"Your Mama's Kitchen" transcript: Episode 19

Novena Audible Originals presents Your Mama's Kitchen, hosted by Michele Norris.

Matthew McConaughey: The kitchen is where everything went down. The kitchen’s where we cried when our heart was broken from a girlfriend breaking up. The kitchen's where my brother Pat got in trouble for getting caught with the bag of weed. Then the kitchen’s where we said our gratitude and prayers around the lazy Susan. The kitchen’s where we told stories, where I learned as a youngster in my family. If you want to get a story and you better hit the gap because a gap is not going to be there in the conversation long. And when you hit that gap, you better be good at it or you will get steamrolled.

INTRO

Welcome to Your Mama's Kitchen, the podcast that explores how we're shaped as adults by the kitchens we grew up in as kids. I'm Michele Norris.

And we are joined by not just one but TWO guests today. A married couple with great chemistry and great stories. I’m talking about the … Golden Globe and Academy award-winning actor AND author Matthew McConaughey. And Camila Alves-McConaughey, she’s a model, designer, children’s book author, and advocate for healthy living.

Moviegoers have watched Matthew McConaughey spread his wings on screen in roles ranging from suave slackers to romantic leads in films like Dazed and Confused, The Wedding Planner, Failure to Launch and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days…. to complex and more demanding turns in films like Amistad, Interstellar and Dallas Buyers Club, which earned him his Oscar. Here’s the thing about Matthew—he’s known just as much for his off-screen personality. That Texas drawl. His free-spirited attitude captured in his best-selling book called Greenlights, surfing on the high seas with his kids and his commitment to life as a family man.

Camila had a very different upbringing than Matthew. She was born in Brazil, splitting her time between Rio de Janeiro and her family’s farmstead in the country. She came to America when she was a teenager and started off cleaning houses and waiting tables until she launched her modeling career and things took off from there. After meeting Matthew, she found an outlet in sharing what she knew about food, health and parenting on her website Women of Today and she wrote a New York Times best-selling children’s book, called Just Try One Bite, to get kids to be less picky about their vegetables.

I think you are going to love this conversation. You’ll learn a lot about Matthew and Camila’s life. About his history in a sometimes volatile household in Texas, her rural roots in Brazil, and the life they have built together based on the lessons from the kitchens of their past. We’ll hear about how they split the kitchen duties (Matthew doesn't believe in dishwashers)... the things they cook up to make up after a fight, and what they listen to on the old-fashioned record player they keep next to their kitchen sink. Plus, we learn how to make Camila’s mama’s Brazilian Chicken Stroganoff. All that and more coming up…

ACT 1

Michele Norris: Welcome to Your Mama's Kitchen.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: Thank you for having us.

Matthew McConaughey: Yes, indeed.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: Do you know that this is the first time ever that Matthew and I are doing a podcast together?

Matthew McConaughey: Is it?

Camila Alves-McConaughey: First time.

Matthew McConaughey: In your kitchen.

Michele Norris: Okay. We're making history. I love that.

Matthew McConaughey: I did not know that.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: Yes, we…

Matthew McConaughey: Now that you say it, I don't remember another time.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: Wish us luck.

Michele Norris: Oh we're gonna have fun. I don't need to wish you luck. I'm going to tell people I said, put your seatbelt on. Let's see where we go with this.

Matthew McConaughey: Yeah.

Michele Norris: So we always begin with this very simple question. Close your eyes. Take me down memory lane. Help me understand the kitchen that you grew up in and how it helps shaped the person that you became today.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: Mmm. The kitchen that I grew up in. I had my mom, who was a working mom. She worked six days a week, but she still come home and prepared these very gourmet meals. She was kind of like a mad scientist in a way that would just show up and put these dishes that looked like they were coming straight from the restaurant and served to us at dinner time.

Michele Norris: How did she have time for that?

Camila Alves-McConaughey: Yeah, I have no idea how she did it. But she did it. And then I will travel to the farm on my father's side. And it was really my grandmother on my father's side that had this farm-to-table relationship with food where, you know, they were growing everything on the farm. The cooking was wood burning and everybody had a job. Everybody was in the kitchen together. It was like, you know, we need this. You go run over there. You know, I grew up in the big city. They used to make fun of me because I didn't know what herb was, what spice was, what going in the back to get it. But it was a very collective everybody laughing, everybody had their job.

Michele Norris: What did that kitchen look like?

