- 4 months ago
In this episode, Sid Evans sits down with Ivy Odom—writer, recipe developer, television host, and now author of "My Southern Kitchen: From Suppers to Celebrations, Recipes for Every Occasion." Ivy shares how her childhood in Moultrie, Georgia, shaped her love of food and entertaining, what she learned from her parents and grandparents, and the path that led her from culinary school to Southern Living. She also talks about her dad’s competition barbecue team, Butts Unlimited, her passion for tailgating with the Georgia Bulldogs, and the legendary 18-layer chocolate cake that helped launch her career.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Ivy Odom, welcome to Biscuits and Jam. Thank you. This is so fun. Well, I mean, I've worked with you
00:07for so long and it is very rare that we actually get to sit down and have a conversation. So I'm
00:13kind of excited about this. I'm very excited. It's fun to work in a place and listen to all
00:18these cool people. And now I'm one of those cool people, I guess. Hopefully I'm half as cool as
00:23some of the people that we get to interview. You're the coolest. I don't know. We'll see.
00:27I'm so glad you're here. So I want to say off the top, congrats on the new cookbook.
00:34Thank you. It's very exciting. Long time coming. It's called Ivy's Southern Kitchen.
00:39My Southern Kitchen. It's called My Southern Kitchen. Yes. What am I saying? It's called
00:42My Southern Kitchen. Well, it's confusing because my column in the magazine is Ivy's Kitchen. So
00:47My Southern Kitchen. And it's right here. Exciting. Look at it. Blue and white. Very Southern.
00:53It's a beautiful cover. And of course, that's all we have right now. We don't have the finished
00:58book yet. Your guess is as good as mine is what the inside is going to look like.
01:02Yeah, I know. Well, hopefully it's going to look fantastic. I know.
01:05I want to ask you about what made you want to write a cookbook. I mean, you've been in food and
01:12recipes for a long time. But why specifically a cookbook?
01:19I grew up on cookbooks. I mean, I grew up in the era of Food Network and loving watching
01:26people on TV doing a lot of things. Never in a million years did I think that was going
01:31to be my life, the video aspect of it. But seeing people on TV and then buying their book
01:38or just like dog earring recipes. My mom had handwritten recipes from her grandmother and
01:45she kept them in a spiral bound notebook. And she would always say, okay, we're making
01:50this tonight. Go to the bookshelf and like grab the copy. And you would know, okay, it's
01:56in this cookbook. She would favorite a recipe like pre-computers and write it in the back.
02:03So she would star like pineapple casseroles on page 84 of this cookbook. So you would
02:08find it, flip through. And that was just always so fun for me. She was a reading teacher.
02:15So I grew up not really loving reading, but the one book that I would read cover to spine,
02:21like the whole thing, cookbooks, because they just held my interest. I would cook through
02:26them. They were interactive. But the stories that people told were just always so fascinating
02:32to me. It's just cool how food is just such a big connector for so many things in your
02:39life. And the recipe might not be exactly how you grew up eating it, but it's cool to see
02:45other people's life through like the ingredients or the method that they choose in their cookbook.
02:49So yeah, it's just been so cool to put basically my life's work, not really, but kind of a culmination
02:56into 200 and something pages in a, in a book. Yeah. Well, it's interesting that you say that you love
03:03to read cookbooks. Yeah. And this one is full of stories. Yeah. And it really is. It really is fun
03:12to read, not only just to cook from. Is that part of the whole kind of cookbook experience for you?
03:17That was super important to me. As much as I love cookbooks that are just recipes, those are fun,
03:23but I'm not, I, I think the part of my job that I love the most is the storytelling aspect of it,
03:30whether or not that's on a video or, you know, the head note of my recipes in my column,
03:35the why behind the recipe to me is almost more important than the recipe itself. So it was super
03:41important for me to be able to get these stories across and tell people why they should make it
03:46instead of, or my personal experience with it, instead of just saying, you know, a cup of butter,
03:51a cup of sugar. Right. I thought you can make a recipe 10 times over, but the why behind it is
03:57so fun. Yeah. And you, you came out of cookbooks too. I mean, didn't you, you worked for, uh, Rebecca
04:04Lang for a while, who was a Southern living contributor and writer for, for a long time,
04:09um, working on some cookbooks with her. Yes. So whenever I was in college, I had an internship
04:15with Rebecca Lang and we worked on two different cookbooks together. So I think for her, that was
04:22her fifth and sixth cookbooks. If I'm, I might be getting those numbers wrong, but she's worked on
04:28a lot of, she was a pro. Yes, very much a pro. So it was such an honor and such a cool experience.
04:33I never would have gotten otherwise to be able to work with her. So the first one that we did was
04:3851 recipes for fried chicken, which can you imagine? Did you still like fried chicken at
04:45the end of that? At the end of it, both of our cholesterol levels were higher than they should
04:50have been. But yeah, we both still love fried chicken. Um, we fried it in the heat of the
04:56summer and the book, the recipe development went through the winter and we fried it in snow
05:00outside. Cause we did all the frying outside to not smell up the house. Yeah. We had a lot of
05:05friars going at one time, but then the second book that I got to work on with her was honestly
05:10a complete one 80. It was the Southern vegetable book, which was a Southern living cookbook.
05:16Probably a good change. Yeah. A very good change. They weren't all completely vegetarian recipes,
05:20obviously, but all vegetable forwards. So much fun to see that process from start to finish
05:25with her. And honestly, it just kind of opened my mind to the whole idea of that being a job.
05:34You, you grow up reading cookbooks and reading the stories behind it. And yes, it's kind of was
05:40always a dream to do that for me, but you don't as a 10 year old think, Oh, I could work at Southern
05:47living magazine or I could write a cookbook one day. It's just not something that feels like it's in
05:51the cards. Doesn't occur to you. No. Yeah. No. So she really showed me the whole world to food media
05:58and what a big world it is. Yeah. So fun. Well, um, you've come a long way to get here and I want
06:05to talk a little bit about your hometown. Okay. Moultrie, Georgia. This is deep South. I mean,
06:12this is, this is almost all the way to Florida, right? Yeah. We're about 45 minutes, maybe a little
06:18less North of the Florida line. Yeah. Very far South. I grew up going to the beach a lot of weekends.
