Debi Mazar

Basically, I start my morning off with a Bustelo coffee made in a mocha pot - the Bialetti. I warm some milk on the side, on my stove, and I add one teaspoon or half a teaspoon of real sugar. I have two of these every morning. Even when I was pregnant.

My husband wrote me love letters while I was on location in Canada and pregnant. They turned into being about food, and it turned it into a cookbook. He called it 'The Tuscan Cookbook for the Pregnant Male.' It was kind of genius. When I took it a book agent, he was like, 'Men don't buy cookbooks.'

I grew up on food stamps. I come from a very humble background. And I've had many friends that have been destitute - you know, running into trouble - and places like The Midnight Mission have given them hope and have fed them and gotten them back on the right path.

I had an instinctive feeling that the people who have little or no school training should have something coming into their homes weekly which dealt with their problems in a simple, helpful way... so I wrote in a plain, common-sense way on the things that concerned our people.