Speaker 1: I Am all in Again, Luke Steiner with Scott Patterson,
Speaker 1: an iHeartRadio podcast.
Speaker 2: Everybody Scott Patterson, Iamle and podcast Modeline productions iHeart Media, iHeartRadio,
Speaker 2: iHeart Podcast another edition of Luke Steiner of a very
Speaker 2: special Guest with Me. Toya Body is a master master
Speaker 2: of her craft. She specializes in putting a twist on
Speaker 2: New Orleans style dishes and cooks with a southern flare.
Speaker 2: Native of New Orleans, she started honoring her culinary skills
Speaker 2: at a very very young age and used her talent
Speaker 2: to kickstart a very successful career as a culinary authority
Speaker 2: on Cajun and Creole cuisine. She enjoys bringing creativity to
Speaker 2: the kitchen and teaching people how to take a piece
Speaker 2: of New Orleans back home with them. Welcome, Toya, how
Speaker 2: you doing? Pleasure to have you?
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: When did you first realize food was going to be
Speaker 2: your love language? Where was there a dish that started
Speaker 2: it all?
Speaker 4: Well? I think I realized late, but when my body
Speaker 4: and just spirit reacted to it that food was going
Speaker 4: to be my solution and way of being.
Speaker 3: When I used to I had.
Speaker 4: A bad summer school habit, so I used to go
Speaker 4: to summer school from six to twelfth grade. For every
Speaker 4: time math hit, I was just like, I'll catch it
Speaker 4: in summer school and.
Speaker 3: Do the homework and get a deep you know.
Speaker 4: Mom used to call it doing fine grades these and f's.
Speaker 4: So in order to pay for summer school, I needed
Speaker 4: to get a job, because she was like, I'm not
Speaker 4: paying again. So at fifteen, I made two plates of
Speaker 4: food and I walked down the street to the corner
Speaker 4: stores and I asked the people, would you hire me?
Speaker 4: And one place said no, and the other place said yes.
Speaker 4: And I was fifteen cooking at a corner store for
Speaker 4: a neighborhood in New Orleans. Corner stores are like a
Speaker 4: big thing, like it's catering style food. I was doing
Speaker 4: at like fifteen, So I would say that was the
Speaker 4: beginning of me knowing it was a solution. And at
Speaker 4: nine I started cooking, and that's when food became my friend.
Speaker 2: A cooking prodigy, if you will, by the time you
Speaker 2: were fifteen, you had all the skills, not all, but
Speaker 2: a lot a good bit.
Speaker 4: I didn't even know that if I wrote my book.
Speaker 4: When I was writing the part, I was like, wait,
Speaker 4: I was fifteen, doing that.
Speaker 2: So in New Orleans is in every part of your cooking.
Speaker 2: What does it mean to cook like you're from New Orleans?
Speaker 2: Beyond just the.
Speaker 4: Ingredients, it's almost the meals we cook in New Orleans
Speaker 4: and how we do things in New Orleans is kind
Speaker 4: of like experiencing our food from an actual local.
Speaker 3: It's like getting a hug on a plate, you know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: Like, it's not it's not just something you eat, it's
Speaker 4: just something you kind of live out almost you experience
Speaker 4: when it comes to food. It's it's therapy, but it
Speaker 4: goes back towards history of how we all ended up
Speaker 4: in New Orleans, you know.
Speaker 3: What I mean.
Speaker 4: So, like food was the highlight you know for many people,
Speaker 4: especially people who were in poverty, who grew up a
Speaker 4: certain way, food was their luxury. Like if you know,
Speaker 4: some people are like, no, this expensive lamp is the thing. No,
Speaker 4: your mama making stuff peppers with actual like lunk crab
Speaker 4: meat outside of a holiday, that's all, you know, Like
Speaker 4: you know, that's that's when you know, like you broke
Speaker 4: up back with this one, you know. So it's it's
Speaker 4: it's it's getting that love and that and that feeling
Speaker 4: that vibe that we have in our food. That's why
Speaker 4: everything tastes different here right right?
Speaker 2: Is there? Is there? Is there a well wait a minute,
Speaker 2: you have a cookbook. Yeah, I mean cooking for the culture.
