E119 - Cooking Creatively with Blackwell Smith
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Beth: [00:00:00] Hello, my creative friend. Welcome back to another episode of Create Today with Beth Buffington. You know, I like to bring in interesting guests that are going to spark your curiosity and your interest in how you create today. And today I have someone that I cannot wait for you to meet. His name is Blackwell Smith and he is the founder of Lucky Cajun Seasoning. It's a Chattanooga based brand known for fresh ground, small batch seasoning blends that are designed for real home cooking. And it is built around the idea that better flavors shouldn't require complicated recipes, which is gonna be key for today. So Lucky Cajun helps you the everyday cook, make bold, reliable meals with less effort.
[00:01:00] Welcome Blackwell to the Create Today Podcast. I am so excited that you're here. Can you come to the microphone and tell our listeners a little bit about who you are, where you are, and a little background on how you started cooking creatively?
Blackwell Smith: Well, thank you for having me. my name's Blackwell and I'm from Chattanooga, Tennessee.
I first started, uh, cooking with my grandma when I was a little kid. She'd make little pieces of dough for me and, I would play with them. And I think that's where it started, obviously. But eventually I ended up going to high school in Baton Rouge and I fell in love with the food of Louisiana.
I ended up going to culinary school, did all the chefy things. Then eventually I made the cookbook and the seasonings and here we are.
Beth: Here we
Blackwell Smith: are. We talk about that.
Beth: Yeah. So I actually have your cookbook right here.
Blackwell Smith: thank you.
Beth: And I've, as you can see, I am a post-it note queen. I made some notes on things.
Okay. That I wanna try
this is the no BS [00:02:00] holiday cookbook.
But what I saw in here was that these are things I can play with and experiment with. And I loved how you brought those possibilities.
Okay, so here's how we approach the book.
Blackwell Smith: The book is like a set of instructions on techniques and how to approach things so you can add in what you have and what you've got. that way you can be creative in a way that works for you as opposed to following a recipe and then trying to find ingredients or you can't find it, or you can't find good ingredients, you can just use what you got and make great salad dressing.
Like everybody's got a favorite vinegar, right? Like, what's your favorite vinegar?
Beth: You know what, it's usually whatever is in the right,
Blackwell Smith: in the
Beth: pantry, but like apple cider vinegar, love
Blackwell Smith: that. Apple cider vinegar, you could use that. And then what kind of oils do you got? Like what kind of,
Beth: avocado, walnut and, some sort of canola thing.
You know, see
Blackwell Smith: either walnut and, and apple cider.
Beth: Oh. And [00:03:00]
Blackwell Smith: that could be oil and that could be awesome.
Beth: Yeah.
Blackwell Smith: Right. And you could build that with any, so everybody's got their own favorite things and everybody has things in their cabinet. And so I just wanna encourage people to use it instead of being stuck with this idea that a recipe is rigid as opposed to being just a framework where you can do the things that make sense to you.
Beth: And I, that's what I loved about your cookbook, you don't have to go to the grocery store and buy a bunch of stuff that you're gonna bring home and maybe not use up. you can take a lot of your recipes and go, what do I have in my cupboards now that I can make tonight? Or I've made this once that I'm gonna make it again.
How can I make it different?
Blackwell Smith: Right. Yeah. that's how chefs think about food. They don't think of it as a fully composed like thing. Here is the whole dish. I imagine it like this. They go, well, I have a piece of chicken.
Mm-hmm.
I have a stove. I have these spices, these other ingredients.
[00:04:00] how can I take those pieces with different understanding of techniques and knowledge and put 'em together in a way that makes sense. So that's what we're trying to teach here, It is not just a recipe. you build dishes with techniques, you build dishes with understanding how flavors work and experimenting and being well creative, right?
Beth: Yes,
Blackwell Smith: yes, yes, yes.
Beth: So what you're teaching in your cookbook is so easy to figure out swap this out or add this.
Blackwell Smith: And it's low risk.
Beth: Yeah.
Blackwell Smith: Yeah. It's low risk. Like it's not gonna have to spend a bunch of time, money, but you can actually get into the process of trying something new and learning from that.
Experience or trying something new.
