- 1 year ago
In this episode, Sid chats with James Beard Award–winning chef and author Ashleigh Shanti about her debut cookbook "Our South: Black Food Through My Lens." Ashleigh shares stories from her roots on the water, her love for Southern and Appalachian foodways, and the inspiration behind her Asheville restaurant, Good Hot Fish.
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00:00well ashley shanti welcome to biscuits and jam thank you for having me it's an honor uh it's
00:07so nice to connect in person um you know we did a story about you gosh it's been like five years
00:15ago you were at a different restaurant at the time and somehow our paths have not crossed but
00:21it's great to see you yeah i mean it's it's great to be a part of this podcast if you're
00:26talking five years ago um you must be talking about when i was at benny on eagle or at least
00:33leaving and thinking about my own project so yeah you've certainly followed me throughout my journey
00:38yeah well so where am i reaching you right now ashley i am currently in ashville north carolina
00:46which is where i live that's where i reside if you're talking uh that long ago i had just taken
00:54my first cdc position was just starting to cook the food that felt expressive to me and my own
01:01journey and my my my culinary identity well you've had a lot going on um and you've come a long way
01:10and you've come through a lot too um you know we're coming up on the one year anniversary of
01:18of helene coming through ashville how do you feel like the community is doing up there and especially
01:26the the restaurant community um i feel like as a community we're certainly thriving um that's
01:33something that appalachian people know how to do um just kind of even in the recovery of it all
01:41you know it's it's really easy to kind of find place in within the people that have the same
01:49views as you and look like you and just kind of are going through the same things as you but
01:55you know during the storm you you didn't have much of a choice like we were all a community you're my
02:02neighbor regardless of beliefs and you know all those things all those barriers were completely broken
02:09down and we were suddenly really neighbors in in that sense of the word where regardless of what
02:18you believe and who you are i'm gonna take care of you and it's it was pretty um eye-opening that
02:26experience being shoulder to shoulder with people that i knew did not believe what i believed but we're
02:34all working together toward a common goal that was something that was really powerful and i feel like
02:40very expressive of this region is um you know we're just like a bootstrapping region like the folks here
02:49like we know what we're doing like using the storm as an example we were doing what needed to be done
02:58before government relief came about you know like in my own area for instance we were building an
03:08egress road and had already had that done before someone said hey i'm going to make sure that we
03:13repair your road like we have one road in and one road out around here so yeah it was really incredible
03:19and affirming to see that everyone was coming together to work toward a common goal we did not care what
03:27you believe we didn't care what you looked like you know all those things it was like all that stuff
03:31went away and it was kind of this like utopian feeling that i hope continues to exist in this
03:38region and i know is a big part of why a lot of people moved here especially when we talk about
03:45black people people of color gay people like that's a big part of why they came to this region so i hope
03:53that those moments will you know be be highlighted more and um you know we give more credit to that
04:03well i hope it does too and and and i hope you know particularly as the one year anniversary
04:09approaches you know maybe that's kind of another opportunity for the community
04:14to come together totally you're coming off some pretty big news you just won a james beard award for
04:19your new cookbook uh which is called our south black food through my lens yes um it's an extraordinary
04:27cookbook thank you um tell me a little bit about the title um so yeah our south uh black through
04:36but black food our south black food through my lens a big part of it is me writing through
04:45the food that has been integral to my growth as a chef but just going beyond that and realizing that
04:54a lot of southern chefs especially black chefs probably hold a lot of these same truths and are
05:01hoping to see some of these things highlighted some of these recipes that i felt like you know deserve to
05:08be captured and preserved and i imagine you know some folks like me when i was discovering different
05:18chefs that i felt like i could relate to just being like holy crap like chow chow and leather britches
05:24that's getting some shine and uh a nationally recognized cookbook you know of course when i first
05:32wrote this i i had no idea that it would win a james beard award but it's even more affirming that
05:38you know for me realizing that a lot of these recipes needed to be preserved it's even more meaningful to
05:46know that you know it's been nationally recognized and and the hope that someone a young person or even
05:54whoever would open these pages and see a little bit of themselves or realize that some of the recipes
06:03that their grandma that their grandma or even they had curiosities about that those recipes are being
06:09preserved and highlighted in a really cool way so um yeah it felt really good to to have that very high