Camila Alves-McConaughey: My grandma's kitchen was wide open from where you cook to where you clean the dishes to where you sat down to eat. And in one side my grandfather built this wood burning oven in the farm and was, you know, it's got different layers and you can bake on the bottom. You cook it on the top. And then to your right would be the big table, just a very simple wood table. Everybody cooked to it. And I remember on the other side of the table is this door, and they had it cut in half. Maybe this is where I like the French doors because it was kind of, you know, cut in half and they always left the top open. And so you could see the outside and all the animals, the chicken, the pigs are right there. To the right of all of that you had another door that went into this back patio, and that's what everybody that was working on the farm that wanted to eat with us, they would have buckets that they could wash their shoes and everybody a big sink, everybody wash their hands. And it was kind of a communal thing where everybody did that first before coming into the house to break bread together.

Michele Norris: Matthew, tell me about your childhood kitchen. What did it look like and how do you think it still influences you today?

Matthew McConaughey: Saltillo tile floors. That was a big deal. I remember we were we were living a high life. We had some Saltillo tile floors.

Michele Norris: What is that? Pardon my ignorance, I don't know what that is.

Matthew McConaughey: It was a Mexican tile, but they were like two foot, one foot by one foot, with grout in between. And it was not linoleum. They were real Saltillo tiles. And that was, I remember it was in the kitchen because everything else in the house was carpet. But the kitchen transformed to Saltillo tiles. We had a big lazy Susan table that seated eight and that is where we'd gather for dinner. We had a linoleum little bar on the far side of the kitchen that doubled as you cooked on the other side and served out over the bar and had a big vent over it. Pristine. And behind that was the sink and the fridge and things. It wasn't a big kitchen, but it was, I remember they had a yellow mustard colored linoleum over it. It was my mom and dad. They always loved mustard and olive. I think we painted three houses, this version of that.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: I think that's why I like green and yellow so much.

Matthew McConaughey: It is. I think it is. But I like a little brighter than olive and mustard. I'd rather lemon and lime. So the breakfast was always at the bar. And it was the first thing when you came in, you passed the lazy Susan on your left. You went from carpet to Saltillo tile and you went up and there were four bar stools and there was always a hot breakfast. Mom was big on breakfast. My mom was not a good cook, but she always made sure that we had hot meals. Always. That's where I remember coming in and maybe being grumpy or not getting a good sleep that night or being anxious about something at school that day. And if my attitude wasn't great, if I didn't go, Wow, look at this. Thank you for breakfast, Mom. I went, Oh, we have. And she immediately would jump in and go, get your butt back to your room, get back in bed and do not come in this kitchen to have the breakfast that I made you until you're ready to see the rose in the vase instead of the dust on the table. She repeated that line. That was a big line for her that expanded beyond the kitchen as far as perspective and gratitude. And we'd have to go all the way back, she'd chase us all the way back, and you walk in the room, she goes, not to get back in bed. You'd get back in bed with your clothes and your school bag and everything and get on the go now. And she goes, okay, now I'm going backwards and let's do this over. And you come back and go, Wow, look, we got scrambled eggs. I got toast again. She goes, Good morning, you sunshine. Look at that. Another beautiful day wasn't guaranteed. I was always the kid. You had to get started on gratitude for the day that rose in the face of the dust on the table. Speaking of scrambled eggs… I remember Sunday night, something about scrambled eggs and a chocolate milkshake on Sunday night gave amnesty to the working week that was coming. It was breakfast food, but it was Sunday night. It was informal. It was the one night we could take our food and have it on a tray and watch the Disney show or something, it was the one night we could go and eat in front of the screen. And so it was an informality that I always thought was really cool. One night we could have sweets is the one night you didn't have ice cream all through the week, Sunday night, you could have a chocolate milkshake. And I was in charge of making the milkshakes and that was a big deal. And I always thought that was cool. It was Sunday night because Sunday night's usually the time where things get more formal. Hey, let's clean it all up tomorrow morning. Monday morning. Good sleep. Got to go to work, you know? And it was something informal about that that just made it feel like you've got to stay up later. But the kitchen is where everything went down. The kitchen’s where we cried when our heart was broken from a girlfriend breaking up. The kitchen's where my brother Pat got in trouble for getting caught with the bag of weed. Then the kitchen’s where we said our gratitude and prayers around the lazy Susan. The kitchen’s where we told stories, where I learned as a youngster in my family, i you want to get a story and you better hit the gap because a gap is not going to be there in the conversation long. And when you hit that gap, you better be good at it or you will get steamrolled. And I got steamrolled for years.

