. You just send those grounds off to farms in little boxes that Mill can provide, and they will turn that back into real food for real animals. That's such a good feeling.

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Find out how much at Airbnb.com slash host. At what point did you know that you wanted to do something that would be forward-facing, that would be in front of a camera, on a stage? Is that something that always lived in you? Did you always know that you had a lot of ta-da in you? Yes. I've had a pathological need to be seen as the youngest of three since I was a baby. And I wanted to be an actor, a director, a writer, producer, anything having to do with film, I was obsessed since I was a kid.

I would roll down, we had this spiral staircase, and I would roll down as a kid, my mother would run thinking, like, what the hell is going on? Because I was obsessed with the Titanic and just kind of like recreate a little. all of the books that I'd read. This was before the film came out. And life was just like wanting to just be in movies. And so it's interesting that I've ended up having a public-facing job, but not in the capacity that I thought. Did your parents support that idea? Not really. I come from a family of a lot of physicians, engineers, and on my mother's side, a lot of artists and some politicians on my father's side as well. And so acting wasn't the most exciting thing for them to hear. I mean, they told me when I decided I was moving to New York. I was

like, I'm moving to New York. And they were like, great. Like, how are you going to pay for it? I was like, oh, because I just got my undergrad in psychology, specialization in psych, which I figured was like middle ground between the arts and the sciences, like make them happy because they're both, you know, doctors. And so that was definitely very tough. for them. My father was always supportive, but I can feel that they were like, they were, they were concerned. They were a little, they were definitely worried. What were they worried about? I was, I was a bit of a hooligan in my 20s, and I was definitely a troublemaker. I had a lot of issues with figuring out who I was in addiction. And so, you know, the entertainment industry and

addiction, have a very close relationship, and there's a lot of that. And so I think they had some very justifiable concerns, I think, for me, especially being in New York, which is kind of a terrifying place when you're coming from like a smaller city. They wanted to protect you. They wanted to protect me. Yeah. I can't fault them for that. At what point did you come out to your parents? And how did they respond to that? So I've never really come out to my mother, to my father. I was in a relationship. This was before Queer Eye, just a couple, a couple years before, not long actually.

Because I've dated men and women sort of like on and off and my past few relationships have been men. And I remember he was driving me to the airport. I was going back to Brooklyn where I was living with my partner at the time. And my dad made a comment in the car and he was like, he was like, you know, I don't try to pry into your life. I know it's none of my business. And then he kind of like pivoted and it was a little awkward. And I still have a fear of flying.

And I was getting on the plane and I was thinking like, if this plane crashes, he's not going to know this like really important part of my life. I was like, let's send him an email. So I sent him an email and I was like, I was like, I was like, Hey, you know, I just wanted to like thank you for like a really lovely weekend about to take off. I just wanted you to know that I love and I am loved. And then I shared my ex's name and that was it. And then I didn't hear from my dad for like a week or like two. And I was like, oh.

So I called him and I was like, hey, what's going on? Like just checking in. He's like, oh, just mowing the lawn and going off and like explaining his entire day and how long it took him to find a light bulb and how he doesn't like LEDs. but they're better for the environment because of the cold light and whatever he was going on about. And I was like, well, did you get my email? He was like, oh, yeah, I think that's great. I can't wait to meet him. Let me know when you guys want to come to Vermont. We'll arrange it. And that was his way of being supportive. And he's been a, he's an onion, my dad, you know? Yeah. It takes a while. And I always joke that he's like fully baked. Like the cake is in the oven. I'm not going to change him. I need to accept him for who he is and just really

embrace that. A bit of frosting, but that's it. But he does, he's, he's been really loving and supportive. And I think with my mother, I wasn't raised in a house where we shared about. I mean, yeah, I come from a home where there were several affairs before I was around and even after I was around. And we, I discussed this with my sister recently. Like we never felt comfortable bringing a significant other home, whether it was the same gender or opposite gender. It just wasn't, it wasn't a house where like after a bike ride, I would come home with my friends to have milk and cookies because the house was too stressful. It had to stay immaculate. We always went to someone else's

