Courteney Cox opens up about bonding with her teenage daughter Coco: 'It's really important to keep an open relationship'

Like many of us, Courteney Cox used her time in quarantine to develop some new hobbies — and enrich some old ones. The Friends alum, who recently reunited with her former co-stars for HBO Max’s highly anticipated reunion special, has spent the last year giving followers a closer look at her personal life. Cox’s Instagram feed includes plenty of recipe videos, musical performances with her 17-year-old daughter, Coco, and participating in Cointreau’s Ultimate Margarita Showdown alongside Andy Cohen and Daveed Diggs.

Cox — who also directed a new music video coming soon — is working with Cointreau as part of an initiative that will donate $100,000 to the Independent Restaurant Coalition, a non-profit organization committed to helping the bar and restaurant community impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Because, hey, you can’t make every meal at home, right?

Cox spoke to Yahoo Life about her passion for cooking, how she stays close with her teenager, and why she has a hard time singing despite loving music.

YAHOO LIFE: What inspired you to take your cooking hobby to Instagram?

COURTENEY COX: When quarantine started, there was nothing to do but stay home and cook. I started really enjoying it, and now I think my cooking is a lot of better than many of the restaurants I used to go to. I still have a few favorite restaurants I’m dying to get the recipes from, but to no avail so far. I love it. It’s become a huge part of my life. Coming up with content for Instagram is never easy, so I thought, "How can I let people into some of my hobbies?" I thought, "I like to cook, I like to play the piano, I like to play tennis, and hang out with Coco." Now, I just share those parts of my life.

You share so many amazing recipes on Instagram. What’s the one recipe you would recommend everyone try, regardless of their skills as a bartender or chef?

You mean besides banana bread? Because that’s the quarantine go-to. Everybody has an almost rotten banana! As far as recipes, I think everybody needs to master the baked chicken. For summer, it’s nice to do a lot of Mexican food, which obviously goes nicely with margaritas. What’s nice about Cointreau is that you can make so many drinks with it. I’ve mastered the strawberry margarita and the regular margarita, and that’s been so nice for summer.

Do you have any secret ingredients to make the perfect summer drink?

The real margarita that’s done with Cointreau, tequila, and lime juice is fantastic. But for my margarita challenge, I made it with muddled strawberries, which are really good. The secret weapon is called Red Clay Spicy Margarita Salt. It’s salty, it’s sweet, it’s spicy, and it’s made all my margaritas fantastic. It tastes great.

Do you have any advice for parents who want to get closer to their teen?

I think it’s really important to keep an open relationship so they feel comfortable to talk to you. The best way to do that is to not nudge or shame them, but hear them and understand. I think that’s the most important thing, to keep them close and wanting to be open.

You post many videos of your family singing and performing on Instagram. Is your family moving in a more musical direction?

Well, Coco will definitely pursue musical theater in college. She loves to sing and loves the theater. I’m obsessed with playing the piano. I love music, I love musicians. My partner [Snow Patrol’s Johnny McDaid] is in a band, but he’s also a writer. He writes some of the greatest songs that are on the radio right now. He’s just incredible.

I’m very drawn to anything having to do with music, it makes me so happy. I used to take singing lessons with my daughter. I used to love it so much that I would start crying during the lesson because the music, the words, just take over. I couldn’t sing, because not only do I have a bad voice, I got too involved, I felt it too much. So now I’m just playing the piano. I host music nights a lot at my house. It just makes me happy.

I just directed a music video for Brandi Carlile. This was a really special one. I met her on Instagram and we became friends. We just had a really nice time doing the video, called "Right on Time." I’m excited for the video, but what I’m really excited for is for people to hear the song.