Beth: You see in, in my family, I'm not the greatest cook. My, daughters cook better than I do. I have a son-in-law that can cook circles around me and just between my husband and I, he does 80% of the cooking. but I do probably [00:05:00] 70% of the recipe reading and decision making about what we should be doing.
And when I read your cookbook, it made sense. even I could do this.
Blackwell Smith: that's interesting. So do you think that's because they were more. Experimental. Do you think they're more experimental with food?
Is that why they cook more? why do you feel like they're better cooks?
Beth: I think well, okay. I think there's two reasons. One, they just have this pull to cook. Okay. my youngest daughter, she's a registered dietician. She's been fascinated with food since she's been tiny.
Okay? She was four years old, pushing a chair up to the counter, making cookies,
Blackwell Smith: right?
Beth: And she could read, but she didn't understand the difference between capital T and little t. Like is that a, what's a tablespoon? Once a teaspoon, right? Um, and she needed help getting things in and outta the oven. But other than that, she was making cookies when she was four.
So she wanted to cook. And there was a time in high school where [00:06:00] every day she came home from school, she made pie. Every day she made pie. And that was just the way she released frustrations She came home and made pie and I, I ate a lot of pie.
Blackwell Smith: So you're saying that she had a natural, likeshe was a attracted to it.
Beth: Yes. So,
Blackwell Smith: okay. So she was attracted to the process of cooking.
So. She spent more time doing it then because She was attracted to it.
Beth: Yeah. And
Blackwell Smith: then she built the skill because she did it more.
Beth: Mm-hmm.
Blackwell Smith: So she's not really a better cook than you?
Beth:
Blackwell Smith: She just did it more than you did.
No one was born with it.
Just like the sports, just like everything.
Beth: Yeah. So I always joked that when I was raising my girls, I did all the sustenance cooking. Mm-hmm. No one died because they weren't fed. And then Tom did the grilling and the interesting casserole and that kind of thing. But when I did something interesting in the kitchen, it was weird experiments like, um.[00:07:00]
Complimentary color dinner where we would have orange food served on blue plates. So we would have carrots and oranges and we would have macaroni and cheese and it was all That's interesting. All orange. And it was on, served on a blue plate.
Blackwell Smith: On a blue plate. Yeah. Okay. This is all very interesting.
Beth: here's what's happened in my head as I've gotten older,
Blackwell Smith: okay.
Beth: That I have realized that so much of my cooking when the girls were little was, I have to feed you something.
Right. You must eat three times a day, right? And so It became a chore.
Blackwell Smith: It was, I was gonna say that right. It was like a chore. It was like a job as, as opposed to something that was enjoyable or creative or'cause it sounds like your husband had fun cooking
Beth: because he didn't have to do it three times a day.
Yeah.
Blackwell Smith: Because he didn't have to do it. But, but we all have to eat.
Beth: Yeah. So when I read your cookbook, [00:08:00] the way you word your recipes mm-hmm. And the encouragement you give to your reader makes you feel like I can do these things.
Blackwell Smith: Yes. I'm, I'm a firm believer in that. this is why we made the book, you know, do a lot of cookbooks are, is it for the chef to be like, look how awesome I am and look how amazing I am.
Or is it for people who are reading it? Is it like, does it have value? Is it useful? those were a lot of the filters I used when we were putting it together. we wanted to make sure that. It was encouraging and that was one of the reasons why we didn't put in the pictures. 'cause they're gonna try to compare their things to a fake image or mm-hmm.
Me, whatever I made. And so yes, you get stuck in those ruts. It sounds like you were stuck in a rut. I was. And, so like, how do you get outta the rut?
Beth: Mm-hmm.
Blackwell Smith: You try new things, right? You gotta be adventurous, you gotta, even if it's something simple like you're saying vinaigrette, but you could do it with anything.
You put different seasoning on your [00:09:00] chicken. You could try a different technique of cooking chicken. You could have a different sauce, you could make your own sauce. 'cause it's not as hard as everybody thinks. It's just we don't understand how to do it. We don't have the building box, the tools understanding or I guess the confidence to do it.
