- 9 months ago
In this episode of the Biscuits & Jam Podcast, Southern Living's Sid Evans sits down with Kelsey Barnard Clark, the ‘Top Chef Season 16’ winner, as she discusses her journey from Dothan, Alabama, to Michelin-star restaurants in New York City, and back. Learn about her James Beard Award semi-finalist restaurant, KBC, and her new cookbook, ‘Southern Get-Togethers,’ a must-have guide for hosting. She’s a treasure trove of tips for tailgate season, insights into Southern hospitality and, of course, all the best recipes.
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00:00Kelsey Barnard-Clark, welcome to Biscuits and Jam.
00:03Hi, I'm so happy to be here.
00:05I'm a huge fan of this podcast.
00:07Oh, thank you.
00:10Well, it's great to have you on.
00:12Good to see you again.
00:13It's been way too long, actually.
00:16So tell me where I'm reaching you right now.
00:18I am actually at home, home.
00:20So Dothan, Alabama, in my house, which is great to be home for a little bit.
00:25I just was on a stint for a show for a month.
00:28So I was actually in New York.
00:30So it's nice to be home for a little while.
00:33Yeah, I'm sure the travel gets to be a lot because I know you're on the road quite a bit,
00:40either filming or now you've got a book tour coming up.
00:44So it must be nice to be at home.
00:46It is.
00:47I love traveling.
00:48And I mean that truly, I think especially more so as a mom with young kids.
00:52It's kind of amazing to be able to like not escape your life,
00:56but certainly get these little pockets of just like a different atmosphere.
01:01But the hardest part to me is like planning the traveling.
01:04It's not the actual traveling part.
01:06It's like the Jenga pieces of where everyone's going to go when you're leaving.
01:09Right, right.
01:10Yeah.
01:12Well, congrats on the book.
01:14Thanks.
01:15I just got a copy.
01:17It is sitting right here.
01:19Oh, yay.
01:20I'm so glad.
01:21It was on my desk when I came in this morning, and I had seen the PDF,
01:26but there's something about a physical book that is so nice.
01:32Oh, I'm with you for sure.
01:34It looks great.
01:36You must be really excited about it.
01:38Yeah, I really am about this book.
01:40The first book, I like to say like it was almost getting your feet wet.
01:44So there were a lot of things looking back about the first book that I probably would have changed.
01:50And that was Southern Grit, right?
01:51Southern Grit was the first book.
01:53Second book is Southern Get-Togethers.
01:55And the first book too, I was still writing it during COVID.
01:59It was so weird.
02:00I like had, even the photo shoot of the first book,
02:04I was seven days postpartum with my second child.
02:07So it was just all very wild.
02:09So the second book felt just very much more like thoughtful,
02:14and I actually got to really spend more time doing it and not feel like it was in these weird times,
02:20whether it was pregnant, postpartum, COVID.
02:23So I'm really, really happy with the second book and the way it turned out.
02:26And I certainly had a great team.
02:29So it was good.
02:30Well, it looks great.
02:32And I know the photographer, Antonis.
02:34You do, yeah.
02:35Quite well.
02:36He's shot for Southern Living for a long time, and we love Antonis.
02:40And he did a terrific job on it.
02:43I opened it up, and the first line in the book is about a quote from a song by the Highwomen called Crowded Table.
02:53And it says, I want a house with a crowded table.
02:57And that seems like a very fitting thing for you to put in here.
03:03I know how much you love to entertain.
03:06Has that always been something that you've been drawn to?
03:09Oh, my gosh.
03:10Yes.
03:11I very much just growing up, I think I was always, you know, I'm a chef, so people think food is my biggest obsession.
03:20And, yes, it is.
03:21But really the thing about food that I was always so obsessed with was what it can do to people, right?
03:27It's just who ends up coming over and who will sit at a table and share a meal.
03:32It's like everything kind of goes away when you're sitting down and sharing a meal together.
03:36And I think especially now that I'm older, more than anything, I just look at food as this like overall just way for people to like have a common denominator and just kind of put everything aside that you might be disagreeing about.
03:48And that's what I've just I've always dreamed of having a house and a home where people, anyone, everyone, all of y'all can come and have a meal and we'll find something to talk about.
04:02And that was really the inspiration for the book and truly is just my daily life of the most important thing to me.
04:09I also I love that, you know, there's kind of the fantasy of having get togethers and we we do a little bit of that.
04:18We do some fantasy here at Southern Living sometimes.
04:21But, you know, this book to me seems very focused on making it real, making it approachable, breaking it down for people in a way that it's not intimidating and really kind of encouraging people to just, you know, don't worry about it.
04:40Just throw the I think you said throw the damn party at one point.
04:44Yes.
04:45Just have people over.
04:47And that's that's exactly it.
04:48I think that like I'm a perfectionist to my core.
04:52And the one thing, though, that I have learned and the biggest thing that I kind of this book is purposefully messy in places.
05:00And I've even said, like, you'll see my kids toys in some of the shots.
05:03You'll see something is not as clean as it should be.
05:06And I didn't really want to fix that.