Speaker 2: That's what it's called. What's one recipe from your book
Speaker 2: that that you think everyone should try?
Speaker 3: Ah? Can I steal too?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 4: One? And I have to pay homage because one with
Speaker 4: the gumbo because of the history. You know, it's not
Speaker 4: you know, I someone would think it was cliche. Why
Speaker 4: I love teaching gumbo to people, But it's really the history.
Speaker 4: When you find out it's a I feel like it's
Speaker 4: a lot like my life. I was a rags to
Speaker 4: riches person, so the gumbo is a rags to riches meal. Like.
Speaker 4: It started out on the tables of the poor and
Speaker 4: made its way to the tables of.
Speaker 3: The wealthy, you know.
Speaker 4: So it derived from scraps and it became this thing
Speaker 4: that people travel from all over the world to taste
Speaker 4: a real bowl of gumbo, no matter whether had gumbo.
Speaker 4: They're like, man, I want to go to New Orleans
Speaker 4: and get a bull of gumbo, and I want to
Speaker 4: get something Yay's like for real you know, you know,
Speaker 4: I would say the gumbo because of the history and
Speaker 4: you know, ancestors kind of thing. But if I said
Speaker 4: for survival for all people, I would say the Friday
Speaker 4: eggs and rice. It's so simple, Scott. It's like what
Speaker 4: you would call like what we call like because like
Speaker 4: one of the locals who saw me at my book
Speaker 4: released a couple of years ago, was like, girl, I
Speaker 4: can't believe you put fried eggs and rice in a
Speaker 4: cookbook like that, like worldwide, like because it's like a
Speaker 4: hood classic.
Speaker 3: It's something you do.
Speaker 4: You know, when you hungover, you don't have much money,
Speaker 4: you got rice, you got ags, you got butter, salt
Speaker 4: and pepper.
Speaker 3: Good, you know. So and my kids, it doesn't matter
Speaker 3: what I make them. I'm Scott.
Speaker 4: Them jokers will eat fried egg and rice over anything.
Speaker 4: You would think. It's like a luxury meal to them.
Speaker 4: So those are the two things. Affectionately, I would say,
Speaker 4: I would want you to try it first from the cookbook.
Speaker 2: Is there a certain kind of rice that's the most popular?
Speaker 4: No, just regular like Uncle Well in New Orleans we
Speaker 4: use a lot of Uncle bends, like parble old rice,
Speaker 4: So it's a little farmer it's not as soft, you know,
Speaker 4: so like that rice, as long as it's ice cold,
Speaker 4: you throw it in a pan like that and cook it.
Speaker 3: You good?
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, I love it. I love it. I
Speaker 2: love it. Is there a classic New Orleans dish that
Speaker 2: you know that you think is misunderstood?
Speaker 4: I would think I would go back to gumbo. People
Speaker 4: handle it like it's a soup, or like it's a stew,
Speaker 4: or like it's.
Speaker 3: Something they they don't.
Speaker 4: I feel like a lot of times it's it's misunderstood
Speaker 4: in a way of tradition. You know, a lot of
Speaker 4: random stuff I've seen being put in the gumbo and
Speaker 4: they're calling it a New Orleans gumbo. New Orleans food
Speaker 4: is one of the most pirated food scenes that I've
Speaker 4: ever seen. When I say pirate, like are like pirate.
Speaker 4: It's everyone claims it. Everyone does weird things and says
Speaker 4: that's a New Orleans gumbo. You know in New Orleans,
Speaker 4: you know they you know, people joke in other parts
Speaker 4: of Louisiana. They joke like we think we're a state
Speaker 4: of our own, but it's like, hey, our way is
Speaker 4: like living on Mars in comparison to New Orleans. You know,
Speaker 4: it's a whole new thing. It's different. Also historically, it's
Speaker 4: different settlers, so the food styles are different. So in
Speaker 4: New Orleans we have a specific way we do gumbo,
Speaker 4: you know, and I think it's misunderstood and changed way
Speaker 4: too much. I've even seen snow crab legs being put
Speaker 4: in gumbo like carrots, all kind of foolishness. Spot it's games,
Speaker 4: like motel games.
