Tiffani Thiessen chats with ET about her latest cookbook, dishes on her 'Saved by the Bell' co-stars and talks about turning 50.
Tiffani Thiessen is helping fans level up their dinner plans with her latest cookbook, Here We Go Again: Recipes to Level Up Your Leftovers, and she's dishing up the details exclusively with ET.
"I would say the main reason was really wanting to show my kids something I've been trying to teach them for a long time about the importance of food waste," Thiessen explains when asked about the inspiration behind the new cookbook. "I grew up in a family that didn't have a ton of money, and my mom was always stretching food throughout the week. When I was little, I didn't understand that her roasted chicken was then made into enchiladas the next day, but as I started honing in on this idea of, you know, we all should be repurposing and really be a little more self-aware of wasting, that I had this idea of a cookbook that I've never seen before."
Here We Go Again is dedicated to giving leftovers their second wind, and perfect for ingredients that would otherwise be trash-bound. Thiessen, who shares daughter Harper, 12, and son, Holt, 8, with husband Brady Smith, recounts how she began formulating the book idea at the beginning of the pandemic, remembering how everyone was "scared to go to the grocery store."
"We didn’t know what was happening, so we were kind of forced to stretch the food a little bit longer than normal," she adds. "It made me think, 'Wait, this is kind of how I was raised but for different reasons.' That was a budget reason and this was a pandemic, but this is what I felt was important to show, that we should be doing this anyways."
The actress says that the cookbook is "a little bit of a love letter to my childhood," adding that she made sure to include "a little nod to my mom because she definitely was the queen of leftovers at first. But I feel like I've taken the title over."
In honor of the 49-year-old's new book, she and ET's Nischelle Turner play a quick round of Sip or Spill while sipping on a "Pink Lady," which is featured in Here We Go Again.
The actress dishes on the best kisser among her Saved by the Bell co-stars -- neither, since she says the cast "didn’t know what we were doing back then," so she votes in White Collar co-star Tim DeKay -- and reveals her daughter's hilariously blunt review of the iconic sitcom that ran for four seasons on NBC from 1989 to 1993.
"She actually just recently finished going through the entire few seasons of the show, and this is what she said, 'Ehh,'" Thiessen shares, laughing. "She's like, 'TV back then was kinda boring.'"
Boring or not, Thiessen can only smile as she celebrates her accomplishments and looks forward to her upcoming milestone birthday.
"I feel so great and comfortable about turning 50 because I'm really taking care of myself," the actress shares. "And I hope my daughter sees that. That's what I want to put out there for my children... I guess they say [50 is] the new 40 but I kinda feel even better than I did in my 40s. So I say it's the new 30!"
Here We Go Again: Recipes to Level Up Your Leftovers is now available wherever books are sold.
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