05:08I didn't want to go back and be like, oh, we need to edit these pictures.
05:11We need to take that stuff out.
05:12It was meant to be real.
05:14And I think that that's something that I just deeply am attracted to in people is authenticity.
05:21And sometimes the authenticity is like, ah, this did not go well.
05:25And that's, you know, you live, you learn.
05:27But I think at the end of the day, no one is going to be invited to your home and be sad about being there if they enjoyed themselves.
05:34You're not going to care about what even they ate.
05:36It's just all about kind of the shared experience, which is what the whole book is really meant to be.
05:43Making it easier on the person hosting so they can actually enjoy themselves.
05:46That's my entire goal is just, you know, to make the person reading this book feel like they have now a toolbox to do this and have fun doing it.
05:56Well, you did a great job with it.
05:57And I want to get into the book more in a minute and get into maybe some specific recipes.
06:05But first, I want to hear a little bit about where you grew up.
06:09You're from Dothan originally.
06:12That's where you are now.
06:14Back in your hometown.
06:16And this is sort of way down in the southeast corner of the state.
06:22I'm wondering if you can describe your hometown for me.
06:24I mean, you know, what does it look like when you're just driving through town or just walking around?
06:29Yeah, you know, my family's actually all originally from Mobile.
06:33So just my parents, they moved here when I was very young.
06:37And so I don't have like grandparents or anything from here.
06:39It was just us.
06:40But I think that because of that, it kind of made me fall in love with this town in a different way than someone who would have be like a fourth generation person where they had these told stories.
06:51So for me, growing up here was just kind of what you've heard about every small southern town.
06:57Right. In the best way.
06:58Some not all great all the time.
07:01What's interesting about Dothan is it's not actually a small town, but it very much feels that way.
07:07And it's it's it's also interesting where like our town is surrounded by all these counties.
07:12So there's a lot of, you know, just what I love about the south is like the farmers and just like salt of the earth people that work really hard, pray really hard and do their best to be good people.
07:25And that's the kind of place that I was raised.
07:27But you're you're close enough to the coast down there where it it does have a little bit of that coastal feel.
07:33Right. And that kind of finds its way into the food, too.
07:36Well, I think that's actually the coolest thing.
07:38And I think that that's the hidden gem of Dothan is that, you know, door to door.
07:43I have a beach house in Panama City.
07:45A lot of people have houses, Orange Beach, Destin.
07:48But door to door from my house in Alabama and my house in Florida is an hour and a half and 10 minutes down the street is the Florida state line.
07:55So that to me is kind of like this magical thing about living in a place like Dothan, Alabama is we're not at the beach.
08:03We don't have the tourist aspect. Right.
08:06So you have this small town, you know, a small town that's very simple and like quaint living.
08:13But then literally down the street is the most beautiful beaches.
08:17And it's Florida. And I think to me, that's absolutely seeps into the core of our town in the sense of just like we're a weekday place that most people on the weekends are at a lake or a pond or somewhere by bodies of water.
08:30And we all share that love. And that's sort of why we all are here.
08:33Yeah. So did you grow up spending a lot of time in the outdoors?
08:37I mean, was that a big part of you?
08:40And I mean, we spent our entire summers we spent at my parents had a beach house on Otoe Island and Orange Beach.
08:47And so we spent all summer there. But it was also just I don't remember spending any weekends in Dothan.
08:53It was always just like packing the car up and speeding down to get to the beach before.
08:58Honestly, it was always like before the sun would set so we could set the crab traps. That was the goal at all times.
09:04And yeah, so it's just always been for so many people who live here.
09:09A way of life is that you're just I think lovers of the water and certainly seafood is definitely a huge part of this place.
09:17Yeah. Oysters, shrimp, crabs are just sort of omnipresent.
09:22Yeah. So Kelsey, tell me a little bit about the kitchen that you grew up in.
09:27I mean, what was on the table? What did it look like? Feel like? Smell like?
09:33Something that's actually very interesting in the way that I grew up is we absolutely did not.
09:39I was not raised on the southern food you would think of. We never fried food.
09:44In fact, the only time we ever fried anything was my great grandmother Lillian, who we call grandmother Lil.
09:51We would do a fish fry every year for her birthday.
09:53And so we would do fish fries a lot. But that was it. Other than that, it was my parents like to cook very healthy for the most part.
10:02And so it was a lot of like grilled meat. And the biggest thing, though, to me, that is I know you'll agree with me.
10:08I know a lot of people do. But when northerners or people who aren't from the south think of the south and southern food,
10:14they think of like fried chicken and fried food. But I think of vegetables.
10:17I think of this beautiful table full of the best vegetables you can find.
10:21And that's definitely, to me, what my home was about. There was always peas in the freezer.
10:27We would always have fresh corn, tomatoes. It was always vegetables everywhere all the time.
10:33So I've heard you say that your mom was not like a huge cook.
10:37Oh my gosh, no. Still not. No.
10:40But your grandmothers loved to cook. Did you pick up a lot from them?