06:25My parents had a beach house on St. George Island. So if that tells you how close it is because it
06:30wasn't that far. No, it was awesome. I loved every bit of growing up in Moultrie. I always tell
06:36people I'm, Oh, I'm from a small town. You've probably never heard of it. Nowadays people have
06:42heard of it and it's not as small now as it was whenever I was growing up. Yes. I can go home and
06:49you see people that you're in the grocery store. Like every time you're going to run into somebody,
06:52you know, which is so much fun. Sometimes it's a little annoying, but mostly it's very fun,
06:57but it's kind of blown up in the past, you know, maybe 10 years, honestly, since I've lived in
07:02Birmingham, we have a Publix now we have Chick-fil-A. We didn't get that until I was in, I was 16. So
07:08little things like that, you go from, all right, it's not as small of a town anymore. We still only
07:14have one high school though. So what are some things about Moultrie that kind of stand out that make it,
07:18that make it unique? Well, fun fact, our slogan for Moultrie Cockwick County
07:23is the city of Southern living. No way. How do I not know that? I know. Isn't that so cool? I feel
07:30like there's probably other cities that say that about themselves, but honestly, I am completely
07:35biased, but being from there, it is such a cool town to be from. And I really do feel like working
07:43here, it embodies everything that we embody kind of as a brand and as a magazine. And it really is
07:50just so cool. People, it's a special town. And we always say all roads lead to Moultrie. And it's
07:59kind of funny how that's true. There's just a lot of different people that have come there and kind
08:04of like really tried to make something of Moultrie as a town. And it's just like, like I said, you can
08:10go into the grocery store and run into somebody that you know, but you can also, gosh, I don't
08:16know. I'm messing up talking about it. I love it so much. It's just like, we're, we're a big rural
08:20agricultural town. So that's like the, the DNA of Cockwick County as a whole. So you really have a lot
08:27of diversity, which I love about Moultrie. I went to school with a graduating class of 485, which sounds
08:35crazy. Thinking that you're from a small town. Football was everything. Friday nights, we were
08:41at Mactharp Stadium cheering on the football team. And we went to state most years, which was so fun
08:48and got to play in Atlanta. Who was your team? What were they called? The Cockwick County Packers. Okay.
08:54I was not a cheerleader. I was, you know, had nothing to do with it, but that's just what we did.
08:57You were cheering in your own way. Yeah, exactly. I'm so proud to be from a town that I think
09:02is just like everything about the South that I love. People are hospitable and warm and really
09:11just like want to get to know you for who you are. I think embodies Moultrie. They're just, it's great.
09:17Ivy, take me inside your house for a minute and specifically in your kitchen. Tell me a little
09:24bit about the kitchen that you grew up in. What does it kind of look like, feel like, what was,
09:29what was on the table on a typical, typical weeknight? My mom and dad are still in the house
09:36now that they built whenever I was 14. So we moved into that house when I was 14 and I got to have a
09:46really large hand in helping them design that house. Really? Yeah. Which was so fun for me. The
09:52style of the house is like a, so this, what would this have been? 2007, maybe 2008. It's very
09:59Mediterranean. Like it doesn't, when you, when you think of my style now as a Southern woman,
10:05it is the complete opposite of what you would think my style is. It's, they are very inspired
10:10by the Mediterranean style. So that has a big influence on their kitchen, but the layout of
10:16the kitchen specifically was so much fun for my mom and I to design. I remember I was like,
10:22I was a home ec major. I was kind of like into all things home economics. So this makes a lot of sense,
10:27but we got newspaper and cardboard boxes and we traced out the island, the kitchen island,
10:35the refrigerator, the sink, the dishwasher, placed it around the square footage of where our kitchen was
10:40and got to walk around our kitchen and be like, okay, you stand right here at the sink and I'll
10:46stand at the stove. And do we bump into each other whenever we're walking around the kitchen
10:50and just like go through the workflow, which honestly was such a cool experience as a 14 year
10:57old to be able to get to do with your mom and think about, okay, where are the forks and knives
11:02going to go whenever we're throwing a party and the plates and are they okay to put by the dishwasher?
11:06So that was just really fun for me then. And it really, I think was one of the catalysts of why
11:14I like loved growing up in the kitchen because I had such a hand in the layout of it. Um, so I was
11:21really adamant that, okay, these are going to go to this place. Anyway, we spent a ton of time in the
11:25kitchen for whenever I was 14 until I graduated high school. My mom, our house was a revolving door
11:32all the time. People were there constantly. I grew up as an only child, but I never was lonely. We
11:39always had people over. So she was constantly cooking. So the kitchen that we designed together
11:43was always in use and something was happening at all times. We had what I like to call American idol
11:50nights, which is so funny, but this is back whenever yes, cell phones existed, but the texting for voting
11:58didn't exist. So you had to call in order to vote for your favorite players or your contestants. But
12:03anyway, all of my friends would come over. We had about 25 of my friends every Tuesday night to watch
12:11American idol. And my mom would make us a meal. So that was Tuesdays on the weekend. 25. Oh yeah.
12:17At any given time, we were sitting on the floor at the table. It didn't matter, but everybody came over
12:22to see what Sabo was cooking for supper that night and they had their favorites they requested. But
12:28then on the weekends we had parties too with my parents' friends and we just always had something
12:35going on and it was so fun. My mom loves to entertain and she really, I think that's like her favorite
12:42thing to do. She's really all about making people feel at home. She loves to give instructions, which I
12:47definitely got from her. So she's like very thoughtful about the way that she lays the food out and where
12:52she places everything so that people can have like a seamless experience on the buffet line at her
12:59house. Um, so, and she's always got a theme to everything. She dresses to the theme, which is very much
13:05me too. But my dad is the instigator of every party. He, she loves to have people over, but he's the one
13:12that's like, all right, let's do this. And she's like, okay, I'll make it happen. So that's great. Well, I love
13:19that you played such a role in designing that kitchen. Um, and especially since you were going to spend so
13:26much time there and it must've made you really feel kind of a sense of, of ownership of it. You know, like you
13:31were really, it wasn't sort of your kitchen. It wasn't just your, your mom's kitchen. Oh, it was, I still have
13:37drawers now that are Ivy's drawers because she had the whole kitchen, but she was like, okay, I was, I was
13:42getting into cooking. So I had a few that were designated just for me. So all of my cooking
13:47utensils that were all pink or pig themed, I was very obsessed with pigs for whatever reason,
13:54whenever I was growing up. And so any gift giving occasion, I was getting some kind of cooking
14:00something and it was pink or pig related or like multicolored. People just love to get me kitchen
14:06stuff. So I had drawers in the kitchen that are, all that stuff is still there now. And it's so fun to be
14:11able to pull those out whenever I go home and cook with my mom. I love that. So your mom and dad love
14:16to entertain. Um, what's something that would be on the table, um, that, you know, what was kind of a
14:22go-to recipe for your mom, um, or your dad, um, when, when you had a bunch of people coming over?
