Hosts - Will Barrett and Stacy "The Millzer" Mills
Guest - Stacey Little www.SouthernBite.com
Poetic Justice - Chip Powell
Motivational Minute - Coach Donny Burnett
Ready to embark on a tantalizing journey through the flavors and tales of the South? This episode features the fascinating Stacey Little, recipe developer, photographer, and publisher extraordinaire. Stacey shares his story, detailing how a humble lad from the South became a Wall Street Journal bestselling author, worked with Hollywood's A-List, and built a successful business from scratch.
Stacey offers a first-hand account of his thrilling escapade on Guy Fieri's show, Guy's Grocery Games. You'll hear about his culinary challenges in the show, building a digital empire, and the rise of entrepreneurship. Who knew a simple love for food could take you so far? Stacey did, and he's sharing his story with us, including how he transformed SouthernBite.com from a small restaurant blog into a successful business platform.
But wait, there's more! Get some handy tips on using air fryers for a variety of meals and enhancing flavors in your kitchen. We also delve into a comparative discussion on Walmart's delivery services and other meal planning options. In this episode, you'll learn, laugh, and surely leave with new insight into the culinary world. Join us and let Stacey Little inspire you in your own food journey.
www. SouthernBite.com
Hosts - Will Barrett and Stacy "The Millzer" Mills
Guest - Stacey Little www.SouthernBite.com
Poetic Justice - Chip Powell
Motivational Minute - Coach Donny Burnett
Ready to embark on a tantalizing journey through the flavors and tales of the South? This episode features the fascinating Stacey Little, recipe developer, photographer, and publisher extraordinaire. Stacey shares his story, detailing how a humble lad from the South became a Wall Street Journal bestselling author, worked with Hollywood's A-List, and built a successful business from scratch.
Stacey offers a first-hand account of his thrilling escapade on Guy Fieri's show, Guy's Grocery Games. You'll hear about his culinary challenges in the show, building a digital empire, and the rise of entrepreneurship. Who knew a simple love for food could take you so far? Stacey did, and he's sharing his story with us, including how he transformed SouthernBite.com from a small restaurant blog into a successful business platform.
But wait, there's more! Get some handy tips on using air fryers for a variety of meals and enhancing flavors in your kitchen. We also delve into a comparative discussion on Walmart's delivery services and other meal planning options. In this episode, you'll learn, laugh, and surely leave with new insight into the culinary world. Join us and let Stacey Little inspire you in your own food journey.
www. SouthernBite.com
Welcome in folks to episode 24 of the Preferred Experience podcast, the preferred podcast in Otago County and, in private, maybe, the world, if I do say so myself. We're here at Stacey Mills, behind the camera, and we have a guest today that we've been trying to have on the show for 24 episodes now. A very busy man, a Renaissance man, some would say. A recipe developer, a photographer, an award winning publisher of the SouthernBikecom Wall Street Journal bestselling author, talking about Stacey Little. Everybody knows this guy, everybody loves this guy. We're from right here on the red clay. Stacey Little is our guest in the Preferred Podcast, the Preferred Experience podcast, today. He's been in his amazing kitchen lab today. So, stacey, thanks for your hospitality, thanks for joining us today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you for having me. I feel like I need to maybe take you around with me just to introduce me like that, to folks.
Speaker 1:I won't mind being your hype man, it's pretty easy, it's an easy sell. Well, I appreciate you saying that. Well now, stacey, we've been knowing each other for a long time. Our kids are contemporaries and you have come a long way from 15 years ago to today, and I guess the big change in your professional life started about seven or eight years ago, when you walked away from a career to start the SouthernBike from scratch and you built it into this amazing thing today that more than one to two million people come to your website every single month, can you believe that it's come that far and fast?
Speaker 2:It still doesn't seem real to me. Seeing the numbers on a stat counter still kind of blow me away. But to realize that those are actual people on the other side of a computer screen, it still blows my mind.
Speaker 1:Now a lot of people know you as the local foodie, as the celebrity chef of Pribill Maybe of Alabama, some would say of the Southeast United States, maybe the country, but you've been on guys' grocery games. You've been on Fox. You've been on Fox and Friends. You've done things for Queen, latifah, reese, witherspoon, liss Goes On, martha White, kraft Pillsbury, betty Crocker, borden all these people work with Stacey Little. Stacey Little works with them. But this all started with a dream. About what? Years ago. Talk to us about how you went from punching a clock every day to making a clean break and launching this thing.
Speaker 2:Sure, sure, yeah. So in college I went to AUM. I was going to be in communication I have a degree in communication studies, have a national certification in nonprofit management and during school I realized that I wanted to be able to go home at the end of the day every day and feel like I made a difference, and so I kind of started my career in the nonprofit world because of that, and I did that for 13 years and somewhere along 2009. Yeah, I'm the kind of guy that always has his hands on a bunch of different things, and I'll never forget the night I told Heather I said I think I'm going to start a blog. It was the typical spousal I-roll, you know. Oh great, here we go again. Sure, so I actually started SouthernBitecom to be a restaurant review site. At that point I had been doing restaurant reviews for the Advertiser and people had asked me to continue to be able to do that, and at that point that was the only way that I knew how to do that that I could afford. So I spent 10 bucks, bought SouthernBitecom and started doing restaurant reviews.