You know, my brothers were great storytellers. My mom, whether she was a great storyteller, my aunt, which sometimes she was, didn't give a damn. She was getting her time. So when I got my, I was the youngest in the family and I got my time to hop in a story. I remember the first probably ten times I hopped in to interject, to add. And then I was so stoked that I then choked. And I then stuttered and I got nervous and they just take it over again. You had your chance. You missed it and the stories would happen there. The tricks, my brother, the lazy Susan, when food would come around to me and I'd reach out to get it and he'd reach the places and spin it and and I'd miss. I'd missed the thing you “Oops you missed it again Job.” That was my nickname, Job. And he did trickery of playing with the lazy Susan again, the prayers the gratitude. The laughter we had in the late night. If you got in trouble and we had a family discussion, it happened in the kitchen.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: You telling all these stories babe, it’s making me think of a bunch of the stories of the farm and how different the upbringing is. You know, when you're talking about the kitchen you're raised in, you went on your story and maybe just sit here for a second, think we all have all these very vivid memories, as you said, and we all so very different. Right. I was thinking, you tell that story and I was thinking of my grandfather when he found an alligator in the river in the back of the farm, a baby one by itself. And it was hurt. So my grandfather, being who he was, he just grabbed it and brought it and put in a made a little pond thing in back of the kitchen area. You've seen it.

Matthew McConaughey: Out of that kitchen window. There's your pet gator.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: And that was like, you know, our entertainment. After dinner, we all had to take turns feeding the alligator.

Michele Norris: Wait, don't baby alligators turn into big alligators?

Matthew McConaughey: The one I saw was not a baby.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: Huge.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: And then it becomes the thing of like, you know, it became this big thing. And then it was like, okay, it's time to put it back in the…

Matthew McConaughey: Yeah. Where we were. Where's the catch dog? Where? And it was somewhere where those chickens go.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: Oh, yeah.

Michele Norris: So are there things that either of you do either in your personality or as home cooks now? That relate to things that you saw in the kitchen. Like I'll give you an example from my own life, when I make bacon, I always have to put newspapers on the floor because my mom always put newspapers on the floor so the grease didn't splatter on the floor.

Matthew McConaughey: Mmhmm.

Michele Norris: It's kind of a weird thing, but it's just kind of in my DNA. It's kind of like baked in, you know? It's just something I do. Is there some piece of you that either you do in your personality or when you're cooking that you're realizing, I'm doing this because I saw this. I lived this a thousand times.

Matthew McConaughey: When I'm in the kitchen making some creation. I took every possible ingredient out. Before I do anything, I want to see. Not behind a drawer. Not still in the fridge. And if anything, if I can make an association of any sort of spice taste savory, sweet or salty that could possibly go with this dish, I'll get it out. And so I want them all out in front of me. And then I start to go, okay, what's my mixology going to be here? What's the taste profile? I think it comes from my dad doing seafood gumbo. He was raised in Louisiana and it would take him three days to make this pot of gumbo. And it would be everything from the road to the get started. And there was a real patient to it. And you couldn't try it for three days. You didn't test it. No. And you sat back, but everything was out and it had order. And slowly it took more form and certain things were done and they kind of scooted to the end of the bar or got put away. And he liked having to see everything visually. And I still to this day, I'll get everything out, everything out. And then I would start to make order of it. And I think I got that from my dad making the gumbo seafood gumbo, which meant everything could go in that gumbo eventually.

Michele Norris: Uh huh. Camila, are you a gumbo person? Do you make up your.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: No, what I picked up from New Orleans as living there was the red beans and sausage, the red beans there.

Matthew McConaughey: The red beans. Yeah, because you might me because you're here already... But you're black beans.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: Yeah. In Brazil, we, you know, we talk and we're talking about, you know, the simple food during the day was, you know, it's always rice beans in a meat rice bean to meat and a vegetable and legume. We do a lot of legumes down there.

Matthew McConaughey: That's one of my favorite things I want to say that I picked up that Camilla got from her family and I believe her mom, correct me if I'm wrong, that I still love today. Black iron, pot of beans on the stove. All day, all weekend. Just to have it there. I mean, to go. To go. To go to beans. It's still one of my favorite foods. At any meal of the day. I love a pot of beans on the stove.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: Yeah. We always have a pot of beans sitting out here and there. I think for me is high heat. My mom's right, cause she would arrive from work and had to put something together fast. So she always cooked fast in high heat. High heat, high heat, high heat. And I do that without even thinking about it. And you said that to me in the kitchen. Yeah, he would come in the kitchen, be like, you know, you can turn that down?

Matthew McConaughey: You ever heard of a simmer?

Camila Alves-McConaughey: You're right.

