The 11-time Emmy winner whose paternal grandfather comes from a Jewish family in Alsace, told podcast guest and food writer Ruth Reichl how her mother, Judith Bowles, flew out to be with her and that her cooking "healed her" during her "complete nightmare".
"After a couple of days, I finally got out of the hospital and I came home to recuperate, but I wasn't allowed to get out of bed yet. I was, as they say, bedridden," Louis-Dreyfus remembered. "But my mum cooked. She made this incredible, cozy chili in a cast iron skillet with cornbread on top, in the pan. She and my husband Brad set up a little card table at the foot of the bed."
"The smell of that cornbread and the chili was so wonderful. It just filled the room and the whole house and my heart, really," she continued. "Because, here's the thing. I couldn't eat. I wasn't yet allowed to have solid food. But, it didn't matter. It was the best meal ever and I didn't even eat it. The making of it was so comforting, it was so embracing."
Looking back on it, Louis-Dreyfus said it's "one of my greatest memories around food, even though it has sort of an odd kicker, really."
Louis-Dreyfus and Hall later welcomed sons Henry Hall, 30, and Charlie Hall, 25, in 1992 and 1997, respectively.
After being diagnosed with breast cancer in September 2017, she later said that it was her relationship with her family and friends who helped her get through.