14:29Gosh. Okay. When we had a lot of people there, it was mostly barbecue. My dad and his friends were in
14:36a competition barbecue team whenever I was growing up, but it's unlimited. What a name. And this is
14:41your dad, Wayne, who goes by Farmer Wayno. Farmer Wayno. I coined that term during the pandemic,
14:49whenever I went home to live with my parents and work and make videos from their house. But
14:56yeah, Farmer Wayno, he is not a farmer by any stretch of the imagination. He has a very large garden
15:03and he has about every fruit tree you could possibly imagine on his farm. I mean, that counts
15:10for something, you know? Yeah. So he, we got the name Farmer Wayno just from me doing this silly
15:18little Instagram video series on my stories during the pandemic every day. Here's the one thing,
15:24one weird thing that my dad grows. And so he would go on and tell people about the pomegranate tree
15:30or the banana tree or persimmons, really, you name it, he would tell people about that fruit
15:37or vegetable. And so I named him Farmer Wayno. But he's also a barbecue. Barbecue. Pro. Pro.
15:44Butts Unlimited. They won a few first place trophies. Butts Unlimited. Yeah. Their team. It was my dad and
15:51three or four of his friends and they would travel kind of mostly around Southwest Georgia. We never
15:57really did cross state lines too much with our barbecue competitions. Those are for the serious
16:01people. This was just for fun. But those are such happy memories of my childhood, kind of going around
16:06with my parents and their friends and cooking barbecue. And honestly, the most awards we won,
16:11my dad did great with the barbecue, but people loved our barbecue for the seasoning blend that they
16:17bottle and create now. And my mom's Brunswick stew, which is, was very famous. She jokes that she won more
16:26awards for her Brunswick stew than my dad ever did for his barbecue. But she was a very big part of
16:31the Butts Unlimited team too. And which is a real Georgia thing. It really is. It's very different
16:35from the Virginia style of Brunswick stew. And if you don't grow up eating it, I'm not sure.
16:41You either love it or you hate it. Yeah. It's an acquired taste for sure. I love it, but I.
16:46You grew up with it. Yeah. So your dad is making, he's doing some kind of barbecue and what your mom
16:52is maybe doing more sides. She's in the kitchen making all the sides, but also prepping all the
16:56barbecue. My dad, let's be honest. He is the grill master, the smoke master, but we're all hands on
17:04deck in there, rubbing the butts with the seasoning blend and the ribs and the chicken. He's the timer
17:09of the smoker and making sure they're wrapped and chopped and everything that needs to go on. He wakes up
17:16early and starts the fire. But my mom and I help a lot with the prep of that. And then that's not
17:23his thing. No. Well, he does. He he'll lay, we lay the trash bags out on the kitchen Island and
17:28he rubs them all down, but he tells us how much seasoning or anything. So we're, it's a very much
17:34a family affair, but yes, my mom is in charge of all of the sides for barbecue and now me some,
17:40but mostly her. She loves to be doing it. So, all right. I want to ask you about somebody else in
17:44your family and that is your grandmother. My Nana. Nana. Yes. That's my mom's mom. Okay. So this is
17:50your mom's mom and there's a story in Southern Living coming out called Baking with Nana. And
17:56it's about, you know, time that you've spent with her and, and it's a very sweet story, but talk to
18:06me a little bit about her as kind of a cooking inspiration for you. So my Nana's name is Judy.
18:12So my grandparents were in the same town in Moultrie, basically, well, in greater Cockpit
18:18County. And within 20 minutes of my parents' house, always, they had three grandchildren,
18:24me being one of them. So three total, let's say my, my grandparents, three favorite things were
18:30Georgia football or Georgia sports, Packer sports, any of them and their grandchildren.
18:35They were the biggest sports and grandchildren. In that order or? No, the grandparents, I don't know,
18:42my grandfather, him and Georgia football, we'll see. But they came to every single event that the
18:50grandchildren ever did, a sporting event. That was never the case for me. I was a more artsy-fartsy
18:54type. Piano recital, choir recital, any of that, they always came to it. And I grew up going,
19:01spending time with them multiple times a week. So on weekends, I would usually spend Friday nights
19:07whenever I was super young, mostly to give my parents a break. But I remember Friday nights
19:12going over to my grandparents' house. And this is obviously not football season because we had
19:18other things to be doing then, but we, mostly during the summertime, we'd make something fun
19:24Friday night. We would watch a movie, but then Saturday morning we would wake up and my Nana
19:29always made breakfast. It was always a big breakfast. So grits, biscuits, or rice. She
19:36loved to make rice for breakfast. For breakfast? Yeah. Really? It kind of, she, that was always
19:41her pick. Papa always liked grits and the kids like grits too. But biscuits, sometimes dinner rolls,
19:46we would have those for breakfast too. And then bacon, sausage, eggs. On the, on a big occasion,
19:54we might have fried cube steak. She didn't love making that for breakfast, but we always had that for a
19:59holiday. Fried cubesake with gravy. Anyway, I just remember waking up to the smell of bacon frying
20:06in my bedroom at their house. And I swear to this day, they had original heart pine flooring in their
20:12house. And my house now has original heart pine flooring. Every time I cook bacon, I tell Luis,
20:20my husband, I'm like, it smells like Nana and Papa's house. Whatever that weird combination of old
20:26house, heart pine flooring, and bacon cooking smells like Nana and Papa's. So what a way to wake up on a
20:32Saturday morning, honestly, to that. So we would have a big breakfast. We'd go outside and play.
20:38We would hit golf balls and then come back in and Nana would have lunch ready. And it would always have
20:44a slice of tomato on whatever the plate was. But a tomato was a non-negotiable. I would be known to
20:51sometimes sneak a bite of pimento cheese that she always kept in a, like a country crock tub in her
20:57avocado green refrigerator as like a midday snack. And I loved having that with my slice of tomato too.
