~Kitchen Couple~

We watched your show, Studio 10, and the chemistry is larger than life on the screen.
(Lou) My favorite video of you guys is where Tim's in the kitchen and Michelle is on the couch. (Laughter)

M: That's just our cooking demo, we have videos of us on YouTube together doing silly, fun things.
T: To pick up the vibe at that time, she was recently split (divorced) and I was really on the outs. My ex was like Lucy, showing up at all the auditions, even getting an audition for the same show! I get the gig, but unbeknownst to me, I've been moved out when I come home from Vancouver.
The first week (of the show) the EV is walking us around telling us, "You guys really need to connect. You need to get to know each other, intimately, not in the physical sense."

He wanted you to have your finger on the pulse of one another, that "knowing what makes you tick."

M: Yeah. We were doing personal appearances to promote the show before it started. Ruth Eckhardt, some womens' groups and doing some charity work.

It was obvious that you had a connection and that's what the focus group saw when they said you were the pair.  It was the complete opposite of you and your 'real' lives at that time.

T: We're doing a photo shoot at week 1 1/2 before the show is even on the air to be on the website banner. They're giving us all kind of directions, face away, okay Charlie's Angels, face each other.......and there was this long pregnant awkward pause. The people that have known her for 12 years.
M:  One of the guys goes, 'Oh sh**' (Uproarious laughter and they are both blushing.) They're saying we've never seen her like that before. Look at her eyes.  

Shewolfish......

T&M: Yeah.

Were you scared (to Tim)?

T: I'm still a little scared. I won't necessarily say that I'm fear driven, but I'm a little smarter than Siegfried and Roy. I know where to put my neck.

You had your first audition, what went through your mind about her?

T: I was all twinkly eyed. We saw each other in the dressing room and she came up and said, "you were the comedian at my dad's country club...." The whole time I'm sure there weren't too many other happy vibes in the room. I'm all sparkly eyed, was and still am to this day. It was just goony gaga, so when we got out there on the set it was just natural for me to look at her lovingly.
Good Morning Tampa, just happened. We were like that from the start.

Obviously the crew shared with you what their impressions were from the outside looking in at the two of you. What was going through your head?

M: I immediately felt comfortable like I'd known him forever. When I first met him and we were first together during that audition and even when our executive producer asked me who I felt the most comfortable with, I said Tim. Everyone else (others who auditioned) and I were fine, but there was a comfort level and feeling of security.

There's this is good and then there is THIS IS GOOD.

M: Yes, you meet someone and you feel like you've known them forever. It was that kind of feeling, we just clicked.

It's from the getgo that you're both gaga for each other?

(They're looking at each other like two teenage kids whose hormones have taken over.)
Simultaneously they answered Yes.

T: Like scary gaga. We're both coming out of divorces going, "Are we ready for this?"
M: Is this real or just because we are coming out of these situations.

Am I rebounding? That high school kind of thing.

Exactly. (Said in unison!)
T: It's so high school....(Laughing)
M: We went through that whole thing about 6 months into the relationship. I told him I wanted to make sure that I had some time on my own and that he had some on his own to heal. We were both going through some major stress.

That was very intelligent.

M: When we did that it was very hard. We both went on with our separate lives, yet everyday our lives were getting more and more difficult because the divorces were really in the trenches over the kids, money and whatever. Tim and I came in every day and I thought there is no way I can even talk on TV today. I was just so distraught. Tim would be like, I gotcha, and then vice versa. What happened was we became a true partnership.

No matter what; good, bad, ugly, indifferent, even if we were in the middle of a commercial break saying I'm having a bad day, leave me alone, one of us would say, "It's okay, I've gotcha."  We became best friends. We talked to each other everynight before we went to bed and the first thing in the morning on the way into work. Every day, even if we were going through other stuff separately.
About a year and half into the show, I had just about had it, my whole life was just.....the stress was getting to me. I was in the makeup room and I just started crying. Tim just scooped me up and said, "Everything you've ever done for me I am now going to do for you." We had been reciprocal as pillars of strength, constantly for each other.

T: Which is missing a little revealing part of the puzzle. The previous year, being around her every day, going through all the stuff I was going through, a huge life shift, I was falling apart at the seams. I was doing 5-8 comedy shows a week to break even. It was a big opportunity to be on TV but it wasn't going to make us rich and famous.