Matthew McConaughey: You wanna slow cook this? No. And that is from your mom. Your mom comes in a big, you get 1000 degrees. She'd do that.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: Yeah. So high heat. High heat. And then really, the fresh like, I feel like no matter where we are, even when we're in locations for, like few months, I always, like, I'm trying to grow something in the back or to grow something in the kitchen and, you know, having some chickens or finding the neighbor who has chickens. Like I'm always trying to get that, you know, from the source.

Matthew McConaughey: Or you'll always like, if we have more than a month somewhere you'll try to get a little herb garden going.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: We didn't get lucky with the chickens in Texas.

Matthew McConaughey: No and we didn't. It wasn't because of any gator. It was hawks, dogs and owls and coyotes. We really failed on the chicken coop in Texas this year.

Michele Norris: You tried to raise chickens at one point. That's actually hard to do, people.

Matthew McConaughey: A lot harder than we thought.

ACT 2

So the kitchens are our classrooms. They teach us things.

Matthew McConaughey: Mmhmm.

Michele Norris: A lot of things happen in the kitchen. And as you noted, you know, not all of them are all rose petals and chocolate milk. What are the lessons that you learned in the kitchens? I'm tempted to say about red lights, not just green lights. Your book was Greenlights.

Matthew McConaughey: Mm hmm.

Michele Norris: So the kitchens are also where you learn about red lights?

Matthew McConaughey: Yes.

Michele Norris: What did you learn about that? About how to relate to people in those really prickly moments? What did you learn about that and how does it apply to your lives together now?

Matthew McConaughey: Well, I know my answer is twofold. One, I literally factually have, I find always find out about death in the kitchen. When Lori died, I was on straight. I was in the kitchen when I got the car from mom and dad died out in the damn kitchen. And every time I've gotten those calls of someone close to me dying, I'm in the kitchen. And I somehow dropped to my knees. And that's the first weep. Always in the doggone kitchen. I don't know why, but I've written about that. Now, what I've learned about, I think red and yellow lights, is the kitchen's a verb. It's not really a destination that it things are created and exported and dispatched and, as you said, shared and generous in. Oh, we only have one, but there's four of us. What do we do? How do we. How do we break bread so everyone gets some. You know, for me, I know. And me and my work, I'm not good at going to my office and going, okay, I'm going to sit down right now. No, that feels like a noun. That feels like, okay, that's a job I have to do. I'm going to write all the time. When something crosses my mind or heart that inspires me. That's the kitchen. That's when life's the kitchen. That's when my world, the kitchen it's in. And to sit down and have a family talk about a crisis is a heck of a lot easier in the kitchen when someone can informally sit on the bar and someone else can sit on the chair and someone else to sit on the bar stool and someone else can get up and go to the fridge and get a beer. We're helping each other out while we're dealing with this crisis. My dad and my family, when we would have crisis, any time someone got in big trouble, he'd take me and my brothers across town to the burger joint, the furthest across town so we could have a 40 minute drive together, get cheeseburgers, couldn't eat em, had to bring them home, cheeseburgers, French fries and bring them home and all sit around and eat together. That was his version of Okay? The consequences have been handled. Now we're going to go with everyone's favorite food, extra mayo too please, and we're going to come home and doggone it, we invest in some real Heinz ketchup. Not the old tomato, not tomato soup. We're going to have a good ketchup tonight and we're going to sit down and we're not going to talk about the consequence, the problem that just happened. Now we're eating. Now we're celebrating. Now we're saying thanks. Now we're telling jokes. Now we're talking about tomorrow. That's over. And food was always the resolution. We were over the red light. We're turning this into green light now.

Michele Norris: I wish people listening to us could see the way Camilla is looking at you as you're describing the way you all used to get down on those burgers back when you were young. Because are you imagining a younger version of him and trying to figure out what it would be like if you were there at that table? Is there a version of this in Brazil that you remember? What would be the equivalent of healing food in your house when you were growing up?

Camila Alves-McConaughey: Yeah. That would be a feijoada. It's a dish in Brazil that it takes a long time to make, actually. It's a lot of ingredients but when somebody is like taking that time on a Sunday to cook, it is like, okay we're good, you know, it's going to take a long time to eat and another take a long time to digest, you know, like, okay, everything's slowing down. I was listening to you talking. It's interesting because we're just talking about kitchens. That's how a conversation started and look at where we're going with it, right? Like for me, a kitchen, it's like, it's a place of grace and humility. Humility, I might say.