Beth: I think confidence is a big part of it, and busy families finding time to do something they think is going to be hard,
Blackwell Smith: So there's the risk. So if you're spending time and energy doing this thing, whether you're practicing it or you're doing it for your family, there's this risk that they're not gonna like it.
there's like a legitimate possible negative result, it's so. It's feels safer to stay in your lane. even though the results of this chicken dish I have, everybody's tired of it. Everybody knows it's tired. We've done it every day for the past eight years on Friday, right?
Beth: Yep.
Blackwell Smith: But [00:10:00] it's still happening. So you just have to decide that you're gonna step out of that moment. It's a decision. like being creative is a decision. You have to choose to develop those skills. It's not like I was born with the ability to cook. I took time to learn and read and pursue it and taste things and mess stuff up and try it again and mess stuff up and try it again.
Because those are the moments where you learn, those are the moments where the breakthroughs happen.
Beth: Mm-hmm.
Blackwell Smith: And you go, Hey, wow, this is better like this. But if I hadn't ever tried. I never would've figured that out.
Beth: Yeah. So tell us, Blackwell, everything you make as a chef, is it always perfect?
Blackwell Smith: No, it's never, it's not because there's always life happens, right?
Mm-hmm. And it doesn't have to be perfect. I think perfect is I an illusion because nothing is perfect. perfection is just fake.
It's not real. Hmm. it goes back to comparing yourself to something [00:11:00] that you're not, you're not gonna be that professional chef. You're not gonna be that professional athlete. This doesn't mean you shouldn't try. That doesn't mean you shouldn't develop skills. That doesn't mean you shouldn't enjoy cooking in the kitchen because it's a great joy.
You're gonna have to eat, so you might as well eat good food and you can't go out to eat every day. So you might as well learn how to cook.
Beth: I love that.
So what you say about, cooking at home? There's so many reasons why cooking at home is a good idea.
It saves money. Yes. You probably, you eat wiser, you're more aware of your portions and your food is healthier. 'cause you don't know how food is prepared at a restaurant. But you can be mindful of how you're fixing your food at home.
Blackwell Smith: Yes you can. lots of prepaid foods have tons of junk in them, lots of sugar, excessive salt fats that are not good for you There's a lot of pre-made products at restaurants to make productions easier, right? And so most really nice restaurants use good ingredients, but [00:12:00] those cost hundreds of dollars to eat out at, right?
for most people, that's not realistic. so cooking at home is going to, uh, give you a few different things. It's gonna be healthier, right? Mm-hmm. You're gonna know what you're eating, right? So you're gonna eat better because if you don't eat better, what's gonna happen?
You're gonna have health problems.
Health
So you'd rather make the investment in learning how to cook and eating well than make the investment of having health problems later.
Beth: Yeah.
Blackwell Smith: if we know that, then creativity becomes like part of your health, right? Because you could
Beth: Yes.
Blackwell Smith: Why not be happy, healthy, and creative.
Beth: right? if you are creative in the kitchen, it's going to increase your energy. And if you increase your energy, you think more creatively.
So it is a, it is, what did you call that when I spoke with you, a while ago on that? A flywheel, right?
Blackwell Smith: A flywheel,
Beth: yeah.
Blackwell Smith: You feed into things and then it has to leverage to do other things.
And that goes back to [00:13:00] techniques. Like if you learn how to make a vinegarette. That's leverage to make a thousand different salad dressings.
Mm-hmm.
And that's a thousand different salads. So you literally, and just by one skill can create all these other options. So now let's think if you stack more skills, you have more options, and then you building that flywheel, like this is more enjoyable.
I like cooking, I feel more confident, cooking good ingredients. You have more energy to do the creative things that you love and be a layer for yourself and all the other people in your life.
Beth: Yeah.
Blackwell Smith: I mean I think that's really cool. Like idea, it's, it's a flywheel where it feeds everything else.
Beth: Yeah.
Blackwell Smith: I mean, no pun intended. Right? It feeding
Beth: it, I love that. Yeah. It feeds everything else. And if you are eating better because you're eating at home and you're using those whole foods, then you end up sleeping better. It's easier for you to exercise because. Your body has just been fueled correctly.[00:14:00]
And, you get rid of things like protein bars and, cereals that are packagedAnd if you're eating whole Foods, you're getting all of that goodness naturally and it feeds your body so much better.