Speaker 3: It shouldn't happen, right.
Speaker 2: So you've you've been on many many cooking shows up
Speaker 2: what surprised you the most about being behind the scenes
Speaker 2: of one of those shows?
Speaker 3: What surprised me most.
Speaker 2: Was it the speed with which you had to prepare
Speaker 2: those dishes.
Speaker 4: How big the kitchens actually are because the shots, you know.
Speaker 4: And before this, I've been on sets because I started
Speaker 4: out in the art world doing poetry and acting, so
Speaker 4: cooking becoming a chef was something.
Speaker 3: That the universe forced on me, you know.
Speaker 4: But when it comes down to it, I didn't understand
Speaker 4: how much and how big the kitchens were. I remember
Speaker 4: on a full Network Star they had a scene where
Speaker 4: this guy, he made the other chef, maybe he was
Speaker 4: about six three sixty four and I'm five to one, right,
Speaker 4: So you can imagine what's going on. He's running with
Speaker 4: a sheet pan and I running the opposite way. I'm
Speaker 4: running right, I mean towards him, and I didn't pay
Speaker 4: attention to be to see each other. And he smacks
Speaker 4: me in the neck and the reason why I was running,
Speaker 4: and I got a scar and I was made a
Speaker 4: gift on Twitter uncomfortably enough, and I didn't realize how
Speaker 4: far that everything was away. So I had the full
Speaker 4: speed run in order to make the timeframe.
Speaker 2: So I hope you're okay. I hope you're okay. What's
Speaker 2: the most rewarding feedback that you ever received from a
Speaker 2: TV judge.
Speaker 4: That I was real that it felt like they really visited,
Speaker 4: like conversing with me even when the mice cut off,
Speaker 4: you know, which I feel like is the important time
Speaker 4: if you're doing anything on a set, when you're dealing
Speaker 4: with the people on set and stuff like that and
Speaker 4: other judges and stuff, those little moments really mean a
Speaker 4: lot that you could take away. And that was one
Speaker 4: of the things that them responding to me and telling
Speaker 4: me I felt like New Orleans to them, because it
Speaker 4: is hard work to remain yourself on television. You know
Speaker 4: when you're representing yourself to be authentic. It's hard work,
Speaker 4: especially when my colloquialism is in my vernacular, like all
Speaker 4: of that is kind of like this, you know, it's
Speaker 4: it's it it. You naturally want to bend and be
Speaker 4: hello today, I'm cooking this, and I'm cooking that, you know,
Speaker 4: and for me to randomly drop for yay, because that's
Speaker 4: how I speak in New Orleans, you know. So I
Speaker 4: think that was one of the things because I always
Speaker 4: felt like as an artist, my character was my currency.
Speaker 4: So that's the thing that's gonna get me a job.
Speaker 4: They got to They got many people who pretty and
Speaker 4: could stir a pot at the same time.
Speaker 2: And maybe city right, right right.
Speaker 4: I need my character to be consistent every show that
Speaker 4: I'm on, in every person that I meet, and having
Speaker 4: them treat me not just like a contestant, but look
Speaker 4: at me and think and tell me, you know, yeah,
Speaker 4: you're going somewhere mm.
Speaker 2: Hmm, your authentic self at all times.
Speaker 3: Yeah, man, you gotta be real.
Speaker 2: Yep. You've cooked on shows like Guys, Grocery Games and
Speaker 2: The Today Show. How's it? How is being a TV
Speaker 2: chef different from what the people picture when they think
Speaker 2: of a professional kitchen.
Speaker 4: Oh see, it's two different lines. I have friends who
Speaker 4: are actually like back of the house chefs, and they're like, tee,
Speaker 4: I could never do what you do.
Speaker 3: Like, I don't want to talk to people at all.
Speaker 3: I just want to cook.
Speaker 4: Right, It's a whole nother ballgame when cameras are swinging
Speaker 4: around you, you know, I think that's where my my
Speaker 4: thespian training came in to play worked out, and all
Speaker 4: of those things worked in you know, worked in my favor.