house who had like a candy drawer and where you can walk in. Things were a little messy, a little cozy music playing TV on. My house was like it was, you know, you could eat off the floors. I am sorry to go back to your mom again here, but I wonder if that was again part of their perfection. Like I can't control, was it dad having the affairs? Both. Okay. So I can't control all this stuff that's going on out here. But my house is going to be perfect. Exactly. Yeah. It was one of those things where he definitely got a lot of flack for his. And when my parents split up, I basically, I chose not to take sides. And that's kind of at the core of why I was cut off by my mother. There's some other reasons. I'm sure her perspective is

different. But my experience was basically like I'm in my 20s now. I recognize that what he did, I'm not really proud of and it isn't really great. But he's still my father. I'm not going to cut off my relationship with him. We're just going to have to figure out how to work through all this. And then I found out and I was right on my hunch that the affairs were definitely reciprocated. Not the right word for it, but you know what I mean. And this is something that had gone on for it.

It went both ways. Yeah. It is never, ever, ever black and white in any relationship. It just never is. No. That was my big lesson from that. It's always complicated. Do you attempt to reach out to your mom now, or are you giving her the space she needs to find her way back to you?

I reach out to her at Christmas and on her birthday, and it's a very short note. It's a little email or a text, and that's it. And do you do that as much for yourself as you do for her? I'm sorry. You can tell me to roll backwards if you want me to. I feel comfortable with you. And again, I think it's important to talk about these things. And I'm in therapy since I was 17.

So this is something that I talk about with my friends openly. I think discussing grief and I think cutoffs are such a massive part of culture right now. And it's a phenomenon that's come up in the past couple of decades that I've had more than one therapist. that this is like a thing that is happening in culture and I think we do need to talk about it. And there are things that I'm certainly going to keep for myself. But I, the grace for myself, I think, is it's kind of like it's that whole goodwill hunting scene where like Matt Damon is with what's his face where it's sort of like, no, like it's not your fault. Robin Williams. With Robin Williams.

Sorry, of course. And he's punching him and he's like, stop saying it. And he's like, I know it's not my fault. And then suddenly it starts hitting you. And then it sort of, it was like, that was basically my, my journey at one point in what I've been working through therapy and realizing like, oh, like I actually didn't, I didn't do anything. I'm not perfect by any means. But like, I didn't, I'm not the reason for this. I'm not a bad person.

It's not, it's actually not my fault. It's taken me. I'm 41. It has taken me like 20 years of work to get to a point where I can actually say. say that. And in some ways the parent has to get to that point too. Of course. And that doesn't always align

perfectly. And I'm sorry, I say this as someone whose parents lived down the street from each other. My mom moved out and lived eight blocks down the street from my dad. And so, you know, when you talk about the mask, I understand it, because most people are just thought, well, that's interesting. They made it

all normal, but. Of course. You know, it's always Yeah, yeah. It's always kind of crazy. it seems to me that the journey that you've had makes you the perfect person for the jobs that you have now because in many ways you're sharing yourself and you're getting other people to open up. And if you had not gone through many of the things that you've gone through, you might not be as effective as you are in Queer Eye and you approach, you seem to understand how to give people grace, but also how to push them to find their best.

to push them past their comfort zone. So everything you've gone through, all the therapy that you've had, all the friendships that you've had, where people have listened and supported you and held you up, seems to have helped you do the job that you do now so well. And now with the newest show where you're taking people back to their ancestral homelands. When you're doing that work, how do you compartmentalize yourself or do you try to bring your full self to that work?

Like, I do this because I've been here or this is my job and I'm only going to bring this much of myself into the space and figure out how to do it professionally or is doing it professionally just going in with your heart wide open and putting your life into your work fully. First of all, thank you for saying that. I was just having a conversation with someone last night about how I would never ever wish some of the stuff that I experienced as a kid and the things that I saw on any child. But at the same time, I'm so immensely grateful for them happening because I genuinely would not be here without any of them. I know we say that all the time, but it is so true. So aspirationally, in regards to your question, I try to go in and take everything case by case. Sometimes people are a wide open book, whether it's queer eye or some of the guests on No Taste and no taste like home. And you just kind of go in and they're really open.

