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Inside Liza Koshy's Home as She Preps For The Holidays

Today Architectural Digest is welcomed by YouTube superstar Liza Koshy as she prepares for a holiday dinner party at home. Inspired by an array of spices, the luxe textures and rich colors of Liza’s kitchen/living room make it the perfect setting to share her favorite holiday memories while cooking a delicious spread inspired by her Western and Eastern roots.

Actress Liza Koshy will next star in high-profile film projects including A Family Affair, Players, and My Ex-Friend’s Wedding, and will host Roku’s new home renovation series, Empty Nest Refresh.

Released on 12/14/2023

Transcript

Oh my God, you spoiled little brats.

I ordered so much.

Making dinner's exhausting.

Let's go upstairs and make a drink.

[calm music]

Oh, hey, AD.

I'm saying that really casually but I'm stoked to be here.

Thank you so much for coming here too.

I'm about to start cooking up my holiday dinner.

Oh, look at that, I'm done.

Now it's time to make a drink 'cause that was exhausting.

Come on, this way.

I mean, before that drink though, we gotta set the mood.

Trust me, baby, I know how to create the environment,

create the experience.

Ooh.

Oh, I just melted my acrylic nail.

No, we're good, we're good.

Tag that on the invoice.

Allow me to introduce you to this Santa from 1950s

that I inherited unfortunately from my grandmother,

passed down to my mother, passed down to her spawn, me.

For whatever reason though, he does look like Steve Buscemi.

I don't know why either.

This haunted me at Christmastime as a kid

and now it haunts me as an adult too.

Look at those hands.

Why are they so dirty?

I don't know where they've been.

So scary.

Anyways, this sits in the corner of my kitchen

and there'll probably be a couple of jump scares

in cabinets too.

Stay tuned.

Come on, let's make that drink.

[calm music]

What I'm about to whip up is God's drink of choice.

This is a spiked pumpkin spice dirty chai latte.

A lot of other people have eggnog.

We're lactose intolerant so we cannot indulge.

I'm gonna be using almond and oat milk and alcohol

and there's no intolerance to that.

Well, there is mentally but we just let it happen.

I got this place because of this gorgeous island.

Look at this.

I saved money on a dining table.

This gorgeous buffet area over here across from the stove

just allows me to like interact with people,

have a little cooking show like we're doing right now.

It's just the best time around this kitchen island.

This is our place.

I love, a girlfriend of mine, Shiza Shahid,

she's the one who created this line all up in my kitchen

but this is brought to you by my mom.

It's signed at the bottom.

You can see it.

It was before she was married,

those were her initials, Jean Carol Hertzler.

Her middle name is Carol.

Let me just, I cannot tell y'all.

You guys picked a perfect person for this episode.

I love the holidays.

I go to sleep every night and I say,

Alexa, goodnight, babes.

Also, Alexa, wake me up at eight AM to Christmas music

and she says, got it.

Waking you up at eight AM to holiday hits on Amazon Music

and every morning I wake up.

♪ Feliz Navidad ♪

It's the best.

It's the best.

[calm music]

I'm really trying to seem as elegant

as my home furnishings are

which by the way are brought to you by Ms. Tyka Pryde.

She really elevated the crap out of my home.

It's gorgeous.

She brought such elegance and ambiance and the warmth

like my kitchen feels like a freaking hug now.

It really feels like there's so many parts of me

and so many parts of her creative brain

and talent that's infused.

Anyways, back to this drink, stop.

I love making this with my family for the holidays.

This is chai concentrate.

At home, my dad would never.

This is banned in our household.

My dad makes chai from scratch,

peppercorns, nutmeg, the whole mix and all.

Not even the bags, no, not allowed in that household.

Neither are shoes.

Who has shoes on and feels guilty, no one?

Nice booties.

I love being a bartender for the night

and welcoming people in with a warm drink and a warm hug.

Wait, we're not done.

Pow.

Tada.

Try it.

Drink it.

Now that we're feeling our drink,

it's time to make something that can soak it up.

Let's get it.

Steve.

Classic Buscemi.