21:06But then in the afternoons, we would, if it was raining, we would make pot holders. So the,
21:12they're like old timey, made out of kind of old socks, honestly. And you would loom them and
21:19use those for the kitchen. So it was always kitchen related. And if it wasn't raining,
21:23we'd maybe be back outside or making tea cakes, which is the story that we wrote about in the
21:29magazine, that and fried pies. So Nana, she was a good cook, like a great cook, but she loved a
21:36shortcut, which I think was really cool for me to be able to see that. Like my mom liked shortcuts too,
21:42but I would say Nana loved them more. So her famous fried pie recipe was a tortilla that she
21:51stuffed with like a apple pie filling. And then we crimped it with a fork and fried it. And that
21:57would be like a good old fashioned fried pie. Like you would get like at McDonald's on a
22:02just with a tortilla. Yeah. With a tortilla. And it was so good. And I was like, wow, I can make that
22:07at home. And then she loved making tea cakes, which are like an old fashioned Southern kind of
22:13butter cookie. And we would always... And which is in the issue of Southern Living. It's in the
22:20August issue of Southern Living. Yes. So on Saturdays, we would make those and we would get
22:25out the white lily flowers, sit around her breakfast table, make the dough, roll them out, cut the cookies
22:31with shot glasses. That would make it the perfect size for a tea cake. We would bake them and
22:37the grandchildren would all get their individual Ziploc bags to take home and eat. And growing up,
22:44I loved the tea cakes. They were very plain, just a sweet, easy to eat sugar butter cookie.
22:51But whenever I was reading her recipe back and making them now as an adult to test the recipe to
22:58put into the cookbook, she has two instructions on her handwritten recipe card as like classic,
23:05honestly, given my Nana's instructions for any handwritten recipe card. But there's two options.
23:11And it says you can either roll the dough out and cut it with a cookie cutter, which is mostly what we
23:17did whenever I was growing up. Or you could take the cookie dough and form it into a gumball sized
23:24ball and bake the cookie dough ball that way. Like you would like a chocolate chip cookie,
23:29like you're rolling it. So I was like, let me try both ways. I baked both ways in the oven when I was
23:36testing this recipe. And I preferred the gumball method. I was like, Oh, this is like a thicker
23:42cookie. It's not as thin. I love that a gumball is the reference. I know, I know. I'm like, and you,
23:48but you know exactly what size to do when you think of it. I loved the gumball method. So when it came time
23:53for the photo shoot, we brought Nina up to Birmingham and she was cooking in my kitchen for the first time.
23:57And that was so much fun, but she has strong opinions. And I started doing my gumball method
24:06and I showed her, I was like, look, you wrote it on here. Gumball method. She was like, we never did
24:11that. And I said, well, you wrote it and I tried it and I liked this method. And she was like, I don't
24:15know. So she's like, I'm going to do it my way. You do it that way. We baked it and we tasted both of
24:21them. I still stuck by. I love the gumball method. And she's like, that is not a tea cake, Ivy.
24:27We have pictures in the magazine. You can see them of my gumball cookies and her rolled out cut
24:34ones. So I will forever and always know that that is the preferred way, even though she did
24:40write down, I have proof. That's so funny. That's so funny. I love that. Even though,
24:46yeah, it was, it was in her handwriting. I know this is your writing, Nina. Look at it. She's like,
24:51I don't know what I was thinking. All right. I want to talk a little bit about your culinary
24:56journey. And then we're going to get to the book in a second. But, um, so you go to Georgia,
25:01go dogs. You're a Georgia bulldog through and through. Yes. Did your interest in culinary
25:07arts really kind of start there? No, I have always been into cooking. Well, I was a picky eater. This
25:15is a little bit of a roundabout way to get here, but I was a picky eater until I was maybe in like
25:20late middle school, early high school. I started venturing out, but that's when I really started
25:24getting into cooking. Cause I was super involved in the home ec department in middle school and high
25:29school. So that was a big influence on why, one of the reasons why I wanted to go to Georgia
25:35college football affiliation aside, Georgia is one of the premier programs in the country for
25:43family consumer sciences and home economics. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah. So there was a very short list
25:48of schools in the first place that I would have wanted to go to because I knew I wanted to do something
25:52in home economics and their department there is just phenomenal. So that's what I went into Georgia
25:59majoring in was I was convinced I wanted to be a home economics teacher. So food was always on the
26:06mind. I always thought I wanted to teach food in some capacity. And at this time in my life, I thought
26:12it was going to be to high school students in the classroom. So that's always been a huge part of it.
26:16But culinary school was never on my radar just because again, I didn't think you can make a job
26:24out of it. It always sounded so fun. That was like a dream one day, but I was going to school to be a
26:30home ec teacher. So I was taking all the required classes for that. You had a path. Yes, I did. And
26:35that did involve cooking classes at Georgia, which was so fun. That's like a great part of my major. I got
26:42to cook and eat for class credit. I worked in a dining hall for class credit. I learned a lot about
26:48like food there. Fast forward to my second semester of my junior year. I was in a home economics classroom
26:59two days a week in a local high school and I finished it. And I was like, I don't think I can
27:06be a teacher like this is not for me. I love the art of teaching. I love food. I want to do something
27:12with that, but it's not this. So that's when I found Rebecca Lang and she kind of opened my eyes to
27:19this whole other world of teaching people in a kind of roundabout way and through writing and food
27:27journalism and cooking classes at a William Sonoma or wherever. Yeah. And I was like, okay, this sounds
27:33fun. So she encouraged me to change my major from home economics education to consumer journalism,
27:40which fun fact was basically a food media major, the most perfect major anyone could have for my
27:49current job. Yeah. Um, I think it's still such a cool program that they offer. They've changed the
27:55names a million times since I've been in school, but yeah, they, she encouraged me from there. I also
28:00double majored in Spanish. So completely unrelated to the whole food world, but I got to study abroad in
28:06Spain and that really, I'd always loved traveling, but I love traveling because I love to eat and I love
28:13to try other cultures foods. And that was always super fascinating to me. So that really sparked my
28:21love of like being so interested in learning about other people's foods and wherever they came from.