Matthew McConaughey: Humility.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: Thank you. When I go back and think, you know, okay, at the farm, everybody that worked on the farm, they were eating the same food that we were all cooking as a family. So we were cooking that food for a family and for everybody that worked there. And we had to make their plates and go give it to them in their hands and say thank you. And they would go eat. You know, you were saying, you know, when you cook something, it is not good, right. You're giving that grace the purpose of going, okay, you know, let's make everybody feel better about this, how it is. And I personally, if I'm not okay, my food is horrible. It could be a dish that I cooked a thousand times. But if my heart is not right, that food is not right.

Matthew McConaughey: That's so true.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: You know.

Matthew McConaughey: The same recipe to a tee. But something is not right. I don't know. It's a heavy finger or a slight finger on the right, on the right ingredient that you just didn't…

Camila Alves-McConaughey: It's just not…

Michele Norris: I agree with that. Food absorbs your emotions.

Camila Alves-McConaughey:Really.

Michele Norris: It can... There are times when I felt some kind of way about something like, let's just get takeout because I really don't want to inject into the food I'm about to fix.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: It is very true. It's the same in Brazil. It's like you need to know who you're eating your food from. And if the person has a bad heart, you don't eat it. You just do not eat that person's food.

Michele Norris: What is that saying? I want to know it.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: It's in Portuguese. I don't know how the translation would be, but it's the nuts and bolts of it, it's basically you need to know who you're eating from. And if the person has bad intentions, you never eat that food. If that person is mad at you, you never eat that food, right? If you had an argument, you don't eat it. And it's funny because even today with my mom, like, let's say we whatever reason, getting into a little whatever, I don't eat her food that day. She's okay... I skip.

Matthew McConaughey: Does she know?

Camila Alves-McConaughey: You know, I try not to make a big deal about it.

Michele Norris: She knows now.

Matthew McConaughey: She knows now.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: But, you know, the kitchen is also a place of grace and a place of creation and transformation in terms of every single room of the house you can avoid. So let's say if you have a problem, if you have an issue, if something serious is happening, whatever it is you can avoid, if you have got it, if you have a fight, you can sleep a step, whatever it is, but everybody's got to eat.

Michele Norris: The kitchen is also a place where we work things out or maybe don't. I grew up in a kitchen where my mother would always say, 'take it out of the kitchen' and I think it was because she knew that if we were starting to argue that if we went another space, it would immediately deescalate because the kitchen was the place where you gave yourself permission to just let your emotions fly in a way so and think it was not just get out of my hair here loud. It was also taken out of the kitchen because you might de-escalate if you're in another room. But the kitchen is often a place where people do escalate, where the emotions overflow. And Matthew, you've written about this in a very powerful way. Your family, your mother and father had a very volatile relationship, was it three times, married, two times divorced? And it often got hot. And what did you learn about how to argue productively about how to have conflict and figure out how to de-escalate that, how to hold on to the people you love, even in those moments where you are, you know, you feel in some friction.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: Hmm.

Matthew McConaughey: Well.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: Pour another a glass of tequila?

Matthew McConaughey: Pour another glass of tequila is helpful. Yeah. Go and get something sweet. A sweet food. It can de-escalate some things, even if it's a nice piece of chocolate or some ice cream, it can de-escalate. I've never been a big sweet eater. Maybe that's why that milkshake on Sunday night meant so much. It was the grace part. You and I have started off certain dinners where it was, we were getting along great and maybe a conversation—and the food was tasting great and the conversation maybe turned to a bend in the road where all of a sudden we were butting heads on something.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: That never happened.

Matthew McConaughey: Yeah. So that one time that I thought it happened. But if in the middle of that disagreement, if I was cooking that night and I was doing my steak sushi, if I'm going to give you slices on for another bite and then go serve you, there's an invisible dissipation to the disagreement that happened in my service to her that I handed her a gift of something that we already were really enjoying, that I continued that. Okay, now that we disagree, it's not like, okay, we're going to quit eating well, I'm going to quit serving you or you're going to quit serving me. I talk about it every day when you make my tea in the morning. It's true. I don't make my tea as good as you. But the fact that you make my tea and serve me my tea in the morning makes me go: it just tastes better. Even if you and I are in a disagreement, the fact that you still make my tea in the morning, serving my tea is the difference between being married and dating.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: Yeah. Trust me ladies, some mornings I do not want to serve that tea.

Matthew McConaughey: But she still will make it for me anyway. That's the difference. And I say you guys need marriage and dating. You know, you’re dating somebody and suddenly you get in disagreement like, oh, this is a sign of things to come. Better get out now. But you're married and you disagree. You're like, I'm not pulling the parachute. This is part of I'm going to work through this. I'm still going to serve my man his tea. I'm still going to serve my lady my steak sushi because I know she loves it, even though we may be in a disagreement.

