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Scotty Scott
Two years ago, local food blogger and internet personality Scotty Scott received an email that would, eventually, change his career path and, heck, his entire life. Good thing he didn’t do what he was initially tempted to do: Hit delete.
“I thought it was one of those Nigerian prince email scams,” he says. “That’s how reluctant I was to believe it. I still didn’t believe it until I cashed my first check.”
The email was from a book publisher, and the check was an advance for Scott’s soon-to-be-written first cookbook. “After I got that first check, well, after it cleared, I thought, `This is real. I better get to writing.’”
The end result has officially hit bookshelves. Fix Me a Plate: Traditional and New School Soul Food Recipes from Scotty Scott of Cook Drank Eat dropped March 15, courtesy of Page Street Publishing.
The 48-year-old foodie sat down with Fort Worth Magazine to chat about his cookbook, Fort Worth’s restaurant scene, and whose turn it is to do the dishes.
FW: Man, that’s a title.
Scotty Scott: It was going to be called Who’s Gonna Do These Dishes?, but the publisher wouldn’t go for it.
FW: That’s a GREAT name.
Scott: It’s an ongoing battle at my house. I cook 99% of the meals, and I’m of the opinion that if you cook the meal, the other person does the dishes.
FW: Agree!
Scott: Well, that’s the thing about relationships — not everybody sees things the way you do. It’s kind of a give and take with my girlfriend. We’ve got a toddler and another baby on the way, so I’ve learned to back off some of my hard-and-fast rules.
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FW: How did you come to write Fix Me a Plate?
Scott: I’ve always been somewhat of a writer. I was always the kid who in high school wrote the story that made everybody crack up or feel a certain way. I always thought I would come back to it. CookDrankEat has given me a great outlet for writing. Then when the publisher came to me, I jumped at the opportunity.
FW: Do you know how they discovered you?
Scott: The internet. They’ve got a formula. I have a pretty good social base, my own website, I take my own photos. I can do a lot of the web work on my own. I can promote the book to my followers. It eases the workload on their end. I think that’s what publishers are looking for these days. It cuts their overhead in a way.
Some of it has to do with the quarantine, too. When the quarantine was going on, people were looking for new things to do at home. A lot of people took up cooking then. There was a demand. I do find a sense of worth in doing something that other people have no desire or ability to do. Those are the people who may want to buy my book and learn a bit about cooking.
FW: What kind of approach did you take to writing?
Scott: I don’t just cook soul food. I cook a little bit of everything. But we couldn’t settle on one cuisine, and I didn’t want to do a “fusion” cookbook. Finally, we landed on soul food. At the time when I was writing, there was a certain climate in the country, with what was happening with George Floyd. I wanted to be very respectful of the culture. It’s a subject and style of cooking I take very seriously, and I wanted that to come across in the book. I took my time with it. You want to make sure you get all facts straight, and I also wanted to test and taste each of the recipes, and that really can’t be rushed.
FW: Care to share some of your favorite recipes from the book?
Scott: That’s a hard question — there are about 60 recipes. Some are from my family — my mom’s or grandmother’s old recipes that I had when I was growing up. The World’s Greatest Sweet Potato Pie is one of my favorites. That’s my grandmother’s recipe. The Trippin’ Fried Grits is my play on shrimp and grits. One thing I love to do is take a classic dish and put my own spin on it.
FW: What are some of your other cooking passions?
Scott: I love repurposing meals and being creative with leftovers. Let’s say I make a big pot of red beans and rice for dinner, and I have a lot of leftovers. From those leftovers, I would make a week’s worth of other meals. I do a red bean burger. I also do a Southern-style red bean hummus. I mix all the ingredients — the red beans, rice, garlic, sausage — in a processor, mix everything together, and then I have a brand-new dish. That way, I’m not eating the same ol’ pot of red beans all week. I’m using that same starter dish and turning it into something different, something that’s not boring.
FW: You cooked as a kid?
Scott: From a young age, yes. Food always seemed to be a focal point at my house, the reason so many people were around, that I wanted to be involved with it any way I could. It’s what seemed to bring together all of our friends and family.
FW: Talk about your journey to Fort Worth.
Scott: I moved to Texas from Detroit. That’s where I’m from. I landed in Houston to finish my undergrad, in psychology, and to get my law degree. When I got out of law school, I became a sports agent. I did that for about four years. Then I got involved in the oil and gas business. I’m what they call a Land Man. It’s short for land manager. I’m an independent contractor for EOG Resources. I’ve been working in Fort Worth for about 10 years and living here for about five. I tell people who want to get into the food genre, you really don’t need a law degree to do it, ha-ha. But we all have our paths.
FW: In addition to the book and your ongoing work on CookDrankEat, you’ve launched a new video series on YouTube and Complexity Gaming.
Scott: They’re fun videos with me cooking with one or two other gamers. All the recipes are very simple, easy-to-make, and nutritious. They’re all dairy-based to coincide with a dairy nonprofit called Dairy Max. For the first episode, we did a World of Warcraft-inspired beer cheese dip, which was a blast.
FW: You’ve seen the restaurant scene here grow and change. What do you think is admirable about it?
Scott: I’ve been working at my same job, which is based in Fort Worth, for 10 years, so I’ve seen how it’s grown and how it continues to grow — I like that. I’ve seen some national chains come to Fort Worth before they go to Dallas, which is good and definitely illustrates the city’s growth.
FW: How does it need to be better?
Scott: It could use some diversity in terms of the types of restaurants it supports and sustains. Sometimes it feels like it’s not able to sustain much outside of Tex-Mex and barbecue. What was the name of that Asian bakery off West 7th?
FW: 85 Degrees.
Scott: It was very good, but it didn’t last. The location in Houston has a line around the corner. There’s a little Korean BBQ place in Fort Worth, Sam Won Garden, but it’s the only one I know of, and it’s a little hole in the wall. Korean barbecue is a hot, trendy food right now in other parts of the country. You’d think there’d be more places like it here. That being said, Fort Worth is so big, maybe those cuisines exist here in other parts of the city and I just don’t know about it. I’m looking forward to finding out.
Scotty Scott
Rosemary Elote
Rosemary Elote
Ingredients:
6 ears corn in husk
1/2 cup mayo
Chili powder
3/4 cup grated cotija cheese
1 cup freshly chopped cilantro
1/4 cup chopped fresh rosemary
1 stick chilled butter
2 limes cut in quarters
Directions:
Carefully pull back the husk of the corn leaving it attached at the bottom. Remove the stringy corn hairs and discard. Rub the corn cobs with butter, then sprinkle with the rosemary. Fold the husk back onto the cobs. (Corn may be soaked in water to help them stand up to the grill flames if desired.)
Preheat grill or grill pan to medium-high. Grill corn, turning often. This ain’t the get a beer, cover it up, and walk away, kinda dish. Keep an eye on it until they’re slightly charred all over, about 10 minutes.
Remove the corn from the grill, then brush corn with a layer of mayo. Sprinkle with chili powder, cotija, and cilantro. Squeeze with lime juice and serve.
Scotty Scott’s book will be released March 15. It can be ordered on amazon.com or cookdrankeat.com.