Speaker 2:And you know, I grew up with a mom who was a great cook. Everybody in my family are great cooks and, as what happens, when things are constants in our lives, we don't really pay a lot of attention to them. And my mom had this binder of like all of her favorite recipes, all the things that people ask her for, because it wasn't uncommon for people to say, hey, do you have that recipe? Or whatever. And my mom had this binder where she had typed her favorite recipes out and had copies of them and she could just pull one of those out and hand it out. And there was one night. So when I left home I got a copy of the binder. And it was one night where we had had to get together at the house and somebody had asked hey, do you have that recipe? And I thought, well, you know, I'll email it to you. So I was at my desk and I was typing it into an email and I thought, you know, I could just really just put this on the website. You know I have this website here. We could just create another little tab at the top and put the recipe there, kind of in the same you know idea of what my mom had done. And so that's what I did and people started paying attention to it and when Heather and I got married, she had given me a digital camera as a wedding present and I had taken black and white photography in college, so I knew a little bit about it. But I decided that I was going to teach myself digital photography because we needed a photo for that recipe. And I guess, as they say, the rest is history.
Speaker 2:You know, I started cycling through those recipes that my mom had, you know, made when I was a kid and at some point I ran out of those and I thought, well, I got to create more content for this. You know, I've got to figure out a way to continue to do this, because people were paying attention and I started exploring more about recipe development. I mean, I have no culinary training, you know. I tell people I learned the hard way, by making lots of mistakes. You know, being in the kitchen with my mom, you know she pretty much cooked three meals a day, so if you spend time with her, it was in the kitchen and so picking up, you know, lots of things from that just kind of led into this weird journey where it developed into this opportunity to start creating content and again, like I said, folks started paying attention, which is the weirdest thing for me.
Speaker 1:But here we are. You go back to your mom and that's that generation you know, cooking three meals a day. Sure, and in 2023, schedules are so tight with kids and everything who's able to cook three meals a day? So if you cook something, it's got to be quick, it's got to be simple, it's got to be direct and it's got to have ingredients that are that we can easily get. Sure, and that's kind of been your niche, wouldn't you say?
Speaker 2:I think so. So you know, initially it was about sharing those things I had grown up with and then the kind of classic Southern dishes. And not too long after the book came out, as I was doing the book tour, there's a chapter in the book called Weeknight Bites and it's those kinds of recipes that just are quick, that are easy, everyday ingredients, and so many people mentioned that chapter when I was doing the book tour, at book signings and stuff, and I thought you know, that's what I want to do. I grew up eating dinner at the table every night and realizing that you know, somehow our world has changed to the extent that that's such a challenge for folks. That was kind of a guide and has been a guiding principle for me and Southern by beyond.
Speaker 2:Then I had a friend tell me years ago that when we send our families out in the world every day, we have experiences, we meet people, things happen and we all come back a little changed and when you have the opportunity to gather your family around the supper table you get to find out who your family became that day. Yeah, Wow. So I knew that I needed to do something to encourage that and you know there are plenty of websites out there that you can go to that say that you don't need to eat this or you don't need to use this ingredient or whatever it is, and I decided early on that I was going to give people permission to do whatever it was to get food on the table. Because, yeah, the food's important I mean, I've made a business out of it, right, but the connections over that food are way more important. Wow, 100% agree. And if you got to use a can of cream of chicken soup, then you should do that.
Speaker 1:And it's delicious. Well, it is delicious.
Speaker 2:But you know, families are challenged, like you said, to get food on the table, and if there's something that I can do to make that process easier, I'm going to do it Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And that's really what it's become for me and with teenagers, you know. But the only time, maybe the only time you can look them in the eye is at dinner, absolutely, and they're going to treat and they're going to hundred different directions. That is so important to not lose the table, and that's what you've been able to create for so many families, including mine. My family has lived off chicken spaghetti, crock pot chicken spaghetti from Stacey Little for many years and I thank you for that because that is quick, easy, it is ready as soon as we get home. Yep, you know, set it and forget it when you leave for work that day. Yep, well, that's great. Personal thank you for that. Yeah, that's awesome. I love hearing that. Well, you know, we were with you a few months back when you gave us a tour of this awesome facility that we're in today, and it looked over on the wall and there's a signature, a plate signed by Guy Fieri. Yeah, okay, you have a plate signed by Goffyer. And you're like, yeah, I can't really tell you about it right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a little NDA thing that we had to deal with right there, but yeah, so you know, I have gotten over the years I've gotten lots of requests to do TV shows. I'm not a super competitive guy. I don't like projecting the idea that I think my food is better than somebody else's, and so I've always turned those things down. Just, this is not really my thing. And I've actually had several requests from the production company that does guys' grocery games reach out, and I, you know, it just wasn't for me, and there was a particular producer that was very diligent in making sure that she wanted me on the show, and so they created an episode that was Homecooked Dads and Great episode too.
Speaker 2:It was a blast. It was probably one of the scariest things I've ever done, but it was a lot of fun. You know, they do such a great job of building that community up. You know, early on in those discussions they said you know, guy created this show to give people who don't have a platform a voice. And you know, I thought it was a great opportunity to show that there are tons of dads out there that are Homecooks too. And so we did. We went and filmed that back in August of last year and then had to keep my mouth shut until June of this year. So, which was a challenge? It was a challenge, it was a challenge.
Speaker 1:Especially if you saw the episode and you saw how this man showed out. I mean it was an incredible thing 32 seasons of Guy's grocery games and like a long running show, a very, very, very much internationally watched show. And here's Stacey Little from Prattville, alabama, on the show kicking butt, if you don't mind me saying that, but take us to that. I mean people see, like okay, it's Guy's grocery games, there's Stacey. The show lasted an hour. I'm sure they shot it for two. So that's not the truth behind it all, is it? It's pretty close the process, the process that they have going on I've gone all the way to California and then coming in and the grind of doing that show.