06:17honor oh i bet it did um well i'm not surprised um oh thank you i'm i mean you're a very talented writer
06:25and you're um a talented storyteller and i feel like you stitched together so many um stories about
06:39your family and about the food from the region um in a way that felt really fresh um who where did you
06:51learn how to tell stories like that um that's a great question because first of all no one has really
06:58asked me that question and you know with the nomination of the james beard award i kind of started to ask
07:06myself that too like where did this angle of writing and storytelling come from and i remembered that
07:17a big part of why i'm here as a chef is largely related to the storytelling of my family um you know
07:25they told stories such stories that captivated me and i wanted to make sure i continued that journey of
07:33their of their story the stories that i heard growing up about food and as they related to our
07:39family they were so captivating and then just in myself like my own stories that i developed as a
07:48young cook um just realizing that there are not a lot of stories told like mine and then even in the
07:58storytelling of my family realizing that these are recipes that really deserve to be preserved
08:04like what can i do in my little small you know corner what can i do to make sure that these things
08:12are expressed as much as they can be like of course like it was really cool to have my book
08:18you know placed on a national level but those are not things that i ever imagined would happen but
08:25i'm someone that has like really dug deep to find people like melinda russell and edna lewis and
08:33you know i i hope that our self makes it a lot easier for people that are trying to find recipes that
08:41they can resonate with or stories that they they relate to i hope that it makes it a lot easier but
08:48you know i never said to myself you know i want to put this on a large platform to make
08:54easier to make it easier for people that are marginalized in the food world to find but i was
09:00like you know what if i found melinda russell or if i found edna lewis they will find ourself
09:08and so it's really i'm very grateful that it's on the platform that it's on now because i hope that
09:14that means that it's easier for people like me to find that are searching for themselves and
09:19you know it shouldn't be that difficult um the south is so vast and we have so many stories here
09:26and the food waste here are expressive in so many other food ways throughout our our country and our
09:36nation that i hope that much like i always bring it to um you know the italy you know there's there's
09:46piedmont and there's roman food and there's all these different cuisines of italy like what about if
09:53we think of southern cuisine in that way you know that it's so diverse there's the delta region
10:01there's florida south and there's the charleston the low country and there's uh you know tidewater
10:09virginia like we have so much diversity within the south that it like makes me cringe when i hear
10:17people blanket blanket our cuisine as southern cuisine we're so much more than that we all each
10:24one's like its own little country yeah so so yeah we're all so very different you were talking
10:30about the influences um on you and and uh one of the things that caught me right away was looking at
10:38the the dedication in your book and you said um to the generations of chefs who have poured into me
10:45and were instrumental in making me the chef i am today and then that was followed by a list
10:52of about i counted i think it's about 18 women
10:57and i'm wondering what are some of the things that those women have in common
11:06um something that those women all have in common is that they cooked
11:15with a story or an idea or a thread that i could latch on to um whether it was you know
11:28mashama bailey coming from new york and then going back to savannah georgia and discovering thrills
11:36which are the the popsicles that she sells or whether it's my great auntie that had her
11:43like little fish camp on the coast of uh of virginia or there's so many things that like
11:52inform the way that i cook and the way that i write those 18 plus women because i mean that's a
11:59small list and i feel like you know now that you're saying i'm like oh my gosh there's so many
12:04more women than that but you know that's part of what they've done is just like every single
12:10person or or experience has provided something to me that has been so monumental um and even from
12:18just like forcing me to string those beans to make leather britches or you know making me go across
12:27the street to grab yard onions or all those things they've all shaped who i am in very very different
12:34ways but very meaningful ways well i want to hear a little bit about your story and it starts off in
12:43a really interesting way um because you were born in georgia and in saint mary's georgia that it sounds
12:52like that was not the intention it's about happenstance yeah it just happened that was not the game plan you
13:00were born at a you were at a what a family wedding yeah yeah my my aunt patricia's wedding yep um but i
13:09also love that you have such strong ties to that part of the world um and it seems to have informed
13:16your your journey um and your your food and it seems to be just such a you know a core part of who you
13:24are that maybe it wasn't an accident that you were born there yeah no it feels really cool to feel such
13:31familiarity with the waters um and just thinking of how i was born on the water like my parents first
