Photo: Andrew Eccles for BHG
Mindy Kalingmay have a lot on her plate as a mother, actress, writer, director, comedian, author and producer, but she always makes time to cook for her loved ones.
TheSex Lives of College Girlscreator, 43, dishes on how her way of cooking, entertaining and decorating has evolved over the years in her cover story for theJune 2023 issue ofBetter Homes & Gardens(on newsstands May 19).
“I have a busy schedule and am a single parent,” says the six-time Emmy winner and mom to daughter Katherine Swati, 5, and son Spencer Avu, 2. “I love to find any cheats that save time but still make it possible to put a home-cooked meal on the table.”
She continues to say that she buys time-saving ingredients, like pre-chopped onions. “Chefs will frown on that, but I don’t.”
Andrew Eccles for BHG
Her children’s varying tastes also influence what the multi-hyphenate star makes for dinner. “My son eats anything, which is such a refreshing quality. My daughter is very picky,” Kaling says.
But not all cooking grievances can be solved with prepared ingredients and Kaling admits that the “trickiest” part of cooking for her are the portion sizes. “I have a small family, and all of these recipes I find are for a ton of eaters,” she tellsBHG, adding that her distaste for leftovers is “one of [her] worst qualities.”
Kaling’s home is always stocked for her kids — and her longtime friend andThe Officeco-starB.J. Novak.
“I want to have a tacit policy in my house that you can help yourself,” she says. “You don’t even need to get a napkin or a plate. Just get a snack. My dear friend BJ Novak will come over whenever he’s in town, and he never says he’ll stay for a meal, but he always eats a meal’s worth of snacks.”
“I’m not going to pin this on him because I love snacks, too,” she continues. “But we always make sure we have little crunchy snacks out for him… So, great snacks! That, to me, is what makes my house feel like a home.”
Kaling keeps friends and family in mind when it comes to decorating her home, too. She loves throwing parties and decorating her dining tables with bright colors and new linens, cutlery and glassware (which she says are all some of her “guilty pleasures”). But not all of her home decor decisions are solely based on aesthetics.
“You know, when you have little kids, making the home safe for them is a thing. It’s not pretty,” she says. “I’ve had white plastic childproofing gates up in the house for about five years. My son is 2, so I’ll probably have them for another year and a half. These aesthetic sacrifices you make when you have children are necessary.”
The Officestar became a social media cooking queen during the pandemic, notablycooking her way through Gwyneth Paltrow’s cookbookin 2020, andmaking Indian dosaswith Vice PresidentKamala Harris.
“Any Indian dish I make gets a lot of attention,” Kaling explains. “What people love is any recipe that has a story to it. I grew up eating Indian food about 50 percent of the time, so whenever I find an easier, faster version of something my mom used to make, I think people like to learn about it. People want a little insight into how I grew up.”
source: people.com
