When he’s out touring the country with his standup comedy, Tom Papa is not just making bread figuratively with gate receipts, but sometimes quite literally.
As he told the audience in his most recent Netflix special, last year’s Home Free, he’s no Tommy-Come-Lately who started creating carbs out of the air while on lockdown during the pandemic. His breadmaking obsession had already been well documented and in place by the time COVID came down.
And he’s a great consumer of food porn, noting in the same special that what gets him aroused on Instagram is not following some scantily clad social media influencer his daughter’s age. But a short, fat French chef who bakes a loaf, tears open that soft goodness with steam pouring out, and consumes it on camera.
It’s not for nothing that Papa’s current jaunt across the country is dubbed The Grateful Bread Tour. So, what it like being the No.1 Baking Comedian in the World? And how long can he hope to retain that title?
“Well, there’s very little competition!” Papa laughs via Zoom from his desk/home studio. “And I don’t think anybody else is that patient! In fact, I was just folding bread before I got on with you. It never stops. It’s like I’m running a bake shop for no one.”
The studio is also where he records his hit podcast in which he talks with other comedians and actors titled (what else?) Breaking Bread with Tom Papa. With comic Fortune Feimster, he also co-hosts What a Joke with Papa and Fortune on SiriusXM’s Netflix is a Joke Radio. The culinary-leaning comic will be in Houston on March 21 at the 713 Music Hall.
One of the reasons for Papa’s success is that when he’s talking about his wife (comic Cynthia Koury), two daughters, or parents using true-life anecdotes, the gist of the humor seems universal. He can’t keep track of how many times people have approached him and said a member of their family was “just like one of his” or “acts the same way.”
“That’s what my whole first book [Your Dad Stole My Rake…and Other Family Dilemmas] was about. Talking about everybody in your family. I broke it down literally by sons, daughters, parents, grandparents. There’s so much that people can relate to in those relationships.”
Papa continued his observations with in the special You’re Doing Great and book You’re Doing Great…and Other Reasons to Stay Alive.
“That’s why I started writing them, really. When you’re doing your act, you have to be succinct. The audience will only let you talk about a topic for so long. But I had more to say about it. Some of the essays would start about what I talked about in my act, then go longer and deeper,” he says.
So, if this comedy thing doesn’t work out for Papa, he could probably make it as a motivational speaker.
“That’s not a bad idea!” he laughs. “It would certainly be a lot less pressure!”
Papa’s last book was 2023’s We’re All in This Together…So Make Some Room. The audiobook version—read by Papa—clocks in at just over seven hours. So, it is a challenge while recording to use his “reading” voice rather than his “performing” tones and inflections?
“It’s almost like the pacing sort of dictates that. The rhythm of standup is shorter because you’re stripping away words trying to say the most you can in a shorter time. It’s like poetry and it’s got to pop,” he says. “When you’re reading paragraphs, you’ve got to make it last.”
Papa was born and raised in an Italian-American family, and in Home Free recalls that his Old School father would never accept the talking back to or attitude that his own two daughters (or, really, anyone’s kids) give to today’s parents. And that if Dad uttered these two words, “Shut Up,” they were to be heeded. And there was no more discussion.
“That’s funny because my cousin just sent me a picture of my mother and father when they were probably 30,” Papa says. “He was an intimidating looking guy! No wonder I was always on edge and trying to make people laugh!”
At 56, Tom Papa is solidly Gen X. And he was born and raised in New Jersey. So we have to ask: How much was Bruce Springsteen shoved in his face in a state where seemingly every birth certificate or driver’s license comes issued with a copy of Born to Run or Born in the U.S.A.?
“It didn’t feel shoved so much as it was a presence like everything else. You had the skyline of New York in the distance, the Jersey Shore waiting down south, and Springsteen was the soundtrack everywhere you went! And when I was in high school, he was hitting the peak of his fame, so it was kind of cool” Papa says.
“But New Jersey has always been a punchline. I always said that the reason I became a comedian was you had to have a good sense of humor about yourself being from New Jersey.”
At this point, Papa’s attention is drawn by something offscreen. “Sorry. My dog hates it when he sees strollers. Thank you for the protection, Frank!”
The canine in question was indeed the Papa family’s pug, who has been mentioned in his act, appears on his social media, and was also seen being walked during the end credits of Home Free.
Frank is so famous among his fans that Papa sells T-shirts, sweatshirts, stickers, and tote bags with Frank’s droopy visage on them (you can also sport a drawing of one of Papa’s sourdough bread loaves on your chest).
Getting back to music, Papa says among his favorite acts growing up and that he still listens to today are R.E.M. and Prince, but notes that he’s left Culture Club and Duran Duran in the ‘80s. He also professes a love for Run DMC and Public Enemy.
“Now, I guess jazz is the thing. I listen to that now. But I would hope that Young Tom would understand that someday he’d actually understand it!”
In terms of creating new material, Papa says that he never really stops writing, nor does he give himself a deadline to have a show “ready” for touring. Though he does note a flow among shooting a special toward the end of a tour, getting it out, then starting the process again while interspersing his book writing, podcasting, and the occasional movie role.
Papa remembers being in Houston years ago while opening for his friend Jerry Seinfeld, who gave his career an early and big boost. The last time he performed in town was in 2022 for a gig at the Cullen Theater under the auspices of Performing Arts Houston. In 2023, he appeared as a reader at the “Faith, Family, and Friends” literary event/fundraiser for the Barbara Bush Houston Literary Foundation.
“That was really meaningful to me. I got to meet the family, and you spend the whole day with them. It was very cool,” he says. “Some of the donors took me around town. You visit places on the road, but you don’t really understand them. I felt that I was finally able to get Houston. And they gave me this great book of Barbara Bush’s wisdom. She seemed like she was a great lady.”
Finally, since the writer’s own wife (Houston Press food and restaurant writer Lorretta Ruggiero) sometimes has her own struggles in the kitchen making bread from scratch, I ask Papa for one bit of expert advice for her: How do you know if your dough starter is a failure, and you need to start all over again with a new batch?”
“Tell her you’ve got to keep hope alive. It’s almost like you can do too much. I think that people get in trouble when you overfeed it and over tend to it,” Papa offers. “It’s like slow it down, use less, do less, put it in the refrigerator and let it go. It takes a lot to kill a starter. You have to be on an active campaign to destroy it.”
Tom Papa performs at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, March 21, at the 713 Music Hall, 401 Franklin. For more information, call 832-204-6920 or visit 713MusicHall.com. Opening act TBA. $38 and up.
For more on Tom Papa, visit TomPapa.com
