Laura Prepon says she 'woke up' when she became a mom: 'I was born just like she was'
Welcome to So Mini Ways, Yahoo Life's parenting series on the joys and challenges of childrearing.
Laura Prepon is known to many as Donna on That '70s Show, or Alex on Orange is the New Black, but those who follow her on social media — or have read her New York Times bestseller, You & I, as Mothers — will also recognize her as an avid cook.
"One of the ways I show my love is through food," Prepon, who shares a 4-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son with husband Ben Foster, tells Yahoo Life. "I love making my family home-cooked meals."
Her love of the kitchen has led to Prepon releasing a line of cookware on May 7, called PrepOn, for HSN. "I've just been running into issues while I've been cooking and not being able to find a product to solve my problem, so I was like, I'm just going to make it," Prepon says.
Here, Prepon shares with Yahoo Life the inspiration behind the new line, her favorite recipes to make for her family and what it was like to parent two kids during the pandemic.
What does cooking mean to you?
I've been cooking since I was a child. My mother was a chef, and I love the kitchen — for me that's where it happens. That's where family life is. Because I've been cooking for so long, I kept running into situations where I was like, "there's gotta be a better way to do this."
What was one thing that you found yourself problem-solving that you wanted to make happen with these products?
I'm friends with a lot of pro chefs and they're like, "it's all about being in a rhythm." I find that's the same thing with me just cooking for my family. You get into a rhythm and when your cutting board is overflowing with food scraps and you have to stop and carry it and dump it — there's got to be more efficient way. So over the years, I've been tucking a bag under the edge of my cutting board that I would scrape everything into. But then the bag's all floppy and causing a mess, so I created a cutting board that has an arm that comes out of the board and holds a biodegradable and compostable bag to place all of your food scraps, so that you always have a clean cutting board. You're efficient, it makes it easier. That is an example of something that I said to myself, "there's got to be a better way to do this." I couldn't find it, so I designed it myself.
There are also things like, my daughter will eat half an apple and leave half off it on the counter that's oxidizing and turning brown. Or I cook with a lot of vinaigrettes and lemon in my cooking and there's always half lemons hanging around getting hard and crusty on the counter and I don't want to use plastic wrap, so I designed these silicone food lids that go over the cups and have a little vacuum seal. They're super-universal; I also use them for snack bowls for my kids. Or my knife: I wanted a wider blade, so once my food's prepped to be able to scrape it up and put it into the pan. All of my products are solution-based and geared toward making things easier.
What has cooking been like for you during the pandemic? Have you been cooking more?
Preparing homemade meals for my family is such an important part of how I show my love for them; it's something that brings me joy. It's also very meditative for me. But cooking this year — I've never cooked so much in my life. We have two kids now, and [the youngest] was born right before the pandemic started, so it's been crazy, just like it has been for everybody else.
What are your kids' favorite things to eat that you prepare for them?
One of the first thing that comes to mind is bone broth. I am a huge proponent of bone broth, and I wrote about this in my first cookbook in 2016. Bone broth is like a liquid multivitamin. Bone broth is a big deal for me because it really helped me heal from different ailments when I was in my 20s. As soon as my kids were old enough and their pediatrician gave me the OK, they were drinking bone broth in a bottle. They love it. Whenever I have a fresh broth, they drink it like little teas.
The other thing my daughter loves is my banana walnut pancakes.
What has parenting been like for you during the pandemic? You also went from having one to two kids during the pandemic, so those transitions happened kind of simultaneously.
Becoming a mom of two during the pandemic was very interesting. I think for me, I really need to learn to not be so hard on myself. I tend to be hard on myself if I don't achieve certain things during the day, or don't get a certain amount of things done that I want to get done. But I'm sorry, when you have two young children during a pandemic...
Time is a completely different situation now with two young ones and working from home. Time evaporates like I've never seen it before. I'm really trying to just not be hard on myself because the time flies so quickly with having to juggle so many things. Which I'm sure a lot of your readers can relate to. Trying to stay present is something I'm actively working on and that's across the board: being present with my work, my partner, my kids. I literally wrote something on this little chalkboard, I'm looking at it right now, I wrote down, "I choose how I experience the moment." I'm really just trying to choose how I experience the moments.
Your book You & I, as Mothers talks about the idea of becoming a mom without losing yourself in the process. How do you be Laura and how do you be Mom-Laura, and how are they different?
I'm not who I was, and, by the way, would never go back. When I became a mother I woke up. I really feel like I woke up when I gave birth to my daughter and I heard her first little little squawk; it tore through me and I was born. I was born just like she was. And I was never going to go back to who I was before that. There was a period of mourning that former self but you also become this completely different person in so many different ways. It's embracing that.
It is the biggest gift and blessing you can ever imagine and it's also the biggest reckoning. It's this dual juggle that you're having to figure out. And even now, as a mother of two, I'm still trying to figure out how do you balance work with being a mom and being a present partner. It's a constant evolution. When you have a kid it's like your heart is outside of your body, and you want to wrap them in protective wrap and make sure that nothing ever touches them. And now I have two, so I have two hearts outside of my body.
So daily I'm trying to figure out how to negotiate my worry about them and the news and what's going on in the world, and it's a constant struggle of trying to keep my own mental landscape in check and help me not worry so much about them while trying to also have my career and keep my marriage flourishing and have some shred of self-care and stay healthy. It's a lot. And that's why I can't be so hard on myself! It's a lot.
You've had a long, successful, wide-ranging career. What will you say to your kids when they're older if they come asking you for career advice?
You know what I would tell them? I would tell them that there's only one you. Embrace that and just know that however they imagine something or see something or interpret something or create something, nobody else is going to do it exactly the way that they would. It's just about embracing who they are and going with that and believing in that. That is something that I would tell them.
Laura Prepon on the joy of cooking for her family: It's 'how I show my love for them'
Laura Prepon on cooking for her family: 'They were drinking bone broth in a bottle'
Laura Prepon says she 'woke up' when she became a mom: 'I was born just like she was'
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