Renowned chef Curtis Stone and his wife, actress Lindsay Price-Stone, meld their respective talents into the recipe for “Within the Spirit with Lindsay & Curtis,” streaming on QVC+ and HSN+.
The vacation-themed six-episode series features celebrity guests Joel McHale and his wife Sarah Williams, Tori Spelling and Jennie Garth, Kelly Hu, Jenna Fischer, Sheryl Underwood and Phil Rosenthal sharing their families’ traditional holiday celebrations with Curtis and Lindsay — who create festive dishes (Curtis) and decorations (Lindsay).
“I believe the thing concerning the holidays is that they’re so personal for everybody; all of us have our own quirks and family traditions that make us feel good,” Curtis Stone, 47, told The Post in a joint interview with Lindsay. “Normally you’re together with your circle of relatives and don’t get a likelihood to experience other people’s traditions.
“The concept for the show was to succeed in out to a handful of friends and say, ‘What do you do for Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas Eve, etc. what are your traditions?’ Lindsay’s got this incredible eye for detail in relation to design and elegance; she at all times makes the room or table look incredible,” he said. “And I obviously know my way across the kitchen.”
They shot the series (in October) in an actual home, and never in a studio, to lend it a hotter feel. “It wasn’t our home; we desired to do it [there] but had a lot occurring that week with our children still at college so we couldn’t quite break away,” Curtis said. “We found this really pretty house here in LA and we took it over for 10 days or so.”
Lindsay, 46, said that Fischer, with whom she co-starred for 2 seasons on ABC’s “Splitting Up Together,” was an ideal alternative for the series.
“She’s the least Hollywood ‘Hollywood actress’ you ever met,” she said. “We’re dear friends. She’s just a comfy person; she bakes sourdough [bread], she likes hand-crafted gifts and he or she and her sister at all times exchange presents on Christmas Eve … but they’re only allowed to get one another things hand-made from local artisans.
“I used to be like, ‘OK, we’d like to have her on the show because she’s just so perfect for this sort of series about what you do in your property and on your traditions [on the holidays].’”
Lindsay and Curtis met with their guests prior to shooting their respective episodes.
“Curtis and I might either sit down with or talk via a Zoom call with all of our guests and say, ‘Tell us about [your holiday experiences], which was a chance for us to hearken to their stories,” she said. “Kelly Hu, as an illustration, is from Hawaii and her Latest 12 months’s Day is about multi-Asian cultures in Hawaii … and we got to swap ideas about how we might have a good time in our families as second-generation Asian Americans. Curtis listened to every thing Kelly said and talked about what he was going to make. I made paper cranes for the table and intention books for recipes and travel plans.
“It was fun to look at Curtis interpret Jenna’s Melba toast and sausage and cheese; he decided to show that right into a raclette,” Lindsay said. “We made all of it about our guests. Our only goal was for us to point out people what we actually do in our real lives, in our homes — how we entertain and have that organic feel.”
Stone, a Michelin-starred chef, said there have been a number of dishes that were recent to him.
“There have been some classics, in fact, but some dishes I’ve never done before,” he said. “We had Phil Rosenthal on and he said, ‘I don’t wish to do Hanukkah food — I would like to do an Aussie/Hanukkah mashup … so I got sort of creative with that one. I do know brisket is big [on Hanukkah] and I assumed lamb, so we did a very slow-cook lamb shoulder but spiced it with an identical form of spice you utilize on brisket — we made a pastrami spice and roasted carrots with that, as well, and Phil was like, ‘Oh yeah, that is something special.’”