Hail to the Chef

Hey, y'all, I'm Paula Deen, and boy are y'all in for a treat today

One day I was on the set of Paula's Home Cooking when I got a phone call

and what a surprise. It was from an old friend and our 39th President of the United States, Mr. Jimmy Carter

He was calling to renew his invitation because he was hoping that I could come back to his hometown of Plains, Georgia

Mr. Jimmy, I'm fine, darling. How are you? Y'all, I was so excited to be talking to Mr. Jimmy again

You know, the first time I visited with him, I realized that, well, we really did have a lot in common

In fact, he enjoyed the food I made so much that he invited me to come back and cook with him and Miss Rosalyn

Oh, listen, Mr. Jimmy, I'm coming. Come hell or high water, I'm coming

So today, I'm going to hop on a train, and I'm heading to Plains, Georgia

to meet Mr. and Ms. Jimmy Carter, and detest his presidential cooking skills

by cooking up some of his favorite dishes in his own kitchen

Dishes that he and I both grew up on, like smothered quail with creamy grits

And for dessert, Ms. Rosely, Mr. Jimmy, and I are going to be making these scrumptious little desserts

called pecan tassies. But before we get to baking, y'all, I beg Mr. Jimmy to give us a personal tour of his boyhood home

What a treat. So don't go anywhere, y'all, because this lady is joining Jimmy Carter and his first lady for an intimate Southern dinner at home

Well, hello

Hey, how are you? I came to see me on a train. I did

I rode your train. How are you? It's good to see you again

It's so good to see you. I'm looking forward to showing you my house. I want to see your house

Where I grew up. I want to see your bedroom. All right, that's a deal. Take me to your bedroom

I'll take you all the way back to the house. It's an invite. This is a beautiful little house, Mr. Chimmy

This was a living room, and we built a fire in here for special occasions. And Daddy would let me lie in front of the fireplace until the clock struck 8

and I would turn on the battery radio and listen to Glenn Miller for 15 minutes

And my mother nursed quite often 20 hours a day. So when my sister Gloria and I would come home from school

mother would have instructions for us on this desk, sweep the yards, bring in stove wood

you know, feed the chickens, things like that. So we quite often wouldn't see our mother

because she was living in somebody else's house as a nurse for 20 hours a day

and she came home just to change clothes and do some things like that. So later after I came home from the White House

we would tease my mother that we thought This black desk was by our mother for a long time

And this is a hall down that divides the house in two parts exactly

The first room on the right was my parents' home. When I was 11 years old, Daddy put a windmill up

and we had running water in the house for the first time. And Daddy cut off part of the bedroom and made a bathroom here

Come here, I'll show you. Daddy put in this bucket that's got holes in the bottom

and so the water would come from a cold windmill tank and fall in the bucket, and you can stand under here and take a shower

Unreal. So it worked like a shower. Well, it was a shower, sure

You want me to say that, I'll show you. You can turn it on

Absolutely, if you turn that valve. Oh, no, I would freeze to death. I know. So this is where you took most of your meals

Yeah. Now, there was five of y'all, but I only see three places

Well, all the chairs are here, though. We had five. So y'all just... Two of us sat over here, two of us sat here, and Daddy sat there

And that was Dad's place. That's right. And this is where all the cooking was done

and obviously it had a warming place where you could keep stuff all during the day

And this is where we kept the stove wood, because obviously the fire in the stove was with the wood

Would you like to see my bedroom? I'd love to see your bedroom. Not much to it

This is my bedroom, the coldest place in the house. As I said, the cold winters is what I remember most unfavorably

You had more covers than this, didn't you? No, that was... We had comforters, you know, with goose down

And we would have to pick the geese twice a year, and Daddy would take the down and have comforters made of it

So I kept it pretty warm. So it was... down is very, very warm. It was, and sometimes Mom would wrap a brick

heat it in the fire, and wrap it in the towels and put it in the bottom. Put it in your feet Why don we go out let me show you the back porch This was a working place You know this farm was the foundation of my life and we had kind of a haven as a close family

Well, if you had to choose one thing to credit your political success to, what would that be

Well, I think the love and care that I had for my family instilled confidence in me that I could

do whatever I set my mind to. And I had a typical farmer's determination

once you start something, never give up. I was very tenacious about things

But I would say that it was my connection with Plains, with our family farm, with our churches, with our neighbors

So I always felt that I had a foundation of my life. Plains was a stabilizing factor in my life

I really understand. Follow-up on and I'll show you the rest of the farm

I'd love to see it. All right, let's go. This on Saturday afternoon, we would open this commissary

and pay off the workers for the week. And they would get their groceries and their overalls and their shoes

So this was y'all's store? Yeah, kind of a basic supply where people could get, you know

flour and lard and sugar and coffee. And we sold gasoline for about 16 to 20 cents a gallon

Well, speaking of the farm. Want to see the rest of it? Yes, sir. Well, how don't we take a walk

Let's go. I'm with you. All right. Well, we've offered a shot

That first little one. Yeah. Real simple minute. A little small one. And that's real work

I want to walk down and take a look. I would love to. Wow. Still work

That still works. Well, I'm glad you've enjoyed the visit to the farm

I have. This has been very special being with you, having you all to myself, but you know what