28:28Even if it, even if it was Southern, just like, Oh, you're from South Carolina, you would assume as a
28:35Southerner, like you grew up eating the same foods. Absolutely not. We've learned, we know that working
28:40here. And it's just so cool to me to see how people grow up and different foods that they eat. So
28:45traveling and food have always gone hand in hand for me. And Rebecca encouraged me to go to culinary
28:50school after I graduated. So I kind of treated that as like a grad school sort of program for me. It
28:57wasn't, I didn't have to take any additional business or English classes. It was more of a
29:02certificate program, but it was a year long and it was six months in the classroom and it was in
29:07Gaithersburg, Maryland. So I got to move outside of Georgia for the first time in my life.
29:12L'Academy de Cuisine?
29:13Yes.
29:14Yeah.
29:15Impressive with your French.
29:18It was such a cool experience for me. I lived in DC because that was super close to Gaithersburg. So I got to
29:25live in the nation's capital, which was a very fun experience for me. It's a huge food hub too.
29:32And I commuted to Maryland for school and it was about 20 minutes every day. I had to be there
29:37really early, like six o'clock in the morning and we would come back home around four. And it was
29:44very difficult and very hard. All instruction was given in English, but it was a very French traditional
29:50curriculum and the menu was given in French every day. So I learned a little bit of French. After
29:57majoring in Spanish, I learned a little bit of French, which was easy for me to pick up on just
30:02because they're both romance languages. And that, the language part of it always was interesting to
30:07me too. But learned a lot about French technique, which is classic traditional technique and some
30:13other techniques too, but learned mostly time management skills and good cooking technique
30:20in culinary school. And it was the best experience ever. It was required as part of culinary school
30:26to do a restaurant internship, which was not my favorite part of my life. I loved...
30:33You were just never really drawn to that side of the culinary...
30:36No. Restaurants were never on my radar. No. I loved eating at them, but working at them was never
30:43something that I wanted to do, but it was required. And at the end of the day, I did get to move back
30:48to, not back to Atlanta. I'd never lived in Atlanta, but I did get to move back to Georgia for my
30:52restaurant internship, which I did at Empire State South in Midtown Atlanta. And so I...
30:59That was Hugh Atchison's place.
31:00Yes. It was such a cool spot to be able to work in and to be able to come back sort of home and be in
31:06the Atlanta food scene was awesome. Would I ever work in a restaurant again? No, but I did learn
31:11so much about myself. I got a thick skin, which I think I couldn't have my job now where you're like
31:18kind of in the public eye with people that are constantly criticizing you in a public way if I
31:25did not work in a restaurant because that really shaped, I think, a lot of the thick skin that I have
31:32now. Interesting.
31:33Yeah. Very tough. Anybody that works in the restaurant industry, I have so much respect for.
31:39And I'm so thankful that my professors at culinary school made me do it. I think working in the food
31:46world, you get a lot of street cred from working in the restaurant just because you're in the trenches
31:53with the rest of the people. And as much as that, like during the time, it was so hard. I look back
32:00and I'm like, wow, I learned so much. I grew so much. And it makes me appreciate restaurants like
32:05tenfold now that whenever I go into them.
32:08You spent a year in culinary school.
32:10Yes.
32:10Was there something that you learned there that really stayed with you? Either just sort of a new
32:19way to think about food or could have been something that was a little bit more technique oriented?
32:25Learning my way around the kitchen in the time management part of working in a restaurant,
32:29I think, was really huge for me. Just cooking fast, thinking on your feet. It's mentally and physically
32:39exhausting. And I think that part, like the challenge aspect of it, is really good just
32:45to learn any human to learn that, not just like food people. I think that was the biggest just kind
32:50of overarching lesson that I learned. But a very small, minute detail that I learned there,
32:57which is like a specific recipe. Up until working in a restaurant, I hated peas.
33:03Like black eyed peas, field peas, butter beans, anything like that. Those cooked to death
33:09vegetables.
33:10Yeah, because that's how you grew up with them.
33:12Exactly. Well, working in a restaurant changed my life on the pea front because I learned a new to me
33:21technique for cooking peas. And we didn't cook them to death. We cooked them until they were just done.
33:28So they still had a little bit of bite to them. We glazed them, which is a restaurant term. But
33:35basically you put butter and chicken stock in a pan kind of at the same time and create this glaze.
33:42Glaze is a loose term. Then you put your peas in the skillet, toss it around with some other finely
33:48chopped vegetables. Mirepoix is a very fancy French term. And then do lemon juice and some more butter at
33:55the end. They are the best peas I have ever had. Put a little fresh herbs on there. That was my
34:02gateway to being able to eat cooked to death black eyed peas. And now I will eat them any way you give
34:07them to me. But I think I just needed that fresh, literally perspective on peas to make me appreciate
34:15the way I grew up eating them too. So two very different answers.
34:19Yeah, but gave you a whole new perspective on something. All right, I got to ask you about
34:24a story that happened when you got to Southern Living. And this is really kind of how I got to
34:33know you. So you come here and you are working in the test kitchens. You got an internship. You were
34:40a fellow in the test kitchens. You were doing a lot of grocery shopping at the time and trying to learn
34:48as much as you could. And you could make things of your own occasionally, but not all the time. You
34:57were usually, you know, working for other people. And and one day you had a chance to actually make
35:04something. You had a free afternoon or something, right? And you made a chocolate cake. I did not
35:12just any chocolate cake, not just any chocolate cake, a chocolate cake with a lot of layers and 18
35:17layer chocolate cake. Yes. So tell me about that. And and why was that recipe kind of meaningful for
35:27you? And why did you want to make it that day? So for people listening, this 18 layer chocolate cake
35:33if you can imagine it, it kind of looks like a stack of pancakes with chocolate frosting in the
35:39middle of all of them. And it's covered in chocolate frosting. For me, this cake growing up in South
35:45Georgia, this cake was everywhere. Every birthday, every barbecue restaurant had it sliced on a styrofoam
35:53plate wrapped in plastic wrap for you to pick up as your dessert option at the meat and three or barbecue
35:58restaurant. This was at every church function. You name it, you could find the little layer or some
36:06people call it thin layer chocolate cake. It ranged anywhere from 10 layers, but you really in my neck
36:12of the woods never saw it less than 10 layers. Some people say, oh, that's the same thing as a six
36:17layer, seven layer cake. No, these layers are way thinner. So 10 layers was kind of the lowest you would go
36:25really all the way up until 18. And it was my favorite dessert growing up. I loved it. And I
36:32would request it for my birthday. Most years, I didn't always get it. That was my favorite year
36:36whenever we did get that. But my mom also grew up requesting that cake for her birthday, her
36:42great grandmother. So Nana's mother, we called her granny. She started making the cake for the
36:48grandchildren and would always have 12 layers no matter what. Your great grandmother. So this goes
36:56way back. Way back. This has been a cake in my family forever, but also in South Georgia, just
37:04kind of forever. Yeah. So however old my mom was, this would have been in the 70s that she was making
37:10this, but this is like a very old school recipe. Anyway, she actually, my great grandmother, would
37:16make the layers in a cast iron skillet and cook them on the stove like a pancake. Then her recipe over
37:25time, like evolved and she started cooking them in the oven, but still in a cast iron skillet.