Camila Alves-McConaughey:Ha. You're laughing over there because you think it's funny, right? Because we all as ladies, we all have those moments, that's men too. You guys have those moments, too. But actually go even more to where those mornings where I'm upset or maybe we didn't finish something in a way that we usually like to and you still have to work things out. I actually go the extra mile, I shouldn’t say the extra mile, but I do a little extra where I leave a little nice note too, with the tea.

Matthew McConaughey: A note with the tea.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: I usually leave, so let's say if that happens.

Matthew McConaughey: That even goes from almost grace and starts leaning into forgiveness. Hoo hoo hoo.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: I try, you know, because usually I'm out earlier than you are. So I just leave the little note. It's like, okay, we're going to be fine. You know I don't go into that. But whatever it is that he feels like.

Matthew McConaughey: And that even takes it from grace to forgiveness and soon becomes quite sexy.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: You know, I still have your work on the forgiveness though.

Matthew McConaughey: You put your little emoji smile or something. (laughs)

Michele Norris: Camila, you travel, and also when Matt's on set, I've heard you make sure that you're staying together as a family and you're eating together as a family. That's true?

Camila Alves-McConaughey: Yes. It's very important for us. You know, it's very important for me from the beginning that when he goes to work, it was a deal we made before we ever had kids, when actually when we decided to have kids, it was a conversation we had of going, okay, if we're going to do this.

Matthew McConaughey: It wasn't a conversation. It was a if you go, we go. And I very intelligently nodded my head. Yes, ma'am. And it was one of the coolest decisions we made and took about six seconds to make. And she sacrifices a lot to make sure that that happened without negotiation in our life.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: Yeah you know, it’s the idea that we can continue no matter what. Be a family unit. And meal time is important. Like, you know, when Matthew's working, he can go to work and end his day, whatever meal that is. Sometimes his breakfast, sometimes it's lunch, sometimes it's dinner, depending on the schedule. But we have a meal together as a family. I think that the beauty about our kitchen is because, like you say, I'm from Brazil, moved here when I was 15 and learned so much here. The United States is really home for me. Matthew, being from Texas, growing up a completely different way than I did. But when you combine those two backgrounds with the experiences that we have together around the world, our kitchen, it's very welcoming and no judgment. Everybody comes in, the kids are there, everybody's got a job, everybody's doing something, you know? And I think it's just very open to all flavors, all textures.

Matthew McConaughey: It's a full passport in our kitchen. And you just reminded me of the number one having jobs, the clean up. After dinner. The clearing of plates in the washing of this. I do not like dishwashers. I think that's one of the biggest scams going. But the clean up and then who washes? Who drives? Who puts away. That is a wonderful ritual for us in a time to maybe turn up the music and let's dance through this. And maybe that's the kids are doing it because maybe Mom and I, maybe Mama Papa are going to sit back and lean on their chair and toast drinks together while they do that. And then they can handle maybe dessert. But that ritual and separation of parents from children and chores. And it is also very healthy because you see their dynamic they after. “Well I don't want to,” “You got ti put away last time.” Well, let them figure it out. Let them figure it out.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: You know what we did, that we incorporate in our kitchen that's been a very fun addition, is I got a record player. And then we take turns of going to the record shop and picking different categories of music, and everybody has different turns to play what they want to hear.

Michele Norris: I love that.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: Right? Isn't it great?

Michele Norris: I love that idea. I'm stealing that item.

Matthew McConaughey: And the record player is not going. There's like, should this should this be in delivering? Like now you have it on the right side of the counter in the kitchen sink record player.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: Yes it’s right there in the kitchen and all the records are right there. And I usually start because I'm in there earlier and then by the time the kids come in and we go from all kinds of different genres and music that we wouldn't hear it together or something like that.

Matthew McConaughey: I mean, last night we were in the kitchen with Chris Stapleton and Biggie Smalls on back to back.

Michele Norris: I'm kinda liking that that mix tape. So when you all are dancing and listening to records, I imagine that you might be sipping a little tequila.

Matthew McConaughey: Yes.

Michele Norris: That's how you met, right? You were making margaritas.