Speaker 2:Talk to us about that. Yeah yeah. So I mean it essentially was we flew out on a Monday, we filmed on a Tuesday, flew home on a Wednesday. So I mean it was a whirlwind, and what you see on television is pretty accurate to how the show runs. I mean, we knew nothing in advance about any of the challenges, and when they give you that 30 minute timer, it's legit. There's no pausing with any of that. And so I guess in my mind I had hoped that maybe there was a little more time to be able to think things through, but there's not.
Speaker 1:You just got to go with it.
Speaker 2:You do it. Yeah, I mean we got to walk in and we did. We had about 10 minutes to walk through the store before they started filming our episode and that was about it. So it was. It was wild Pressure. Yeah, it was a lot of pressure. I was literally running on caffeine and adrenaline that day and the best part is that it doesn't convey on television, thank goodness. But I was so cotton mouth like. My mouth was so dry, my lips were sticking to my teeth, I couldn't form words, but fortunately they edited all that out. But, yeah, and I mean it's, it is. While it's not an actual grocery store, it is a grocery store that essentially, guy Fieri bought this warehouse that's not far from his house and they built a grocery store in there to be able to film a season. It's all legit products, it's all real. Wow, there's you know nothing fake about that. And the cool thing about it, too, is that at the end of those seasons they donate all that food to the food bank. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:So nothing gets wasted. Yeah, I did. I did not know that. Yeah, that's pretty, that's pretty incredible, remarkable. Now you finished second in in the home cooked dads Two points, two points, two points, and let's be clear about that. The thing that I feel is what, out of out of 80 points scored, you're within two points of taking home the, the big prize. But I think the big prize was actually something that you won Totally different, totally different.
Speaker 2:Yeah, talk to us about that. Yeah, so you know, one of the particular challenges was to create a meal that was kind of an indulgent thing that you would make for yourself, like if you were home by yourself. What are you going to make? And the first two things that popped in my head were fried green tomatoes and fermented cheese. I love a grilled pimento cheese, so like grilled cheese sandwich with pimento cheese in the middle and I thought, well, why don't we put fried green tomatoes in this right? And green tomatoes were not something that they have in Flavortown very often. So I thought this is an opportunity to to do that. And unfortunately, the challenge required us to have to use beer, put barbecue, potato chips and mustard. Yeah, so how am I going to? How am I going to do this? But what I ended up doing is make. I used buttermilk and beer as the soak for my fried green tomatoes, and I took those potato chips and I just ground them up in a food processor and used those to bread those fried green tomatoes.
Speaker 2:And a guy. What happened is I had just pulled them out of the fryer and you know he's visiting everybody's stations and he comes over and he picks up one and he takes a bite and he's like okay, these are good. A little while later he comes back and takes another one and he's like you know, these are the best fried green tomatoes I've ever had. And I thought, what did that just happen? And he comes back for a third and I stopped him and I said, if you eat another one of those, I'm not going to have enough to plate my food. And he said it again. He was like these are the best fried green tomatoes I've ever had.
Speaker 2:And, sure enough, when we got up to the judges, he said the same thing and I was like I can go home now. Yeah, that's it, I'm good, I don't, I don't need to win. After that and I told him. I said, as soon as the show airs, this is going on my resume. So like best fried green tomatoes via gaffetti period. So, yeah, what else is there? I mean, tim is a great guy and a better person could not have won, but I mean, at the end of the day, I feel like I'm really the one that won, just with that comment yeah, we think about, we think about celebrity chefs, worldwide, gaffetti guys like at the top of the food chain I would.
Speaker 1:I would certainly agree with that. I mean, the guy's been so successful I can't imagine the things he's tasted in his life. I mean, it's just countless. And he takes that and goes this Yep, it still blows my mind. But that wasn't even your first time on national TV, Right?
Speaker 2:right. Yeah, no, we've done quite a few things. When the book came out, we got to do the today show. It was a really cool segment. That was a. It was actually live streamed on their website. It was a 30 minute episode that you saw pieces of during the live television production where we cooked brunch start to finish in 30 minutes. We got to do Fox and Friends and then, you know, we also do the food content for Simply Southern TV, which airs every Wednesday nationally.
Speaker 1:So Now, when you take your, when you take your Southern creations up to New York City and feed these and feed these hosts, I mean it's got to be life changing for them.
Speaker 2:So it was the the. The today show experience was interesting because the director of our particular segment was from Georgia and she told me. She said now I need you to say y'all as much as you can, which of course is just natural for me vernacular. But she said and if you're going to need bacon for anything, you're probably going to need to bring it with you because you're not going to get good bacon up here. And the other thing was that you know, as you do these shows a lot of times the producer is the one that picks the recipes they want you to make. And so when we did Fox and Friends, they picked lemonade pie, which, of all things, I just couldn't figure out why they wanted me to make lemonade pie, but that's what they picked. So my publicist and I were in New York, we were going to find the ingredients, and they don't sell Cool Whip in New York City, and Cool Whip is a very important component in lemonade pie.
Speaker 1:How else do you get your you know your complete set of soup bowls.
Speaker 2:I have. I have no idea, I'm not, I don't, I'm not sure how they're managing it up there. So we ended up finding this weird stuff called True Whip, which you can actually find here now, which does not perform the way Cool Whip does, and so that clip does live on the internet, unfortunately, because what happened is, you know, we did the best that we could and I ended up it just it looked like slop pouring into a pie crust, but you know, we made the best of it Without Cool Whip.