10:46Yes, I did. They didn't live in Dothan. They lived in Mobile. But for me, it was always just we saw them pretty frequently, though.
10:54But it was the stories about everyone that like if you said anything about, for example, my grandmother,
11:00well, or my other great grandmother, everyone called her sweetie. And then my grandmother, Jean, as well.
11:07Anytime you would talk about them or bring up their names, we didn't talk about them.
11:10We talked about the food, right? It was always like this casserole dish or this and that and that.
11:15And especially, I think my favorite story on the planet about food, period.
11:20It's my favorite story is my great grandmother, Lil.
11:24She when my mom was going to college in Mobile and this was the thing she would always do,
11:29but she would call my mom and say, hey, why don't you come over for lunch?
11:33And, you know, what would that be now? Right. Maybe like some sandwiches or something.
11:37But even my mom, who was 65 years old when she was in college, she would go over to her house
11:43and it would be like a Thanksgiving spread. It would be dishes she had wanted to try.
11:48It was always, I think, interesting with my grandmother, Lil specifically,
11:51is she didn't have a lot of like things that, oh, this is her thing.
11:55Buttermilk ice cream was her thing more than anything.
11:58But other than that, she was such a curious cook.
12:02She was always wanting to learn. And so my mom would come over there and she was like,
12:06I mean, Kelsey, there would be seven different things that she had been reading about
12:10in things like Southern Living and Food and Wine Magazine.
12:13She'd have all these little coupons, like I have her books.
12:15It's like these cutouts of magazines.
12:17But what was the coolest thing to me is she would usually have three different pies.
12:22Always. Always pie. Always two or three of them.
12:26And, you know, that might be something people are like, oh, whatever.
12:29But I'm like, y'all, pie, that takes a long time.
12:32You know, can you imagine just putting that kind of love into food just for your one person to come over
12:39just because you want to show them how much you love them that big.
12:42I think that that's something that I always think about.
12:45Yeah, that's, you know, that's a couple of days of work probably.
12:48Yes. Yes.
12:49You know, just for that. Yeah.
12:50I'm imagining that in your family, there had to be some pretty big gatherings around the holidays.
13:01Would y'all go to Mobile or would you kind of hunker down in Dothan?
13:06So my mom is one of six kids.
13:08And we typically or a lot of the time we would actually all meet at my parents' Ono Island beach house
13:15because it was just there was this huge porch overlooking the water, a big kitchen, a big kind of open area.
13:22So we would meet there.
13:24And then before really kind of all over, we hopped around a good bit.
13:28We didn't have like one tradition for Thanksgiving.
13:30That's my biggest memory more than anything is we would always travel for Thanksgiving.
13:34So to Mobile or Ono Island or really those two places and meet at someone's house.
13:39But everyone would go to one person's house.
13:41It wasn't like a hopping around thing.
13:44But it was a lot of people.
13:45It's a lot of people.
13:47And everyone had like a specific dish they had to bring.
13:51And it was funny.
13:52One thing that's really funny to me is my grandmother and great grandmother were particular about the dishes you put it in more than they were sometimes like the recipe.
14:01And you have to put it in that dance dish.
14:04And it has to be the red one.
14:06And we all have the red dance line now because it was like my great grandmother saying it had to be the red dance dish with the macaroni or we can't eat it.
14:14You know, it's just like such a weird thing looking back on it.
14:17But it's it was just the way it was, you know, we never questioned it.
14:21We were just like, OK, we will do that.
14:24That's how it's supposed to be.
14:25Yes.
14:26She said so.
14:27So we will do.
14:29So.
14:30So, Kelsey, you started pretty early in terms of your business.
14:36I mean, you were working for a catering company at what, 15?
14:41Yes.
14:42I mean, were you cooking for these family gatherings, too?
14:46Like, would you bring a dish or.
14:48You know, I didn't really.
14:49I think it's because very typical of me.
14:52Like, I don't like following rules at all.
14:54So the fact that there were all these rules around it, I was like, I'm not messing with that.
14:57Y'all do that.
14:58I would definitely help.
14:59I loved helping.
15:00And it was to actually let me let me rephrase.
15:02There wasn't an option to not help.
15:04It was very much all hands on deck for things like Thanksgiving, grading the cheese.
15:09That was the worst job ever.
15:11We all hated doing it.
15:12So we all had to do it.
15:14You know, there were specific jobs that our moms and grandmothers were in charge that day.
15:19And we just did what we were told for the most part, sometimes arguing, doing it.
15:23But we did it.
15:24So talk to me about your catering gig.
15:27I mean, you know, you get into the catering business and you're working for a guy named Larry Paul.
15:34Is that right?
15:35And I've heard you talk about him and the fact that he was a big influence on you.
15:41Tell me a little bit about that.
15:42Like, what are some things that you learned from him?
15:46You know, he was probably doing a lot of weddings on the coast and that sort of thing.
15:52Yes.
15:53The interesting thing about Larry Williams, there was nothing about him that wasn't interesting.
15:58Let me just say that.
15:59Like, he was such a character.
16:01But, you know, he also was—I was 15 when I started working for him.
