Cooking and Comedy with Anna Vocino 

Anna Vocino is a multi-hyphenate. A comedian and voiceover actress, she turned a Celiac diagnosis into a grocery business. Her company, Eat Happy Kitchen, offers gluten-free, no-sugar-added sauces, spices, and cheese bite snacks that can be found in grocery stores around the country. Vocino maintains the business, along with an active recipe blog and social following, which has catapulted her into culinary stardom that includes partnerships with Gelson’s, Ralphs, and Pavilions. 

The Emory College graduate pivoted toward the stage early in her adolescence, even founding an improv troupe while an undergrad, but she never strayed too far from food. Raised by a single mother, PBS food influencers such as Julia Child and The Frugal Gourmet were essentially her second parents. “We were not food rich by any means,” she told me recently. “So, there was a drive within me at a very young age to be like, ‘I need to make some money, so I can roast a chicken and pour a whole bottle of wine over it.’” 

As a recent transplant to Santa Ynez Valley, she’s made sure that she’s always got something delicious to cook and is never too far from a good bottle of wine. After renovating a home in 2020, right as the pandemic shut everything down, she and her husband — comedian Loren Tarquinio — relocated from Los Angeles permanently. She hasn’t looked back, except maybe in her rearview mirror, as she still regularly travels back and forth to Hollywood for work. 

Vocino gives the impression that she doesn’t say “no” often; she bounces between the Valley and Hollywood regularly for auditions, travels north to be present when her sauces are getting bottled, recently finished her fourth cookbook (set to debut in October), and leads the charge on the annual Corkscrew Comedy Festival — the second annual event happening June 18-20. But that also doesn’t mean you won’t find her at the Montecito Pavilions giving a kitchen demo for her latest ranch dressing. 

She also lends her expertise to doing good. In just a few years, she’s become an integral part of Women Winemakers and Culinarians Foundation (WWCF). The nonprofit raises awareness of the female entrepreneur, a task Vocino has put her whole heart into. For the past three years, Vocino has attended the annual Grand Tasting event, joining fellow women winemakers and culinarians as she topped Eat Happy Kitchen marinara onto bites of bread — sharing laughs and jokes with guests the entire day. Only the day before, she’d been in Hollywood for a gig and had plans to be in Santa Barbara a few days later for more grocery pitches. “How in the HELL does she do it all?!?!!” says winemaker friend Sunny Doench Stricker. Needless to say, the woman doesn’t slow down. 

Vocino has always been driven. “It all comes from being hungry,” she said. From that child salivating over Julia Child’s famous roast chicken to seeking healthy food that was delicious while still being clean, she is “a hard-working, driven badass,” says winemaker friend Karen Steinwachs. “She doesn’t sacrifice her standards and morals for a paycheck or faster solution, an attribute she associates with experience.” (“Like a good wine, I’m mellowing with age,” Vocino says.) 

The Virginia native hasn’t abandoned her first love. After more than two decades in the entertainment business, she still returns. In an industry that often chews women up and spits them out, she is infamously energetic, positive, and fun. “She is a spectacular friend,” says Stricker, winemaker at Future Perfect. “She is incredibly patient and thoughtful and present.” 

Vocino is familiar with how challenging it can be to break into the entertainment industry — recalling a time when a booking agent wouldn’t hire her because they already had a woman in the lineup. “The wine and food industry is no different,” she laments, all while smiling. And she’s right: only one percent of women-led companies received venture capital funding in 2024. So while her standup career may not help her in the boardroom of major grocers (“they’re trained to never crack”), her perseverance and positivity have.

In a year that will inevitably go down in her history books, Vocino added another title to her already overfilled résumé: voicing Mrs. Potato Head for Toy Story 5, which debuts in theaters June 19. 

Like many comedians before her, Vocino has always been a lover of impressions. Not long into her career, she turned that skill of imitating people into work, sitting in to voice match for stars such as Susan Sarandon, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kate Winslet, and Helena Bonham Carter. Her biggest role yet is replacing the indomitable Estelle Harris, comedian and actress best known for her role in Seinfeld. Harris, who passed away in 2022, has an iconic sound that sashays between overbearing mom and New York City brat. “That woman had the most incredible voice,” says Vocino. “I wanted to do her justice and keep her spirit alive.” 

Stepping into that legendary role isn’t for the faint of heart, not only because it’s Pixar. “It’s no secret that it’s tough to get into Pixar,” she says. “It’s a secret how to get into Pixar.” 

So, when her agent called with an opportunity to audition for the role, Vocino didn’t hesitate. Her disbelief continued when she walked onto the Pixar campus to record the film last year. Now, the entrepreneur likes to equate her bad days with that single recording day up in Emeryville. “Every time I have a hard time in the grocery business, I say to myself, ‘Not every day can be a day at Pixar.’” 

It feels like most days are Pixar days, at least from my view.