Speaker 1:I mean exactly. It's just that I don't want to talk about a place that can't exist without Cool.
Speaker 2:Whip Right. Yeah, I mean there's probably three or four containers in my fridge right now.
Speaker 1:So going back to guys, grocery games. You had the non-disclosure agreement. We couldn't say anything until June. But in June we had a viewing of the show at Twin Valley, at Twin Valley Farm, and that was. That was incredible. There was such an out showing of support for for you and for and for your business that night. You just saw how many people right here just just just love you and what you do. That had to have been a great night mountainlandsapecom unbelievable.
Speaker 2:It was a stormy, miserable night and I think nearly every person that invited you know that we invited showed up, so it was incredibly overwhelming. And you know, of all the things that I've done in my career, seeing folks show up for that was probably one of the most humbling things, so I was very pleased.
Speaker 1:Well, and you know that you said was a miserable, stormy night. I recall it as the last night that it would blow 60 degrees. True, true, yeah, it ended up being a beautiful evening, once the storms blew through.
Speaker 2:But you know, at some point there were people out there laying on top of tables to keep them from blowing off of the patio. But yeah, it was a great night.
Speaker 1:So we're here in the kitchen lab Great place, great place. But there's there's something that you do. You mentioned it from what came on the air, that that you like to have, that you said a while we're talking here that food there's more than just food. It's about relationships, it's about bonds that come from being able to put food on a table and stay at the table, and you had this thing now called the supper club, right that you started. Tell us about that, yep.
Speaker 2:So early on, when I started the website, I had a reader email me and they said you know, I love reading your blog post. It's like you know, we're friends just sitting across the table chatting and I realized at that point what an important thing that was to be able to make those connections with people. Not long after that, I got an email from a lady. Her name was Peggy and the subject line said you saved my life. And inside was a long email about how her husband had recently passed away and her kids had all moved away and she found herself in this terrible depression and her son had given her a laptop computer and somehow she found my website and a lot of the recipes reminded her of things that she had made for her kids when they were little. And she said that it got her up and in the kitchen and she was cooking and she was sharing with family and friends and that that process is what saved her from from depression.
Speaker 2:And you know, miss Peggy is somebody who became super important for me. I mean I included her in a dedication in my book. She became important to my family. Jack had his tonsils taken out and no sooner than we were home there was somebody at the door that was delivering popsicles and ice cream Wow, I mean a holiday didn't show up that a turkey or a ham for Miss Peggy. I never met her, I don't know what her voice sounds like, but we built that kind of connection and I knew that there were other people like Miss Peggy out there and that's kind of just been a guiding principle for me, for the website is to do that, is to build those connections.
Speaker 2:And as my hobby morphed into a business and that business took on employees, you know our responsibilities changed a little bit, and being able to support those families also became a part of all of this. And you know, if you run a website right now, it's important that you play by Google's rules, because you know to be able to fund all this, it's about that display advertising and getting eyes on the site, and Google doesn't love all those personal stories, and so over the years, you know, we kind of had to take some of that stuff out. Google wants lots of great factual, helpful information, and so that's how we started writing those posts and as a result, we're developing some really great cooks out there. But I was missing that opportunity for those personal connections, so we started thinking about how we could structure something to kind of build that back, and out of that, supper club was born, and it's just an opportunity to get people who love food together and to do just that.
Speaker 2:You know, there are tons of Facebook groups out there that are just awful and we wanted to build a great one, and we think we've done that. You know, we've got a great group of folks you know who are posting their Sunday suppers every Sunday, you know, taking photos, and so it's been really fun to be able to create that and kind of, in my mind, get back to the root of blogging or what it was for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's crazy that all this started with a restaurant blog and a newspaper, that, and now we don't even have newspapers.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, that's crazy how all that stuff has changed.
Speaker 1:So much, but I love, I love the way you do things, I love the recipes you put out and it's and it's amazing to me how you know a particular food or a particular, a particular casserole hits the table and that smell will remind you of things in your life that, like, like milestones, are people I know. When my mom makes this amazing hasper on casserole, all the time and whenever I smell it, I think of her. When I make it, I like makes me think of my mom. Is there any, any things like that that come to mind for you? Oh gosh.
Speaker 2:I mean, you know, being so food-centric like that, there are so many of them. You know, people ask me all the time what's your favorite thing to make? And without fail, it's it's buttermilk biscuits, because it makes me think of my grandmother and my great-grandmother in the kitchen, and they make biscuits different, differently than I do. So don't tell them that, but the reality is is that that process is what connects me to them. And when I was writing my book, I realized early on that, you know, this was an opportunity to capture family recipes and in some way I'm able to share those people with my son, who he never met. He never met my great-grandmother, who was a huge influence in my life, but being able to share her food with him is in some way giving a little piece of her to him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but there are so many things. I mean, the first thing I think of is and this is terrible, but it's lunchroom pizza. You know, everybody knows the smell of lunchroom pizza and it trans, transports you back, and those are always my favorite comments on social media or on the blog is when we're able to spark those memories for people, whether it's the smell or the taste, because food can do that for us, it can transform us, it can transport us to different places and times.
Speaker 1:So you're telling me you're telling me we can go on southernbitecom and find a recipe for a lunchroom pizza.
Speaker 2:No, no, you can't, but that's one of those smells for me.
Speaker 1:You think you could make that for us A lunchroom pizza recipe. That would be amazing, I think it could happen Now.