16:07And one of the biggest things as well is that he was openly gay, which I had never met anyone in my town period who I knew to be openly gay.
16:15And so he also introduced me to this whole different world and different culture that I'd never been experienced or never been educated about.
16:24So there were so many things.
16:25I like to say that he just kind of—he, like, dipped my toe into this whole new world of culture.
16:31And just as soon as I started getting into the food world with him and just seeing where all that could take you.
16:38And I just realized, like, this is how you get out.
16:41This is how you learn.
16:42This is how you meet people is you pick something.
16:45And in my sense, something with creative as well.
16:48And then you get to see the whole world.
16:51And that's what he absolutely showed me.
16:53He was also a musician.
16:54He taught music at our public school.
16:56That was his main job.
16:57Yeah.
16:58So he taught music.
16:59So everything about him was just—it was so much culture.
17:04And it was all about the creative arts.
17:06Right?
17:07So whether it was food or art or music, he taught me a little bit of all of that while just prepping food in his kitchen.
17:15And the biggest thing that I learned besides the events we did was he would have visitors that would come see him.
17:21I'm talking about, like, three to four times a day.
17:23People would just come to see him.
17:26And I would just watch.
17:27Like, why do these people all just come?
17:29We're working.
17:30And he would keep working.
17:31But they just came to, like, listen to him, just to listen, to be around his space, because that's what kind of person he was.
17:38And I think that that—I didn't even realize at the time how much I was studying just him.
17:44And, like, what about him makes everyone want to be around him, right?
17:47Because that's what I want to be when I grow up, is someone that people want to come see, that they want to come to their house.
17:51Like, what is it?
17:53And at the end of the day, it was because he was inviting at all times to anyone with a plate of food.
18:00And that was it.
18:01It was very simple.
18:02But that is something that's an art as well in and of itself.
18:06And he was very much a magical person.
18:09So we would do weddings.
18:10He did florals and catering.
18:12And the one thing he would not mess with, I mean, would not—he said the first day I ever met him,
18:17Honey, I don't bake.
18:18You're going to have to bake because I'm not doing it.
18:21And I was like, Well, I do bake.
18:22And I actually work for a cake decorator, so this is perfect.
18:26And that's sort of how we became like a yin and yang type of situation is he—I would do all the baking.
18:32And then actually when I was 16, he left me in charge.
18:35He literally left.
18:36He was like, You're in charge of packing the reefer van.
18:39And I was like, What?
18:41I don't know how to do this.
18:42Like, I don't have—I'm not—I don't have the list.
18:45Like, what if we forget something?
18:46It was a 500-person wedding in Panama City at someone's house.
18:50It was a huge—even now, as someone who owns a catering company, I'm like, What was he thinking?
18:55But I look back on that moment of like he saw something that I had no idea I had in myself.
19:00And it definitely like sparked this light in me of like, Oh, I can actually be a leader.
19:04I can do this.
19:06I just haven't yet.
19:07So there was a lot of times like that with him when he definitely saw something in me that I didn't see in myself at the time.
19:15I mean, 500-person wedding.
19:17I mean, the stress of that.
19:21You know, I have to imagine that, you know, as much as you're learning from him, you're also in a pretty high-stress environment.
19:29I mean, long hours, exhausting work, you know, probably difficult conditions, particularly when you're doing remote weddings and setting up everything.
19:39What about the challenge of that?
19:41I mean, what's an example of like a really challenging moment?
19:47It all is challenging, honestly.
19:49I mean, that's what that's literally my company now is we do travel weddings.
19:54That's 99% of them are on 30A.
19:57So the challenge of it all is that none of them are the same.
20:00You are working with the elements.
20:02Right.
20:03So it's first of all, there's it's always hot.
20:05It's always 1000 degrees down here.
20:07And there's always humidity.
20:09There's always something that doesn't work.
20:11There's always something that messes up.
20:13It's you're never breathing.
20:15Honestly, you're never taking a breath like we did it.
20:18Even when you're done, there's still like things that can go wrong with the breakdown of it all.
20:23You know, I think that that's truly the best thing that ever happened to me was starting out that way.
20:29Because the biggest thing I've learned more than anything in my nickname in my business is the MacGyver.
20:34Everybody calls me that because I'm like, there's nothing we can't figure out.
20:38And it's because I literally have seen it all at this point.
20:41It's not because I know it all.
20:43It's because I've experienced all these things before.
20:46And the biggest thing that I've realized at this point is most things are fixable.
20:50They might not be perfect when you fix it, but they're typically fixable.
20:54You just have to like calm down, take a breath, do the best you can.
20:59And sometimes the best you can is not what you want, but you just got to make it happen.
21:04Which is really what this book is all about is like imperfect situations is really the reality of it all.
21:11There never will be one dinner party that you're like, that was just perfect.
21:14Everything went well.
21:15It never works out that way.
21:16Not when you are dealing with life.
21:18Throw it anyway.
21:20Invite people over and have a good time and make the best of it.
21:25Yeah.
21:26I've heard so much about your time in New York and you go up there and you're working for Café Boulud
21:33and you're working for this Michelin starred restaurant, Dovetail.
