Cooking up with Kardea Brown

0:00I'm very, very, very, very excited about this interview. I will say this is a relationship that I manifested, so let's get into it. We have a true low-country legend in the building. I get you girl making national waves, breaking barriers, preserving culture and doing it with grace and grit. She is a two-time Emmy award-winning host of delicious Miss Brown, creator of the New Dollar Suppercub, best selling cookbook, getting to it, and the woman behind one of my favorite new spots in Charleston's airport were the cheese, the cheese crab dip and the fried fish and call the greens. Y'all gotta try that. It has me acting on the air every time I travel, so please help me welcome the incredible Cartier Brown. Let's clap it up for Cartier Brown!

1:27I am so excited to have you here like I was telling them this is like I would always bring up in the low country and spending time in water and laws shaped who you are today, both as a woman and a chef. I mean growing up in the country, you know, that's my roots. And so the whole basis of delicious Miss Brown to show is just like all about my Gullah

2:28Geechi roots, how I grew up eating, what I grew up eating, and so I think coming from very humble beginnings, make sure you appreciate all the things. Absolutely. So I gotta ask a quick question, what's the struggle meal you will never give up? Oh, poor man, I'm poor man meal, I'm pork and beans. Listen, I heard somebody saying the back, but the Roger Woods sausage though, Roger Woods have you heard the Roger Woods slightly burnt sausage, okay, it's not right, all right. And another one, you know egg and rice, like you can't go wrong with egg and rice, you know. And we always say, a stomach full is a stomach full. Exactly, exactly, no matter what you put in it, but the egg and rice will hit every single time. And you sleep very good. So you said many times, you're not a classically trained chef. Can you talk about the role your grandmother and your mother's recipe played in developing your style and what is one dish that makes you, that makes you feel like home every time

3:29you make it? Oh gosh. Not being a classically trained chef, it has helped me in a way that I think I can relate to people even more. It's just, I have a hard time sometimes having conversations with classically trained chefs because, you know, they get into all of the, you know, the technical terms and all this stuff. Listen, I can cook with the best of them. And I didn't have to go to culinary school to learn that. We know. Okay. So I think that as, you know, again, very humble beginnings, having to kind of teach myself has made me a little bit more hungry than the average person I would say that had to go to culinary school, which is nothing wrong with going to culinary school. But nine times out of 10, when you meet a classically trained chef, they'll tell you the meat and potatoes of what they learned, they didn't learn it until they got into the restaurants and started getting into weeds. And so, you know, coming in as a non classically trained chef, that's kind of how I have to learn.

4:29And what's the second part? The second part is what's one dish that makes you feel, that makes it feel like home every time you make it. Shrimp and grids. Ooh, you can't go wrong. And it got to be, it got to be Charleston shrimp. They got to be them, not the shrimp gate. No, not a shrimp gate. Not the shrimp gate. I'm talking about like the creak shrimp, that sweet, sweet shrimp that you can't get anywhere else in the world. Absolutely. Okay. But for all of the TV shows, pop-up, cookbooks, you were working in social services. I sure did. So, what pushed you to walk away, because it's a completely different world. Very good. So, what pushed you to walk away and take a chance on food, especially without having the formal training? So, it was more so about, like, it wasn't even me. I can't even give myself the credit and say that I walked away from it. I think it was divine redirection. Yes. Because I was working in social services, because that'll always be once a social worker, always a social worker. So, I was doing that, and I was cooking on the side as like a form of therapy.

5:30Like I always just loved, like that was my way, like some people go to the gym, some people will read books, take walks, for me it was always cooking. And so, when I got the opportunity, to this day, it still blows my mind how I got the opportunity to be on television, once I got a feel of that, it's like nothing ever felt so right. Right. That kind of, you know, led me into doing that. And for those who may not know, how did you end up in television? Okay. So, y'all got time. It's really, because people always ask me that, and I'm like, it's not like a straight path. It was very crazy. So, back in 2014, I was living in Bayon, New Jersey, going to grad school in New Jersey and working at Big Brother's Big Sisters. And so, my boyfriend at the time was recording me cooking, and I thought he was just going to put it on Instagram. I get a call a week later from a producer who was like, hey, your boyfriend submitted a tape of you, and we are filming a new show called Dean of Lean, well, they didn't tell me the new show.