Blackwell Smith: here's what my dad says stay out of the aisles.
Yeah.
At the grocery store. Don't go to the aisles.
You stay in your vegetables and your meats and you get some whole grains, and you're gonna be fine. But if you start getting into the boxes
mm-hmm.
That's where you get in trouble. So if you buy boxes for your food, you probably need to learn how to cook. Mm-hmm. it's for your health.
Beth: a good way to figure out, why you need to get out of the aisles is if you have pasta sauce that you've bought in a can or a jar and you look at the ingredients One of the very, one of the very beginning ingredients is sugar,
Blackwell Smith: right?
Beth: Yeah,
Blackwell Smith: it is.
Beth: Yeah. And think about that. Would you sit down to, plate a spaghetti and take the sugar [00:15:00] bowl and dump three tablespoons
of sugar onto your spaghetti. No, you would not, you know that You're just like, ew. No, but it is in there in the sauce that you are eating.
And it doesn't necessarily,
Blackwell Smith: you don't need it. It's just a, it's a cheap flavor. It enhances flavor that's not there because they use cheap ingredients.
Beth: Mm-hmm.
Blackwell Smith: And it also,
Beth: it also ups your desire to have more sugar.
Blackwell Smith: Which is not that great for, we've learned that that's not good for us. Mm-hmm. We've learned. Yeah, it's true. but here's the thing. Canned tomatoes to make tomato sauce that's how you should use them, but you just need like, good tomatoes.
So I, I'm not trying to like pitch a brand, but there's this brand called Chito tomatoes, and that's what I use to make my tomato sauce. And you just put in a little garlic Mm. Olive oil saute, good tomatoes in fresh basil, some salt and pepper, and you have like, that's [00:16:00] gonna be the best tomato sauce you ever had.
And there's no junk in it. Yeah. And it's easy to do. It's not, it's not like there's 40 ingredients in there. There's like seven Right. That to make good tomato sauce and. I guess maybe people look at all the ingredients in the tomato sauce and then they go, well, how am I, I don't even know how to get this stuff.
How am I'm gonna make it? But that's not even really how you would make tomato sauce.
Beth: So many of those ingredients are making it shelf stable so that it can sit in your pantry for 11 years before you use it. I mean,
I exaggerate, but seriously, weird, stabilizers and preservatives
Blackwell Smith: If you can't pronounce it, you probably shouldn't eat it. How about that?
Beth: That's a good, I think that's a good rule to live by.
Blackwell Smith: I think it is a great rule.
Beth: Yeah. So, in this cookbook, your no holiday cookbook, what, which one is your favorite recipe? Do you have one?
Blackwell Smith: Um,I think it's the cranberry one. 'cause that's another one of those things [00:17:00] that people go, well, I just skipped the cranberry sauce and a can.
Ew.
Beth: Yeah, no,
Blackwell Smith: So cranberry sauce is kind of one of those things where you have a couple times a year, so a little sugar in that, but you can build it up like I may suggest to put mangoes in it and different types of spices and different types of fruit.
And I think that that just is fun because a lot of people think that cranberry sauce can also just beef for Turkey, but like you can mix it in with yogurt. You can mix it in, like put it on your sandwich spread, you can put it on other types of meats because you don't wanna just have it and then throw it away.
I mean, that's what a lot of people do, it's just what use it for Thanksgiving and then it sits there for a week and then they're like, why is this still here? Let's get rid of it.
Beth: Yeah.
Blackwell Smith: Wasting stuff is not any fun either, especially if you put that time and love and effort into creating something. I think being able to use it again is fun,I guess why I mentioned that one is 'cause I love Korean berry sauce.
think it's such a easy way to be creative because it's like lending itself to big, bold flavors [00:18:00] and it's easy.
Beth: Yeah.
Blackwell Smith: You just, yeah.
Beth: talk to me a little bit about, stuffed mushrooms with dill horse, red sauce.
I was looking through this and I said to Tom, I don't know what Boudin is. What is that?
