My grandma had the best cast-iron dropped biscuits in the world, so there was no rolling or laminating. Just make the dough and spoon it into the cast iron; they were really crunchy on the outside and crumbly in the middle, and it's one of my favorite things to make to this day.


If you can be on the national stage, like the Food Network, there's no better publicity than that. I've always enjoyed competition. All those shows are competitions at heart. I've always been a bit of a ham, you know. I love entertaining people.


My brand and kind of who I've created myself to be is this guy who celebrates southern food and what it can be. 


Charlotte is a city of transplants. It's a city of growing culture and a growing community. It's inspiring to see people from Africa, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and Central and Latin America move into the city and bring their food culture with them.

The guinea hen came over from Africa, right? So it was born out of slavery, which is a really terrible tradition. It's a really terrible thing that happened but I feel like we have to talk about it. We have to learn from it as a culture and as a people.