Michelle Obama: The Light Podcast - Kardea Browns Shrimp And Grits Starts With Bacon

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

American chef and T.V. host Kardea Brown tells her family’s stories of Edisto Island and the Gullah Lowcountry in South Carolina. Kardea talks to Michele about the unique culture of the Lowcountry and how Gullah cuisine and farming has historical ties to West Africa. Plus, Kardea shares how her ancestral history continues to drive her purpose and her cooking show, as she works hard to preserve old traditions from being erased. On top of mentioning her delicious cheesecake recipe, Kardea officially shares with us her recipe for Shrimp and Grits, done Gullah style! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Your Mama's Kitchen is brought to you by Rivian. When slave owners did not want certain scraps in certain parts, they call it low on the hog, certain parts of the meat that they did not want, they would give it to the slaves along with rice to keep them, you know, satiated throughout the day to work on the field. So that's why, to this day, rice is still very much an important part of our meals because that's all we knew. That's all our ancestors knew. Hello, hello, and welcome back to your mama's kitchen. This is a place where we explore how we are shaped as adults by the kitchens that we grew up in as kids.

And not just the food, but all the stuff that happens there. The homework, the arguments, the important conversations, the big fish stories. Our guest today is Cartier Brownsmith. She's a New York Times best-selling cookbook author. She's got another cookbook on the way. She's co-hosting a kid show called Championship Baking. It's actually Kids Championship baking, and that's on the Food Network. You may know her from another show she does on the Food Network called Delicious Miss Brown,

and it features fresh, seasonal, and food that really relies heavily on the bounty from the sea, because that speaks to her culture. The show is hosted on Edisto Island. She has strong and deep family roots there, and so we're going to talk a little bit about food, a little bit about family and a little bit about her family's history in this conversation. Cardier, thanks so much for being with me. Thank you for having me. This is so exciting to talk about all things, food with someone who wants to listen.

Yes, I do want to listen. And I'm glad we're talking about the food from the low country. And Charleston, in particular, you live in Charleston now. That's one of my all-time favorite cities. I never miss if someone invites me to Charleston. The answer is always yes. Oh, yeah. because I love the people and I love the food and I love the vibe and I really love everything about that city.

So let's start where we always start on the show with your mama's kitchen. You grew up with two people in the kitchen, your mother and your grandmother. We'll talk about both those women in just a minute. But can you describe the kitchen that you grew up in? Oh, gosh. So my grandmother's kitchen. So my family, I have roots in Edisto and Wadmala Island. My grandmother was born and raised on Wadmala Island.

It's a part of the cluster of sea islands off the coast of South Carolina. And my grandmother grew up there, but when I came into the world, she was living in west of the Ashley River in Charleston. And so I remember her little kitchen on Green Park Avenue. And it was, of course, back then, that was like the late 80s, early 90s. So it's just I remember distinctly those. wood paneled wall cabinets. And then eventually she got fancy and painted them white.

But she had a very old school kitchen, had all of the, I remember she had all of her sugar and flour in those plastic containers on the countertop. And there was a section of her house where the patio and the living room, all of that, was connected to the kitchen. So it was a big open space. But I distinctly just remember all of the things that came out of that kitchen, that quaint kitchen. And, yeah, it was definitely a kitchen of the early 90s in the South. So there was a lot of roosters.

We're not talking about cockadoodoo roosters walking around. Right. It's the decor, right? The decor. The decor. And everything to match. And, you know, whatever holiday was coming around, the decor and the decor in the kitchen, match that.

Kitchen table in the kitchen? She had a little kitchen nook off the side of the kitchen, so there was a two-seater, and then she had her formal dining room that was connected just on the other side of the kitchen. Now, I mispronounced

a disto. I said disto, I think, which just shows people that I'm a Midwesterner or a Yankee or someone who's not from that part of the world. So I apologize about that. Not a problem. And your mom and your grandmother often cooked together?