Speaker 4: But it's it's a lot different because you kind of
Speaker 4: have to know how to never show that the sky
Speaker 4: is falling. I've had times where the stove wouldn't work
Speaker 4: and I'm pretending to cook on live TV and even
Speaker 4: tasting as if Scott's stuff is done when it's not.
Speaker 4: So my thing is I don't believe in dropping a
Speaker 4: ball and showing sweat. I don't care how much. I
Speaker 4: don't care how it is in a room. You bet
Speaker 4: not drop drop a sweat, you know. So it's it's
Speaker 4: a lot tougher in a lot of like that, Like
Speaker 4: when you're cooking, it's almost like a breath hole when
Speaker 4: I'm doing things, even though I look effortless when I'm
Speaker 4: doing it. I don't eat or drink before filming because
Speaker 4: of those like my nerves can run so much no
Speaker 4: matter how many times I've done it, So it's a
Speaker 4: lot of bravery.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: It's one thing to let people taste your food, that's
Speaker 4: easy to me. But to display show and deal with
Speaker 4: the candidness of different personalities on camera, that's a whole
Speaker 4: nother dance and ballgame. And honestly, the last time I
Speaker 4: went on the Today Show, when I did the Other
Speaker 4: Hour with Jenna, one of the sound people complimented me
Speaker 4: when they were taking my mic off, and she said,
Speaker 4: I really appreciate how you pay attention to timing, you know,
Speaker 4: timing and knowing that it doesn't matter if they're moving
Speaker 4: too slow. As the host, I need to speed this up.
Speaker 4: I need to walz down because I.
Speaker 3: See them signaling. I'm always looking and thinking and looking
Speaker 3: and thinking. So it's a whole nother dance.
Speaker 4: You know of a lane we just kind of made
Speaker 4: up as an entertainment show.
Speaker 2: Let's get into a little Gilmore universe here, Luke Steiner,
Speaker 2: I'm sure you're aware, is famous for simple food and
Speaker 2: grumpy service. Which I am the author. If Luke hired
Speaker 2: you for one day to revamp the menu, what are
Speaker 2: you adding and what's the first thing you're throwing out?
Speaker 4: Man, gotta add gumbo, first thing.
Speaker 3: I'm well, gumbo and grilled cheese. That's a public school
Speaker 3: staple in the wallings.
Speaker 4: We eat gumbo and grilled cheese at school in public
Speaker 4: school systems.
Speaker 3: Also my Salisbury steak.
Speaker 4: Ah, that Salisbury's steak cuts like cake, its song. And
Speaker 4: the garlic mashed potatoes like the I like fight off
Speaker 4: vampires with my garlic mashed potatoes. Like I'm put literally
Speaker 4: a fistful a bruised garlic in the water when the
Speaker 4: potatoes are boiling.
Speaker 3: Okay, I would definitely add that.
Speaker 2: M you chomp up the garlic when you throw it.
Speaker 3: In halfway half.
Speaker 2: But I like chunks, okay.
Speaker 3: I like surprises.
Speaker 2: And you put it right in the boiling water.
Speaker 4: Man, I take it, I put it down, I pop it,
Speaker 4: and then I throw it in the water or sometimes
Speaker 4: I chop.
Speaker 3: It in your store.
Speaker 4: I like to see chunks of everything, okay, like and
Speaker 4: I feel like, especially if I sawtam some sautam and
Speaker 4: get them like brown.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, you can get like a whole clothes with me.
Speaker 3: I really enjoy doing that.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: Okay, well it's the flavor. People feel love when they
Speaker 3: see chunks.
Speaker 2: You know what. That's a good point. Mm hmm, that's
Speaker 2: a good point. Uh. Was there like a Luke's diner
Speaker 2: in your neighborhood growing up? Place everybody went not just
Speaker 2: for food, but to feel, you know, connected with each other.
Speaker 2: The corner stores, the corner stores.