Matthew McConaughey: I was making margaritas and I saw this figure with beautiful caramel shoulders with just enough dew on them to shine with the light coming off the ceiling turquoise dress. And it was moving right to left in my eyeline across the room, about 20 yards in front of me. And the head was not bobbing. It was floating. Now, how much that had to do with the margaritas I'd already partake, partaken? I'm not sure. But sometimes a good tequila can help you see clearly. And on this night, it sure was. And so I follow that figure. Went across the room and sat down and I started to wave. And as I was waving, I heard my mom come in my ear, 15 years old and say, “Get your backside up boy, that's not the kind of woman you wave to across the room,” so I went over and invited her over and she came over and I made her a margarita. And I've said it before, and it's in the book, but for 25 minutes I've never spoken better Spanish nor understood Portuguese that good in my life, and that was the first night we met 16, 17 years ago. So the language of love is very clear. Through all the music and all the language barriers, it was crystal clear that night. And that was our first time we spent together. And we haven't dated anybody since. And so it was over margaritas, and tequila has been a friend of ours and our spirit of choice ever since.

Michele Norris: And it was now a business of yours.

Matthew McConaughey: Our first business together we've ever had.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: Well facing forward. Yes.

Matthew McConaughey: Well, we do a lot of business together but she's always been behind the scenes. But this is our first face forward. Her and I are out front of business.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: Is a face forward or…

Michele Norris: Okay the name.

Matthew McConaughey: Either way. Okay. The name? Pantalones.

Michele Norris: Where'd this come from?

Camila Alves-McConaughey: That is all Matthew. So if anybody listening loves the name, you can give him some love. If you need to give him a hard time, give it all to him. That was all, Matthew. But it's a fun one.

Matthew McConaughey: Well, it was a mix with the work with maximum effort as well. But there were many names and Pantalones. Oh that just made me go that can travel. And you put the -lones on the end of something, it becomes a little, it gets a little more swing in the hips.

Michele Norris: And kind of swing of the hammock there.

Matthew McConaughey: It does. And so we got together and decided, hey, you know, tequila was our favorite spirit, why don't we make our own and make our favorite? So we did for a couple of years and 47 tasters later we have what is now bottles called Pantalones. And then once we got that, we said, Well, now let's relax. Now let's be cheeky. Now let's have some fun. Tequila's gotten kind of serious. People talk about tequila like they talking about wine. Oh, wait a minute. We know how to drink wine. We have some tequila. Let's have some fun. And so that's when we said, okay, Pantalones in the marketing campaign. And what's the best thing we made with our pants on was the most fun that we've had with their pants off. And then it's as I like to joke very seriously, it's an evolutionary product in concept because, you know, we toast the Blanco, their youngest tequila to our kids because they wouldn't be here if we kept our pants on. We toast the anejo to our ancestors, our parents and grandparents because you know what? We wouldn't be here if they kept their pants on. So it's about sustainable innovation.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: And it’s organic.

Michele Norris: And I love the names of the drinks that you suggest. The Pickle Pocket. Dance Your Pants Off. Big Girl Pants. Bellini Bottoms. Are these like bellbottoms?

Camila Alves-McConaughey: Yes, ma'am. Yes.

Michele Norris: And Devil's Draws. So y’all are having fun with this.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: You know we're having fun.

ACT 3

Michele Norris: When we talk to our guests, we always like to gift our listeners with a recipe, something that tastes like home, something that you make your beautiful children today, something maybe that comes from a tradition from one or both of your families. What is that recipe that you want to share with listeners who have enjoyed this conversation?

Camila Alves-McConaughey: We're going to be sharing the Brazilian chicken Stroganoff. This is a dish that I grew up having, and it was one of the dishes that my mom made for us in special occasions. It's something that now our kids grow up, that we make it on during special occasions, and it's a home favorite by the kids. You like it too.

Matthew McConaughey: I know I love this. Can't eat as much of it as I like to.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: Yes. It's not as bad as you think it is.

Michele Norris: So tell me about this. This is a one-pot dish.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: It's a one-pot dish. And as you cook the chicken, you know, you put all your herbs and spices and your seasoning and garlic, and you cook your chicken really well. And then after you cook the chicken, you got to take the chicken out. You shred the chicken, take it off the bones, you know, so you have all that good stuff.

Matthew McConaughey: No skin.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: Yeah. You take the skin and then you ttransfer to a different pot and you just add the shredded chicken with creme de leche, which is an item that you can find in the Mexican aisle of your local, I should say, the Latin, the Latin aisle of your supermarket.

Matthew McConaughey: Creme de leche.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: Creme de leche in Portuguese, but like Crema. It's in Spanish. It's a trick on that. And my mom taught me for like, crema you got to put it in the refrigerator or in the freezer for a few minutes. So the liquid part of it separates from the creamy part. And you don't want to use the liquid. You only want to use the thick cream portion of that and you mix that up with the chicken. Then you slowly add that broth back in and it's not a soup, but it definitely has liquid in it. And you serve over rice.