Speaker 2:whether it falls in that quick and easy category, I'm not sure, but we could make it happen.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm just so enamored by what you've been able to do, and you're only seven years into this, so there's got to be plans for the future. What's next for you?
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, I mean, 2016 is the date that I decided I was going to do this full time, and it's been one of those things where I jumped in and never looked back. I never would. This entire journey, none of this was in the plan. I had no intention of doing any of this, and I feel like sometimes God puts a path in front of you and sometimes you just have to have faith and just do it, and I think that this journey is certainly a testament to that, because I had no idea that this is what I would be doing with my life. But here I am.
Speaker 2:I mean, when my friends from Alpha approached me about being involved with their magazine and then the television show. So many things have come from that. Of course, we've started Supper Club, we're adding new staff members to be able to provide more great content, and I wish I could tell you what the next step was, but I don't know what it is, because sometimes, or at least for me, I try to do what I'm doing at that very moment and do it the dang best that I can, and then everything else is okay.
Speaker 1:Isn't that the most exciting part of it?
Speaker 2:I love it. It's fun to be able to come to work every day and not necessarily know at the end of the day what I'm going to say that I did Because that's pretty much it, and over the years I've had folks that helped me, that try to force me into a schedule, and it just doesn't work Because I'm just, I guess I'm gonna fly by the seat of my pants kind of guy and you know, you carve your own schedule Essentially, yeah, which drives other people crazy.
Speaker 1:But you know, in this day and age though in 2023, I think the thought of an 8 to 5 office job for some people, for more people than ever now, is just terrifying. You know, to think like I'm gonna do this until I can't do it anymore and then I'm gonna go retire somewhere. Entrepreneurship and starting your own business and building something seems to be more and more what people are drawn to now, and you're one of the. You were doing it before. It was cool. So I mean, what would you say to people that are watching or listening and that are like, wow, I wanna, that's what I wanna do. I wanna build my own thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know I'm probably a terrible example, because I was not one of those people.
Speaker 2:I was the one that was terrified of the opposite. I was the one that was terrified of not having a consistent paycheck, of not knowing that I was gonna have health coverage or whatever it was, and I wish that I could say find a passion and you'll never work a day. It's just not true, because I love what I do every single day, but there are lots of parts of it that I don't love. Yeah, and I think that if you are going to do that, if you're going to be an entrepreneur, you have to go into it loving part of it, loving the base of it, but understanding that there are gonna be days where you don't love it. And that's okay, because, at the end of the day, if you are passionate about whatever it is that's gonna convey in, whatever the business is, whatever the communication is, whatever the process is, you have to love it, that's so true, yeah, but it's a lot of work and you know, I was fortunate in starting this well before anybody knew what an influencer was or a content creator was.
Speaker 2:When I started the blog, blogs were things that super intelligent, really geeky, and I mean that in a loving way Folks did. You know, I started my site about the same time pioneer woman started hers, oh yeah, and so there weren't a whole lot of people on the landscape at that point. And so sometimes it is about getting in on the ground floor, about having an idea, and for me personally there were tons of ideas that I had, that I tried, that just didn't work, and eventually I found one that did.
Speaker 1:You know you mentioned influencer a minute ago. I hate that word. I really don't like it either. I hate it. I imagine you don't see yourself as an influencer. You don't see yourself as an influencer.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely not. No, no, I think I think being an influencer and having influencer two different things and I think that in my mind, influencer is, it feels like a very negative thing. Having influencer, I think, carries responsibility. Yes, and that's always been a super important consideration for me is knowing that people are paying attention.
Speaker 1:We live in a day and age now where responsibility and accountability just don't fit into the big picture anymore, and that's where we're losing a lot. And these influencers are out there and they'll just push you in any direction and there's no accountability for them. If they're pushing you in a direction you shouldn't go Right right, because they're in it for the check.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think too that all of that stuff is short-lived. I think we will eventually find that it's all short-lived and that's gonna go away. But the thing is is that for me, like I said, having influence comes with responsibility, and that has just it's been a super important part of the development of Southern Byte is realizing that there are people that are paying attention, that trust you for whatever it is, and while there's no forced accountability, I hold myself accountable, and that's as simple as the recipes that we create. I want those things to be approachable, I want them to be easy, I want them to work every single time. That's why we have this space is to be able to test those recipes in a home setting, to know that when somebody on the other side of the screen hits print and buys those ingredients, that they're gonna get the same result. Not only is that good for business for me, but it's also a sense of accomplishment and encouragement for the person on the other side of the screen.
Speaker 1:Exactly. And when I make your crock pot chicken spaghetti it doesn't look like yours exactly. And then I go back and watch the video and I watch the outtakes and I'm like it's the lighting, it's the last one that looks different than lighting. It tastes the same.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's also been something that was super important for me from the beginning is there's no food styling tricks in any of my photos. It's real food. 90% of it I take with my camera, right there. It's right here. Yeah, it's right there, because it's okay if it doesn't look perfect, because chances are folks in their kitchens is not gonna look perfect and if they're able to create something that looks close to what is on the website, then they're gonna feel encouraged, they're gonna be excited and they're gonna be willing to try something else.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love it because you've encouraged me to become the home cook dad. I handle all the cooking at our house. That's the one thing I'm in charge of. It's kind of backwards roles at our house. My wife is like the financial guru and I'm like the kitchen guy when Heather and I got married.