Blackwell Smith: Boudin? Boudin is like a, it's a, it's like a pork rice sausage that they make in Louisiana that's really rich and savory. And so it pairs really great with mushrooms 'cause they're like, got a deep earthy richness and yeah, just shove 'em in there and roast 'em.
it's pretty flavorful, but it is something that. it's easier to buy that than it is to like make it, because there's some ingredients in it and people might be like, that's gross. But like, when it's,
you know, it uses like pork liver and you stew it But the flavor is amazing. Mm. Mixed in with the rice.
Beth: Yeah. I think when you talk sausage, [00:19:00] you don't wanna know how the sausage is made. I think there's a reason why that's a saying
Blackwell Smith: It's a saying, right.
Beth: Go buy your sausage.
Blackwell Smith: Well, right,
Beth: so make your stuff mushrooms.
Blackwell Smith: But you can, the point is, is that the stuffed mushroom you can put anything in it. You could put shrimp, you can put chicken, what if you put your meatloaf recipe in the stuffed mushrooms,
I think people just get stuck in ideas and they get stuck in this way of thinking there's a million other opportunities.
Yeah.
To do different things. We have to look at that mushroom differently. instead of looking at it and go, I have to put boudan in it.
Beth: Yeah.
Blackwell Smith: Because that's what the recipe said. That's what Blackwell said to do. And I don't like pork liver, so now I'm not gonna stuff any mushrooms. Okay. So fair. You don't wanna do that, but you can do anything. You can put anything in it.
Do you know what Tom and I do with mushrooms? because I love stuffed mushrooms, mm-hmm.
Beth: we take portobello mushrooms.
Blackwell Smith: Mm-hmm.
Beth: and we make, pizzas with them. So the cool [00:20:00] mushroom is your pizza crust and then you add, your pizza sauce and you have your mozzarella cheese and then however you wanna decorate your pizza, you know, like Right.
Sausage or pepperoni or, just do vegetables and,
Blackwell Smith: and you can be really creative with that. Yeah. Because you can just add the things that you got or add the things that you like to your little stuffed mushroom.
Beth: Yeah. They are wonderful. And you can do them in the oven, you can do them on the grill.
So we've had a lot of fun with that. And we have friends that come over that. we have meat eaters, we have vegetarians, and it's super easy.
Blackwell Smith: It works for everybody.
Beth: Yeah.
Blackwell Smith: Yes.
Beth: Yeah. And something about melting cheese on anything makes me happy. Right.
Blackwell Smith: I think it
Beth: makes everybody happy. Yeah. So, creativity in the kitchen, it's a thing isn't it?
Blackwell Smith: It is a thing. It's fun.
Beth: I think if you're thinking [00:21:00] about being creative in the kitchen, it loosens up a lot of what you were calling the rigidity about. You must follow the recipe just like this and it allows you to go a little rogue, experiment a little bit. Say, I don't like boudan, so I'm going to do something else
Blackwell Smith: to a different sausage
Beth: to swap it out.
Right? It's, it's swap it out's your meal. It's,
Blackwell Smith:
Beth: it. You, it's your call.
Blackwell Smith: This is what we're trying to encourage is we're trying to encourage people to actually try things. We're trying to encourage people to try things that are interesting to them,
Beth: So, for you, Blackwell, creativity in the kitchen has actually helped you build a little empire. I mean, you've got, right, I mean, you've got a cookbook now and you've got seasonings, because you you weren't rigid
Blackwell Smith: because I took the time Yes. To try things.
So creativity in kitchen, like for me started with a little piece of dough and then it grew into a love occasion food and learning how to make food. And then now I've [00:22:00] Tried so many different flavors and spices. I got a spice company and I'm made a cookbook about how to try different things and how to be adventurous in the kitchen because it's not about just following a recipe, it's about following what's interesting to you.
And I think if you do that, then creativity can come naturally.
Yeah.
As opposed to trying to force it because you're recreating someone else's creativity. Is that like creativity? It's like that's like, I'm gonna take this book that I read and then rewrite it.
Beth: Yeah.
Blackwell Smith: That's not really being creative. Now, that doesn't mean you can't take something from that book and use it in a different way to tell a different story.
But you can take this a base recipe and change it to what makes sense for you. And that is creativity.
Beth: So being creative in the kitchen isn't about. Making roses outta radishes.
it's about, it's about how you're thinking,
Blackwell Smith: It's about how you're approaching what you know and trying to do something new and different
Beth: mm-hmm.