13:42home in virginia beach was a lake house on the water and i had like high respect of the water like i
13:49would i knew they probably wouldn't want me to say this but like i was like i was an only child i was
13:55left alone in the back a lot but i knew i knew what you i knew when it was too far and i just like there
14:03was just like always this reverence for the water and this respect for the water and realizing how powerful
14:10it was of course how fun it was but like also with that how powerful it was and how it needed to be
14:17respected and i don't know i think it's really cool that i was born in st mary's georgia um it's a
14:23one of our southern barrier islands um not a place that i i get to make it out too much but when i think
14:33about the history of that area and um the fishery and all those things it does make sense to me um i just
14:41kind of have had this like tie to the coast and even when i've tried to leave it's like the coast
14:46continues to pull me back um and you know i think that's why you know given my first restaurant
14:54concept good hot fish it was just like me just trying to pull from the coast again because that's
14:58just like where my heart is um but yeah no you're right like it's just like it maybe was just meant
15:05to be that i was born in in coastal georgia it's kind of strange in that in that way actually
15:11but you grew up you grew up in virginia um and uh on the water also how did your parents
15:20land there how did you end up growing up in virginia does that go way back yeah so both my
15:26parents uh military for my mom her dad and for my dad himself um just landing he worked for a department
15:34defense um but ended up in coastal virginia because of the navy and just settled there uh loved it
15:42enough it was i i remember him kind of talking about how he wanted to get as far away from home
15:49as possible and if you read the book midlands that chapter that was his i'm trying to get as far away
15:55from that as possible and he didn't make it very far but he kind of did a different region which was
16:00uh coastal virginia and so that is where he met my mom and um a lot of those food ways converged
16:08which is where i feel like i kind of found my own identity is in us all kind of trying to make sense
16:15of what our own food ways were really feeling grateful that i got a little bit of the best of
16:21both worlds you know like i mean my parents first date was at a fish fry shack oh well that that feels
16:28like kismet then i know i know and then my first restaurant was at a seafood shack and just like
16:34that kind of informed a lot of the things i did early in my career so it feels very nostalgic to
16:40now go back to it and be like okay well i want to open a really cool fish fry spot in a place that has
16:46nothing like that because we're in the mountains um and then just remembering all the stories of you know
16:53the family on the coast that did have access to fresh fish and then them being the plug to the
17:01family that didn't have access and being like that's for my family where fish camps came from
17:07like you know you have access i don't then when and how often can you drive this up to me i'll either
17:14sell it feed us my family whatever um and then just starting to see all these stories about fish camps
17:20i'm like oh yeah like we we did that that's what we have done for years and years it feels really
17:26good to kind of pay homage to that in a lot of ways um i don't i know that what i do is nowhere near as
17:33difficult as what my family did you know purveyors and stuff in place for all that um but a lot of it
17:41is like it is really challenging to get fish to the mountains um and that's something i think that
17:48people don't realize if you're trying to get coastal fresh fish to the mountains even harder
17:55it is really challenging yeah yeah so but we have fun doing it though well i want to talk to you about
18:04the restaurant more in a sec um but you know i wanted to ask you real quick about your dad um you
18:11mentioned your dad as a as a real influence and as someone who kind of quizzed you a lot
18:19when you're kind of trying to find your your groove and cooking what are some things that he taught you
18:26oh my gosh he still quizzes me now um uh he he's certainly become someone that
18:34what do you say eats to live and doesn't live so like he's all he's because of that he's so inquisitive
18:44about what i do and why i do it because he's never been someone that's cooked a lot um he's enjoyed
18:52really good food super healthy now he definitely eats fried fish behind my mom's back which is like
18:59we won't tell anyone about that oh he's not supposed to oh my gosh i don't i'm sure he can he's so
19:05healthy he's fine but you know he just lives by a a certain standard um but in regards to some of the
19:14things that he he's taught me you know i think mostly it's just about community when it comes to food um
19:23and that's something that i've realized about him it's less about i of course he really wants that
19:30fried whiting from chickasee of course but more than that i think he wants to connect with
19:38jared that he hasn't seen in weeks and you know that's also like bigger than the fish fry is about
19:46food it's also about community like this is where you're going to be able to see people you haven't
19:50seen in weeks um this is where you get to like check on people's children you get to see how big
19:56they've grown all that like i think that's what he taught me is like food is community even though
20:01he probably would be confused by that because now he's like a little different with the way that he