Matthew McConaughey: Well, corn on the cob, shave your kernels off, add your fresh corn.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: And then they're going to scare the holes in the whole recipe in there. But yes, you add green olives, corn, you serve over rice with the little string potatoes, you add a little crunch and extra flavor to it. It's so good. And the beauty of it is that the leftovers, we all eat sandwiches for lunch the next day. We make sandwiches with it.

Michele Norris: Wait, how do you make sandwiches out of this?

Camila Alves-McConaughey: Just a chicken mix because it's like…

Matthew McConaughey: It all coagulates.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: Yeah.

Matthew McConaughey:Especially overnight. It's one of those dishes that's very good overnight. But like, like many, you know, whether it's pastas or bolognese, they coagulate overnight when they get cold. And I think on the cellular level, they all close up and the taste becomes more formed. And the next day it can be something that goes on a sandwich that you do not need to add any moisture to, but still will hold its form in a sandwich.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: And nothing. And the broth all that brought that you cook the chicken. If that is left over, you freeze. Add it in an ice cubee tray and you use that to cook anything in the future, beans or make soups or, you know, add a little extra flavor to any dish you want to. And it's a dish that this is what our kids ask for. For Christmas, our tradition is we do a Brazilian version of Christmas on the 24th and nighttime Christmas Eve and then the American version on the 25th. But even though this is not a traditional Brazilian Christmas dish, this is what our kids request and has become in our household.

Matthew McConaughey: Yes, it has. Mmhmm.

Michele Norris: You know, if we ever do a cookbook based on all the recipes that we've collected, no matter who we talk to—Uzo Aduba, Andy Garcia, Gayle King, Michelle Obama—they all say the same thing. The recipe they give us is better the next day. “Better the next day” would probably be the name of the cookbook. And because as good as it is the first day, it’s even better the next day. That seems to fall in that category.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: That's a good name for a cookbook.

Michele Norris: I think so too. I think so too.

Matthew McConaughey: Better the next day gets better with age.

Michele Norris: There's some chemistry involved.

Matthew McConaughey: never as good right when I make it, it's always better after I put it in the fridge the next day.

Michele Norris: And that's kind of a nice outlook in life also. Better the next day. There's tomorrow. We're going to do it again tomorrow. So we might hold on to this.

Matthew McConaughey: Mmhmm.

Michele Norris: I have loved talking to both of you. Thank you for your time today, but also thank you for the work that you do with your foundation. Thank you for the good things that you put out in the world, even in simple ways, to see you dancing in your kitchen. You and Mama Mac on Instagram, having fun and cutting up. Thank you for the beautiful way that you model love of family and love of life with each other. This has been a wonderful conversation. I appreciate both of you. Thank you so much.

Matthew McConaughey: You're welcome.

Camila Alves-McConaughey: Thank you. Thank you.

KICKER

There are a lot of moments in this conversation that are keepers for me. I think we can all take something away from Mama Mac’s maxim: “Come back when you see the rose in the vase instead of the dust on the table.” I’m going to remember the idea of leaving a note for someone you love even when they get on your nerves because nourishing a relationship in a vulnerable moment reaps real dividends down the line. And I wasn’t kidding when I said I want to steal the idea of having a record player in the kitchen where everybody can spin tunes of their choice. Love that concept. And I loved speaking to Matthew and Camila and I think you are going to love her recipe for the Brazilian Stroganoff. You can find the recipe on my Instagram page at Michele underscore underscore Norris, that’s two underscores AND at our new website – yourmamaskitchen.com. You can find all the recipes from previous podcasts. And one last thing….

You’ve been listening to me, but now, I want to hear from you! So – listen up!! We’re opening up our inbox for you to record yourself and share some of your mama’s recipes, some memories from YOUR kitchen growing up, or your thoughts on some of the stories you’ve heard on this podcast. Make sure to send us a voice memo at Y-M-K AT Higher Ground Productions DOT com… for a chance to be featured in a future episode!

Thanks for joining us! I hope the new year is off to a great start. See you next week and until then—be bountiful.

CREDITS

This has been a Higher Ground and Audible Original. Produced by Higher Ground Studios.

Senior producer - Natalie Rinn

Producer - Sonia Htoon

Associate producer- Angel Carreras

Sound design and engineering from Andrew Eapen and Ryo Baum.

Higher Ground Audio's editorial assistants are Jenna Levin and Camila Thur de Koos.

Executive producers for Higher Ground are Nick White, Mukta Mohan, Dan Fierman and me, Michele Norris.

Executive producers for Audible are Nick D’Angelo and Ann Heppermann.

The show’s closing song is 504 by The Soul Rebels.

Editorial and web support from Melissa Bear and Say What Media.