And other times, they're a little more closed off. And so I start with, okay, I'm going to share a little bit of myself. And I learned that early on with queer eye. I used to just ask questions, but then I realized, like, no, this needs to be like a little more symbiotic. Like, it needs to be more of a conversation. So I start with a personal story on my end. Because at the end of the day, like our experience, to quote my therapist, Carol, our experiences are all different, but the feelings are all the same.

Like there's a limited amount of feelings. And like, that's kind of like where we're united, you know, as humans, which is really beautiful. And I try to remember that. And sometimes it's going in with, you know, I took Aquafina, Nora to South Korea. And she hadn't been back since her mother passed away since she was four years old. And with her, there were, you know, that was a lot of anxiety, understandably. So I definitely felt like a little bit more kid gloves.

Usually they didn't know what they were doing every day. I gave her a heads up of who we were going to be meeting because I didn't want her to feel. Just try to like lower the cortisol wherever I could because it was already spiking. start to finish and she was a trooper. But I think it's about, it's just about getting the vibe of the person and understanding what makes them tick and getting to know them as best as I can in such a short amount of time and then acting accordingly. And sometimes it's about rambling and entertaining them and disarming them that way.

And other times they're ready for it. And so then I'm just there as a conduit on this journey. And I get to experience all this amazing food and hear all these beautiful stories and share this new information with them. So it's like, what a, you know, selfishly, I feel like I'm the one winning here. So it's really, it's a case by case, but all in all, the way I approach work, the way I approach my friendships and relationships for better or worse, I'm like, here it is, let's go, you know? Life is short. You love someone, just like, tell them. I'm that guy. I love that you, that you're not there to surprise people. That's clear in

watching, no taste, like home. that you're not there to throw people into the deep end of the pool and say, how does this feel? Yeah, there's no gotcha moments. There's no gotcha moments. Grace is a good word that describes much of what you do. I'll make an observation of you on queer. I also notice that you sometimes hover at the edge.

You're not the first person to walk into the space. I just notice that you're always sort of in the background, seemingly observing a little bit more. And I thought it was maybe you had acquired a personality. I'm intuiting that that's not the case in talking to you because you do have that to-da on you, but you're introspective. It looks like you're looking to assess the situation before you. That's a very good observation. It's been brought to my attention.

By whom? The shop producers? Oh, really. Yeah, I noticed it. Yeah, I noticed it that you're usually off to the side a little bit more. I'm an introverted extrovert, and I need to understand the lay of the land. And I'm also a highly sensitive person, which is a great book. You only have to read the first 50 pages.

but it's really, really good. When I get into a room, I'm very sensitive. And so if there's like high emotion or anything, like I take all that on and I just can't help myself. And so I need to kind of like understand the environment that I'm in. And it's like, am I here to perform? Am I here to like listen? Do I need more information?

And I kind of have to gauge it. I'm not really like bull in a china shop. And the five of us are type A, for the most part, extroverts. And so, and we're all gay. And we share a trailer. That's a lot. You know, so it's like, individual trailers? We've been sharing a trailer since day one.

None of that has changed. Yep. Well, now that I know that you all are going to be in Washington, D.C., where I'm based, you know, let me know if I can roll over with something delicious for you in the trailer. Are you kidding me? I am not kidding you. I am so not kidding you. I am so not kidding you.

I mean, I'm from Minnesota. We show up with a pan of something. That's just what we do. where I'm from. So we always give our listeners a recipe from the people that we talk to. And I'm imagining a young Antony sitting at the counter watching your mother making cabbage. And that was the recipe that you wanted to share with us. Can you tell us about this recipe and how she perfected it?

Because perfection was her brand. Yep. So why I chose this one is because I've obviously seen my mother prepare 100. if not thousands of meals throughout the years and throughout my childhood. But that was one of those. It was so rare where I actually got to see the execution of it because it took so much time. And often she would start early on in the day while I was still at school. So when I saw it, it was special.

