Do all Jews love food as much as Phil and Lily Rosenthal? Possibly.
Do all cultures have some sort of food affinity? Definitely.
“In every culture, there’s this pride and this feeling that we love food the most,” actress, writer and producer Lily Rosenthal, told the Journal.
“If you talk to a Chinese person, they say you’ll never eat more than in a Chinese person’s house,” Phil Rosenthal,creator and host of “Somebody Feed Phil” on Netflix, told the Journal. “If you say you go to a Greek person, they’ll say [the way] you tell you’re at a Greek person’s house [is] there’s no space between the dishes.”
Same with Italians. Phil, who also created “Everybody Loves Raymond” adds that if you go to Ray Romano’s mother’s house, you never tell her you are full.
“Every culture loves food; we don’t own that,” he said. “I will say, though. if you’re Jewish, you love food.”
In addition to being a fun and enthusiastic father-daughter team, Phil and Lily Rosenthal are the authors of, “Just Try It!” a children’s book, beautifully illustrated by Luke Flowers. “Just Try it!” is a semi-autobiographical story about a food-loving dad encouraging his picky eater daughter to try something new at a food truck festival.
A couple of years ago, Phil got a text from Lily, suggesting he write a kids book, since so many children love “Somebody Feed Phil.”
“They’re trying foods all the time,” Lily said. “They’re cooking because of him.”
He texted back, saying. “Yes. If you do it with me.”
The book is loosely based on their relationship, though a bit exaggerated for creative purposes.
“I didn’t love mustard, I didn’t love crust on a sandwich,” she said. “I still don’t love it, but I tried it.“
She adds, “You could be a bite away from your new favorite food.”
The point of the book is for kids to be as excited as “the dad” is to try new things.
“I meet a lot of grownups who won’t try things,” Phil said. “So [the book] is for them, too”.
As much as the Rosenthals love food, neither of them actually cooks.
“I used to fool the children into thinking that I was an amazing chef,” Phil said.
Lily explained how he would make “Daddy’s famous peanut butter and jelly sandwich [and] Daddy’s famous bowl of cereal.”
While Lily can prepare some things, she would never consider herself a cook. However, she found a workaround.
“If you can’t cook, but your family loves food, you do something for them,” she said. “You date a chef.”
Lily’s favorite Jewish food is her perfect bagel.
“Let me paint a picture,” she said. “It would be the bagel first and then scallion cream cheese, and then [I press] the capers [into the cream cheese], so they don’t roll off. Then she adds the tomato and onion; the lox on top.
While Phil loves all food, especially pizza (“I could live on pizza, because pizza can be ever-changing,” he said. “It’s a blank canvas for you to paint on.”), his favorite Jewish food is his mom’s matzo ball soup.
“People ask me what my last meal would be, and I say, childhood favorites: pizza, hot dogs, fried chicken, roast chicken. burgers, cookies, things like that.,” Phil said. “ But I would then finish with matzo ball soup, because … that would take me right back to my earliest [food] memory.”
Lily’s earliest food memory is from when she went to Jewish elementary school. She took pride in being on the committee that delivered challahs to each classroom on Fridays.
“If you were lucky, your parents would order the chocolate chip challah,” she said. “And [they] would make you challah French toast the next day, after Shabbat, with the leftover challah.”
The Rosenthal family has a new diner opening soon in the LA-area. From this conversation, it sounds like that chocolate chip challah may be added to the menu.
“It’s named after my grandparents, my dad’s mom and dad,” Lily said. “It’s going to be called Max and Helens.”
Some people eat for fuel, and that’s okay.
“I just don’t want to go out with them,” Phil said.
“Everybody’s different, everybody has their own feeling,” Lily said. “We find so much joy in food, we can’t imagine such a thing.”
“It’s like the center of our social life,” Phil said.
Lily talks about how family vacations are planned around eating.
“If we’re having a big lunch [we’ll] go light for dinner,” Lily said. “It’s a strategic thing. At every meal, he’s planning his next one.”
“Just Try It” is more than just a book about food. It’s an illustration of their family philosophy. It’s about having a little bit of an open mind.
“It’s all about broadening horizons, whatever that looks like,” Lily said. “For us, it’s food.”
“I’ve never been a particularly brave person, but I felt like every time I took a baby step out of my comfort zone, and you see it in the show, that’s where the magic happens,” Phil said. “That’s where you grow as a person.”
Learn more about “Let’s Try It!,” “Somebody Feed Phil” and their upcoming events at PhilRosenthalWorld.com.
For the full conversation, listen to the podcast:
Debra Eckerling is a writer for the Jewish Journal and the host of “Taste Buds with Deb.” Subscribe on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform. Email Debra: tastebuds@jewishjournal.com.
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