20:07eats but he did teach me and that's i think why he cheats on his diet is that food food is community
20:15you know like you're getting your hair cut and when the lady comes around to sell yakomane
20:22you're buying it from her mostly just because you want to talk it's really good and it's nostalgic
20:27and it reminds you of a of a past time but you also just want to know how she's doing and how her
20:33kids are doing and that's why you stop into the fish fry spot and that's why you you like visit
20:40ray on the smoker and all those things it's like food has such a story it's so much more
20:45about a feeling to me um it's got to be good of course that's what keeps that's what retains people
20:54but beyond that it's a feeling that we're giving people and it's like for me because i mean i come
21:01from a fine dining background but that's not what i'm doing right now so i know that right now it's the
21:08emotion that draws people it's the feeling it's the sense of community that draws people food i
21:15already know how to do that you know that's easy but it's that sense of community that we're really
21:22trying to evoke well there's there's a line in the book where you talk about wanting to feed people
21:28body and soul um which i i loved um it sounds very very true to to who you are oh thank you all
21:37right ashley tell me a little bit about good hot fish and what it sort of looks and feels like
21:44when you walk in there i mean what's you know what's the feeling that you wanted to evoke what's
21:49the atmosphere what's you know what's what's the music that's playing yeah um so i mean kind of
21:57depends on the day or the mood could be smooth jazz um could be 90s r&b playing on the radio but
22:04we're gonna have some like really good tunes to really take you back um biggest thing for us i
22:11mean we're a really really tiny space um overall we're only 1100 square feet um so we've got 20 seats
22:18inside so mostly a chef's bar and then we've got the same amount of seats outside on our patio
22:25we're lucky enough that we have this really great rooftop bar above us that we send people up to
22:31so there are other options for seating but when it comes to our space in particular you know you'll
22:37see photos on the wall of what old south side ashville used to look like which is where we're
22:44nestled into um post jim crow area a huge huge area for black business and so we were paying homage to
22:51a lot of that um you'll see a lot of my parents old jet magazine photos in the restaurant i love that
22:59yeah a lot of the the r&b hip-hop artists that i was obsessed with growing up uh the bathroom is
23:07covered with jet beauty of the weeks which was either on page 16 or 27 depending on what year
23:14i trust me i know um and my wife did a really incredible job of honoring all those women on our
23:21bathroom walls and then all the hand-painted signs that you'll see uh my wife has done a really great
23:27job of like ensuring that that looks great but um it's just like a nostalgic place like you walk in
23:34often someone uh like our our initial weeks were like i feel like i'm at my grandmother's house
23:41and that's when i knew we had nailed it i was like that's what we're looking for so that felt really good
23:46to me tell me about the um i haven't been um so and you may have a lot of versions of this but
23:54i love a fish sandwich i love a really good fish sandwich and i know that you have one is there kind
24:00of a signature fish sandwich that you guys do and i'm wondering if you can describe it for me
24:08signature yes um we do half a pound of catfish and i know a lot of people get kind of weird about
24:15catfish um not me well good but for the people that we that do um we use a really amazing farm
24:25locally carolina classics out of aiden north carolina um and they just do a really good
24:31consistent product you'll never taste muddy fish or anything like that which i have no problem with
24:36wild catfish but for this for this application we do use farm catfish our um our good hot fish
24:44sandwich half a pound of catfish our locally made tartar sauce we use our local uh lacto fermented
24:53pickles herbs buttermilk duke's mayonnaise like all these really good things it comes with a
25:01little side car of pickles white bread squishy white bread because you got to have the squishy
25:06white bread to like soak up all the grease and stuff um but it's just like a really solid sandwich and
25:12that has been our best seller and i i kind of knew it would be um but it's just like no frills like
25:19simple you know just basic sandwich that's just done really really well local ingredients and just
25:26done really really well oh it sounds so good thank you i'm due for a visit for sure yeah come on
25:35bye um so i want to ask you about a couple things on instagram so first of all your handle is food or death
25:49yeah what what made you land on that oh my gosh uh so it was about 10 years ago when i
25:59created that and it just you know it stuck but at the time i don't know i was thinking life or death
26:09and i wanted i wanted uh food or die but that wasn't available it was taken yeah it was taken so i said
26:19food or food or not food or death was the next best thing and i mean you have to remember i was like in
26:26my early 20s like you know truly like formulating my culinary business i didn't know what i was
26:32doing it's kind of i think now it's kind of funny it's stuck so i just like keep it um i was like
26:39really aggressive about what i was doing at that time like food or death well i just was checking to see