Speaker 2:The agreement was I would do the cooking and she would do the cleaning. And we were about halfway through testing recipes for the book and she came home and the kitchen was stacked with 30 dishes and she came to me and she said I think we need to reevaluate our vows. But, bless her heart, she's always been my dishwasher and y'all have been together for how many years now. Why are you?
Speaker 1:gonna put me on the spot, Because she how about?
Speaker 2:I'm gonna be safe and say we got married in 2006.
Speaker 1:Is that that's about 17 years? Yes, Fantastic.
Speaker 2:I believe that in December it will be 17 years. But I wasn't willing to do math that quickly in my head and then get myself in trouble. So we were married in 2006, on December 30th that's awesome.
Speaker 1:We were married on December. My wife and I were married on December 28th, so we have near. We have a near-versaries.
Speaker 2:Look at there. How about that?
Speaker 1:There you go Milder. Yeah, you were married in December, weren't you? No, he was married in the pits of summer. It was about a thousand degrees that day.
Speaker 3:Yeah, June 25th Yep In Booth Methodist Church.
Speaker 1:Booth Methodist Church.
Speaker 3:Well, earlier you were talking about the future. I got a great idea. I've always wanted to develop this into a game show and I think it would be a hit game show, and I think this is I think, stacey Little's the person to make this happen, cause you know how I am about my cooking. I'm a little crazy.
Speaker 1:It's weird.
Speaker 3:It's got a weird Doraima sausage thing going at his house, but anyway, I think he's sponsored by Doraima's Secret the ultimate cooking show that you can only use a microwave and an air fryer and you got 20 bucks to shop in Dollar General. That's it 30 minutes.
Speaker 2:I love that you said that. So, like early on in my career, the folks from Family Dollar reached out to me and they said I want you to show families that they can cook a meal by just shopping at Family Dollar. And I thought, okay, I'm not sure how this is gonna work, but Can it be done? It was early on in my career where, when that kind of sponsored content came along, I was like, yes, I have to have this because I have to pay the bills. And the recipe that I created was chicken spaghetti. It was the genesis of the Crock-A-Lot version and it went on to be the most popular recipe that we ever had. Wow.
Speaker 1:That's crazy. That's amazing. I didn't even buy chicken at Family Dollar.
Speaker 2:Yep In the freezer section, now that a lot of them have freezer sections, you can, you can eat them.
Speaker 1:I know you can get it at the DG, but also at the Family Dollar. Yes, you can. How about that?
Speaker 3:Hey, I made a meat and shrimp scampi out of ramen noodles.
Speaker 1:So there you go.
Speaker 3:Sometimes it's about ingenuity, like sometimes about just what you can find, absolutely what's in the pantry. What's in the pantry?
Speaker 1:That's right and that's what makes you so great. I mean, it's just like everyday stuff that you can make great things out of.
Speaker 2:Well, so at some point in the process, I adopted what I call the Walmart rule. Yes, and the Walmart rule is. I love the Walmart rule. If you can't buy it at Walmart, I won't use it in one of my recipes, and that's just a general rule of thumb, so that we're not creating recipes that involve complicated, expensive ingredients that are just approachable and realistic for average families and you know the majority of the population is within driving distance to a Walmart, so they can be able to get those ingredients for whatever it is.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. You know, mills, were mentioned the microwave in the air fryer a minute ago and I'm looking around here I don't see either one. How are you on the air fryer craze?
Speaker 2:You know, I think the air fryer has lots of uses. I do have a microwave, it's just not here in the kitchen, it's around the corner. I do use a microwave and so I mean, if you think about it functionally, an air fryer is nothing more than a convection oven, and we've been using convection ovens for a long time. So I think that there are lots of great uses. My favorite thing to do with an air fryer is to roast a whole chicken Like you.
Speaker 2:Won't get a better chicken, that's juicier with crispy skin than with an air fryer. So I think there are lots of uses. It's like the air fryer at the Instant Pot. You have all these that kind of come along. I was using an electric pressure cooker well before Instant Pot was ever a thing. It's my favorite way to make boiled eggs of all things, For the record 380 degrees, seven minutes will cook you Doraima sausage.
Speaker 3:See, there it is again.
Speaker 2:I was gonna say you're gonna have to have the disclaimer at the bottom sponsored. The FTC will come after you.
Speaker 1:But we are not sponsored by Doraima sausage that has this shameless plug. But it's delicious, it is delicious.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I mean, I think it's the same kind of idea. If that's what makes getting food on the table easy for folks, that's what they should do. I mean, it's as simple as that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:In summers like this, it's awfully convenient to have an air fryer rather than heat up the whole house.
Speaker 3:Oh, absolutely, I mean you know and plus you know like hamburgers this time of year it's too hot to fire up the grill. You can just throw a hamburger in there and get them knocked out in no time.
Speaker 2:It has so many great uses.
Speaker 1:Well, I was hoping you'd have a hot take on the air fryer, but you're with everybody else.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I have an air fryer but, like I said, I don't use it a ton. I think it's one of those tools, like I said, that folks can use to get food on the table and it works great. It's not something I use a whole lot. My oven has an air fry function on it, so technically I guess I am using an air fryer, a large air fryer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we use the air fryer and those kind of things for like chicken nuggets and that kind of stuff. Of course Don't get me wrong we go through our fair share of chicken nuggets.
Speaker 3:Oh, if you have an eight-year-old and don't have an air fryer, you're just killing yourself is all you're doing, because the chicken nuggets, you throw them in there. It takes care of it for you, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, heck, yeah. So we're gonna wrap this up, but before we move into our EMBRO greedy quest number four, poetic justice segment that I know you're just, you can't wait to get up. I can't wait. What is the one kitchen sin? Like the card, like this is the one card rule. You cannot break this. If you do this, there's no coming back.