They did. Well, my grandmother, I grew up part of my childhood in Atlanta, Georgia. And my grandmother, again, is in Charleston. And so when we were together, which was often, holidays, anything of that sort, my mom and my grandmother would cook in the kitchen. But my grandmother for a long time did not allow my mom to be in the kitchen with her unless she was helping to prep. Like peeling potatoes,

chopping up the cheese for the macaroni and cheese, snapping the ends of the green peas, like those things you were allowed in the kitchen to do. Other than that, that was her domain, that was her space, and you come in there. So she she sued you out of there? Oh, absolutely. Now, that's interesting because some people love to be surrounded

by voices and people in the kitchen and other folks. They just don't get in my way. This is my space. Don't watch you in there. Yes. Grandma was in that second category. She was definitely in that second category, but there was times,

especially for me, as I got older, where she felt comfortable enough knowing that I could kind of take over and allow her to kind of step back and allow me to do things. That didn't happen. And I guess that would say that, gosh, that was less than 10 years ago.

Well, I was going to ask, your grandmother's Josephine, right? Grandmother's Josephine and mother is Pat. And you are an excellent cook, and you are an excellent teacher. So it's one thing to be a good cook. It's another thing to be someone who can actually explain the process and bring people along. And I was going to ask how that developed if Grandma Josephine didn't watch you in her space. So it came from observation.

It came for observation. And I think a lot of it also had to do with just innate traits that I have. You know, my mom is a really great cook. My grandmother's a really great cook. Her mother was a really great cook. And so it just kind of came to me naturally. Also, too, when I was in the kitchen with either my mom or my grandmother, I would ask a lot of questions. And so with that, they would explain to me.

And they didn't want you really in their space, but they would talk to me about what they were doing and why they added heavy cream or why they added the evaporated milk to the macaroni and cheese. And then as I became, you know, an adult and I went to college and I went to school for child psychology. I was a teacher in my former life. And so all of that kind of helped me become a somewhat of a teacher, a culinary teacher. I hope you all were listening carefully because she just dropped a little secret in there, the evaporated milk and the macaroni and cheese. Mm-hmm. Uh-huh. Okay, but you got quiet.

Now you're not going to talk too much about it because that's one of the secrets. Is that one of the secrets to Mac and Cheese? It is my grandmother's secret. That's how my grandmother never believed in using. It's out now. So grandma, I'm sorry, I told your secret. It's out there now. You use evaporated milk and she uses a little bit of heavy cream if available.

Because, again, I grew up in a household where my grandmother was single. My mother was single. You know, my mother was a single parent. And my grandmother also raised my mother and my mother and my own. as a single parent. So when I came into the world, my mom definitely kind of relied on my grandmother to help raise me. You know, they say it takes a village and it does. And so I remember just like between my grandmother and my mother's home, just like we learned to kind of make do. And when funds were tight and we wanted to make a decent meal, if we had to go in the pantry and make

macaroni and cheese from, you know, some shredded, mild shredded cheese or sharp and using the evaporated milk from the pantry, which my grandmother always kept in her pantry. And so that's how she made her macaroni cheese. Nothing fancy. And if she had any heavy cream or half and half or whole milk in the fridge to kind of help with that evaporated milk, that's how she did it. Okay. Well, now, thank you for sharing that secret. Appreciate it. You have, You talk a lot about your mother and your grandmother, and you said of the two of them, your mother was more of the entertainer. So does that mean she had a different entertaining style or a different cooking style?

Was she sort of life is a party and she is a host? Was she always on in some way? So my mother really just enjoyed having company over, whether it, because like she would always say this, and to this day she still says this, that, you know, I may not have a lot of money to give you, but I can always feed you. And so she would always hear her on the phone with her girlfriends or if there was someone in town. She'd be like, hey, come on over. Let me, let me feed you.

I got a good meal for you. So she really liked, I like to say, she used to call her poo poo platters. And she would like do her charcutory boards. And she liked to put out her different meats and crackers and cheese and all of those things. And she would also make a full meal, you know, two course because she didn't do desserts. So she would make a little appetizer and a full spread. This could be like a Tuesday evening. And my mom is making her famous lasagna.

And she loved her salads. My mom loves her salads, her pasta salads and her tossed salads and all of those things. So when I explain the cooking styles of my grandmother and my mother, my mother was more so of the modern, like trying new recipes, doing different things. And my grandmother is strictly southern food. That's where you're going to get your fried chicken. and your llama beans and your okra stew and all of that sort. My mom made those things, but she also kind of just like her resume of cooking. It was very, very just like whatever she felt in the mood for, she was going to cook that.