Blackwell Smith: Than what you [00:23:00] had before.
Beth: Yeah. I talk all the time on the podcast about creative people, it doesn't mean you have to be an artist, because I hear that all the time. I'm no artist, so I'm not creative. Creativityit can be in any place with anything. You can be an accountant and say, I'm not creative.
I can't draw a stick, anything past a stick figure. But you might be so creative with spreadsheets that yes, you come up with these great ideas with spreadsheets. Yes. Not thought of, and you are creative. So in the kitchen, you don't have to be artistic with your food. Creativity is in how you are thinking about making your next meal more fun.
And it was a word you used. Bring more joy into what you're eating,
Blackwell Smith: bring more joy into it. So in, in my life, the food part has been easy. Like trading these seasonings and doing this cookbook, all that was really easy. But for, what's difficult for me is marketing [00:24:00] and and trying to think about social media and how to like, create videos
So I literally have, I understood the power of these tools like marketing and social media, but I didn't know how to use them because I'd never done had to do that before. So I had to come up with different systems to help me create content.
you had to allow yourself to become uncomfortable with
I was uncomfortable
Beth: things, right?
Yeah,
Blackwell Smith: I was definitely uncomfortable. Right? I had to mess up. I had to make a silly video. Yeah. So I was taking a risk because I had to become a different person to be able to like share this.
My work, I had to approach everything differently. And so I'm definitely having to take those creative skills that I developed in cooking and apply them to other parts of the business in different ways
Beth: to get the word out. You have to do that. Yes.
Blackwell Smith: or I could be sitting [00:25:00] here by myself looking at my seasoning and go, where's my orders?
Beth: Yeah, yeah. Well and speaking of that, Blackwell sent me some of the seasonings and we use this one Tuesday night for dinner. We made blackened shrimp with Lucky Cajun seasoning. And Woo has some good heat to it. We had some fun. We had been to a restaurant, a week ago and we had some blackened shrimp there with polenta and we're like, this is so good.
I wonder if we could make this at home. And then serendipitously, we get these seasonings in the mail from Blackwell, and one of them is this Cajun seasoning that reminded us of the black and shrimp we had at the restaurant. So we just played around and use the seasoning.
And you know what? We ate was just as good or maybe better than what we had at the restaurant.
Blackwell Smith: Well, awesome.
Beth: Yeah, so thank you
Blackwell Smith: for
Beth: that.
Blackwell Smith: Let, let's talk about [00:26:00] this for a second. So you tried something in a restaurant.
Beth: Yep.
Blackwell Smith: Now let's think about like shrimp and plana. Let's kinda like, seems like a play on like shrimp and grits because grits is like a traditional southern thing, and shrimp or grits is a southern thing, but polenta is a different type of corn meal that you cook differently, has a different kind of texture and taste.
So. That element right there is just taking that one thing that we already know exists. Yep. We're going is corn, it probably tastes good, but this other type of corn, we know that those are gonna work together. but at the same time, it's still creative. It's still a moment, an opportunity to try something different.
And now what, you said something else that was very interesting. You said, we're making a plan to see how we could try it.
You gotta be like prepared for the activity.
Mm-hmm.
That you're about to get into.
Beth: Yes. Well, and knowing that when you said plan, I mean we did sit down and say, okay, what do we have? And we made a list of the things we didn't have. Polenta was one of them. [00:27:00] I mean, we never cooked with polenta before.
And we actually had that discussion, how is polenta different from grits? And we checked on that, like, is it different?
I think polenta is like a finer, it's
Blackwell Smith: finer,
Beth: right?
Blackwell Smith: It's a, it's still corn, right?It's a different version of the same thing.
Beth: Yes. Because I have had, I've had shrimp and grits. Love that too. But the polenta was like smoother, I think. A little bit creamier.
Blackwell Smith: It definitely is creamier, yes.
Beth: Yeah. But we'd never bought it before. So we went to the store where we knew we could find it And now we have polenta in our cabinet and we are going to use it again.
'cause it was delicious.
Blackwell Smith: And it's not that hard to cook.