6:30And so, we're filming a show featuring home chefs, and we want you to be on the show. It's going to be a pilot, so you're going to be our first guest on the show. And I was like, okay, is this a joke? Because, well, how y'all get my number? Are you still with boyfriend today? No, no, no. Oh, well, thank you. Shout out to him anyway. Thank you for being here. Yeah, he longed on. He turned vegan and gotten to lift the, like, yeah, he served the season, we're onto the next season. We can't do vegan. No, no, nothing wrong with that, but he's like raw vegan now, which is like, I can't do all that. And so, they came and they did the show, and then like on the last day of the show, they pulled me to the side. And it's like, you have a natural, like, knack for this. Like, you are very authentic, and your story of the Sea Islands is so fascinating. Have you ever thought about doing this full time? And I'm like, listen, this was fun. You know, I've never done this before, but I got to go back to work on Monday. And so, y'all are doing, and this is fun.

7:31But like the actuality of it is that I'm not a classically trained chef. I, this is, this was great, but I know the reality of it is that I, me having an opportunity to be on television doing this full time, I don't know. But they were like, no, you really, we want to take you down, back home, and even to Savannah, and we want to film you, and we want to create a sizzle reel, we want to pitch you to the network. And I don't know what came over me, I, I walked to the side and I, I caught my mom, I was like, my, you ain't never got to work again in your life, your entire, I'm looking so, there's any Martin fans in here, anybody watch, okay, remember with Martin, they said, they called me, they want me on the Tizu, so, so that's what I caught, my mom was like, they called me, so I thought that, that was my opportunity, but little did I know that was in 2014, I wasn't going to get a green light for a show until 2019. But you stay in the course? Of course, you got to set a course.

8:32Because God would never put you in a position to see something if it wasn't, if it didn't come, it wasn't going to come to light. Come on, you know, come on. So like you, you see those visions, y'all think it's just a dream or just a little, you know, oh, God has given me, no, if you can clearly see something, at some point in your life, this thing has already happened. And so many times that people don't become successful because they see that vision and don't want to wait for it to come to life in the real world. So like you have to really stay the course because if you see it, like I'm sure you do, you have this vision for yourself. And there's many times little hiccups and things that happen and you like, you know what, maybe it's not for me, it gets hard. That's why so many people don't become like super successful is because they don't want to see that vision through. You know, it's crazy. This vision right here. I saw this in 2016 when I wasn't called. All right. Come on now. So now we're here. So like you just, you got to say the course, you've got to believe in yourself. Yes. If no one else, you have to believe in yourself until it becomes delusional because it's going to be, you're going to be delusional, you have to, because it's going to be people

9:33that you know. You're closest people to you, your friends, your family, they're going to tell you you're absolutely crazy. It ain't for everybody to see. Right. It's not for everybody to understand. It's not for everybody to see. But if you see it, see it through. This is a delusion. When I get home, it's going to pinch me. I'm like, ah, that didn't happen. But you become one of the most prominent voices representing gala, guichi food ways. So what responsibility do you feel in carrying the culture forward, especially on platforms like the food network? Oh, I told them from the very beginning, when they decided like, you know, deliciousness brown was going to be featured here at home. And I, no, we're not sugarcoding. We're not white. We're not whitewashing anything. It is, it is what it is. I have my guichi family and everybody on there and we were not, we're not doing any of that. You know, we have certain things on the network that we have to like certain topics that we have to touch on. But I really, if you ever watch the show, every season, we do something very much like about education and culture, like last season, we did something with the Nat Fuller House

10:39and we talked about that. We talked about the Hutchison House on, uh, uh, at Estelle Island, like, it was so important for me to feature the story of the Dullagigi people because little do people know that the fabric of southern food, the fabric of, of American cuisine came off the backs of Gullagigi people. So it was important for me to- Are you looking at my no cards? Because you're not even- You're rolling it to my next question. So clearly, like you said, you often say southern food is American food. So what do you wish more people understood about the Gullagigi cuisine and its contribution to American culinary? First and foremost, it's not a monolith. Come on. It's more than just- it- it's actually not even that. It's not even fried chicken, collard green, like we love our fried chicken and collard greens. But Gullagigi people specifically, we are very much, we eat by the land, we eat by the sea. And so a lot of our food is seasonal. A lot of our foods are not fattening and later with like, you know, I mean, we do some of our foods. We do, you know, cooking and the smoked meats and all of that sauce.