She didn't make desserts. I can't you say that. No, she did not. What's the story there? So my mom is not really a baker. And she made this one dessert, and she calls it her goodie bars. And that was the only thing. She said, if I ever learned how to bake, we would be big as a house.

Because we love to eat. And so, you know, she just like, hey, you know what? We are already, you know, beautiful plus-sized women. My mom's not so much plus-size anymore. But she's like, we don't need to do. We are, we are okay. You know, we don't need the desserts. Now, my grandmother, of course, grew up in an era where you learned savory and you learned how to bake.

And there was an expectation that there should be a dessert on the table. There was always dessert after supper. You got to have something sweet. And so your grandmother could throw down in the baking department. Absolutely. She's known for her sweet potato pie. Every single holiday, I mean, we look forward to having that sweet potato pie on Thanksgiving. She would make at least ten pies.

Ooh, okay. Yes. That sounds delicious. From scratch. Delicious. Delicious, including the crust. Grandma, I'm going to tell them

another secret. Okay. She did not make her crust from scratch. That's just fine. That's fine. That's fine. What kind did she use? Pet Rits or?

Oh, she would use the, like, the Pillsbury, whatever. You know, usually it was the Pillsbury, like the crust that came either. And I think, believe in the freezer section, she would get those little, and then comes in like a tin pan. Yes. She would use that for her sweet potato pie.

She still does. us. No shame in that. No shame at all in that. I mean, pie crust is a whole thing. It's difficult. It takes a lot of time. And they've made it. And if you're making 10, of course, then it's just easier to do that. So no shame in that. Now, because you're from the South, I can guess some of the things that are probably on the menu. You talked about lima beans and okra stew. I'm guessing there was a lot of seafood because the seafood in South Carolina is delicious. I'm guessing grits. We're probably on the menu and we're going to talk a little bit about. that because that's an important family recipe for you. But I'm guessing that rice was also on the menu. And South Carolina rice is a whole entire thing. So can we talk about that? Because you did a whole show once called The Ode to Rice. What is it about South Carolina rice? Is it because that's kind of where rice arrived in America and they just grow it differently there? Is it because you're so committed to rice? What is it about the rice in South Carolina and South Carolina? And South Carolina dishes low country dishes,

Gala cuisine, that just is so different, so fantastic, so fluffy. It's just like a different quality of rice. Oh, yeah. That's called Carolina Gold Rice. And so during the transatlantic slave trade, settlers went to the west coast of Africa

and found that these people, Native West Africans, knew how to cultivate the grain rice because the area kind of was just conduce to it. When settlers arrived in the Americas, they realized, oh, this is kind of like the same environment. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's just very conducive to growing the grain rice, which at the time was a cash crop. Rice was actually considered more valuable than gold. That's why they call it Carolina gold. And so they

brought the slaves over to the Americas, particularly, particularly the southeastern region of United States, and, of course, against their will, put them into slavery where they were making, where they were growing rice. And so during the time, what the settlers did not know is that the land was also just running rampant with disease.

And so while, and how it worked out was that majority of the slaves had already built up immune system to, that type of environment, whereas the settlers were not accustomed to that and all of the diseases that that type of land brought. And so a lot of the, what happened was that the settlers actually, some of them died off and where the slaves were left in the land to pretty much fend for themselves. And so because they were brought over to, for the main reason of slavery to produce the crop rice, they were still left on the land. And so they were still tending to the land,

still producing the rice. And so a lot of our meals is based off of just rice because that's what was so, you know, that's what, where they, excuse me, that's the reason why they were brought to the land. And so a lot of times, even before the settlers started to die, a lot of the foods were just rice-based. And so when slave owners,

did not want certain scraps in certain parts, they call it low on the hog, certain parts of the meat that they did not want. They would give it to the slaves, along with rice, to keep them, you know, satiated throughout the day to work on the fields. So that's why, to this day, rice is still very much an important part of our meals