Beth: It wasn't,
Blackwell Smith: it was sweet. It's not right. Yeah. So you hear, so people hear these foreign words and they go, well, polenta, that must be hard or that must be something I saw in this video that this chef was cooking And so that must be like a weird ingredient.
Beth: Mm-hmm.
Blackwell Smith: And I think it's just, it's not that weird.
Beth: No, no. We, [00:28:00] associate it with the same sort of skill as making rice. Except you're using this fine grain corn.
Blackwell Smith: Yeah. You gotta kind of stir it though.
Beth: Stir it. You're soaking it and, yeah. Yeah.
Blackwell Smith: it's easy.
Beth: It was easy.
It's
Blackwell Smith: easy.
Beth: It was, it was so delicious. and,you know, just corn, so pretty healthy. So I, love our discussion today you know, you don't have to go to culinary school to be a better cook in your kitchen. No, I hope that busy families are saying to themselves, I'm going to think about what I can do to liven up the food that I'm feeding my family, or that I'm feeding myself just to make life a little bit more fun, a little bit more joyful, a little bit more healthy.
That all happens by adding some creativity in the kitchen. And that doesn't mean you have to be an artist with what you're making. It just means that you have to allow [00:29:00] yourself to experiment and have fun and try something you've never tried before and mix it up.
Blackwell Smith: Or even allow yourself to mess up. Yes, allow yourself that space to give you space to like learn, but also understand that learning comes from those accidents and you're going, Hey, I added too much salt this time.
next time is when you fix that and then guess what's gonna happen. Next time you cook it, you're gonna go, I should have done this.
Yes.
So it's always gonna evolve and it's always gonna become something more than it was before because you are cooking, like with intention, you're cooking.
Beth: It's like game on. You know? Then you can think, well, this was good, but maybe instead of using a lucky Cajun seasoning, I'm going to use the Greek out seasoning instead. Yes. And
Blackwell Smith: take a different twist.
Beth: Yeah.
Blackwell Smith: well, and I think those things compound.
And now you, you can build on top of those things.
And the more options you have, the more creative you can get.
Mm-hmm. [00:30:00]
And so it's not, at first it seems like cooking's so limited, but with more skills and more understanding and making more mistakes, it expands that creativity. So it's more than just the sum of its parts. It's like it's multiples of the parts.
Beth: Yeah. Yes. I always talk about how creativity compounds and makes your life better. And that is happening in the kitchen. the more you cook, the better cook you become. The more flavors you experiment with, the more interesting your food ends up being. And it just keeps compounding on itself.
And you are going to learn how to cook healthier and enjoy these foods more because you are experimenting with flavors and spices that maybe you didn't grow up with or you've never tried before, but you just have a little more courage to do it.
Blackwell Smith: I also think this, this silly old adage like, cooked with love, it makes it taste better.
It's so true. Yeah. 'cause if you're approaching the [00:31:00] kitchen as like this, you said chore earlier. Mm-hmm. And it didn't sound like there was a lot of joy in that. And so were the results better from that time or the results better from when you did the shrimp and polenta,
Beth: was it shrimp and polenta?
Yes.
Blackwell Smith: Was that, but was it, it wasn't necessarily the outcome that was better, it was the process that might've been better. Yeah. That you enjoyed getting in there and going, how can I make this the best it can be and enjoyable from the beginning to the end. Not just, here we gotta feed all the kids. Oh my gosh,
It's Friday.
Beth: Yeah.
Blackwell Smith: It's a, it's how you approached it. Mm-hmm. That ended up with different results. It wasn't the fact that you were necessarily more skilled or more talented. You were just more open to the opportunities front of you.
Beth: So everyone listening right now,
Are your recipes getting a little boring? Are, do you find yourself stuck in a rut? And if so, how can you pull yourself out [00:32:00] of that rut and start a new path that might, liven up what you're trying through some new spices or getting out of the aisles in the grocery store and trying more whole foods.
Can you bring in your family so that you can cook together? Or can you tell your family I need some private time so I can just practice with my cooking? Can you find something that you can do this next week that is going to make your cooking more creative? That is a challenge that I think we can all tackle.
So Blackwell tell us, I'm thinking a lot of us are listening are going, Ooh, your cookbook sounds interesting. How do I find your spices? Can you tell everyone what you're doing and how we can find you online and follow you?