Speaker 4: Man the corner stores, you can get a plate of
Speaker 4: food for dinner, you can get breakfast, you can get
Speaker 4: a T shirt, you can get jumping cables, colognus. I'm
Speaker 4: not exaggerating, Luke play. I called you Luke, Scott. The
Speaker 4: fact that I called you Luke is hilarious. But Scott,
Speaker 4: if if I send you a picture it sends you
Speaker 4: a video of the inside of the corner store, you
Speaker 4: will fall out on the floor laughing. You were like,
Speaker 4: why is a bong in a corner store? Why do
Speaker 4: you have T shirts? What is this? Like? You can
Speaker 4: get like the tune up in a bottle for your car,
Speaker 4: like anything is in our corner store.
Speaker 3: So it's like a culture.
Speaker 4: You know. That's why in my book I did corner
Speaker 4: Store classics, because like everybody loves.
Speaker 3: The corner store in the wall, and you go there
Speaker 3: and you get to know the people.
Speaker 4: You get to know the panhandlers that's outside asking you
Speaker 4: for a dollar. You know, there's nothing about them. It's like,
Speaker 4: I ain't got us today.
Speaker 3: I ain't got us today. I got it tomorrow. Give
Speaker 3: me tomorrow. Like that's how cool you become with the
Speaker 3: people outside the store, you know. So it's it's that
Speaker 3: feel here.
Speaker 2: Another Gilmour question. You can throw a dinner party with
Speaker 2: any three Gilmore Girls characters. Who's coming and what are
Speaker 2: you serving? Who you're inviting to that you know who.
Speaker 4: The little the little girl who used to bully and
Speaker 4: annoy Rory the most.
Speaker 3: Paris Paris, Rory.
Speaker 4: And Laura I one I would like to I would
Speaker 4: like to get down to the bottom of I would
Speaker 4: like to unpack Paris to see, honey.
Speaker 3: What happened with you? Why are you like this? You
Speaker 3: know those type of people.
Speaker 4: I really as a person who helps and motivates people,
Speaker 4: I would like to figure out Paris right.
Speaker 3: And I would just like to observe.
Speaker 4: I would like to observe and to talk about the
Speaker 4: connection that mother and daughter connection that they have in general,
Speaker 4: because I have the same thing with my daughter. In fact,
Speaker 4: when the show released was right after I had my
Speaker 4: baby at sixteen.
Speaker 2: Really, my oldest.
Speaker 4: Daughter is is she just turned twenty six?
Speaker 2: Are you kidding me?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: So you had her in two thousand, you had her
Speaker 2: in ninety nine or two nine and the show came on.
Speaker 2: Did you discover the show back then?
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 4: I saw it and I looked at it and I thought,
Speaker 4: you got to realize, Scott, my whole life was rocked.
Speaker 4: That summer was the summer I got my first job.
Speaker 4: It was also the summer I got pregnant at fIF
Speaker 4: My sweet sixteen birthday was in Planned Parenthood.
Speaker 2: Your laure Lie Man New Orleans, laure.
Speaker 3: Lie, It's unreal when I saw it.
Speaker 4: I remember seeing it after I had her and thinking,
Speaker 4: I wonder if.
Speaker 3: That's how it will be like.
Speaker 4: But I was still sixteen, and I wasn't a regular
Speaker 4: sixteen year old.
Speaker 3: I was very reflective.
Speaker 4: That dramatically changed my life because I saw the know
Speaker 4: it all was knocked out of me, right, So I
Speaker 4: saw that my choice changed everyone's life. My mama dropped
Speaker 4: out of college, My sisters helped, like you know, my
Speaker 4: daddy went off shore. We're double time, like I saw.
Speaker 4: I just realized, Oh I thought I was just a
Speaker 4: nothing kid. But my nothing self made a huge choice
Speaker 4: that affected everybody's life. So maybe I'm not nothing. I
Speaker 4: need to pay attention that I may be something.
Speaker 2: You see fascinating?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, so that was so it was crazy.
Speaker 4: Even when this interview came about, I looked at it
Speaker 4: and I thought, not, isn't that interesting, isn't that interesting?
Speaker 3: But yeah, I was sixteen.
Speaker 4: I was sixteen, and I was a parent, and it
Speaker 4: wasn't that funny stuff where kids still going to football games. No,
Speaker 4: I was at work, my mama did, my parents didn't play.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, right right?
