I'd rather play a tune on a horn, but I've always felt that I didn't want to train myself. Because when you get a train, you've got to have an engine and a caboose. I think it's better to train the caboose. You train yourself, you strain yourself.
I had to give up a lot of foods that I'm accustomed to eating: dairy products, beer, wine, spicy food.
I know I'm kind of a wuss when it comes to spicy foods.
I think there is a real misconception about Indian food being super spicy. And I know that's because when you go into an Indian restaurant, it is pretty spicy. But it doesn't have to be. In fact, my husband can't handle a lot of heat. I've had to temper my cooking so that he can eat with me.
My older brother was a musical prodigy, and he got a scholarship to the Bronx House Music School. We moved to the Bronx when I was 4 to be close to his music school. Then I got a music scholarship myself, at the age of 6, but that was for a school down in Greenwich Village. I had to take the elevated train and then the subway to get there.
The hardest is foods I am not familiar with. Gyros, I lost that one; I don't like tzatziki sauce very much. I did kimchi in Korea, which was rough: fermented cabbage and spicy.
Growing up, everybody would cross the border, even to just do grocery shopping. A lot of traditional American foods stuck with my parents and became part of my upbringing. This all had to do with the proximity to the border. We were an absolute mix of classic Americana, traditional Mexican, and Baja cuisine.
When I got signed, I had just turned 16. I felt like I had to continuously have these confrontations with older men who were doubting my ideas because I was a woman, because I was 16.
Like last year I took Advance Foods class (which is like cooking for nerds) after lunch, and so I usually took a nap. Which was fine, because I'm not even thrilled about regular foods, so, you know, what do I need with like advanced digital HD wi-fi foods and whatnot? -Abby
I am not into spicy foods. Big Red chewing gum is even too 'hot' for me.
I used to say to myself when I was seven years old that I couldn't wait to get older so I could make money and buy my own clothes. I had a lot of sisters, so as we got older the hand-me-downs got better, but it wasn't until I was about 15 that I was able to buy my own stuff.
I think I got into acting because I kind of had not much else to do! I guess I was kind of looking for something challenging. I heard about the London Theater scene and it was very different from the upbringing that I had and it felt like a challenge. And the whole sort of London Theater schools, I was told that 6,000 apply and there are like 30 accepted to each one. I was like, "Yeah. Let's see if we can do that!"
Everybody has an inferiority complex when they step into a room. But then when you have children and you get older, it doesn't really matter. When I was young I had so many inferiority complexes. I had an inferiority complex because I didn't go to university. I had an inferiority complex because I didn't train.
Increasingly, I'll see commercials and every fast food chain has the new spicy fries or spicy this or spicy that and I feel like that is popping up more and more. Humbly I do think 'Hot Ones' is at the center of that storm in a lot of ways. So yeah I think that we've helped take hot sauce and move it into a more mainstream place for sure.
When I got older, it got harder because when kids get older, they get meaner, so I went through a lot of bullying and people calling me, like, 'zebra' or 'cow,' so it was really hard growing up.
As a kid, falling was embarrassing. As I got older, I got used to falling and picking myself back up. There's not a sense of failure. It's of disappointment. You train so hard to not make mistakes. When you do, you're learning from that. How do I improve? How do I get better for the next time? Through every failure, there's something to be learned.