Blackwell Smith: Okay. So I was talking about making content earlier, right? Yeah. So that's really been my main [00:33:00] focus recently.
So on YouTube, there's Lucky Cajun seasoning and we have tutorialsthere. And there's also recipes for those tutorials on the website, the lucky cajun.com. this cookbook might not be available right now, but it is gonna be in the gift section because I don't have that many copies of it, but there's more coming.
So, just look out for that. And we're also doing a no, BS Sea food cookbook as well. And so it's gonna be the evolution of this because. That's was the first book, and now the next book's gonna be even better because I'm gonna try these new ideas that I came up with.
Beth: I love it. I love it.
Yeah. So everyone, in the show notes, look for these links. I will have them there. And, definitely give yourself some time to experiment a little bit with Lucky Cajun Seasonings. There's a lot of fun stuff there. And if you're a little bit nervous about how to pull together a dinner, [00:34:00] this is gonna give you a leg up because it's spices already pulled together for you, making it easier.
And yeah, go on YouTube and learn how to make some of these delicious recipes with some help from the chef himself. Yes.
Blackwell Smith: Yeah. Do it. Do it.
Beth: Yeah.
Blackwell Smith: Yeah. Fresh ground spices are just gonna taste completely different than what you've probably ever had. You just gotta try 'em.
Beth: Yeah. See
Blackwell Smith: what happens.
Beth: Yes.
Well, everyone, how old are your spices in your cabinet right now?
Blackwell Smith: Yeah. when were they made? So I don't wanna, I don't like to get into like scientific stuff, but there's actually plenty of scientific proof that like fresh ground, any spice is gonna have more flavor than the stuff that's been sitting there for like months and years.
Beth: Yeah.
Blackwell Smith: Either on your shelf or on the store shelf, wherever it is. It's older than what you probably know.
Beth: You dunno on the store shelf how long it's been there. And then when you bring it home and you only use a pinch of [00:35:00] something and then you stick it back in the cupboard and then pretty soon you're like, do I have celery salt?
Blackwell Smith: you
Beth: might,
Blackwell Smith: it's,
Beth: you buy, you probably bought it when you first married when I moved into the house, I bought this mustard seed and you don't know how old it is. Um, yeah, maybe it's time to replace some of those so you figure out why your food might be tasting bland.
Blackwell Smith: When spices are whole, they actually hold their flavor for many years. It's once they get ground and those oils are released to oxygen and moisture, it's basically oxidation.
They're slowly deteriorating and you're losing all those, compounds. for example, everybody's had fresh ground black pepper before, right?
Hmm.
So you know that it's got like that punch and it's just rich and you don't need that much of it.
And a little bit goes a long way. Well now I imagine we did that with all the spices.
Hmm.
And then we put 'em in a bag and we ship 'em off to wherever y'all are at and it's just gonna taste [00:36:00] completely different. And so I don't think there's a comparison.
Beth: Yeah.
Blackwell Smith: Yeah.
Beth: Fresh is better.
Blackwell Smith: fresh is best.
Beth: Yeah. Yes. Well, and I can, I can tell you the spices we used from your lucky Cajun seasoning. Oh my gosh. it was so good. Yes. So worth it. Totally worth it. So check it out, everyone. Go check out the show notes and you're gonna be able to find a link that will take you to Lucky Cajun Seasonings.
Give it a try. Yeah. So, Blackwell, thank you so much. Thank you for coming and sharing your expertise and your permission to say, get into the kitchen experiment and have some fun. And don't be afraid to mess up because. That's how you get better.
Blackwell Smith: how you get, that's how you get better. Yeah.
Yeah. Give yourself time to learn how to do it. Don't expect that you're gonna be able to do it like a professional chef or what those images are.
Beth: Yeah.
Blackwell Smith: And give [00:37:00] yourself permission to mess up, because that's the Exactly. Those are the only ways you get better.
Beth: Yeah. Um, so get out there, everyone, do some experimenting and have fun in your kitchen and go and try out some lucky Cajun seasonings.
I highly recommend them, but whatever you do, my friends, stay creative. Thanks so much. Come and see us again soon on Create Today. We'll talk to you later.