That's the immediate response, perception being everything.

M: Our TV jobs, we took huge paycuts. 
T: We were making 2/3 less to be famous.

The general population doesn't understand that. Viewers turn on the TV and see you there and think Oprah, income, fame. Your life is perfect and no wonder they're smiling and they're cheerful, they haven't got a care in the world.

(Lou) I understand that. From the man's side, you have two sets of bills and you like to be able to eat as well.

M: Yes, exactly.
T: It was really bad. From a distance she coached me back and gave me the tools. She said there is only so much I can do for you right now because I have my own issues. As a friend here's what she said I can do. She got me up to that point, so when I came back up swinging, I came back swinging hard. When I came out of it, September/October, I got things popping in every direction. I was 10 feet tall and bulletproof. When she was ready to fall, she'd already built her own get away car, me.
M: I had left a business, a house and everything financial. I'm not trying to be egotistical here, but I think that's what people related to with Tim and I in the show. We'd go on and say "Hello, we're not perfect today. How are you? I"m fine, I'm barely here." We would literally speak the truth as much as we were allowed. I think that there's a lack of that in our society. People are looking to be inspired.

They want to know that they are not alone. It's not a pity party, it's a reality check. When you are in that quagmire, you're thinking "I'm sinking in the sand, there's not a stick or a soul anywhere to help me get out."

M: You don't want to tell people because you're afraid that they'll think you're a failure and can't handle it.

Especially being in the public eye. You are with each other almost 24 hours a day, how do you deal with that?

M: I have to go to the mall or something, I have to get out.
T: I get out of the house so she doesn't kill me. (Laughing) When we travel we go through this, "I'm free, I'm free," for about a day, and then it automatically becomes, "I want to go home."

And you ARE the Brady Bunch.....How old are your kids?

T: 15 and 10
M: 14, 13 and 9, we keep saying we are the modern day Brady Bunch.

It's more than that, because that was a Hollywood creation.  You are the real Brady bunch.

M: That's why we got this house, so all the kids would have a place that was home. They are all close because they got to know us as friends, not this is my boyfriend/girlfriend. For them, it was, "They work together and we're going to go with Tim today." Six months prior to our being engaged the girls said to me, "You know mom, you should be with Tim. He's your best friend and you get along so good." (Broad grin)

Tim, did you actually do the down on one knee thing?

Let me back it up a bit.  I had opportunities, my kids were going to be on the other coast (California), we signed off the show.

What made you sign off the show?

T: For me, it was a mix of kids and opportunity. I had gotten involved with the Las Vegas Comedy Festival and had HBO, Disney Channel, saying, "We need you out west, we're ready, let's do some stuff." It was so exciting.
M: I had an opportunity to work with Harry & David, who I still work for and Proctor and Gamble was sponsoring me in beauty and style segments. To be honest the money was better for me to do that, and not have that everyday stress, where I could make more and I could go back to having more security financially.
T: The great piece of irony in that, was they were saying, "You're a great loss and I'm sure we'll see you on national TV someday."  The week before she left she said I need a day off, I have to film HGTV.
M: HGTV had called like two days after I spoke with Channel 10, to be the correspondent for Designing Spaces. I was getting all kinds of opportunities where it was time for me to fly. Even though I had all these opportunities I never broke free and said I was going to try it on my own.
T: We had a big going away party at her dad's house for the two of us. She kinda came around after being friends for months and professed her love and here I am leaving to drive cross country the next morning.
M: I didn't want to say anything because I didn't want him to not go, but had a little too much wine and it worked like truth serum. I'm telling him he's going to leave, go get big and famous and come back and get me one day. I was a mess.
T: The whole time I was driving cross country, I was miserable. I made it 5 or 6 weeks and I'd say I'd was coming in for the weekend, I'd make it longer here and there. I was only home 5 days in August, 4 days in September, and by October I was bringing an extra bag saying, "That's it."
September 9th, she's saying, "I don't know what I'm doing out here, things are crazy, we're on the phone, we're texting....I wrote, "Enough of this craziness, just marry me." She sends back a text...."hang on." She was having a family meeting apparently.
T: My son's going, "Did he just ask you to marry him?"