I love hosting.

My favorite part though is just making my home

a home away from home for other people visiting it.

It's just fun, just fun to share space

and share food and share a plate.

These brie balls are actually inspired by my aunt.

Every Christmas, she creates this gorgeous puff pastry brie

stuffed with apricot or fig or some kind of fruit preserves

and as a kid, I was just like, she's a genius,

how does she come up with this?

Come to realize when I started celebrating holidays

in others' homes,

everybody and their mother makes this recipe

so I decided to make it bite-sized

so we're not all just taking our grubby

little drunken little fingers and sticking it into the brie.

Everybody can have their own personal little brie.

I have a 19 year old recipe

that I've been making since I was like seven

or eight years old in my grandmother's kitchen.

That's where I started.

I really wanted to impress my grandmother, gammy,

and we used to pluck blueberries and make recipes together

like it was the best time at Christmastime

and I think that's why I have such, oh,

I didn't expect this to get emotional either.

Hold on.

She really instilled like hosting and generosity

and the joy of Christmas into me and my sisters

and so every Christmastime,

we really like feel aligned with her spirit

and her spirit fills the room too

so it's just an overall just such a joyous holiday

for us to reminisce on and create new memories about.

So let's pop these puppies in the air fryer.

[calm music]

What I'm about to whip up is harissa date chicken

with yogurt and dill.

So freaking good.

I'm just gonna pour these shallots in.

Shablam, ow.

When I cook naked, I'm covered in scabs

because oil pops all over my little body

and then I pick 'em off later.

It's a super interactive experience for myself.

You hungry? I know.

This is a year round situation that I'm creating here.

It's gorgeous and perfect for the holidays

'cause it's a really colorful dish.

Got the purples, we've got the dark auburns,

we've got this gorgeous pump of orange, oh.

Anyways, get on over here.

We gotta spice this up.

So this situation, this is actually a gorgeous piece

that my sister brought home for me recently

on her most recent trip to Kerala, India

which is my roots, baby.

My family, my dad's side, it's my fatherland,

is from Kerala, India so I'm Malayali background

and what I love to do during the holidays

is celebrate my western and eastern sides

and I love to infuse my dishes

just like we did with that dirty chai

like obviously a western latte.

It celebrates myself and my mixed kid background

on a plate or in a cup and so I love doing that to any dish.

I love integrating a little piece of me

into what's on your plate.

So what we have here is a little bit of cumin and paprika

and black pepper and Himalayan salts

like I might've used that chai concentrate earlier

and that's how you can tell I'm half White

but I don't measure and that's how you can tell I'm Brown.

Let's go.

Hell yeah.

Bro.

My fragile little wrist.

Okay, let me turn this back, I'm gonna wash my hands.

Ah.

Yeah, okay.

[calm music]

This is an imported good from Houston, Texas.

My mom has thousands of these in her home.

What's that over there?

Look, it's more small houses and small people.

Small people.

Little people.

Little conga line of tiny village people.

This is all over my mom's home.

She takes so much pride and joy

in all these tiny little details,

all the like, the freaking Kleenex covering boxes

holiday themed.

Since we're over here, this is actually some artwork

that my mother painted.

Fun fact about it is that it's a gorgeous

like Native American woman who's sitting and meditating

which is something my mom taught me.

She's a yoga teacher

and in her spare time, she works at a nonprofit,

holds babies at a hospital and teaches yoga for the elderly.

What in the heaven sent human being?

I know, that's my mom.

She has the original at home

but I turned it into like a bunch of gift cards

and I sent it out to family.

She missed like a section of her hair

but then she decided to just let go and let God

and she said it's perfect in its imperfections.

I buy things year round for my family

and then I stuff 'em into my kitchen cupboards.

It's stuffed down there with stocking stuffers.

That way, I'm just like done by the time it's Christmas.

My dad though, he buys everything the night before.

He goes to the mall and takes advantage of all the sales.

Also, as a family, speaking of the night before Christmas,

it's chaos.

We are all wrapping, we're blasting music, we're drinking.

