On their popular podcast “Messy,” Actors Christina Applegate and Jamie-Lynn Sigler have weekly conversations about how they each live with multiple sclerosis, often welcoming guests like Will Ferrell, Katie Couric and Jimmy Kimmel on the show.

Last week, the couple spoke with Napa pastry chef Rory Kandel about her journey with the disease in an episode that made national headlines.

In a revealing hour-long speech, Kandel, who opened Rory’s Bakery in 2020, selling ready-to-bake frozen treats, spoke candidly about how she manages her daily life and growing her business while living with MS.

A fan of the podcast since its launch in March, Kandel was invited onto the show after sending a letter in September to “MeSsy” producer Allison Bresnick, thanking her and sharing a message. Chronicle of San Francisco article about his own journey.

Kandel was diagnosed with MS, an incurable chronic illness in which the immune system attacks the body’s nerves, causing pain and hampering mobility, on December 1, 2023, after about three months of tests to determine why she was experiencing discomfort. pain and numbness. feet and legs.

It’s a date she’ll never forget, Kandel told The Press Democrat last week.

“When you get a diagnosis of something, you start looking for information,” Kandel said. “Christina Applegate had been quite open about her MS diagnosis and Jamie-Lynn Sigler had also revealed hers not too long ago.”

Applegate publicly revealed her diagnosis in 2021. Sigler, who has lived with the disease for 20 years, first went public with her struggles in 2016.

In an effort to learn more about MS, Kandel, who knew nothing about the disease before her diagnosis, began reading everything she could about Applegate and Sigler’s experiences.

Their podcast, she said, was the first place she found information about the disease from “real people who had it and not just doctors.”

Since the episode aired on November 5, the media, including People reported on the podcast conversation, largely because of Applegate’s revelation that she sometimes lies in bed screaming in pain, which she said on the show recently fell between her hands.

On the show, Kandel and the two hosts spoke about their open life with MS and their struggles to be seen as an inspiration to others, as well as how they deal with the fear of inevitable progression of the illness while pushing himself to continue.

“I wake up every day and feel like I’m being hit by a bus,” Kandel told The Press Democrat. “I sometimes feel like my body is like Lego bricks that don’t fit together inside, like everything is crushing on itself.”

Still, Kandel said she finds therapy in her baking.

“Baking has always been my escape, ever since I was a kid,” Kandel said. “It puts me in a mental flow where I can disengage from the pain.”

Kandel recently hired two assistants to help her in the kitchen, but said she hopes to continue cooking for as long as physically possible.

This month, Rory’s Bakehouse, which sells frozen treats for takeout in Napa and delivery to the Upvalley area of ​​Yountville and St. Helena, launched its first product available for shipping nationwide, the Giant Chocolate Chip Cookies.

“I love everything about it,” she said of the cookie. “I love the crispy edge, the chewy middle and the larger size makes it the perfect chocolate chip cookie.”

Kandel is also preparing to open a storefront later this year in her kitchen at 2766 Old Sonoma Road, where customers will be able to stop by and purchase frozen items to go as well as some ready-to-eat treats. Currently, everything from Rory’s Bakehouse is available for pre-order only.

Since making the podcast, Kandel says people have shared their own MS stories with her and she feels “a lot less alone” in her fight against the disease.

“I had the choice to decide whether I was going to hide or speak openly (about MS),” she said. “I was worried about the impact this was going to have on my business, and it just created a feeling of support that I never could have imagined I would have. I’m so grateful to have been on the podcast and everything it has already done for me. I would do it again without hesitation.

Listen to the Kandel episode on messythepodcast.com and get more information about her pastries at rorysbakehouse.com.