because that's all we knew. That's all our ancestors knew. And so rice is, we eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There's a, and my new, cookbook make do with what you have. I talk about this meal we have for breakfast. For breakfast it's called egg rice. It's basically, it looks like fried rice that maybe someone in Asia may eat, but it's basically white rice scrambled up with eggs and some type of breakfast meat. You can have ham, you can have bacon, or if you didn't have, or sausage, and if you didn't have that available,

you just eat egg and rice. And so again, it's just, it's coming from, ancestry and then also because that's just, you know, kind of what was passed down to us. And you even have rice desserts in your episode, Ode to Rice, there's a dessert that you make with rice. And of course we all know about rice pudding. Rice pudding. The story of rice coming to South Carolina is interesting because when we think about slavery and people who were enslaved being forced to work in the fields and the patties, the rice patties, we think they were brought here mainly for their brawn, for their muscle, for their ability. to work in the fields.

But they were also about here for their intellect. Because growing rice is really hard. And this was a group of people who were forced here, but they were forced here in part because they understood how difficult it was and they knew how to work the land. Right. And that part, too, is the reason why on Deliciousness Brown, I felt there was a need to talk about that because you don't hear it a lot

in talks about why. of course, like you said, slaves were brought over to the Americas. You hear about strong men being separated from their families and things of that sort, but you never really talk about how the Rice got here or how Okra came and why Okra is here and why do we, you know, it's a very murky type of situation. And I thought, you know, even though our past is kind of checkered here in the low country, it's still important because there is the reason why, like you said, and I'm so glad that you asked, why rice is so important in our diets? It's because of this knowledge that the slaves came to the Americas with.

This is the reason why the southern economy just did so well for so long is because of that knowledge. We all know that food waste is bad for the planet, but that doesn't mean we're ready to start a compost pile or we're okay with having a smelly fruit fly condo compost pail. on the counter. That's why I am so into the mill food recycler. The whole idea is to make keeping food out of the trash as easy as dropping it into the trash. I just add my scraps and I mean like almost anything. I mean anything from chicken wing bones to avocado pits to cannulop rinds and mill runs automatically while I sleep. I can keep filling it for weeks and it

never smells. What really surprises me is the peace of mind. I used to feel guilty every time I tossed out wilted spinach or half-eaten leftovers. Now I just drop them into the bin, open the lid, drop them in, and I know that they're going to a better place. You can use the grounds in your garden or feed them to your chickens, but me, I have mill, get them to small farms for me so farmers can grow more food. You just send those grounds off to farms in little boxes that Mill can provide, and they will turn that back into real food for, real animals. That's such a good feeling. It's a full circle moment that I didn't know that I needed. You can have your own full circle moment. Try Mill, risk-free, and get $75 off at mill.com slash YMK podcast. That's mill.com slash YMK podcast. You know, when I introduced this episode, I talked about

Low Country and Gala Culture. They're connected, but there's a difference. What's the difference? So the Gullah culture, of course, is centered around the African American descendants of the Gullah people, the people that were brought here from the Ivory Coast, the West Coast of Africa. Now, low country is what I believe is just kind of like a branch of southern, southeastern culture. But distinctly, the Gula community is descendants of West African enslaved people. And if you go to some parts of South Carolina, the culture is much more connected to West African people than in many other parts of the world. I mean, the dialect, the architecture, the way people eat, the way people live. And even the way that we speak, even our, we call it, if you meet someone who has a distinct accent and you hear them, you'll say, oh, are you from New Orleans? and we'll tell you no, we're from the low country.

We're from Charleston, and so the dialect is very distinct to the area as well. And so there's a cluster of sea islands off the coast of South Carolina where very much we live true to our West African enslaved people. I'm sorry, West African enslaved ancestors. And so you have like Sullivan's Island and St. Helena Island and Wadmala, John's Island, James Island. These are all the islands that kind of make up the southeast corridor, the Gullah corridor, where a lot of people still very much live very closely to their Gullah ancestors. And that these are your people.