37:32My recipe, I cook them in aluminum cake pans just to make my life a lot easier. Yeah.
37:37And you can cook more at one time that way. But anyway, my great grandmother would make the cake
37:42always with 12 layers until your 13th birthday. And on your 13th birthday, you got 13, 14, 15,
37:4816. She would always increase it. And she got up to 18. And that was as high as she ever went.
37:54So this cake is pretty tall. And my mom told me that that's what she did when she was growing up. And
38:00every time I always got it for my birthday, it was the standard like 12 or 16 layers. But I had tried
38:06a few times throughout my life to learn how to make this cake. Of course, it's one of those recipes
38:11that nobody ever wrote down. The frosting is cooked. So it's a chocolate frosting that you cook on the
38:17stove and you put on cake layers when they're still hot. So that right there is like not normal
38:24for cake baking. Normally it's like two very cooled cake layers, oftentimes even refrigerated.
38:30It was always a challenge because that cooked frosting aspect, whenever you start cooking sugar,
38:36it can turn into caramel, it can crystallize. So perfecting that recipe for me had always been
38:41something that was really hard. And you couldn't get the yellow cake layer correct. Like, was it more
38:47of a pound cake batter or was it looser like a, you know, white cake mix? So I made it my mission.
38:55I was like, I had failed at this cake so many times in my life. It was always so ugly.
38:59I could never get it to be 18 layers. And like, by the time I got the amount of layers
39:07up and tried to frost the outside, I never had enough chocolate frosting to finish it. So anyway,
39:12I was determined whenever I started working at the Southern Living Test Kitchen, I was like,
39:16I'm going to perfect this recipe. So I went around asking all of my counterparts, my coworkers who had
39:23been here for forever. And these were legends in the Southern Living Test Kitchen. Like,
39:27have you ever heard of this cake? Have you ever eaten it? Have you ever seen it? I want your
39:31perspective on it. And they looked at me like I was crazy. Like, I've never heard of that cake.
39:36I've never seen it. And I was like, y'all, you work at Southern Living. Like, this is the Southern
39:41cake. And so I was like, all right, this is what I'm going to do. And so I started making the cake
39:46layers and it drew a crowd. Obviously you came up, um, because four layers are in an oven at a time
39:53baking and they only bake for five minutes at a time. So I have commandeered all four of the ovens
40:00in the test kitchen. Yes. Pulling cake layers out left and right, running around like a chicken with
40:07my head cut off. And I've got hot icing and I'm layering it up. And so people are coming by
40:11and I'm telling the story about my great grandmother and how she would increase the
40:16amount of layers and how this cake was everywhere in South Georgia. And I don't know why anybody at
40:21Southern Living had never heard of it. And anyway, you were like, will you please make a video about
40:27this? And I was like, no, Sid, that sounds terrible. And now here we are. Here we are. Yeah. I remember
40:36somebody, I don't know who stopped by, but somebody stopped by my office and said, there is this girl
40:43named Ivy who is up in the test kitchens and she is making this crazy cake and you've got to come and
40:49take a look. And it sure was. Yeah. But it's so cool. It's, it's a beautiful thing, especially when
40:55you cut into it. It's really dramatic. The outside is ugly. The outside is, but when you cut into it,
41:00that is, it is, it's like, wow, a showstopper. Yeah. It's like, we always try so hard working
41:06here to make sure the outside of our cakes look beautiful. And honestly, you eat with your eyes
41:10first. So it's true. But this cake is like one that you, when you're serving it, you need to slice
41:15into it so people know what they're getting. But then also they're like, oh, look at how many layers
41:21that is. That's impressive. I want that cake. So it's like the one thing you can mess up on the
41:25outside, but still people are going to want it because the inside looks so cool. Yeah. Well, it made
41:31for a great video. And, uh, you know, here we are, um, almost probably 10 years later. Almost. Yeah. This
41:39year is nine. So 26 will be 10. Wow. Yeah. I would like to do something with you called
41:45the jam session. I love these. I'm going to ask you about 10 questions. These are kind
41:52of rapid fire questions. Just don't even think about it. Just, you know, answer quickly and
41:57we'll see where it goes. You ready? I'm ready. Hey y'all, I'm Ivy Odom and this is my Southern
42:03Living Jam session. Okay. Biscuits or cornbread? Biscuits. Tick tock or Instagram? Oh no.
42:13Ah, I love tick tock. I really do. It's way more casual. So I'm going to go with tick tock. Okay.
42:20Georgia or Alabama? Oh, okay. Duh, Georgia. No dogs all the way. I had to give you an easy one.
42:25Tailgate at home or at Sanford Stadium? Oh, Sanford Stadium for sure. It's a lot more work,
42:30but definitely worth it. The worst dish I've eaten on camera is blank.
42:36Oh, it's a tie. I had to make an old fashioned kind of gelatin recipe that had cottage cheese,
42:46lime jello, horseradish, Worcestershire, and shrimp. And that was awful. I took one bite and I was like,
42:56ooh, this is not for me, but this is early in my video days. And so I was like, I've got to keep it
43:00together. Fast forward a year later, and I don't know why this grossed me out so much, but pickled
43:06eggs. I love a deviled egg, but something about a pickled egg, that was the first time I gagged on
43:11camera. I was like, I can't do this. Why did they make me do it? Both of those. Don't want it.
43:18Yeah. That first one, I don't know how you got through that. The condiment I can't live without
43:22is blank. Mayonnaise. Yeah, for sure. My favorite Southern living recipe is blank.
43:30Cream cheese pound cake. It is the reason why I love cooking and is the reason why I think I have
43:38this job and how I got into this whole food world in the first place. It's my favorite recipe that I,
43:44my first one that I maybe made from Southern living that I definitely remember. And the one that I still,
43:50my mixer knows it by heart. I don't have to think about it. And it comes out of my oven a lot.