Speaker 2:Oh gosh, why do you have to ask that question? Because you're the expert, you know. I probably have a couple. Number one is you know, I'm all about convenience products and making things easy, but one of the things that I think is an opportunity that people miss to add flavor is using fresh garlic. I love jarred garlic and the garlic paste and spreads, but none of those have the same flavor that fresh garlic does. I agree, and so I always encourage people, you know, buy a great garlic press and use fresh garlic when you can. It's, you know, just one of those things. The other thing is you have to use Duke's Mayo. Now, granted, I'm not sponsored by Dukes I've never been sponsored by Dukes but there is only one Mayo in my house and it's kind of a joke on the blog too. All of my readers know that you have to use Duke's Mayo.
Speaker 1:I agree. I agree, duke's is delicious.
Speaker 2:It's the best. It has no sugar and you know, it's just one of those things. Beyond that, I don't know. I think for whatever reason, people are afraid to taste their food, and I tell people that all the time taste your food. We get comments on the blog all the time Well, cause we use that phrase? Add salt and pepper to taste, and everybody gets super frustrated. Well, what does that mean? Well, essentially it means add salt and pepper until it tastes like you want it to taste, because everybody's taste buds are a little different and so you know you have to be a part of that process and taste it as you work through it. You know it's not always gonna taste exactly the same, and you know when you're using a recipe that calls for convenience products like lifted onion soup mix or cream of chicken soup, if you use different brands, it's gonna taste different at the end.
Speaker 2:So you have to be, you know, involved in that and taste your food, taste your food.
Speaker 1:You got salt and pepper right here just to prove it. Yeah, add to taste.
Speaker 2:I know, I know, I know how frustrating it is, Especially for folks who don't really understand. You know the basics of those kinds of things. But yeah, sometimes it's about too, about getting in the kitchen and making mistakes, Cause at the end of the day, you can still order a pizza.
Speaker 1:Yes, you can.
Speaker 3:If it goes wrong you can have pizza in 30 minutes, which happens.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:It happens.
Speaker 1:I guess if you don't have a kitchen fill, you hadn't been in the kitchen long enough.
Speaker 2:That's exactly right. I mean, you know we have failures all the time, because even as long as I've been doing this, sometimes things just don't pan out like you intended they are. You know, I'm a great cook, I'm a terrible baker, and so when I have to get in the kitchen and create those recipes for cakes and things like that, those always stress me out to the max because there's so much chemistry involved.
Speaker 1:Yes, that you know sometimes when it says mix it in slow, it means mix it in slow, it does it does, and you know, I think, a lot of my baking recipes.
Speaker 2:When people see them the first time, they're maybe a little intimidated because they look super long, but I try to include as much detail as possible so that, like we were talking before, the end product is the way that it's supposed to be, follow a recipe. That's the biggest thing, you know, and now that I've said that, I think that that's probably one of the things that I tell people most is read the whole recipe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, before you get started.
Speaker 2:Like the day before, like read the recipe, because it may require some kind of prep or something, just to familiarize yourself and know what you're gonna be tackling. So that's probably even more important.
Speaker 1:I've committed that sin before.
Speaker 2:I have too, like I mean, admittedly I've done it as well, but read the recipe.
Speaker 1:Now, aside from the old faithful salt and pepper, what is the one spice in your kitchen that you want, you can't do without? It's gotta be there. Garlic powder, garlic powder yes, I love garlic powder. The one I can't do without is smoked paprika. I love some smoked paprika.
Speaker 2:You know I will admit I was late to the smoked paprika game, but my boss actually gave me a recipe years ago for a Tater Tot casserole and she used smoked paprika in it and it was like mind blowing. And so there are a lot of recipes that are on the site now that you smoke paprika, because it's a great way to add smoky flavor to dishes without going through the process of grilling or smoking things.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, I'm a simple man. Just give me some good old Selma Southern flavor.
Speaker 2:Now, I love that too, the garlic, especially the garlic. Yep, I love that as well. You'll find that both in my house kitchen and in the test kitchen over here.
Speaker 1:So you know, my first job ever that didn't involve the YMCA was an engineering internship at this place in Selma where the owner of the engineering firm also was the owner of Southern Flavor, and so half the place was this little computer engineering office and the back half was bottling Southern Flavor Production facility. And so I mean it was as simple as this big iron, like this big iron funnel. They would just dump bags of stuff in. They were measured out, but there's Ziploc bags and then ch-cap it, ch-cap it over and over and over again, and every once in a while they bring in the green label, put the green label on these, Right, and the difference between Southern Flavor Red and Southern Flavor Green Wild Game is very, very subtle. And I can't tell you what it is because of the NDA, Right? Yeah, of course, Obviously. But wow, yeah, I mean for that thing to be what it is, and it's amazing how simple the production is. It might not be that simple anymore, but in 1997 it was that simple.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's really cool though. Yeah, it's a great product. It's one that I use a lot.
Speaker 1:So Well, Stacey, thank you so much for your time today. Very generous with your time, I know as an entrepreneur you are. You got things going on in all different directions, but to slow down long enough to talk with us and our listeners and our viewers, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:It was a welcome reprieve from the day and I appreciate y'all coming out.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Well. We're gonna treat you now to the poetic justice moment with our local poet laureate, Mr Chip Powell. You know quite well, Absolutely so.