These are your ancestors. Yes. Since I spent a fair amount of time in Charleston, one of the things I learned is that, you know, people talk about code switching all over the place that people have a certain dialect they use when they're with their people, their love circle, and it's different than the language that you use when you're out of the world, when you have to speak for proper or when you're at work. That code switching means something different in certain parts of South Carolina

because the dialect. There is a dialect that you use when you're out in the world and then there's a dialect that is very unique and that's sort of safe for when you're with your love circle. And is that true for your family? Yes. So my grandmother was the first out of her 14 siblings to get a college education.

Actually, she was the only sibling to get a college. She moved from Charleston with a, she didn't, she wasn't, she went to high school but wasn't able to get her high school diploma because my grandmother and her siblings lived on a small farm. And her parents' priority, in particular, her father wanted them to work to provide for the family. And so education was not an important aspect in our family until my grandmother, again, wanted something different for herself and for her future children. and so she left Charleston and Wadmala, and she moved to New York at the age of 17. And she enlisted in high school courses because even back then on Walmala Island,

going to high school and going to school, there was one school from elementary to all the way to high school. There was only one school that provided education, and the education just wasn't that great back then, especially on this island. And so she had to go to high school in New York and basically teach herself how to read and write properly. And she also was just motivated after that to go to college.

And so she went to college. She went to nursing school and eventually became a registered nurse. And I remember I was born in Charleston. My grandmother moved back with my mother and my uncle. And I remember distinctly growing up with my grandmother. And she would say that, you know, I would be around my cousins on the island and I would pick up the Gucci accent and stuff and I would come home and I would

say things to her and she would say no, no, no, you leave that on the island. You don't come back to you. That's not proper English. You don't talk like that. And I would always be so confused as to why it was so bad or improper to talk like how we talked. And so

my grandmother, she had an accent, but she kind of unlearned it. She kind of, you know, because it was also So it was not, it just, it was, it was, the phrase was bad English. You don't talk that broken English around here is what my grandmother would always tell me. But it wasn't until I entered into college and I met someone from Sierra Leone where, she was actually a janitor at the college that I went to in Atlanta. And she said, you know, you have a very rich history.

Don't unlearn that. You know, your Gullah dialect is very similar to if you have ever, if you ever visit Africa. It sounds very similar to my people in Sierra Leone. And so, again, it wasn't until that time that I realized that, no, this is not broken English or bad English. It's just a way of speaking. It was a way of life. But my grandmother at the time, you know, growing up and raising children in like the 70s and 80s back then, it was, no, you do not talk like that. If you want to make a better living for yourself and if you want to fit into society, speaking, the gullible.

dialect or the Gichi dialect was just unacceptable. Isn't it amazing how someone you encounter can have almost a lightning strike effect on you? You encountered a cleaning woman at the university that you attended, and that sounds like it had such a profound impact on you. It was an epiphany. Yes, it was that very moment that I realized that I do come from something that, you know, for me it was just a way of life. Oh, we're Gichi.

We know we eat rice. We have an accent. We, you know, we live on this beautiful island, and that's all I knew. I didn't know that it had so much ties to Africa. The whole time, I did not know that we had a direct link to Africa. And it was talking to this woman in my school cafeteria where, you know, a very older woman, and, you know, she asked me about my family. She heard a little bit of the accent because I go in and out of it.

And so she heard a little bit of the accent, and she asked me where I was from. I said, I'm from Charleston, South Carolina. She said, oh, you're Gichi. So, yeah, I'm Gigi. And she said, oh, you know, your people are directly related to my people. I'm from Sierra Leone. And that kind of got me thinking and questioning things. And I spoke to my uncle who actually did a research project while he was in college about our direct connection to our West African roots.

And he found that our family in particular does have roots in Sierra Leone. Yeah, see, the ancestors make connections in interesting ways. Your path probably was led to that woman because she was meant to say something to you that would have that kind of impact on you. So when you created your set for your show, were you very intentional in the way that you wanted to create a not just, just a set, but a kitchen that would feel like in some ways that it was an homage to Miss Pat's kitchen and Grandma Josephine's kitchen. So when you created the set for delicious Miss Brown, tell me about what you wanted to achieve there. So I wanted it to, you know, it was just basically because it is my home kitchen. And so I wanted it to reflect all of the things that I

love and new growing up. It was the, if, all of my Deliciousness, friend, cousins, deliciousness brown cousins know, there's always this little pig that sits in the back, this porcelain pig that sits on my, on my countertop. And that is, my grandmother also had something like that

when I was growing up. And the only thing was missing was the porcelain roosters. But, you haven't think of the roosters, you have a thing about the roosters. Oh, the roosters. It was all over the place. The towels, the napkins, They were everywhere.