I know what you're thinking. Rosalind's waiting for us. There's another woman we have to consider

She's probably getting hungry. I bet she's hungry. You think we can cook something for her

Yes, I'm ready to cook for her. Let's go. Okay. When we come back, y'all, I'm going to be in the kitchen with Mr. Jimmy

Welcome back, everybody. In case you've just joined us, I'm here in the home of Mr. and Ms. Jimmy Carter

cooking up some of his boyhood favorites like smothered quail and creamy grits

But first, I had something I wanted to give my favorite Southern gentleman

I brought you something from the Lady and Sons. All right. You can't cook without an apron

And look what it says. All right. Look at that. Hail to the chef

And that would be you. Very nice. All right, turn around and let me dress you

All right. Hail to the chef with Best Dishes and Love from Paula Deen

All right, let's get started. Are you a good cook? I used to be a good cook

Really? I'm still a cook, yeah. I cook quail. I know how to cook grits. Well, I'll just stand back and let you do it

No, I'll be the boss. All right, so what we're going to do is we're going to start with two cups of water

and a cup and a quarter of milk. Now, do you put milk in your grits? No, but I'm willing to try it. Okay

Well, to me, it just makes them creamier. I love creamy, creamy grits

And it's important, you know, to salt your... In advance. Look, you're supposed to be doing this, and I'm up there doing it

All right, but we forgot one thing. We forgot the grits. Well, there's the grits, but we've got to wait for the water to boil

And plus, we're going to put some butter in there, too, to ensure that that kind of keeps our grits separated

All right, all right. So if you want to put a couple of tablespoons of butter. All right

And you can go ahead and give me, well, I've got some butter over here. I'll go ahead and get my own butter over here because I'm going to get our quail started

Absolutely. What you're going to do, I think your pan's good and hot. It is. You're going to throw in a half a cup of celery

Is this more than all of it? No, that's a half a cup, all of that

All right. And it's a half a cup of mushrooms. It looks like more

It does. Look at this sauteed man go, y'all. Okay. And onions, too

Yes, sir. And the onions. Wow. Well, it's going to have a lot of flavors going on in it

And it's going to produce that wonderful, wonderful gravy. Okay. All right, Mr. Jimmy, you're boiling now

All right. That's true. It really is boiling. Yes, sir. This will cool it down a little bit

Then I'll turn the heat down. Then we'll have to turn it down. Now this is the important spot right here for stirring

It's important that you stir those real, real good, right? Like right now

Or they'll clump. Look here. This makes the best grit stir right there because it separates them

Oh, those are going to be wonderful grits. First ones I've ever had with milk

Really? Yeah, but I'm looking forward to it. Well you know if there a way to add a calorie Paula can do it So we got our quail over here Mr Jimmy in our casserole dish And you can see we not going to fry those or anything

We're going to make this wonderful sauce over here to go on them

Oh, I see. So make the sauce over here and put on the quail. Yes, sir. And what you need to do right now is just toss in that flour

Kind of just shake it like you would salt and stir. and that's going to make everything tight for us

Right. I'm getting hungry already. I'm hungry too. Perfect. And this is just a simple browning sauce, y'all

and it's going to help give our gravy some color. Ooh-wee! How is it

It's yummy. Stick your finger in it. It's not too hard. That is great

Okay, Mr. Jimmy, bring that on over here. And let's pour it over our quail

Oh, wow. Right there, right there. All right, so Mr. Jimmy, I'll..

Yes, sir. I'll do this. Grab the tin foil, and we're gonna cover it

All right, now, I'm gonna just smear this... All right. ...evenly over there

You know... Yes, sir. All right, let's put this in the oven, and we're gonna keep an eye on the time, and we're

gonna let that cook for 20 minutes. It's got a time on it. Okay, good

After 20 minutes, we're gonna pull it out. We're gonna take the liquid and mix it with some sour cream, and then pour it back over

those quail. All right. And when we come back, y'all, the First Lady is gonna be joining us to help bake up some

scrumptious pecan tassies. Welcome back to my very special time with Mr. and Ms. Carter

and I'm inside their beautiful home in Plains, Georgia. While Mr. Jimmy's smothered quail is baking

I want to make some southern pecan tassies. So I got Ms. Rosalind started on the sweet pecan filling

and then Mr. Jimmy and I got to work on the crust. All right, Ms. Rosalind, what I want you to do

is take your brown sugar and just dump it in your bowl

And I'm gonna pour the melted butter over it. About a half a stick of melted butter

And now if you'll break your eggs into another bowl, you wanna break your eggs and put them in a bowl first

in case there's, it turns out that it's not such a good egg

So rather than messing up our dish, we're gonna crack one egg at the time

and then just toss them over in there. All right, now all you need to do is mix that together

And then I got you a 10-ounce bag of, like, toffee bits and a cup of pecans

And add a teaspoon of vanilla to it. Our filling is going to be ready to go

So y'all can see how easy this is. It's like, it's really like a pecan pie filling

