INTERVIEW: Chef Kardea Brown Cooks Shrimp & Grits For The Breakfast Club And Talks Cookbook, Southern Kitchen & More

Charlamagne tha God (0:03)

Program your alarm to power 105.1 on iHeartRadio.

DJ Envy (0:08)

Morning everybody, it's DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne tha God, we are The Breakfast Club. We got a special guest in the building.

Charlamagne tha God (0:14)

Yes, indeed.

DJ Envy (0:15)

Who's absolutely positively transformed herself, because she was just cooking about an hour ago.

Jess Hilarious (0:19)

Yes.

DJ Envy (0:20)

I didn't even know she had the stocking cap over her head.

Jess Hilarious (0:23)

She had the apron on.

DJ Envy (0:25)

She had the cook clothes on.

Angela Yee (0:27)

I did.

DJ Envy (0:27)

And she snapped her finger and right back at it. Ladies and gentlemen, we have chef and author Kardea Brown. Welcome.

Jess Hilarious (0:32)

How are you doing, love?

Angela Yee (0:33)

Thank you so much for cooking for us. It is Kardea. Kardea.

I'm sorry, Kardea.

Charlamagne tha God (0:38)

You know what's so funny, though?

Kardea has a cookbook called Make Do With What You Have. And she made us shrimp and grits this morning. She had four pieces of shrimp and some pepper. I don't even think she had no grits, but she found it all.

Kardea Brown (0:50)

I found it all.

I really do make do with what I have. We had to run out to the store, grab some cheese and all the other stuff to make it happen. But is it good?

Charlamagne tha God (1:00)

That was fantastic.

Jess Hilarious (1:02)

I ain't even going to ask you nothing.

Kardea Brown (1:03)

This whole interview, we just... Jess came by and grabbed some bacon. She already been snacking a little bit.

DJ Envy (1:10)

The funny thing is, she asked our producer, she gave him a list of things to get. So when she got here this morning to start cooking, it was four pieces of shrimp, some pepper, and that was it.

Charlamagne tha God (1:19)

He don't know nothing about that because he's from Philly. But he should know, because so many of our people migrating.

Kardea Brown (1:23)

We was going to send him out to the store to get the rest, but I think I thought about my husband. And I'm like, I gotta send him more pictures. I gotta send him, because he gonna come in, he's like, but I don't see it, it's right there.

Angela Yee (1:33)

So I was like, you know what, forget it.

Kardea Brown (1:34)

So I actually ran out to the store and got the rest of the stuff. Thank you so much.

Angela Yee (1:38)

You ain't go to the bodega though. No, I was gonna go to Whole Foods. I couldn't go to the bodega.

Charlamagne tha God (1:41)

Now you use the specialty grits, because this is Gullah, this is Gichi Gullah Gullah Gichi shrimp and grits, what was in it?

Kardea Brown (1:46)

So I use Marsha Mill grits from Edisto. They make it right there in the heart of Edisto. So that's my favorite type of grits. I mean, they don't even pay me to say this, but those are the best grits I've ever tasted in my life.

Angela Yee (1:57)

You can't go wrong with them.

Kardea Brown (1:58)

They take 45 minutes to cook. There's not no quick Quaker Oats grits. You got to really nurse them grits, okay?

The gravy, real Gullah Gichi style gravy, you got to start off with bacon for those who eat bacon.

Angela Yee (2:12)

I do.

Kardea Brown (2:12)

Render the fat from it. That's where the flavor comes from. Because back in the day, the Gullah Gichi people, living on the islands, living on the sea islands, you didn't have access to all these fancy things to make your gravy starters.

Angela Yee (2:21)

Yeah.

Kardea Brown (2:22)

Your gravy starter was some type of smoked meat. So for you all, I use bacon, render that fat down, cook it with some onions, some aromatics, some garlic. Charlamagne ate bacon? I had turkey.

Angela Yee (2:33)

Turkey.

Kardea Brown (2:34)

I made his with smoked turkey. So you can do the same thing if you don't eat pork.

Angela Yee (2:37)

I got all of it in mine.

Jess Hilarious (2:38)

Me too.

Angela Yee (2:38)

I don't even know what I got in my second one. I mixed it all.

Jess Hilarious (2:40)

It's good.

Angela Yee (2:40)

Yeah, me too.

Kardea Brown (2:41)

You top it off with a little bacon, a little green onion to give you a little oniony taste to it. Then for Charlamagne, because you don't eat pork, I made with a really good smoked turkey sausage.

Charlamagne tha God (2:49)

Man, so good, man. How much of your creativity in the kitchen came from watching your mother and grandmother just scratch whatever ingredients were available?