Comfort Food with Kelly Rizzo

What happens when you’re already hurting, and then you judge yourself for not handling it better?

Kelly sits down with mother-daughter duo Barb Schmidt, known online as Peaceful Barb, and Michelle Maros, the team behind the nonprofit and online community Peaceful Mind, Peaceful Life, for an honest, surprisingly funny conversation about trauma, grief, recovery, and learning to be on your own side.

Barb shares her experience recovering from bulimia and childhood trauma, and how mindfulness became part of her life more than 40 years ago. Michelle opens up about losing her dad at 21 and why losing her nearly 20-year-old cat reminded her that every experience of grief is different. Kelly shares how anxiety and PTSD have shown up since losing Bob.

Together, they talk about letting go of grief timelines, interrupting negative self-talk, the lasting impact of comments about our bodies, and finding people who make us feel less alone. Plus, Barb explains her practice of stopping, pausing, and asking yourself what’s actually happening when emotions feel overwhelming.

Find Barb online as Peaceful Barb, and explore their work through Peaceful Mind, Peaceful Life. https://peacefulmindpeacefullife.org/

Follow Kelly on Instagram @kellyrizzo.

Follow Barb on Instagram @peacefulbarb

Follow Michelle on Instagram @michellemaros

This episode is sponsored by Lifeway Foods. Look for Lifeway Kefir and Farmer Cheese in the dairy aisle. https://lifewaykefir.com/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Cheryl Burke spent 26 seasons and 17 years as one of the most iconic pros on Dancing with the Stars. Then in one year, she walked away from the show, went through a divorce, and moved to a city where she didn't know a soul. Starting over at 38 with no idea what her favorite color even was.

Kelly and Cheryl connected through mutual friends and bonded over tough times, and this conversation goes wide open. They talk about the addiction to chaos and what it takes to finally choose peace, learning you can be okay alone after never once being single since age 13, body image trauma from years in a world that shamed curvy dancers, going sober, choosing celibacy (and why it's way more nuanced than the sound bite), perimenopause hitting at 42, and the quiet guilt that comes with feeling genuinely happy after grief.

This episode is sponsored by Lifeway Foods. Find more info at https://lifewaykefir.com/

Please follow Kelly on Instagram @kellyrizzo and follow Cheryl at @cherylburke.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode was recorded in early 2024, and it means even more now knowing everything Dave has been through since. He was diagnosed with Stage 3 Non-Hodgkin lymphoma, beat it, and then just seven months later was diagnosed with a second cancer. He has since been declared cancer free, and everything he says in this conversation about finding joy, honoring the people you've lost, and getting through the unthinkable hits differently with that context.

Dave Coulier was one of Bob Saget's closest friends from the very beginning, dating back to a comedy club in Detroit when they were 18 and 21, broke and scrappy and just trying to make each other laugh. He talks about what made Bob tick, what Bob was really like behind the Danny Tanner reputation, and why humor has always been the way their group got through the darkest moments.

And Dave has had a lot of dark moments. In a single year, he lost his best friend Bob, his brother Dan to suicide, and his father. Nine people total in 12 months. He opens up about finding his brother, the conversation he had with his dying father where he grabbed his hand and just talked, and why he believes comedy isn't just a career, it's a survival mechanism.

Please follow Kelly on Instagram @kellyrizzo and follow Dave at @dcoulier.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

 Kelly sits down with Courtney LaCorte, aka Cheese Gal, the Nashville-based content creator who accidentally built a brand around beautiful, approachable hosting and never looked back. They make the Bob Martini together (Stoli Elite, no vermouth, stupid cold, dead penguins floating), talk about the reality behind the perfectly curated feed, and get into what it actually takes to build a community online without chasing virality. Courtney also opens up about her early 20s divorce, her years as a flight attendant, and how a career pivot four and a half years ago changed everything. Plus: her new cookbook "Oversharing from My Kitchen to Yours," why she closed her storefront to bet on herself, and what real comfort food looks like when life gets hard.

Follow Kelly on Instagram @kellyrizzo

Follow Cortney on Instagram @cheesegal

Buy Cortney's Book "Oversharing" OUT NOW on Amazon https://link.amazon/B08IXaDCO

This episode was sponsored by FlavCity. Get the limited edition Pumpkin Spice Latte All In One Protein Smoothie HERE- https://www.shopflavcity.com/collections/protein-smoothies

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kelly sits down with comedian Kelsey Cook, whose brand new Netflix special Happy Hour is out right now and it is absolutely spectacular. Kelsey grew up in the most wonderfully bizarre household: her parents met at a professional foosball tournament, her mom is literally in the Foosball Hall of Fame, and her dad toured Europe and Hawaii as an International Yo-Yo Man. But underneath all that quirk was a painful childhood divorce that gave Kelsey the kind of dark fuel most comedians run on.

Then Kelly and Kelsey get into the full-circle moment of how Bob became a mentor early in Kelsey's career, and what his generosity meant to a young comic just trying to get in the door. It is a truly beautiful conversation.

And then things get really real. Kelsey opens up about her mom's frontotemporal dementia, a rarer and often misunderstood form of the disease that can strike people in their 60s, and the night a routine emergency surgery during the pandemic changed everything overnight. Two women who have experienced two very different kinds of grief sit down and get incredibly honest about what the long goodbye actually looks like.

Go watch Happy Hour on Netflix. It's HILARIOUS.

Follow Kelly on Instagram @kellyrizzo

Follow Kelsey on Instagram @kelseycookcomedy

Thank you to Lifeway Foods for sponsoring this episode. To learn more about Lifeway visit. https://lifewaykefir.com/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week Kelly is getting really personal about one of the most common fears in the grief and dating world: what does it actually look like when your new person truly honors your late spouse?