And, Mr. Jimmy, what I need for you to do is unroll this pie crust

No, sir. No, sir. There's you some flour. And look, I even got a smiley face on that flour waiting on you

So all we're doing here is using just a refrigerator pie crust

because it's good and it's so easy and so simple. So all you have to do is take your biscuit cutter

dip it in your flour, and then just take your cutter and go around

and I'll put your pie crust in for you. Just stick your finger in there

There you go. And push it out, and I'll bring them over here

Perfect. All right, so now we've all got our jobs. Good production

Yes, it is. But we've got some time on our hands while we're doing our little tassies

Right. So why don't we gossip? That's a good idea. You know any good interesting gossip

I don't know. I was counting on you to tell me. Well, I can tell you, we had been in the Navy for, after we got married for seven years

and I had the best job in the Navy. I was working for Admiral Rickover, developing the second atomic submarine

And I came home when my father was dying, and I saw life in Plains, Georgia, and I saw

what my father meant to the community. And I just decided, I don't know why, to get out of the Navy

I had always meant for it to be my life career. And I went back to Schenectady in New York and told Rosa that we were getting out of the Navy

And she didn't like it. I mean, that's putting it mildly. So we finally got cleared from the Navy, and we drove home from Schenectady to Plains

About almost 900 miles. She never spoke to me. All the way to Plains

I've heard this story a lot of times. I don't believe it. That's true

When she wanted if she had to go to the bathroom she say Jack tell your daddy I need to go to the bathroom I remember it well Why did you not want him to leave the Navy

Because I was enjoying it. He had really good duty. He had one three-month cruise in that seven years

And we had two years in Hawaii. I mean, it was fun. Oh, my goodness, that was fabulous, wasn't it

Kind of slow, but perfect. Perfect. That's kind of my life. That's right

Do you still use the old-timey pecan cracker? Well, actually, in my wood shop, I made one that cracks pecan

You put it like that and do it like that? Because I'm a furniture maker, so it wasn't hard to make

Now, what kind of nuts are these? Are these slides? Those look like slides. We used to call them paper shells when I was home

Paper shells? Paper shells and slugs. They're not so hard to crack. It's hard to shell them as fast as some people eat

Oh, really? Who would you be talking about? Well, do you think the quail is about ready

Yes, sir, I think they're probably about ready. Okay, and the grits are ready. All right. And the tassies, we're going to probably cook them for about 12 minutes

And, Miss Rosalind, if you want to go get comfortable, Mr. Jimmy and I are going to wait on you tonight

and we're going to pull this meal together. Okay. Now, where do y'all normally eat, Miss Rosalind

Well, when we're at home by ourselves, we eat with trays and sit on the sofa

Wonderful. Can we do that tonight? For tonight's meal? She's a voss

That's right, I forgot. May we eat in there? Put your company. We'll put your little table

Oh, I'm not company. I want to be treated like family. Great

That's good. Okay, Rosa, you go relax. We'll get the supper ready

Okay, that sounds great. Why don't you get the TV trays ready for us

Okay. And then we'll have everything else. and you sit down and just look pretty

I'll sit down. You know, y'all, I can't believe my life sometimes

Being invited back to Plains, Georgia to cook and dine with our 39th president, Mr. Jimmy

he and I made a delicious meal from his boyhood days. Smothered baked quail and creamy grits

while Miss Rosalind topped our dinner off making these wonderful little sweet pecan tassies

And just in case there was any doubt, the Carters really are as simple and warm as any southerners you could meet

In fact, it seems so natural for just the three of us to sit there and enjoy our meal

the way the two of them pretty much do every night. When they're not entertaining, that is

So what do you think of the meal, Mr. Jimmy? Well, this is one of the best meals I've ever had

Oh, are you serious? The recipes are wonderful, and the chefs, obviously, are consummate

I totally agree. Who's ready for dessert? I am. I am, too

Isn't that yummy? Yeah, it's really good. Mmm. Why'd you like planes

You know I love planes. You know you don't need an invitation to come back to Plains, but..

Thank you. This is something we rarely give out, and that's a key... No

...to the City of Plains. No, Mr. Jimmy. It's the City of Plains on it, and we want you to feel that even when I'm not here and

Rosa's not here and we don't invite you special, just come on over because you now are a citizen

of Plains, Georgia. How sweet. No. Does this fit the vault? You can..

If it doesn't... You just tell anybody they'll do what you want

And thank you for coming. And thank you for these dishes. They're really beautiful. Oh, you're welcome

You know, these are by Gail Pittman, and I just love her work

And I'm overcome. I don't think I have a key to any city

No, you do now. Y'all are so sweet and so special to me

Thank you. This is really going to be a hard close. This is going to be hard for me to say goodbye today

Because the time has been so special. That's for us. I truly had the privilege of sitting here with some of the most wonderful people in America

They never forgot from where they came, and they do everything in their power to be their brother's keeper

I'm truly sitting right next to the greatest humanitarian walking the face of the earth today

and y'all are so kind to let me come into your home

and share with the world out there just exactly the kind of people

you are and I don't know what else to say other than I love y'all

and I love my time with you and until next time America

the Cardinals and I wish you best dishes from our kitchen to yours

you've blessed our home Thank you.