21:39And hearing you talk about working for Larry and working in the catering business,
21:46by the time you got there, I think of that being a pretty high stress environment.
21:53But to some degree, you must have been kind of ready for that.
21:56Like you had been through some stuff.
21:58You had been through some challenging situations.
22:02Yeah.
22:03Yeah.
22:04I've never really thought about it that way, but you're probably right.
22:07That's probably how I survived.
22:11Because I didn't...
22:12This is something that I was terrified to admit whenever I...
22:16Café Boulud was my first kitchen job.
22:17It's the first time I'd ever worked in a kitchen.
22:19That is not a good idea.
22:21World, world, whoever is listening, do not do that.
22:24Your first kitchen experience really does not need to be Michelin, okay?
22:30Because you need to know what you're doing before you get into these places.
22:34I just had to literally just bullshit my way through the whole thing,
22:38just literally lie through my teeth half the time.
22:41Like, yeah, of course.
22:42I can do that.
22:43Yeah.
22:44Yeah.
22:45But then Gavin Kaysen, who was the chef at the time,
22:47who has become just...
22:49He's a mentor to anyone he meets, to be honest, because that's who he is.
22:52But I finally...
22:53He said this to me years later,
22:55and it changed my whole life and the way that I operate now,
22:58is finally after like...
23:00I think I was there for two weeks.
23:02Or maybe it was not even.
23:03It was probably like a week.
23:04And I finally just looked at him and I was like,
23:06I don't know what I'm doing.
23:07Can you please teach me?
23:09And he was like,
23:10if you ask the questions and you're willing to learn,
23:12I'll teach you whatever you want.
23:14And that really was like this moment for me
23:17where it's like we don't have to know.
23:19Even now, as someone who owns businesses, I'm like,
23:22no, I will always ask the question.
23:24I'm not going to be scared to say I don't know how to do it
23:27because I'm here to learn, and I'm always here to learn.
23:29And I think that that was one of those moments
23:31where I had been just trying so hard to make everyone believe
23:34I knew what I was doing,
23:36that I was honestly hindering myself
23:38because I wasn't asking the questions.
23:40I was too busy trying to convince them I knew what I was doing.
23:44And I think that's actually the best advice I could give anyone.
23:48It's like the more you're willing to learn,
23:49the more people will teach you and show you.
23:52When you came back to Dothan from New York,
23:56did you see your old hometown in a new light?
24:03Did you have a new kind of appreciation for it,
24:06having been away for a while?
24:08New York was the best thing that ever happened to me
24:11because of the time there and what it taught me.
24:13But more so than that, I did not think I would miss home in the South.
24:18And I always say that I did not fall in love with the South
24:22or appreciate it one single bit until I left it.
24:25And it was the things that I was missing that just were shocking to me.
24:31It was things like I miss sitting with my friends at their houses.
24:36I miss houses so much.
24:38That was one of the biggest things I remember thinking to myself is,
24:42God, I miss yards.
24:44I miss the water.
24:45I miss grass.
24:47I miss farm stands.
24:49And it was just constant.
24:50I miss dirt roads.
24:51I miss driving my car next to cornfields.
24:54It was all these things that I was like,
24:56I don't even remember having memories and thinking about that
24:59when they were happening ever because it just is life, right?
25:03And then I would come down when I would come back and visit,
25:06and my mom would be like, she's lost her freaking mind, surely.
25:09Because it was like all I wanted to do was just drive around
25:12and listen to cows and stop at farm stands
25:15and just be back in everything that you miss.
25:19And also the silence of the South is such a beautiful thing.
25:22I say that all the time of like, it's so quiet here.
25:25I mean, I'm sitting at my house right now, and it's so quiet.
25:28Everywhere you go is quiet.
25:30And the only sounds you hear are usually like nature.
25:33You might hear some, of course, you'll hear a car honk.
25:36But it's quiet here,
25:38and it's because everything sort of slows down back in the South a little bit.
25:42And that's something that I literally came home for that.
25:47I was like, I've got to take a break from New York.
25:49New York is so loud and so fast, which I'm also loud and fast.
25:54So I fit right in, don't get me wrong.
25:56But when I came back, I had a new look on it as well of like,
26:01there's some things we could do here.
26:03There's some things we could do better.
26:06And for me specifically, it was the downtown of our town.
26:08It just was gone.
26:10And that's something that became very important to me very quickly.
26:14Well, you mentioned taking a break.
26:16I mean, you're going 100 miles an hour all the time.
26:20It seems like you've got the cookbook coming out.
26:25You're doing TV stuff all the time.
26:28You're doing events.
26:29You're running a restaurant.
26:30You're running a catering company.
26:32You're doing these big weddings.
26:33I mean, what do you do to just take a break when you've got like a few minutes
26:39or when you've got an hour to just relax?
26:42I mean, you're going to think this is – you're going to think I'm lying.
26:45And everyone I say this to, I'm like, I hate that this is –
26:48when I say it, it sounds like I'm just like this person,
26:52but this is literally true.