Because you have to, of course, steam the cabbage leaves, roll up the pork with the rice, arrange them just like meticulously, like little soldiers in this like nine by 12. And then drape it with this perfect like apricay tomato sauce, onion. heavy. And oh, it was just, it was like a dream to watch. So are there, is there another name? Are they just called cabbage rolls? So cabbage roll. Cabbage rolls in Polish, it's Goomke, which means little pigeons. I guess they kind of look like pigeons, but it's a strange name. But yeah, those are my, those are my favorites. And why they're so unique is even here in New York and Veselka, they serve them with mushroom sauce, which I think is so strange. Like they belong

with a tomatoy paprika sauce. Onion heavy, as you say. Onion heavy, yeah, beautiful. Just the melty onions. They're not charred. This isn't a caramelization situation. It's just everything is so mellow and the spine was cut off of the cabbage and then chopped up and she would saute it with other veggies or like give it to the dog or something.

So when you cut them, you didn't even need a steak knife because a lot of times they'll leave the spine of the cabbage and you have to cut it and it's just very fibrous. But this was so delicate and it was the right ratio of. pork to rice. It wasn't too rice heavy because I just, I love ground meat. That's one of my, I can have ground meat every day for the rest of my life and it just brings you like meatloaf, obsessed. So this is ground pork that she's using. It was ground pork, yeah. Okay, best to get it from a butcher so it's not too fatty. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, a lot of it'll render out because it cooks over a quite a long period of time covered and then

uncovered. And we're going to have the recipe at our website for people who want to follow along. but can you just say a word about how to get the cabbage right? Because a big part of this is making sure the consistency of the cabbage is just right. And you don't want it to sort of fall apart, but you want it to be really soft and not have that kind of fibrous quality that cabbage can get if you don't cook it enough.

I'm going to get you the recipe, but I actually have a video on YouTube with my good friend Molly Wang, who has Polish heritage. She's an excellent chef. We just posted it a couple of weeks ago with all the details. But the important thing is putting that whole head of cabbage in water. it looks complicated, but it's actually easy. It just takes time.

You know, it's lunchtime. You've given us a lot of your time. I think I have to let you go. Sadly. I hope, I wish you continued success. I thank you so much for opening up your life and your heart. And I hope that when you send one of those missives one day on the holidays or on your mom's birthday, that you get a return. And I bet that's going to happen in her own time. But when it's right, it's right on time. And so that will happen at some point. And that will be a beautiful thing.

And this has been a beautiful conversation. I've loved talking to you. I'm going to see you in D.C. one way or another with a pan of something. Non-negotiable. Non-negotiable. Thanks so much, Anthony. Thank you for creating such a, just a beautiful, safe space to talk about these things. Because it's something that I don't often get to.

And I very often don't feel comfortable. But with you, I really did. And it was really nice to go down that, to have that little journey with you. I think we've had a past life because this is the first time we've met. And I felt very sympathico right from the start. So thank you so much. Likewise. That was Anthony Pereski.

Thank you so much. I was incredible to hear about your evolution with understanding your family's heritage, about growing up in Montreal and then West Virginia and then adventures in New York City. I watch you on TV and I will watch you in a different way, having learned about all of this. Food is always a great connection. And it's beautiful that he shared a way that we can use food to connect to each other, to connect to our past, and to help people figure out how to connect to themselves. As always, our inbox is open for you to record yourself and share with us some of your

Mama's recipes, some memories from your kitchen, some thoughts maybe on some of the previous episodes. you may have some thoughts on what you've just heard, send that all to us, either a video recording or a voice recording to YMK at higherground Productions.com for a chance for your voice to be featured on an episode or a video to be featured on YouTube when we eventually migrate there or maybe on Instagram. And if you want to try the cabbage rules, you can go to our website at your mama's kitchen.com. You'll find all the recipes from all the previous episodes there. You can also send us a note there about what you see or what you think or a thought on

any other recipes. Thanks so much for being with us. Please come back next week and every week after that because you know us here at your mama's kitchen. We are always, always, always serving up something delicious. And until then, be bountiful.