26:47if it had some really dark meaning behind it or something the beautiful thing is because i've even
26:52thought that i'm like maybe i should change this but beyond the darkness and beyond beyond that like
26:59don't we all need food to live yeah yeah so we're not gonna make it yeah that's right why i still have
27:05that's my like matured point of view i'm like but we do all need food to live so i mean either you
27:15have food or you have death well it's certainly memorable so i love it so all right i gotta ask
27:23you about another thing which so you have um in your bio in your bio former long john silver's fry cook
27:33oh yeah so you got to tell me that about that experience okay i don't really talk about this a lot
27:42because i just haven't really had the space but um before i opened good hot fish i worked at long
27:47john silver's it's kind of a sad story now because that location has now been washed completely away
27:53and it probably i don't know if they'll reopen but wouldn't it be cool if i reopened this a good hot
27:58fish in that space absolutely but okay so this was inspired by a friend that was opening a coffee shop
28:04and she was like you want to know what i did i staged at a starbucks and i learned so much and i was
28:11like oh my gosh i need to stage because i come from a fine dining background this like fast casual i'm
28:18like i need to learn what that looks like like our ticket times were like real i'm like we gotta make
28:25these quicker like what can we do i need to go to the experts so in my town the experts were long john
28:33silvers so i went to the long john silvers adjacent to biltmore the biltmore palace um and i used my
28:43mom's maiden name worked there for like a good four weeks i feel like they have it on file i can say
28:49this because i think if they have it on file it's all been like flooded and washed away but um it was a
28:55really interesting experience um i did learn so much from the way that they train and i'm sure way
29:05that their employees work like i mean everyone has a job everyone knows what they're doing they come in
29:10ready to work doing their job um yeah and i yeah it was it was a good experience it wasn't it it's
29:20something i'll talk more about when i don't want to like i don't want to offend i don't want to offend
29:27long john silvers they won't well their their staff was impeccable they were just like when they found
29:34me they were like she is very knowledgeable and they kept saying that was the phrase that was used
29:40about me she's very knowledgeable she's very knowledgeable and they kept saying that and i was
29:43like i think people are getting intimidated by me so i hope you stop saying this because i just want
29:47to like kind of fly under the radar and i was not flying under the radar at all so i hoped to be
29:54there longer but it just it just didn't make sense i was like people are on to me well it had to be a
30:00great experience and you're gonna have to write about it someday i will i will from then came good
30:06hot fish absolutely all right well so ashley i want to do something real quick yeah that we call the
30:13jam session cool biscuits or cornbread cornbread oh my gosh oysters or shrimp oysters wine or whiskey
30:24wine mountains or beach mountains of course all day mountains my idea of the perfect summer sandwich
30:35is blank right summer tomatoes and duke's mayonnaise good squishy white bread salt black pepper all you need
30:46exactly best tv show or movie about food and cooking is blank oh anthony bourdain
30:55kitchen confidential is that does that answer it yeah absolutely yeah anthony bourdain like i'm going into like
31:05the early 90s right now yeah it's really good yeah it's informing my travel decisions today i love it yeah
31:14those those really stand the test they do if i hadn't become a chef i would have been a blank i would
31:20be my background doesn't show it we just bought this house but an interior decorator oh wow okay i love
31:28design i'm like obsessed with how things look yeah oh i love it i am my favorite thing to listen to
31:35when i'm cooking is blank oh like oh oh silence silence the hum of the low boys okay um all right last one
31:48my waffle house order is blank oh my gosh i don't go to waffle house much i know sue me but
31:55i know that there's like smothered and whatever i ordered i would order like eggs and hash browns and
32:03i want them smothered because i think smothered means like gravy yeah i don't go to waffle house
32:08but you know something smothered all right well then let me ask you one more um my long john
32:15silver's order hell yeah um i'm gonna do the fish basket with fish basket add shrimp with fries
32:27and uh hush puppies so ashley i just want to ask you about a couple recipes in the book and um
32:36and one of them was it's actually three recipes which is chow chow which is kind of a you know
32:46it's an appalachian staple um and you've got three different versions of it in there and i just wanted
32:52to ask about your connection to that that dish and why it why you needed to have three in the book
32:58chow chow quintessential to apalachian tables um there is no real recipe to chow chow chow chow was
33:06birthed from people utilizing what they had so that's why there's so many recipes i mean i
33:14even now could come up with a recipe for chow chow right now that i've never made before with this
33:20like watermelon radish that i have in my fridge and celery and all these things like that's part of
33:24what chow chow is like chow chow is less of a recipe and more of an idea it's really helpful if