43:56Okay. This may or may not be a different recipe, but my favorite recipe in the book.
44:01It is different. There's this recipe called summer pasta in the book, which is a take on a pasta dish
44:10that I made for me and my best friend the summer that we lived in Athens before we both kind of got
44:19our big girl jobs. Or really, I went to culinary school, we made this, we called it our pasta. And
44:25this is a riff on that back then I think about that recipe. And I'm like, wow, that was really
44:29terrible. But at the time we loved it. And this is my perfected version of that pasta. So it's like
44:36a corn, tomato, olive oil, lemon, Parmesan pasta with crispy breadcrumbs on top. And I say it
44:46encompasses all of the food groups that we liked that summer, which was creamed corn,
44:52tomatoes, pasta, and rosé. So all of those ingredients are in that pasta. And it just like
44:57is so nostalgic for me, but just also so good. Especially, you know, right now when, you know,
45:03we're in the middle of summer and the hot sauce I can't live without is blank.
45:07I love red clay hot sauce. It's the best. Oh, from Charleston. Yes, they're so great. I actually
45:13have two. That's a very different style of hot sauce. It's more vinegar based and it's not super
45:17spicy. But whenever I really want some heat, El Yucateco green hot sauce. Oh, I know that. Yeah,
45:26it's great. That stuff, I could put it on anything if I really want something spicy. So I have two
45:31different uses for my hot sauce. So red clay is like anything you would want a red hot sauce for,
45:35but green hot sauce, really good. Okay, you heard it here. Every southern kitchen needs blank.
45:40Ooh. Well, cream cheese pound cake, I would say you need a good tube pan. If you're going to make
45:47a good pound cake, no butt pan, tube pan. This is the straight sided, old fashioned, thin, like almost
45:56aluminum cake pan. They make the best pound cake. So if you really want to be a true southern cook,
46:02invest in a good tube pan. The secret to great sweet tea is blank. Baking soda, obviously. I don't
46:10know why people think it's not. All right, Ivy, thanks for playing the jam session. So fun. Okay,
46:15let's talk about the cookbook. So many of the recipes in this book have family stories attached to them.
46:24And I'm wondering if there's a recipe that, you know, that sort of stands out in that regard,
46:33something that, you know, really means a lot to your family that's in the book.
46:40I have a ton of recipes that are called mama's fill in the blank. So mama's squash and onions,
46:46mama's potatoes and onions. And two of those two recipes, honestly, are just like side dishes that
46:52she made all the time and are super southern to me. And it, they're super simple. They, they both
47:00start in a cast iron skillet with bacon grease and some onions and then put in your vegetable of
47:05choice. And just when I think of her and I eat those dishes now, I just am like this tastes just
47:12like my childhood. And those are so special to me. So those are ones that I think are like the most
47:18nostalgic for me, but I have so many other ones that were inspired by grandmothers and
47:22just all kinds of things, which people can read the stories behind all of them. My aunt Patty has
47:27a recipe in there. She's my godmother. The fun thing about the South is you can call everybody
47:31an aunt and they're not related to you at all, but she's my godmother and her in the book, it's
47:37called aunt Patty's rice consomme. That's what she always called it in my house. We always called it
47:42brown rice, but the internet fell in love with this recipe and it, they like to call it stick of butter
47:48rice. So the rice has like a literal stick of butter in it and a can of beef consomme and some
47:54mushrooms and onions. And it's so good. And I think like most of the book, honestly, were, was inspired
48:01by somebody in my family or somebody that was really close to me and like family. And it's hard to
48:07separate, I think any of the recipes out that didn't have some kind of influence on something that
48:13meant something to me growing up. That's why you chose them. It's because there was that family
48:18connection and it was something personal to you. Yeah. There are a few in the book that are like, oh,
48:26there's a salad recipe in the book that honestly I really love. It's like collard green salad with a
48:32shallot sherry vinaigrette, which is so fun because most people think you have to cook collards,
48:37but actually you could eat them raw and they make a really good salad. And it's in the book because
48:41I now as an adult eat a lot of salads, but I wrote the head note and I said, I probably should have
48:47named this recipe. Oh no, my book is too brown. I really need a salad. And so there are a few in
48:55there that are just like really great recipes that I cook a lot at home that I love to eat that are just
49:01fun for me. But I would say 90% of them have some sort of family tie. Maybe even the collard green
49:08salad has like a salad dressing that probably tastes like something my mom made, honestly,
49:12if I'm thinking about it. So yeah, they all relate back to family. Let's talk about football for a
49:17minute. So I know you're just Georgia through and through. You've spent a lot of time either going to
49:25games or watching them at home, having people over. So tailgating is a big thing for you, always has
49:31been. What's a tailgate recipe that that's kind of a go-to for you? Always a hit. You know, your
49:38friends maybe even look forward to it. My parents, they had the tailgate to come to in Athens. All of
49:46my friends still to this day, we don't go. They were at every single home football game whenever I was in
49:52Athens. They never missed a single one whenever I was in school there. And still, we don't, we maybe
49:57make it to one game a year to tailgate every fall. And my friends, if they are in Athens, always walk
50:03by our tailgating spot to look for Sabo and Wano's tailgating spot. And honestly, there are so many
50:09recipes. We have a whole tailgating section of the book that includes all of my mom's favorites or
50:14ones that were inspired by her favorites. She always had Koneka sausage. That was like a huge,
50:20which funny enough is an Alabama product, but it was, it's delicious. And that was always huge at
50:25our tailgates along with barbecue, which we've already talked about. But she was actually known
50:29for trying to be creative at every single tailgate. So she really didn't like to repeat a lot of the
50:35same menu items. And they brought a grill. They brought bunts and burners and like chafing dishes.
50:42So they could really pull out all the stops even near Sanford Stadium in Athens. And so she's just
50:50got so many just different creative recipes. One of my favorite things that she will make when we're
50:54at home watching a football game is jalapeno poppers. She loved to make those and jalapeno popper dip if
51:03she's too lazy to stuff the peppers. Which does take some time. Yeah. Exactly. So the flavor profile
51:09of a jalapeno popper to me is just like iconic football. So I took her jalapeno popper dip and
51:18flavor of her jalapeno poppers. It has like candied bacon and sometimes corn and made it into like a
51:24nacho sauce and put it on top of chips. That to me is like the perfect tailgating scene because
51:31there's always something crunchy, cheesy, packed full of like sausage. That it's called corn and
51:39smoked sausage nachos is the name of it. And it's like inspired by her jalapeno popper dip.