Speaker 3:Well, I was just gonna set it up a little bit. I told Chip what we were doing today and it inspired him for his love of his favorite food. And the way we consume this food is on road trips to the east side of Alabama for football games. So that plays it. So he took all that and put it all in his little poetic justice mind and mixed it all together to come up with this little poem here.
Speaker 2:Any guesses to what that favorite food is? I know?
Speaker 1:exactly what it is. I know because he makes a stop there every time. Got it, you'll know what it is in about 20 seconds after him talking about it, love it.
Speaker 5:Well, good day to all the poetry fans out there. This is Poetic Justice with Chip Powell. Lesson this week is gonna be kind of simple, straight to the point. We're gonna keep with the theme of this week's episode, basically on food that I consume, I love, I enjoy, and it's just before the end of this poem, your mouth will be watering, dripping of the succulent food that I will be talking about. With that, I'm gonna go ahead and get into my poem.
Speaker 5:In the heart of Alabama's rolling hills, where road trips weave their tales and thrills, there lies a place, a savory delight, where Guthrie's chicken takes flight. Opalica's crossroads are pit stop we make. With hunger awakened and appetites awake, we gather around the Propvaline's Bowl to savor the taste of stories yet untold. Oh, guthrie's chicken, golden and crisp, tender morsels that we cannot resist. They's in the sauce, a secret divine, a flavor symphony that makes us pine. And soon, dear Propval, rejoice and cheer for Guthrie's will open, drawing us near A new chapter, written in chicken and fry, where taste buds dance and spirits fly. So let us reveal, in this tasty affair with Guthrie's chicken, beyond compare, from road trips to football, our hearts are one and the land of Alabama where legends are spun.
Speaker 5:I don't know if you noticed, but during the poem I was slurping. I mean, I don't know if you noticed it, or but good God, I'm starving, thinking about, and just to make this understood here, guthrie's is coming to probable Propval soon. Thank God for Matt Edwards and Chip Cleveland. Those guys are two geniuses and we just wanna thank them for their support of Propval football but, more importantly, bringing the greatest chicken and sauce known to mankind. Thank you for joining us. See you next week.
Speaker 1:I've never heard of it until it opened here. But I'll tell you. You know, when you talk about Chip Powell and his poetic abilities, I mean it brings a tear to a glass eye Stacy. I mean even him waxing on philosophical about Guthrie's. I mean just it puts you there, doesn't it it?
Speaker 2:does I mean I'm anxiously awaiting the opening now, Like I'm not sure that I can make it?
Speaker 1:We're going to have chicken wars in Pravo now.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, we are. We've already, we've already planned. We're going to have a taste off where we're going to go in by chicken tenders from all the places.
Speaker 1:Oh, oh. Do you have your judges already called out yet?
Speaker 2:No, but I'm sure that we can. We can make that happen.
Speaker 1:I want to make a special request, not for Chip, for myself. Same list plug, but anyway.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there, I did hear from a city official that will remain nameless that there is officially, after all this, there's a moratorium on car washes and chicken places.
Speaker 1:Car washes, chicken places and high rise apartments.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, not a bad idea.
Speaker 1:So we always wrap the show up with a motivational minute by our local motivator, probably junior athletic director and football coach Donnie Burnett, who you know quite well.
Speaker 2:I do.
Speaker 1:Coach Jack. He coached Jack for the previous football season. That's right. So without further ado, let's close it out with coach Donnie Burnett in his motivational minute.
Speaker 4:This coach Donnie Burnett, and here's today's motivational minute. Today has two quotes and I like to live my life by both of them. So the first one is life is uncertain. Eat dessert first. Also, a well balanced diet is a cookie in each hand. This is coach Donnie Burnett, and that's today's motivational minute.
Speaker 1:It keeps that hyper masculine physique of his.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Dessert first, dessert first.
Speaker 1:And cookies.
Speaker 2:And I'm not mad at either one of those.
Speaker 1:No, neither am I, obviously, Well Stacey. Again, thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate what you're doing, and what you're doing here in this place is absolutely incredible. So if you want to go to southernbikecom and check out all of Stacey's stuff, there's a paid service coming up pretty soon too.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. We didn't even talk about that. Let me plug that real quick before we come off Sure, yeah.
Speaker 2:So within the next few weeks we're going to be launching our new separate made, simple meal plans and again, it's just reinforcing that idea that we're trying our best to help folks get food on the table, and early on when we started developing separate club, folks were saying that that was the biggest challenge was sitting down and saying we're going to eat this, this and this, putting things together, dishes together, and then having a grocery list, and so our meal plan service is going to do that for them. So they'll get meal plans in their email every week. They can go and drag and drop if they want to change something or add a different recipe, and then they get a handy, dandy, printable grocery list. They can take the store with them and just check things off and then all the recipes right there.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, we're excited that's going to be better. And, like you said, nothing you'd make. You can't get at Walmart. So if you got the Walmart delivery, you take the list and just check it off on the list and that comes to your door. Yes, it will. It's just like. This is like a affordable Hello Fresh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and it's stuff you know. You have the control. You're not being delivered a meal necessarily. So if there's something that you love and you know there are families that like to eat the same thing every week or at least one night a week they want spaghetti then you can do that.
Speaker 1:That's ours for sure. I know we're not going to do it. We're not going to do it at all. Well, that's going to do it for episode 24 of the Preferred Experience Podcast. Thanks for joining us. That's for the mills behind the camera I'm Will Barrett and for our esteemed guest, stacey Little. As always, we say good night, god bless and go, lions.