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fuck? How do you have French toast?' I'll make my grain-free bread, and I'll make a batter out of coconut, mushed banana, vanilla, and cinnamon, and I'll fry up that French toast. People are mind blown! Every time I make it, it makes me happy. It's something I never thought I'd be eating again," she says ecstatically about her favorite recipe. These recipes keep inflammation in the body down, so that you won't feel bloated. "It's just rethinking your food. Inflammation in the body causes disease, that's not me, that's a fact. It's about taking away the inflammation —not only for people like me, people like you, people that want to just keep inflammation down and still enjoy French toast, a great piece of bread, and a great meal. You're not going to be deprived… you'll just make things a little differently." And, you can eat her chocolate chip cookies made with plantains and her pumpkin pie for breakfast. "When pumpkin season comes along, I eat this pie for breakfast, lunch, and dinner," she says with a laugh. "It's using natural food in a different way… It's a very simplistic way of eating —the way I eat and the way I've learned to bake and make all these things. It's taking things that are already of nature, grains that have been here for a long time... it's taking away the excess and just letting the natural beauty of the food show." The best part? You will lose weight because all of the ingredients are good for you. "I didn't want to say this is a diet. People hear the word and they go cuckoo. I tell everyone: Try and be grain- free, gluten-free, no sugar for two weeks —you're going to shrink. You're eating things that don't cause inflammation in the body. It's just used for what it needs, and then it goes." Bloat, tiredness, and under eye bags all disappear, she tells me. The other night I whipped up her recipe for Buttery, Creamy Cauliflower Soup, and it was so tasty and simple to prepare –I was done in under thirty minutes. "People always ask, 'You work a full day and you come home and cook?' It doesn't have to take long. The chicken I make with cauliflower, turmeric, and asparagus, honestly, it takes 5 minutes to prepare and put in the oven. It takes 25 minutes. You're eating in a half hour." If Jennifer can prepare a wholesome, healthy meal after working a long day onset, so can you. Last year, Jennifer joined CBS' NCIS – television's #1 drama for eight years—as a series regular, alongside fellow newcomer to the show, Wilmer Valderrama. In Season 14, Jennifer portrayed Special Agent Alex Quinn. "It came at a time I was ready to work. Ready to go back and do something. And work I did." She especially liked that the pressure wasn't on her to carry the show. "It will survive with or without me, which is lovely. To have a show 14 years old is crazy —it's a real achievement, so you want to be respectful of that and go in and do your best." After one season, Jennifer tweeted this June that she was not returning, and has since been shooting the film Cigarette. Based on a true story about speedboat racing champ/multimillionaire Don Aronow, Jennifer plays Kathy Aronoff opposite John Travolta. And on Showtime's Golden Globe Award-winning show, The Affair, Jennifer has been reveling in her role as Nina Solloway. "That's one of my all-time favorite shows... My manager called up and said, 'If there's anything ever available, she wants to be on the show.'" The Affair came back and offered her one scene playing Noah's sister, Nina, who ended up being a recurring character. Committed to both NCIS and The Affair at the same time, Jennifer would fly out of Los Angeles on a Friday or Monday, where NCIS films, to shoot The Affair in New York, then fly right back to L.A. Jennifer proudly admits to some intense –and endearing—fangirling while onset. "When you're so invested as a viewer and then you get to be there," she says all wide-eyed and animated, "Ohmygod, I was such an idiot with Noah, with Dominic [West] and Maura [Tierney]. I was so excited like, Uhhh, I'm gonna talk to them. Totally forgot that they were actors, even timid with them. Totally, 'cause I loved it so much." As a faithful viewer, she made sure to steer clear of any spoilers, and would only read her part. "I thought this last season was so crazy, so dark, and so good," says Jennifer, who has been on the show since 2015. Her performance as Nina garnered her an Emmy nomination submission from Showtime for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series. She hopes to be invited back for Season 4, and has even devised a possible storyline for Nina. "The husband beats up Nina and she kills him and puts him in the basement… I have a feeling that's not going to happen, but I can pretend." You had something crazy like that happen on Mistresses. "That's maybe where I thought of it from. Yeah, that was fun, that was so crazy." From Summer of Sam, Spin City, Breakin' All the Rules, Taxi, Samantha Who?, Mistresses, The Affair… I've seen and loved Jennifer in all of them, but the project I associate her most with is Crash —one of the greatest movies ever for its complex and deeply-touching storylines that crash into one another. "Oh, I love that movie," she coos. "I read it in seriously 25 minutes and I called back [her previous manager] and said, 'I'll hold the boom. I just want to What are you watching on TV? "I love The Voice. I wanna be best friends with Alicia Keys. I love her. I think she's got this spirit that jumps out, just so pure. I'm waiting for Stranger Things —another show, if they want to have me. I love it. My show was Breaking Bad. I just thought that was one of the best things ever done. The Affair, obviously. Homeland. I want to watch the Madoff thing with Robert De Niro. Chef's Table on Netflix —I love that documentary series."