And so I wanted to kind of bring that into and, you know, just like having the countertop of like the containers, the glass containers of sugar and flour and all of those things. And so I tried to kind of mimic that in my kitchen. And to this day, my kitchen looks very much like that. My mother also a product of the early 90s and late 90s where we would always have like the jars of oil. and pasta and the dried pasta. And I still have that on my countertop right now. I have my dry pasta, my rice and my beans. And I have that.

So yeah, so that's how I kind of tried to mimic the kitchen to kind of remind me of my mother and my grandmother's kitchen. Did you get any pushback on that? Because so many of the kitchens that we see in the television shows that we watch that are centered around food, the kitchens seem almost like, hospitals. They're so surgical and there's

not a lot of stuff on the counter and it looks like I don't know if anyone cooks there or even lives there. Right. And see that's the thing about shooting a show that it's your actual home is that these, if anything I had to

my, you know, what's so beautiful about Delicious's Brown which I think really set the show apart from all the other shows like you said that you're accustomed to seeing. It was not staged to a certain extent. It was like, hey, let's bring in more of all the things that are special and near and dear to your heart. Like, put that on the countertop and, you know, let's display that. I didn't get any pushback about anything other than displaying like, you know,

art from Jonathan Green, who was a local fantastic artist. Love his work. Yes. And so, like, if you're listening, just a, if you're listening to this or watching this, and you don't know who Jonathan Green is, when you're done watching this, you should Google and look him up. He does just these beautiful, vivid, the wind is always blowing, and the women are wearing these big hats.

And when you fly to South Carolina, his work greet you. I mean, it's literally there at the airport. Yes. And that was the only feedback I got was like, okay, you can't post, you can't put original Jonathan Greens up, so we're going to have to get.

Wait, why not? There's something about just not being, able to post originals of arts on, on a, I have no idea. Without permission or something like that. And there's this whole like legality like situation behind it. So that was the only thing. But we did have some other artwork that definitely reflected the low country. And black art was also very important to putting for, for me to be on display as well.

So you've gone from growing up with a grandmother who didn't want anybody in her kitchen to now, cooking in a kitchen where you're basically inviting the world to watch you in your kitchen. Yes, yes. And it was a, you know, I would say that it didn't really take much for me to get accustomed to that. It's so funny when people are like, oh, when we watch the show, it's like you were talking to us. We feel like you were in your kitchen and it's so natural and it's so fluid. And it's because I have a really great producer, Pat DeFazio, who,

was on the other side of the camera, along with, like, two other camera guys and a slew of other people on the other side of me that you had no idea is behind me the whole time. But working with people that feel like family, and we've been working together for now for the past, gosh, six years. So having, and it's always fun when our camera crew is there because it's just, again, it's an extension of family. So that's why I'm able to go from such a drastic, of my grandmother and my mother not wanting anyone in their kitchen to me being able to feel

comfortable with having about 20 people in my kitchen. But yeah, it just, when you have a really great executive producer, it just makes it easier. Are there times, though, were you difficult question, where you feel like you lost control of your kitchen, where your kitchen is now this sort of communal space. When your kitchen becomes a TV set, is it still your kitchen? For about three weeks, it is not my kitchen. When they come in and set up, there's tons of light and lighting, and there's, you know, they kind of, they do take over the kitchen space. And so when I'm done filming, I'm usually not really, I mean, I still cook because I really enjoy cooking regardless of I'm cooking on camera or not.

So I still utilize the kitchen during those three weeks of filming, but for the majority of it, it is pretty much taken over. but it still feels very much like my kitchen. So what are the things that you always, always, always have next to the stove? One or two things. Salt pepper and a neutral oil like canola oil. What is the secret ingredient that you reach for over and over again? My house seasoning. Your house seasoning.