26:54I do flower arrangements and I do like plants.
26:57That's literally – I did that 10 times this week.
27:00The more things are out of control, the more I'm like,
27:03I've got to get my hands dirty.
27:05And I don't mean that as like a joke.
27:07It's so therapeutic to me.
27:10And I learned very quickly too, when I've been gone for a long time,
27:14the first thing I need to do is like get my hands in my house,
27:18like in my garden, in my plants,
27:20like literally reroute myself back home.
27:23Because if not, I feel like I'm just spinning.
27:25I don't know what to do.
27:26I don't know where I am.
27:27Whose kids are these in this house?
27:29This is so loud.
27:30What is going – you know, it's literally just –
27:32when I've been gone a while, it really is a weird transition.
27:35And the one thing that I've learned,
27:37it's like the fastest way to get me right back feeling like I belong in my home
27:42is to belong in the home and to get in there with my house
27:45and to redo my pots, do flowers.
27:49And one thing I started doing as well is like taking my friends' things.
27:53So I will – when I got home last week, I've been gone a month,
27:56and I spent every day – my friends were all like,
27:59you're coming over again?
28:00I'm like, yeah, I'm going to bring you dinner.
28:02And it's things like that of just rerouting myself in my life
28:05and doing things for people makes me feel more attached to where I am.
28:10I should have known that your idea of taking a break would somehow be –
28:13Do something?
28:14Doing something, yes.
28:15Yeah, I know.
28:16No, got it.
28:17I love that.
28:18I love that.
28:19I want to ask you about downtown Dothan.
28:21You mentioned that needing some new energy,
28:25and you opened a restaurant that the first one I think did not work.
28:36Now you've got another one that has really become a draw for the city,
28:44and it's a destination for people.
28:49But talk to me about that process and getting that set up,
28:55even as you're doing all these other things.
28:58I use the failure story with the restaurant so much
29:02because I think that so many people –
29:04and I say that because I've been speaking to my younger self when I say these things.
29:08You look at people who you find to be so successful,
29:11and you're like, yeah, but you knew it would work out, right?
29:13You knew it would work out.
29:14I'm like, no, you don't understand.
29:15Just because you know that you're working hard
29:17and you know you've done the right things to get where you're going,
29:20you don't ever know it's just going to click.
29:22There's no way to know.
29:24And I think that whole situation with me with the restaurants was a prime example.
29:28It's like, yeah, I'd done the work.
29:30Yeah, I'd done the things I was supposed to do.
29:32But there is no secret to success.
29:33There is no secret recipe.
29:35You just have to keep trying, right?
29:37And so for me, I can't really pinpoint it any more than to say, like,
29:44what I knew wasn't right about the first restaurant more than anything
29:47was that my heart wasn't in the space.
29:50I'm a big believer in, like, you have to be quite literally all in with the space.
29:55And I'm a lover of old things.
29:58I'm a lover of revitalizing things and fixing them.
30:02And so when I found out that the building downtown, the building I'm in now,
30:08was potentially becoming available, I was like,
30:11why in the world would I open a second restaurant
30:16while this one is literally not working and failing?
30:18That's a great idea, guys.
30:20Let me just tell you that's literally where we were.
30:22It's like we have one that's failing and not making money,
30:25so we should just do it again, right?
30:26We should just do the same thing in a different place and see what happens.
30:29That's the definition of crazy, actually.
30:31But there was just something about it that I thought this is it.
30:35And I think that I would say to any entrepreneur,
30:37if you have that feeling, you got to go with it.
30:40You just have to.
30:42Your body really will tell you some things with that.
30:45And that was for me.
30:46I just had this gut feeling that it wasn't the restaurant that was the failure.
30:51It wasn't the idea.
30:52It wasn't the food.
30:53It was the fact that, like, there's no heart in this place.
30:56And if I bring the heart, then the people will want to stay there
30:59and they'll want to hang out.
31:00And that's exactly what this building has.
31:03People – now it's a problem because we need people to leave
31:06and they sit for too long.
31:07But, you know, it's just so funny.
31:08It's like, look what happened.
31:10But, yeah, it really – it's – there's a magic in the downtown.
31:14We still have a lot of work to do.
31:16But now that one building I got, we have four buildings.
31:20And so it just kind of became this thing we kept adding on.
31:24And it's cool.
31:27I mean, it's a very cool spot.
31:28There's so much history there.
31:30And you can feel that someone's worked really hard for it when you're in there.
31:34And I think that that's important.
31:35Well, I've not been, but I can't wait to get down there one of these days and go.
31:40We'd love to have you.
31:41Yes.
31:42I'm dying to go.
31:43I've seen lots of pictures, and it just looks like a beautiful space
31:46and looks like a great menu and a very lively place,
31:49which I think is probably what you were after.
31:52Yes.
31:53Yes, it is.
31:54You know, and I think as well, one thing that we really made important
31:57was that there is space for everyone in this place.
32:01There's – you can bring your kids and have a nice meal.
32:04You can be on a date night.
32:05You can be whatever you're doing.
32:06You can have a business meeting.