51:46Ooh. Just iconic. I gotta make that. I'm a sucker for a jalapeno popper every time.
51:51Why are they so good? I don't know. They even hurt you a little bit. They do. It doesn't matter.
51:57I'm like the spicier the better. Keep coming back for more.
52:01If you had to pick a recipe in the book that is the most southern recipe in the cookbook,
52:09is there something that jumps out at you? Gosh. My Aunt Brenda's
52:15banana pudding is a very southern classic recipe. One of my all-time favorites in the book.
52:24I grew up with that banana pudding. I would say that. And also coffee punch. I have a lot of fun
52:30cocktails and drinks that are very southern bourbon based or I have a milk punch, which is super
52:36southern in the recipe. So, but coffee punch is kind of another one of those South Georgia staples
52:43that like the little layer chocolate cake, coffee punch was at every single gathering.
52:48Yeah, but you just don't see that around very much. No, you don't. And it's so yummy and easy. And I
52:55don't know why people don't make it as much as they used to anymore. But it is ice cream, coffee,
53:02chocolate syrup, and milk that you whisk together and serve it with some more chocolate syrup in a
53:07punch glass. And it's basically dessert in a cup. And it's so good and so southern and delicious.
53:12So that and banana pudding, I think are very southern. Ivy, you represent kind of a
53:18next generation of southern cooks, a younger generation of southern cooks. And I'm wondering
53:25what you hope for this book when it comes to the audience that it's going to reach. I mean,
53:32do you do you hope to reach a lot of a lot of younger cooks and who maybe haven't really discovered
53:40their connection to southern food yet?
53:43That is the number one goal in everything that I do with this brand. I love southern living. It's
53:50been an, it's such an aspirational brand. And I have loved looking at it my entire life. But I think
53:56the most fun part about my job is the platform that I've been given to help bring it into a new
54:04generation of younger cooks and or just younger southern living subscribers. Honestly, you don't
54:09have to love food in order to love the book or love anything that we're doing at the brand. But
54:13making southern cooking feel nostalgic, but attainable is a goal that I had for making the
54:21recipes in this book. There are there's a whole chapter called lazy Sundays, which gives some classic
54:27southern recipes that you just can't mess up. And you've got to do them the hard way. And if you want
54:33to learn how to make something like your grandmother did, I've given that opportunity for you. But
54:38I've suggested ways to make a shortcut or make it easier for a weeknight meal. So I always want to
54:45make sure that all the recipes feel approachable in some way or nostalgic in some way. And I feel
54:51like that's like a good gateway for younger cooks to be like, Oh, that looks just like what my mom
54:57made. But this looks fun. And I think I could serve this for a party. Yeah, or whatever. And I think the
55:04biggest thing for younger cooks, or just people who are hosting in general, and is to you don't have
55:13to pull out all the stops, you don't have to be like your grandmother and be in charge of all of
55:19the dishes at the table. It's a cool thing to be able to have a potluck and have your friends bring
55:25their favorite dishes. And you can have your one iconic dish that you spend a ton of time on.
55:30For me, and I learned this from my mom, actually, it's not going to be a party unless you are genuinely
55:37enjoying yourself at your own party. And that is so important to me whenever I'm telling people and
55:45like trying to empower them to like, have their own parties is don't make it any harder than you
55:51have to. If that means going to Chick-fil-A and picking up a nugget tray, just so that you can have
55:55your friends over. That's fine. That to me is my goal is just making entertaining and cooking
56:00attainable for whoever wants to give it a go. Yeah, I think like I have learned a lot about and
56:09I wish the book went into this more, but maybe this is book two, but kind of like an easy weeknight
56:14go to meal and just the stress of having to pick out meals. I would say this book is great for whenever
56:22you want to bring something fun for a one get together or host people at your house. But the
56:27weeknight meal train or meal decision making fatigue is honestly so hard. And I got into that a little
56:37bit in the book. And I just hope that people like the day in and day out of cooking is exhausting for
56:42everybody. And so when it comes to these bigger occasions, you don't want the day in and day out
56:47stressors to affect that. And hopefully I've made it fun for them. So well, it definitely
56:52is. It definitely is. Every page is fun. So, but I'm sure you have a lot more of these stories and
56:58recipes in you. Yeah. So book two, here we come. All right. Well, Ivy, last question for you.
57:05What does it mean to you to be Southern? This is my favorite and least favorite question
57:10because being Southern is just, it's me. I don't, it's so hard to kind of have been ingrained
57:18with being a Southerner. It's my identity for my entire life. I've never known anything different,
57:25which is honestly so fun. I can't imagine being from anywhere else. For me, I think it's just
57:36being hospitable. I really, I think a lot of people, the rate, the reason that they can relate
57:42to me and a lot of the things that I do online and publicly is because I pretty much am what you
57:48see. It's very authentic. It's very genuine. It's very approachable. And I think a real born and bred
57:55tried and true Southerner is that way. They make you feel like you, like, like you can see a little
58:02bit of yourself in them. That is, I think the true definition of Southern hospitality. Yes. You can
58:08always have a plate of food or you can always be kind and be nice. And yes, all of those things are
58:12encompassing. But I think the way people really feel seen is being able to see themselves in something
58:18that you said or did. And that's how you can really relate to people. And I think real, real deal
58:26Southerners have a real art to doing that. And for me, I think when I meet those types of people,
58:31I'm automatically drawn to them. And that's what I hope I can convey in my Southern lifestyle and my
58:39Southern life is just approachability, authenticity, and making someone feel like they're a friend or
58:47they're welcome, regardless of who they are, where they came from. Well, that is beautifully said. And
58:53as I knew it would be, congrats on the book. Thank you. It's so great. And it's such a great
59:01expression of your creativity and your personality and your family stories. And, um, it's, uh, it's a
59:09lot of fun. It was such an honor to be able to do with the brand with Southern living. Like how cool
59:14I never in a million years, it's been on my coffee table my whole life. And yes, I get to work here
59:19every day and every day walking into the office is a pinch me moment, but seeing this is just so cool
59:27it's such an honor. So thank you for letting me do it. Absolutely. Well, Ivy Odom, thanks for being
59:32on biscuits and jam. Thanks for having me. Bye y'all.
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