Yes, that's salt. Tidea's house seasoning. Yes, Ms. Brown's house seasoning is what we call it on the show. So it's salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and paprika. It's my season all. And your mother didn't do desserts. You do desserts. I do.

Willingly. Yes, I love it. So what is your, when you have to reach for dessert, that does knock people out and make them spoon? Where do you go? Hmm. I would say my sweet potato cheesecake. Hmm.

My sweet potato pie cheesecake. It is a layer of like a New York style cheesecake with a gram cracker crust and the top of the of the cheesecake is my grandmother sweet potato pie recipe. It is decadent. Woo! It is decadent.

Okay, woo, I just need to undo the zipper on my pants right now. Think about having that. Whoa. That sounds delicious. How do you, do you, I'm trying to think about, do you have to prepare the cheesecake and then you do the, is it like twice baked? So what you do is, of course, you prepare the cheesecake as you normally do. You let it sit in the fridge for a second to kind of set, not for a second, for about an hour or two to kind of really set up. So it doesn't, so that when you pour in that sweet potato pie filling, it doesn't sink.

So you let it set up in the fridge or the freezer if you're a little short on time. and then once you take it out, of course you'll, let me back up, you parbake the crust, you put the cheesecake filling in, you let it chill and kind of set up, and then you slowly pour the sweet potato pie filling on top, and then you bake. It is. It does sound so good. It sounds so good. Do you do anything on top of that, a little whipped cream?

I do serve it with, yes, I do serve it with a vanilla bean whipped cream and sometimes salted caramel. Oh, oh, salty. Okay, now you just mind blown. That sounds so delicious. We always gift our listeners with a recipe, and you were going to talk about shrimp and grits. We may have to get the full walkthrough on that recipe as well, because that just sounds like that would just knock people out. But the shrimp and grits recipe is the one when we asked you about a recipe that really means something to you, that connects you to the kitchen of your childhood. Tell us why you chose shrimp and grits. And shrimp and grits is a little bit like gumbo or a little bit like, almost like it's different in different households.

It's never the same. So why did you choose shrimp and grits and what's so special about your shrimp and grits? My grandmother, she didn't, she made shrimp and grits a lot. And it was only for, because even though shrimp here in Charleston is plentiful, like you go to, we call it our creek shrimp is a certain type of shrimp that's grown in a certain area. And so when I tell anyone that comes to Charleston, you have to try our shrimp. It's so different from any shrimp that you'll ever taste in the entire world. Is it sweeter or more briny or what's the difference? It's sweet and meaty.

And our white shrimp is just like, you got to, you got to try it. I've had it. It's delicious. It's wonderful. And it peels differently also. Exactly. Exactly. And so my grandmother, when we would come to her house, especially after my cousins were born,

so all of us would come to her house for the holidays or whatever have you. And we would distinctly come around shrimp season. And so my grandmother would only make shrimp in grits when shrimp was in season. And so it was just at its freshest, at its just the sweetest. And so I can smell when my grandmother, I would be in the bed and I would smell the bacon frying and rendering, and I just knew we were getting shrimp and grits. And I've never had it like my grandmother makes it in particular,

but we do make it very similar across the low country, and especially in the Gullah community. But my grandmother, I must say, I can't find anyone other than maybe myself. That makes a shrimp and grits like her. But it's a pan gravy made with rendered bacon fat, and it's just onions, salt and pepper, a little garlic powder. My grandmother sometimes puts a little onion powder in there.

And you make this rue almost, and you get it to a certain color. There's a distinct color. It's almost a lighter brown rue. And then that's when you add in some water and the shrimp, and you make the gravy and the shrimp together all in one pan. My grandmother always used old-fashioned grits, and she would put a little water and butter. Now, she grew up very old-fashioned. She never put milk in her grits.

I do. I like mine with heavy cream. My grits are very, are very decadent. I had tons of butter, tons of heavy cream. Oh, creamy. Oh, just melts in your mouth because you cook it. And there we have also have a particular grain of grits that I use. It's called Martian Mill, and it's located right there on Etistow Island.