32:08And that was the biggest goal as well as very much the way I want my home to be
32:11is anyone can come in here with any budget and find something for themselves.
32:17And that's, I think, really what the magic secret potion was with it
32:21is that everyone feels like they belong.
32:24Kelsey, I want to talk a little bit more about the book.
32:26And the first thing I've got to ask you has to do with football season,
32:35which by the time this episode comes out, we're going to be in the heart of the season.
32:40And I'm wondering what that looks like for you on a big game weekend.
32:44I mean, what are you serving?
32:46You know, if you think about the book,
32:48is there a dish in there that is kind of a go-to for you when it comes to tailgating?
32:53Yes.
32:54In fact, I'm literally writing my third book right now,
32:57and it's all about like tailgating outdoor cooking.
33:00So it's literally on my brain as well.
33:02But there's nothing better than game day, period.
33:05And I don't give a crap about the game.
33:08I'm being really clear, y'all.
33:09I don't care about the game at all.
33:11I'm assuming you're an Alabama fan.
33:13I went to Auburn though, yes.
33:15Oh, you're an Auburn fan.
33:16No, I'm not.
33:17I'm just, I'm a mess is what I am.
33:20I went to Auburn.
33:22My whole family is huge Alabama fans, and my brother played tennis at Alabama.
33:27So we all 100% went all in Alabama.
33:30The reality is I love SEC football, and that's what I say.
33:34I love the South, and I love SEC.
33:36So I'll root for, and also my aunt and uncle who I'm like very close with,
33:42my mom's sister, they were the athletic director and golf coach at LSU.
33:46So we literally have got just, we were grownup LSU fans more than anything.
33:51So it's just very messy in our house.
33:53It's complicated, yeah.
33:54It's very complicated.
33:55So I always say that I'm just a fan of the SEC, and that is the truth.
33:59It really is the truth.
34:00Okay, so game day for us, you know, it definitely,
34:03there's always a shift in game day, right?
34:04Because game day where we are in the South, in the deep South Alabama,
34:08it's hot until like playoffs most of the time.
34:12And then sometimes you'll get like a little burst of fall that'll sneak up
34:15in October maybe.
34:16So it really depends on the weather.
34:18It's very weather driven for me.
34:19But it's funny, the beginning of football season is always like the beach for us.
34:26So we will do things like low country boils by the pool,
34:29low country boils on the beach, fish fries.
34:32That's to me the beginning of football season.
34:35Then when we're sneaking into October, it's chili, oysters, and hot dogs.
34:40That's a chapter in my book is like the oyster and chili dog spread,
34:43which still makes me giggle because my editors were like,
34:46what is, what are you talking about?
34:48I was like, what are you talking about?
34:50What do you mean?
34:51Yeah, and I had to explain like the whole conundrum of the chili dog and the
34:55oyster, and they were like, that actually makes so much sense.
34:57Like oysters don't fill you up, so you get a chili dog.
34:59I'm like, right.
35:01And that's probably my absolute favorite spread, period.
35:05But just I love oysters so much.
35:10Anything that requires people to use their hands is magic for me,
35:14especially in 2024.
35:16That's why I do things like the low country boils and the roasts and having
35:20oysters is because if you're getting your hands dirty,
35:22guess what you're not doing, y'all?
35:24You're not playing on your phone.
35:25You're not doing anything like that,
35:27which is so rare in the days that we're in for us to literally
35:32disconnect on accident.
35:35And that's what happens when you do things like that.
35:37A lot of the spreads I do,
35:39especially during football season are things that are going to require you use
35:42your hands and build things and eat with your hands.
35:45Well, I love that idea of like a low country boil, keeping you busy.
35:49And, you know, you're getting, I mean,
35:52you're picking up the corn and you're maybe cracking a crab claw and it's
35:56super messy and yeah, you can't do anything else,
35:58but just engage in the food and the people around the table.
36:03And it's also too, I always think to myself as well,
36:06the kids are always there for us. Now we have, it's so funny with my group.
36:10We've got like 30 kids at my house on any given Saturday.
36:14That's just what our group is now.
36:16And it's even watching the kids when we're eating and do it's like,
36:19I can't help you right now. I'm doing this, watching what they do.
36:22Then all of a sudden they're not going to look at their devices.
36:25They're in, they always end up in my chicken coop every single time.
36:28Every time someone will open the coop and then they're all in there.
36:33And then all of a sudden they're walking up with chickens.
36:35So it's just, that's weird. I'm aware y'all. It just is what it is.
36:39But I do think that like, that's, that's what I've always said is like,
36:42that's the magic and the power of food sometimes is look what it can do just by
36:46accident. I got to ask you about your banana pudding. Okay.
36:49There's a recipe in there for shortbread crumble banana pudding,
36:54which caught my attention both because of the name and the photograph.
36:59I mean, it looks so damn good. So good. Tell me about that one.
37:03I have not seen a version quite like that before. And it looks so good.
37:06Banana pudding is probably my favorite dessert period.
37:11Hard stop. I absolutely freaking love it when it's,
37:16when it's bad, it's good. And when it's good, it's fantastic. Right.