Speaker 3: Uh huh.
Speaker 2: So that's when I mean, so at sixteen, you already
Speaker 2: had a year in with the corner store cooking, and
Speaker 2: so the cooking continued. It just continued.
Speaker 4: And no, it didn't because my dad quit for me
Speaker 4: because the person I got pregnant for what was there.
Speaker 3: I met there. So that's how that happened.
Speaker 4: And then I started working at a grocery store, and
Speaker 4: the cooking continued slightly because I would be bagging or
Speaker 4: doing things and I would eat these frozen dinners, Michellini dinners,
Speaker 4: or the banquets. I love guilty pleasure, love the cheap
Speaker 4: banquet dinners, like the Salisbury steaks.
Speaker 3: Man throw a little Tony's on.
Speaker 4: Top of that, you know what I mean, Like it's
Speaker 4: just a little season to kick it off, you know.
Speaker 4: So I would eat that, and what I would do
Speaker 4: is I would taste the meal and go home and
Speaker 4: mimick it because I can cook my taste. I taught
Speaker 4: myself how to cook when I was a kid. Interesting,
Speaker 4: both my parents can burn scott like they can cook,
Speaker 4: you know, so it was natural, but the cooking.
Speaker 3: My mama wanted me to go to culinary school.
Speaker 4: I went, and I dropped out, and then I started
Speaker 4: doing acting in theater and poetry and stuff like that,
Speaker 4: and I got deep abstract art that world.
Speaker 3: And then it wasn't.
Speaker 4: Until I was like it took me how many years
Speaker 4: to finish culinary school, like twelve a two year program,
Speaker 4: because I would drop in and out because I was like, I.
Speaker 3: Don't want to be in a kitchen.
Speaker 4: I want to be on stage, right, And I didn't
Speaker 4: know that food was going to be the vehicle to
Speaker 4: me getting on television, which was very interesting.
Speaker 3: So I just surrendered.
Speaker 2: That is fascinating, absolutely fast. So you could just you know,
Speaker 2: like a great athlete or a very gifted athlete youth
Speaker 2: can see a picture of somebody performing, like you know,
Speaker 2: hitting a home run, and they can just mimic that.
Speaker 3: Yep, it's tastes it's like well, and you could.
Speaker 2: Do that with food. You could do that with recipes
Speaker 2: or if you tasted something you knew how to recreate
Speaker 2: it somehow, yep.
Speaker 4: Or anything artistically that I can taste or process clearly
Speaker 4: in my mind, I can undo it and do it.
Speaker 4: I think that's honestly connected to me having synesthesia.
Speaker 3: I could see sound, so okay, my paint is it?
Speaker 4: My artwork is incredibly abstract, right, But like even my
Speaker 4: for instance, I could do that with food. But I
Speaker 4: was getting my fingers tattooed, and you know, anyone who
Speaker 4: gets tattoos know that this is the hardest part of
Speaker 4: the tattoo to get the ink to the stick. So
Speaker 4: I was watching the tattoo artist touch it up for
Speaker 4: like the third time, and I looked at him and
Speaker 4: I said, I bet if he rocked back and went forward.
Speaker 4: I bet if he rock back and went forward, it
Speaker 4: would stick. And I didn't want to tell them what
Speaker 4: to do because I'm sensitive around artists. So I did
Speaker 4: what most lunatics would do.
Speaker 3: I bought a.
Speaker 4: Tattoo gun and I tattooed my own fingers and it stuck.
Speaker 2: Look at that. You got it done.
Speaker 5: He saw it, and he said, man, you are crazy,
Speaker 5: maybe crazy talented crazy talented right, like anything, you just
Speaker 5: do it, just pick it up to it yourself.
Speaker 2: Do it.
