‘The Drew Barrymore Show’: Cristina Ferrare Credits A Turkey For Getting Her A Job With Oprah Winfrey

By Samantha Nungesser @samjnungesser
Published April 22, 2024, 11:15 a.m. ET

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It’s not every day that a turkey lands someone a job with Oprah Winfrey — but that’s exactly what happened to model Cristina Ferrare.

On this morning’s episode of The Drew Barrymore Show, Ferrare explained to host Drew Barrymore and co-host Ross Mathews how her OWN talk show came to be after she shared an impromptu Thanksgiving dinner with Winfrey herself.

“Every Christmas and Thanksgiving, my children and I — they’re now grown — we spent Christmas Day and Thanksgiving at Ivan Reitman’s house,” she said, referring to the famed Ghostbusters director. “Our kids always grew up together so we always had dinner. I would cook.”

According to Ferrare, she was caught off guard one year when Reitman’s wife asked her to set two more plates at the table —  one for Winfrey and one for her longtime partner Stedman Graham. “I went, ‘Excuse me? What?'” Ferrare recalled.

Despite her initial shock, Ferrare went on to ace the task. Winfrey “loved it so much” that she invited the actress to produce a Thanksgiving-themed segment on her show the following year.

“After the show, she said, ‘I’d love for you to come upstairs to my office.’ I said, ‘Uh oh, I’ve been summoned to the principal’s office,'” Ferrare remembered. “So I’m sitting there and she said, ‘I love your cooking so much. I’m launching a new network on OWN and I want to give you your own talk show.'”

Sure enough, Cristina Ferrare’s Big Bowl of Love premiered on the network in 2011. The talk show featured Ferrare as she cooked various recipes alongside her friends, family and other guests like Iron Chef star Cat Cora.

'The Drew Barrymore Show'
Photo: CBS

Ferrare previously opened up about working for OWN in an interview with Panini Happy.

“The women and men over at OWN are just the most wonderful group of people to work with. They are the best of the best of the best and on top of their game,” she said. “I always tell my children, ‘You need to surround yourself with people who are better than you are because they make you better.’ That’s how I feel being over there.”

Ferrare added, “They’re all just so much better than I am at everything that they do … except for cooking!”

The Drew Barrymore Show airs on weekdays on CBS. You can check the website for local airtimes.