Kelly opens up about all the specific, beautiful ways her boyfriend Breckin shows up for both her and Bob's memory. From always asking about Bob in everyday conversation and never making it weird when Kelly wants to talk about him, to sitting by her side at Bob's charity event Cool Comedy Hot Cuisine while Bob's legacy plays out on the big screen, to building genuine relationships with Bob's daughters, his friends (yes, including Stamos), and even his ex-wife. He has even been open to visiting Bob at the cemetery with Kelly, which means everything to her.

Kelly also gets into one of the most important things she has learned: love is not a finite pie. You can give 100% of your heart to the person you lost and still have a full 100% to give to someone new.

For every widow or widower out there wondering if it is possible to find someone who truly gets it: this episode is for you. That person exists. And you should never settle for anything less.

Follow Kelly on Instagram at @kellyrizzo

And please don't forget to give Comfort Food a rating and a review!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nina Parker is one of those people who walks into a room and owns it. She's hosted TMZ Live, co-hosted E! News, and is now co-hosting Keep It on Crooked Media. But what you really need to know is that she is one of the most honest, grounded, and genuinely funny women I have met in a long time.

We started talking about grief, because that's just what happens when two women who have been through real loss sit down together. And we never really stopped going deep. We got into perimenopause and why the medical system is failing women on this (doctors get ONE hour of certification?), being confidently child-free in a world that still doesn't fully accept that, dating in your 40s and why it can actually be kind of amazing, standing up to online trolls with zero apology, and what it looks like to choose yourself, fully, without explanation.

Nina gives real advice unapologetically. This one is a must listen.

Thank you to Flav City for sponsoring this episode. Learn more at shopflavcity.com.

Follow Kelly at @kellyrizzo

Follow Nina at @theninaparker

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kelly sits down with Joey Zauzig, aka the internet's best friend, and this might genuinely be the most fun episode of Comfort Food ever. Joey is the wildly popular content creator and Instagram personality known for his direct, no-BS take on dating, relationships, and real life, and the energy between these two is absolutely unmatched from the first second.

They get into everything: how Joey went from posting thirst traps to becoming the person millions of people DM when they're going through a breakup, what it actually feels like to carry that kind of responsibility, and why staying authentic online sometimes means being willing to be completely cringe. They swap divorce and dating stories (spoiler: Joey has a blind date tonight), debate who should always pick up the check, and break down the unwritten rules of texting and ghosting.

Plus: they are officially launching a cooking series together. Skinty Italian. Coming soon. You're very welcome.

Follow Kelly @kellyrizzo

Follow Joey @joeyzauzig

Thank you LifeWay Foods for sponsoring this episode. Learn more at lifewaykefir.com.

Join Kelly in Chicago with Byline Travel, September 10-14. Apply here: byline.travel/experience/kelly

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What would you do if a DNA test revealed you were the granddaughter of the man behind some of the most infamous murders in American history?

That is exactly what happened to Sophia Maddox. At just 22 years old, she learned that her grandfather was Charles Manson. Her father never knew who his dad was, spent years searching through ancestry databases, and then one day a half-brother called with news that would shatter everything: "Are you sitting down? Your father is Charles Manson."

In one of the most jaw-dropping, deeply moving conversations ever on Comfort Food, Kelly Rizzo sits down with the brave and brilliant Sophia Maddox, director of the Hulu documentary MY GRANDFATHER CHARLES MANSON. Sophia opens up about the moment her father found out, the moment SHE found out, and what it actually feels like to share DNA with a man that the world associates with pure evil.

But this episode is about so much more than Charles Manson. It is about generational trauma, about breaking cycles, about a grandmother who took a devastating secret to her grave, and about a young woman who chose radical honesty over comfortable silence. Sophia brought cameras into her own therapy sessions, pitched a documentary to Disney and Hulu as her very first pitch ever, and came out the other side with a story that will stop you in your tracks.

This is raw. This is real. This is one of those episodes you will think about for a long time.

MY GRANDFATHER CHARLES MANSON is streaming now on Hulu.

Also, Join Kelly in Chicago Sept 10-14 2026 for a full luxury culinary and cultural exploration of Chicago. Visit byline.travel/experience/kelly today to reserve your spot.

Follow Kelly on Instagram at @kellyrizzo

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week Kelly is going solo, and she is getting real about the relationship rules she wishes someone had handed her back in her 20s and 30s. The kind of wisdom you can only earn the hard way, through mistakes, growth, and a whole lot of lived experience.

Kelly covers the big ones: why cheating isn't just wrong but genuinely not worth the anxiety and guilt it costs you, the trap of getting too drunk and picking fights, the immature habit of starting conflict on purpose just to test how much someone loves you (she'll be the first to admit she did this), why you should never publicly call out or embarrass your partner no matter what, and the game-changing power of seeking to understand where your partner is actually coming from before you react. She also gets into why you can never love someone enough to change them, the importance of putting your partner's feelings first in a healthy relationship, and one of her most important lessons: never shrink yourself to make someone else comfortable.

These are the rules Kelly learned the hard way. And she wouldn't trade the lessons, but she hopes you can learn a few of them a little easier.

Also, Kelly has an exciting announcement: she is hosting a five-star VIP trip to Chicago September 10 through 14, curated with Byline Travel. Think the Peninsula Hotel, exclusive restaurant experiences, chef and cocktail demos, and so much more. Spots are limited, so check it out at byline.travel/experience/kelly

This episode is sponsored by Lifeway Foods. For more info go to lifewaykefir.com. Thank you Lifeway for being such an incredible partner!

Follow Kelly on Instagram @KellyRizzo

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.