11:40But for the most part, Gullagigi people, like we eat by the land, we eat very seasonal. And so our food, while it is the fabric of southern cuisine, but we're also, you know, very seasonal and very, like, one pot. And we're very closely related. We are related to West African cuisine, like we are there, we are direct descendants of that. And I think that's important to feature that as well, because, you know, when you talk about red rice, you can't talk about red rice, but I was talking about Gullagigi, you know, you can't- like, you have to- it's one in one, it's one in the same. So it's important for other people to know that. And I will say so a little not off topic, but same thing, so there wasn't- I'm not going to call their name. There was a restaurant in Charleston and they posted this real and it was like, oh, our food is French. And we're like, you've got black people in that kitchen and they couldn't Gullagigi food. So we like- and listen, even with Chef BJ, then it's like, we all- I'm not going to say we- we- we troll them in their comments. Yes. And they made a statement saying we apologize, but it's like, you cannot erase Gullagigi

12:42culture. Oh, they try. They try so. And you go downtown right now, you know, like, you'll see certain people in the front of the house. Yeah. And you'll see who's in the back of the house. Yes. And they- It never correlates. Even with the marketing, because my thing was just like, okay, and we have black- why can't the chefs be- like, why are they like hitting like, ooh, we don't know who's back there. Like, why is that the case? I mean, of course, because I mean Charleston as beautiful as our city is, we still have a very murky past. It is a Disney world for Confederates and people who love to leave history. Okay. Okay. And that was saved by Reverend- and that's not my quote, that was saved by Reverend Joseph- Reverend Darby. He said that in a manual nine documentary. Yes. But Charleston is a Disney world for Confederates and- and people love to like plantations. And it is. And, you know, it's so surprising that people that, I mean, we've- we've become a little better with it, because there's certain parts of Charleston that become a little bit more progressive. But the majority of it, we're still very backwards. Yeah.

13:42You know, even- listen, we can talk about it all the way back to like the way he's disparities and- and- and- and, you know, the- the living- cost of living and- and just all of it, you know? Charleston has come a long way, but we still have a long way to go, right? And especially when it comes to inclusion and especially when it comes to black voices. Because there's- there's so many times that, you know, you'll- like- anybody go to the food and wine classic that came here not too long ago? Last- like two weeks ago. Yeah. Uh, hmm. I was out of town. That's my excuse. I was out of town. Yeah. Let's talk about it. I saw Sierra. Sierra was the- shot off to Sierra for coming. But you have so many talented black chefs sitting in Charleston right now, why were they not featured? Right. Come on. No, but seriously, you have to have these conversations. You have to. You have to. And you have to say it, because a lot of times we have these conversations behind closed doors. It's like, we don't want to step on any toes.

14:42We don't want to stand up on ten of them. All ten of them. It's so ridiculous that we've come so far and you have this beautiful like all this money coming into Charleston with these- The number one tour is destination for food. Every year. Every year. But there's so many talented black chefs that are here, shout out to the black food truck festival that features a lot of those chefs as well. There's so many of us that don't get featured in that, and I just- it's- again, we have a long way to go. I know you're a girl, but this is my one thing that my granny made. Keep in mind, my granny had like ten to fifteen grandkids. So once again, when I say it's stomach full of it's stomach full, I said this is somebody when I was in college one time, and it looked at me with just like, so my granny would make spaghetti and rice. Is that like new to you? Have you heard of that? All right now. Whoever said in the bag don't- not too much. Because when I said it, somebody was like, that's two greens, that make nothing to me back then. Okay.