Speaker 4: In my mind, if I could see it, or if
Speaker 4: I could smell it and think long enough, I can taste, Oh,
Speaker 4: this needs something earthy, like uh stage, you know, sage
Speaker 4: gets the gaming, or if you don't, if someone doesn't listening,
Speaker 4: doesn't understand the idea of a game. He taste it
Speaker 4: tastes like sometimes meat can taste like it's been running
Speaker 4: around for a while. That's exactly what it like like
Speaker 4: if we're running around for all while, you know, so well,
Speaker 4: get that out. You know you can find like a
Speaker 4: poultry blend. But like say you knock some of that
Speaker 4: running around tastes out, you know, so something earthy.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: That's the line of the day, right there. I love that. That.
Speaker 2: Oh god, it's so good now.
Speaker 4: Watch when you eat something that is a season well,
Speaker 4: you're gonna think, man, this really tastes like it's been.
Speaker 3: Running around for a while.
Speaker 4: You know that smell kids have when they come inside
Speaker 4: from playing outside.
Speaker 3: It's that tastes.
Speaker 4: Like if you have somebody like one time my daddy
Speaker 4: was being queaz Sometimes it was brown and ground meat
Speaker 4: without seasoning it, and everybody walked in the house mad
Speaker 4: that Sunday, like, who did that?
Speaker 3: You're not season that first, daddy.
Speaker 2: This is somebody who isn't gifted. Oh that's so funny.
Speaker 2: All right, here we go. If you were to come
Speaker 2: into Luke's Diner, what would you order and where would
Speaker 2: you sit?
Speaker 3: Country christ Stake and I would sit at the bar.
Speaker 2: Yes, hands down, Yes, make that connection.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, yeah, that's what the best conversations happened and
Speaker 4: the funniest stuff happened. I love being witty with the
Speaker 4: person behind the counter.
Speaker 3: It's Hilary's.
Speaker 4: You see the craziest stuff when people come up to order,
Speaker 4: or people just pop off and say ridiculous things.
Speaker 3: You can kind of have comebacks, like you know New Orleans.
Speaker 4: Like you can kind of porch talk at the bar, right,
Speaker 4: And that's what we do in Nu Orleans.
Speaker 3: Were quick with like one line of ans like right
Speaker 3: right right, people.
Speaker 4: Like you almost talk into strangers like you know, I'm
Speaker 4: well enough, you know, mm hmm.
Speaker 3: So that's what I like about the bar. I'm a
Speaker 3: bar kind of girl.
Speaker 2: Cooking for Culture is the book. You have other books, right,
Speaker 2: You have more than one.
Speaker 4: I have one other that I released first, cook like
Speaker 4: a New Orleanian. Cooking for the Culture is the very
Speaker 4: first book that I did where I got signed by
Speaker 4: a actual like it was like a publishing company, w W. Norton.
Speaker 4: So that's my latest one that I'm working on another
Speaker 4: one right now that'll be released next year, okay, and
Speaker 4: it has a lot of a lot of heavy hitters
Speaker 4: in it too. I really like doing cookbooks because I
Speaker 4: really like people to feel like they can provide for themselves.
Speaker 3: You know, food is like fight or flight.
Speaker 4: You need food to live, you know, you need fight
Speaker 4: or flight to survive the terrains of this land. So
Speaker 4: if I can take some of the edge off and
Speaker 4: give you simple steps with clear instructions, you know, I
Speaker 4: think everyone can cook. You know, I really believe that
Speaker 4: everyone can cook. I just think that a lot of
Speaker 4: us have encountered and grew up with food bullies, you
Speaker 4: know that do a lot of unnecessary critiquing. Oh yeah,
Speaker 4: I think in hiding recipes.
Speaker 3: You know, that's another thing.
Speaker 4: People will hide that macaroni and cheese recipe like they
Speaker 4: gonna cook it in the.
Speaker 3: Afterlife, right, you know. So it's it's crazy. I like
Speaker 3: this spill of beans with food no pun intended.
Speaker 2: All right, So everybody listen, go get Toya's book, Cooking
Speaker 2: for the Culture. More books to come. Pleasure talking to you,
Speaker 2: please come back. It was a blast getting to know
Speaker 2: you a little bit and how you do what you do.
Speaker 2: And I just want to thank the greatest fans on
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Speaker 2: We need you, We love you. You know that. And
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Speaker 2: at Gilmore at iHeartRadio dot com.