33:30you have cabbage on hand but it's more about making this amalgamation of different vegetables
33:39of sorts that you have and you can chop up and make one really delicious condiment well that's kind
33:46of a theme in the book i mean you know there's there's another recipe in in there for kilt lettuce
33:53for example um and i love how that kind of speaks to this you know idea of scarcity and and they kind
34:03of waste not want not yeah um uh aspect of just appalachian cooking um is that is kilt lettuce
34:14something that you um came across kind of later in life or when did you um when did you run into that
34:20no i think a big part of my appalachian cooking experience was realizing that this was the way
34:28that i cooked and not realizing why and not being able to put a name to certain things like what are
34:34leather britches i also didn't know but then finding out i was like oh yeah my grandma did that
34:39or you know uh souring vegetables like sour corn like yes we're doing that too but that's not what
34:50we're calling it and you know just realizing that a lot of these things yes are done because a big
34:57part of appalachian cooking has to do with the method and the food ways as opposed to the actual
35:04recipe which i kind of love and that's why i never really got into pastry because pastry is so exact
35:10and what i love about savory is there's so much creativity and i feel like in this region there's
35:16so much room to be creative it's like this is how we do it when these ingredient ingredients are
35:23available but if you have these other ingredients available then you should do the same thing with
35:29them so it's been really cool and fun to explore my food ways in that way it's just like you know
35:38i i feel in a lot of ways with cooking you're set free by the method and there's just so many really
35:46really great tried and true methods in appalachian cooking that yeah have set me free and made me who
35:55i am as a chef i want to ask you about one one last recipe and it's it's a dessert um and i know
36:01you're not um as much of a baker but you have a you have a drunken sweet potato but pudding in there
36:10that looks so good um how does this kind of fit your idea of what a what a great dessert should be
36:18oh i love it that's not the one i thought you were gonna go with because a lot of people ask about
36:23the apple stack cake because that's a new one for some people but yeah the drunken sweet potato
36:28pudding so i mean i grew up with having pudding at the end of the night for holidays usually warm
36:38pudding um and for me putting kind of a spin on that sometimes my mom used box pudding if that's what
36:46she had time for again like being a latchkey kid and like seeing my grandmother cook versus my mother
36:53cook things change a little um and just like using box pudding and like spiking it with some rum just to
37:01like amplify that flavor uh was something that i remember really deeply uh and and took with me quite a bit
37:10um i people often ask us for pudding recipes and that's one that i think of the most because it
37:19sticks out in my mind um there's some a lot of tweaks happening within that recipe but uh just the idea
37:27that we always ended a holiday with some really sweet pudding um whether it was boxed or homemade
37:36um sometimes it would be spiked sometimes not just kind of depending on the crowd but those are
37:43things that i remember and can reminisce on and are very special to me so i just felt it was really
37:49really uh important to to share that well i love that story and it sure does look good thank you yeah
37:57it is tasty um well ashley i just got one more question for you what does it mean to you to be
38:05southern what does it mean to me to be southern um it means that i say y'all instead of you all um
38:15it also means that i mean i just i just prefer to be in this region i feel like
38:22most people that are from the south like the south i actually enjoy being here i enjoy
38:28being miles away from where what i eat grows and you know being able to pick wild things and the
38:38warmth of the sun on my skin i really enjoy those things i enjoy the diversity that we have here i
38:45also enjoy you know the the times where it doesn't feel very diverse but remembering things like hurricane
38:52helene where we all came together and we're all so different and if this region was all of us all
38:58the same it wouldn't be what it is yeah to be southern is to be hospitable to me and to be welcoming
39:05and warm and all of those things it's just you know to give a head nod to someone that's walking by me
39:12i feel like those are things that are quintessentially southern that even my wife who's not from the south
39:18um noticed those things in me and really appreciated them and i didn't even realize that those were
39:24things and i was like oh she's like you know you do this just like your dad anytime someone rolls by
39:29you give a head nod and i'm like no it's just not it's not like it's just it's a southern thing um
39:35and and i really enjoy i think it's a compliment when people say oh you're so southern i didn't think
39:42that way before when i was younger but i certainly am like thank you when people say that now i
39:48i definitely see that as a compliment so yeah well i love that ashley and um congrats on everything
39:57um congrats on the beard award thank you so much the cookbook and the restaurant and everything else
40:04you're doing and thanks for being on biscuits and jam thank you i appreciate you thank you for your time
40:10you
40:18you
40:19you
40:19you
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