Via Text.....(Laughing)

T: Real romantic..
M: He was on the plane and I said, "Yes, we'll marry you." We (the kids) were all in my bed and the kids were like "Yes, we're gonna have a great guy." That night I was actually in Orlando, at a parent teacher conference. I left that, drove half way to meet him, we had dinner at Carrabas and then I went back home. He called my dad and asked him for my hand in marriage.

We work together moving in the same direction. You were both in different places doing your own thing, then came together, this cosmic thing happened. Now, professionally, you're moving in different directions again. Is that dynamic good, bad? How do you deal with not seeing each other a lot?

T: The cool thing is for instance, I had a show two weeks ago in Georgia for North Georgia University, teaching a fitness class comedy. Here's the funny ways of thinking about we are doing and not doing right. I've done it for years, I'd lost my notes, they hadn't come here yet in the move. I have a huge notebook that is 10 years of compiled thoughts and statistics and here's my shot and I'm coming unglued that I have to redo this. The dynamic between us is for her not to say, "I'll help you write some new jokes and look up some statistics. She actually sat down and said, how do you do it?" As with everything we do, she finds a deeper purpose and a better way to relate to what I already do, and puts a better light on what I do, so it's an incredible relationship there.
On the other end when she's got things going on, I need this promotional piece, this guy just called me....
M: I'm doing radio now which I've never done before and Tim's been helping me write my radio scripts because you really have to take it up over the top, because it's not visual.

Even with TV you have to do that. A normal performance comes out looking like your lazy.

T: I was pouring over the books, took a few cooking classes and I'm still picking things up. I'm constantly pouring myself into it.
M: Tim's mother was an amazing cook.
T: For instance, we had tempura night. That was how she got us into vegetables, cause deep frying made them taste better. (He's smiling as he recalls this memory.) We grew up in California, so we had flavors from around the world: Mexican, Chinese, Japanese, and she was always cooking something different then what the other kids were having. Folks would say, "We had mac n cheese last night, what did you have? "Oh, last night was rib eye night, my mom had been brining it for two days.

Lou: Sounds very much similar to Elaine's childhood, South American, Caribbean, Portuguese......Elaine: We'd go out to eat, and when my mom came home, she could make whatever she had ordered.

M: With Tim, he's taken that and made it simple and healthy. He'll say, "I think I'm going to make something with chicken, something Tuscan." For me that'd be an hour and a half in the kitchen. In twenty minutes he has a Tuscan chicken, with tomatoes and asparagus over potatoes. All the while the kids are learning nutrition, like eating little meals all day long, shifting to eating more chicken and vegetables, for example. Tim shows people that you don't need a lot of time, you just need to plan.

It is not necessary to use prepackaged ingredients, no offense to those who do, every night. Many home cooks believe they won't succeed in preparing great meals if they don't.

T: I get so excited when I'm preparing a new dish.
M: I don't want to go out to eat anymore, I really enjoy watching him create and tasting the results.

Lou: I agree. It's interesting to watch Elaine in the kitchen creating the Endless Possibilities recipes and witness it happen. It's become educational for me as well as the readers. Like her Quinoa Risotto.

T: Is that the recipe from the other day?

Yes it is. I also provided alternatives for those people who don't want to eat meat or keep it even healthier, swapping tempeh for bacon.

T: With the quinoa you get so much more protein and fiber. Risotto is just 40 grams of simple sugar carbs.
M: The average person doesn't know what you can substitute to make it healthier.
It's like that for us too, learning and sharing, and it's exciting.
T: The (new) show in the last few weeks, is starting to unfold. I'd come to her with a new term I learned and I couldn't wait to drop it like I've been using it forever, like 'this will include a chiffonade.'
M: I didn't know what a chiffonade was.
T: Over the past few weeks and months, things have started like interviews, personal appearances and this (the new TV show) could materialize. I start thinking, what could we do on this segment?
T: With the fitness component, this is how my horizon opened. When she tells me about these things, she's so smart and it's heartfelt.  The food is more of a relationship of us becoming friends. Her parents coming over to watch IDOL with us and the kids sitting down and telling us about their day, not realizing they're putting healthy things in their mouth. It's more about getting us back to a place where we are not spending so much time in there (pointing to the kitchen) and giving back to people.

M: People connect around a meal.
T: She's the inspiration for just about everything. We shop together for ingredients and talk about them recalling recent meals we had using them. With previous segments and now with this TV show, it's not about what we're cooking, it's about why we're cooking.