The next morning, we wake up, we're exhausted, we're hideous

but dad wants a picture right next to the Christmas tree.

So we look crusty as all hell and we take our family photo

and then we rip into the presents

that we just wrapped eight hours before.

It's my favorite holiday tradition

and I'm definitely gonna force my kids to do it too.

Yeah.

I don't have any sense of time.

Has it been six minutes?

Now, while this all reduces, I know big cooking words,

while this all reduces,

I'm gonna go change into my stunning little holiday dress

in order to properly host everybody for the holidays.

Alexa, set timer for 10 minutes.

I can't not speak to her in an accent.

Yeah, voice of God.

[calm music]

Oh, I love taking credit for other people's work.

Oh wait, I'm suddenly in a dress.

Whoa, what a transition.

See, I was a little too much of an attainable beauty before.

I'd like to be untouchable by the time my guests arrive.

I literally am.

I'm built like a box naturally.

God made me that way and this dress kind of emphasizes it.

I know, it's gorgeous, right, stop.

From the back?

Thank you.

No one's there.

What this is though, I'm kinda doing an inversion

of what we traditionally do during the holidays.

We tend to make like a large Indian entree

and have a bunch of Indian sides too

but I'm making more of like a western

entree dish with my chicken.

This is from Bollywood Cafe.

It's delightful, delicious.

Come on over here.

These brie balls lost their youth.

They're a little flat, a little deflated now.

Still just as yummy, still gorgeous, still beautiful, shh.

Chicken.

Did I make this?

It's so impressive, look at that.

Look at all the colors.

I'm doing this in velvet.

Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous.

Thank you.

Traditionally, we usually have a whole buffet set up

and everybody pitches in.

It's a big old potluck of sorts.

People pick a dish, we have an Excel spreadsheet going

and I typically make a mashed potato recipe.

It's the 19 year old recipe.

The secret to it is cream of course

but everybody pops a pill and we're fine, we're fine.

And then you choose a spot somewhere in the living room,

you get comfy, cozy, get the conversation going

and eat up and eat good.

Everything looks good but does it taste good

is the question.

For me to answer, I'm just gonna take a little bit.

No one's gonna notice.

Who's gonna know, who's gonna know?

No one's gonna know.

Oh, gorgeous.

Here, I wanna show the rest of my house.

Come over here into this corner of my living room.

Is that a good transition?

[calm music]

Only allowed during the holidays

that you can eat in your living room.

Otherwise, you get an [speaking in foreign language].

An [speaking in foreign language] is a spanking.

You gotta make the perfect bite, right?

Just the visual of me sitting in full glam

cutting a chicken titty in the corner of my living room

with candles behind me, glorious.

This is what life is all about.

Can you turn down my chewing sounds?

It tastes like Christmas but it wouldn't taste this good

if I wasn't surrounded by the glorious,

gorgeousness that is this home.

I asked tykaprydevisuals.com

for an elegant spice cabinet aesthetic.

So you've got your cube and you've got your paprika.

There's 50 shades of brown in here

but everything just feels so warm and cozy and inviting.

There's so many places to sit and pop a squat

and like even the rug is cozy enough

just to lay down on the ground.

She really killed it.

I haven't had a living plant in my home ever.

Kill everything I touch.

That's my responsibility now.

Great.

Perfect.

I feel like a ruckus is about to ensue.

I am definitely getting everybody drunk

as I possibly can and caffeinated.

Everybody's gonna be full.

We're gonna play some games.

I'm excited for a really fun night ahead.

Because my gammy and my poppop poured that love of Christmas

and love of the holidays and love of hosting

and family and friends and storytelling into me,

I do feel like it is my duty and my responsibility

to carry that torch.

They raised me with the moral foundation that I have

to continue spreading light and joy into the world

and I'm so grateful that they did because the whole point

is to leave it a better place than you found it

and if you leave my home happier than you came in

then that's my honor, that's my joy

and that is a very solid Christmas indeed.

[knocking]

Those are my guests.

I gotta get the door.

I'm coming.

Steve.

Get in here, bitch.