And so the grain of grit is just so different from whatever. It's not gritty. It's much, yes. Yes. You can, by the way, you can find it online if you're listening and saying, I must have that. You can get that. Yes. And so they are great purveyors of Carolina gold rice and grits.

And so when you combine the two, that pan gravy with the bacon and the Carolina shrimp and the very subtle seasoning, it's nothing like it. And I think it's because the shrimp shines so much in the. a dish. And it's not anything like you see at restaurants these days where, you know, they're making a Creole gravy and they're making all of the, it's no fuss. It's simple. It's, you know, again, all the flavor is coming from that, the fat from the bacon and the sweetness of the shrimp. You know, it's interesting to say it's subtle because when you have shrimp and grits and it's on restaurant menus all over the country, they are often trying to make something

that is spicy. It's almost like New Orleans, whereas if you have shrimp and grits in South Carolina, it's almost they play under the note. It's actually very subtle. And you can actually taste the seafood. And one thing you said, it's important if you're trying to do this at home. It's a light rue, right? It's a caramel rue and not a copper penny rue. It's a little. Exactly. It's a very light rue. And it's so funny that you mention like when you go to other restaurants and they try to make it spicy or they try to just, I always say they do too much. It's doing too much. It's just taking, you want the key things to shine in the, and in shrimp and grits.

It's the shrimp. And if you have all of these, you know, additives and you're just, you're masking the flavor. And that's what happens when you don't cook with really great shrimp to begin with. Well, yeah, it's often frozen. And so you're actually just trying to. Yes, yes. So do you hit it with any hot sauce? I do.

I love a little. Texas Pete. Okay. That's my next question. What is your hot sauce that you prefer? Oh, yeah. Texas Pete all day. Okay.

All right. I can hear people, wait a minute, wait a minute, weighing in with their own because hot sauce is very particular. Mm-hmm. We have a hot sauce family and we have a whole like area of the refrigerator where everyone, all my kids have their preferred hot sauce because you can't just put one on the table, right? Oh, no.

Oh, no. And my husband loves Franks. And so we definitely have, he has, yeah, I tell him, Franks is too heavy for me. I mean, no shade to Franks, but I love a good, just like vinegary, light hot sauce. And Texas Pete does that for me. You know, I just, a different conversation, but I just discovered this Italian hot sauce that I just love. And it's, it's another this little turquoise and red bottle. And I can't think of the name of it, but I can see it so carefully.

But, you know, and it was, and it's not even like hot sauce. It tastes almost like steak sauce, but it's like, it's interesting to just, try different things. I got to get that from you. Yeah, I'll send you a picture. Okay. I'll definitely send you a picture. I have loved this conversation. I want some shrimp and grits. And I definitely, definitely want that sweet potato cheesecake contraption that you, confection that you described. That just blew my mind. I have got to try that. It's so good. And I promise, whenever we meet in person, I will have an entire cheesecake for you and your family. Oh, we must do that because I I just love Charleston. I try to get there at least once a year. It's just, it's beautiful people, beautiful city.

Yes. This has been a beautiful conversation. Thank you so much for having me. Kherdiya, thanks so much for being with us. It was great to hear about your culinary journey. It was wonderful to hear about the heritage of Gullah culture and to have a little bit of a history lesson along with our conversation. Food is always the great connector. And it was beautiful to, hear how you have figured out how to weave that into your life and how you use that as a connection to your audience. Now, speaking of our audience, before we let you go, want to remind you that our inbox is always open because we want to hear your stories. We want to hear your memories. We want to hear about your Mama's Kitchen. Maybe your thoughts on one of the

previous episodes. You can record yourself in either audio or video and then send that to us at YMK at higher ground productions.com for a chance for maybe your voice or your video to be featured in one of our episodes now that we're podcasting, but also showing these episodes on YouTube as well. You can find previous episodes on YouTube. And if you want to try the shrimp and grits and hopefully that cheesecake topped with sweet potato pie that she mentioned, because we're going to get a recipe for that too, you can find that recipe at our website, at your Mamaskitchen.com, you will find all the recipes from all the previous episodes there as well. Thanks so much for being with us. I look forward to seeing you again next week because we always are

serving up something delicious. Until then, be bountiful.