15:43You took this spaghetti with the red sauce? The red sauce. I think it was the chef where already, red sauce, and put it with rice, and I mean you had fourteen grandkids, you got a fee. Oh wow. So that was different. That was different. That was different from me. That was different. She stretched the meal though. Don't talk about my granny now. Watch it in the audience. Watch it. Easy on the granny now. Watch it. Okay. You feel on granny. But I understand. I understand why she had to do that, because it's carbs and it's starch. Yes. Ten to fifteen grand children. So I get that. But now, in my family now, we didn't necessarily do that. We is either or. It's probably because we didn't have it at the same time, but it was either or. All right. So let's talk about the cookbook. First of all, you can help me get a man. First and foremost, thank you for all. Okay. Right now. Manifesting. So what inspired this latest project, and what do you want readers to take away from this cookbook? So this latest project, you know, and I came up with this idea almost two years ago, because

16:44it takes about two to three years to write a cookbook. So when they're about me. Why? Oh, it's the testing. It's the coming up. But the recipes, it's you got to write, you know, your introductions. It's a whole thing. And then you got the business side of it. So when my publisher came to me and my editor, Patrick Bass, when I'm a style books, he came to me and said, you know, you got your New York Times best seller, you got to come off the hills of that. You want the next book to be about. And you know, I'm sitting there and I'm a firm believer of just like not rushing things sometimes. And so I said, you know, Patrick, let me get back to you, you know, let me think about it. And I thought about like a children's cookbook. And I thought about all these different things. And I said, you know what? I call Patrick. And I was like, Patrick, you know, at this point, I really want to do something that is a continuation of the way home, which was my first cookbook was all about the sea islands getting to know me, getting to know my family and all of that. And I was like, you know, I remember and I was just, we're just talking and we're riffing and I'm talking to Patrick. And he's like, I'm like, you know, I remember, my mother always may do what she had.

17:45And Patrick was like, that's it. And I'm like, oh, that's, you know, and that makes sense because even if on deliciousness brown, I never reach for fancy ingredients. I always, if you watch the show and nine times out of 10, when you turn the TV off or when you watch the next program or when it goes off, you like everything that she made, I have all those ingredients in the house right now. I can make that. And so that came from my childhood of growing up in a single family household and single parent household where my mother, that was, that was just our way of life. Like you making do was just enormous to us. It wasn't like, oh, this is like a little trendy catch phase. Like no phrase, it was my mother always may do. Like there was not, I didn't have the luxury of saying, oh, we were going to go out to eat tonight. We're going to go to McDonald's. You know McDonald's money. You don't have it. And now that I, like I'm an adult and I realize like she really did not have it. And so she'd be like, you know, we got that at home and I'm like, I'm open on the refrigerator. We got, we got Oprah stew. That's not, that's not a filet of fish, you know, that's not what I want.

18:46That's not a big double. That's not, that's not, that's not that. You know, so I'm like, now that I'm an adult and I didn't know that when this book came out, it would be in the middle, the heart of the government shut down. Right. And I had no idea that there were so many people that were going to need this book. And that's again, while you've got to pay attention to those subtle signs that, you know, the universe, God, whatever you want to call it, sends you because I didn't know two years ago that this book would come out in the midst of all of that. And also I didn't know this book would come out in the middle of a spike in unemployment in particular with black women. Yeah. And so, yeah, I'm just going to listen to that voice. Absolutely. So what is a recipe in your cookbook that inspires you the most? And yeah, that means the most to you. Oh, gosh, that's a hard question. I feel like all the recipes kind of have a special place in my heart. Oh, my goodness. I don't know if anything with the grits in there, like the sausage and grits and my mom's chewy bars are like one of those things that's like, my mom never baked.

19:50She was not a baker. But when she did bake, it was those chewy bars. So that has a little special place in my heart, too. Okay. My last question. So you have this amazing restaurant in the airport. Lately, I've been, I've been in the airports, if I had a chance, I had the crab dip. I had the fish, the fried fish place, the collard greens, and the rare rice. And put me to sleep, woke up the next day, had a blast. So I have someone inbox me and they say specifically to ask you this question, because he says specifically for him and his mom, when are you going to make a restaurant outside of the airport? For him and his mom to try first, and then you can open it up to everybody. You know what? I think when the timing is right. Because restaurants are really hard to run, because a lot of them open and a lot of them shudder and the next year. So when the cost of food balance is out, and the inflation goes down, but hopefully soon I think we're in the works with something right now. So it's going to be soon. Awesome. And one reason, one reason why we need to purchase this book, hit me.

20:52One reason why you need to get, make do with what you have. Have y'all seen the prices of groceries? Yes. All right then. All right. That's it. I want you to make some noise. Thank you so much. We're sitting with me. Kazoo here officially. Thank you. Thank you.