37:20And it's just, it's to me, it's like the, from a chef side, it's perfect.
37:26It's creamy, crunchy, salty, sweet, velvety.
37:30It's got everything.
37:31And it's one of those things about Southern dishes that I say all the time is
37:36like a lot of these cooks that came up with these things didn't even know that
37:41they knew more than we did at the time. But now as a chef,
37:44the way we pick apart food, they were already doing that. Right. So yeah,
37:48the banana pudding, the shortbread crumble, it's not real shortbread.
37:51It's just this, which is as someone who was a pastry chef,
37:55my favorite thing to do when,
37:57after learning how to be a pastry chef and a Michelin pastry chef at that was
38:01like, how can we make all this a little bit easier,
38:03but still tastes fantastic. Right. And that's what this crumble is.
38:06It is flour, sugar, butter, salt, period.
38:09And you bake it and then you crumble it and it stays so crunchy.
38:13And that's what I love to do with food as someone who grew up on these things.
38:18But now as a chef is how can I make it the best bite that it ever was,
38:23but it stayed that way. How do we do that? Right.
38:25And that's the crumble part of this is Nilla wafers get so, so soft. Right.
38:30And so they get soggy. Yeah. That's just kind of what happens. Yeah.
38:33And then you're missing the crunch and the crunch is what makes the texture of
38:37the banana pudding. So the thing about the crumble is it doesn't really,
38:40it would take a very,
38:42but it won't even last long enough for you to for it to go bad because you're
38:46going to eat it faster than the crumble would ever get soft.
38:48So that's where this banana pudding comes in.
38:51Ooh, that sounds good. I mean,
38:53it looks good and it also looks pretty easy to make. So that's a plus,
38:57that's a plus too. So Kelsey, we've got an event coming up, um,
39:01with you in Birmingham that's called food plus fire and it's on September
39:0721st and it's all about kind of live fire cooking and,
39:12and tailgate culture. Um,
39:16and we're doing a comfort cooking competition between you and David
39:21Bancroft, um, an Auburn guy, uh, great chef from Auburn.
39:27Um, it's called the Alabama white sauce challenge.
39:29I'm just wondering if you know what you're going to make yet.
39:34I do. And I know what he's cooking. Cause I, at first, actually,
39:39when I was asking what he was going to cook,
39:41this is not our first rodeo cooking against each other.
39:43Let me just tell y'all, nor is our first rodeo.
39:45We've actually competed together before, but no one really knows about it.
39:49But so I know how he works with food because we've talked about it a lot and
39:54I've seen the way his brain works with dishes. So I was like, you know,
39:57it'd be really cool as if we did the exact same thing, but like,
40:01we just say, this is what we're going to cook. And then let's see what happens.
40:05Um, I think he's scared cause he won't do it with me, but we'll see.
40:08Maybe I can talk him into it. But, um, yeah,
40:12I am doing actually, what am I doing? Oh, I'm doing, um, ribs.
40:18Oh, okay. That'll be good.
40:20It's um, are you're familiar with char siu like pork char siu Chinese style?
40:25Okay. So it's, it's kind of like Chinese red ribs.
40:28So it's got a Chinese elements to it,
40:30but the very long story short of it is ribs is my favorite game day food.
40:34Besides some of the others I've made, I love ribs period,
40:38but game day food wise, like that is so good.
40:41Like it has its own device to hold. You can walk around with it.
40:45It's protein. It's delicious. It's smoky. Um,
40:48and I always say like one thing I want to taste on anything that's like game
40:53day related, I need to taste smoke or char or grill. Right.
40:57So that's what this dish is all about. And then, um,
41:00when you pair it with something like white barbecue sauce, it's just,
41:03it cools it down, which is like the hot and cold element of things.
41:06So I think it'll be good. I mean, of course I will be David.
41:10I can't wait. I can't wait. Um,
41:13and it's getting close to lunchtime right now, so it's making me very hungry.
41:17Well, I'm looking forward to seeing you at that event.
41:20And, um, I just have one more question for you, Kelsey.
41:25What does it mean to you to be Southern?
41:27To me,
41:28it means to be Southern is to maintain the best traditions that everyone
41:34before us has instilled in us and take the ones that need to be tweaked and
41:39honor that as well. Um, and I think more than anything, it's, you know,
41:43it's community, it's kindness.
41:45It is this slow steady pace that you can't get anywhere else. Um,
41:51and at the end of the day, there's a lot of heart.
41:53There's so much love and heart and just passion for a certain way of life down
41:58here that is definitely admirable.
42:00Well, um, as someone who left for a while and, uh,
42:04has come back and really made a home in Dothan. Um, I, uh,
42:09I love hearing that from you and, and I know you love, I know you love being there.
42:14I can tell it comes through in everything you do. Um, I do, I do. Well,
42:18Kelsey Barnard Clark, thanks so much for being on Biscuits.
42:21Thank you. Thank you for having me. This was a dream. I appreciate it.
42:24Great to see you.
42:25You too.
42:30Yeah.
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