Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everyone. Happy new year. You’re listening to Radio Cherry Bombe and I’m your host, Kerry Diamond. The Cherry Bombe team is taking a little break, so we’re sharing our top episodes from 2021. Today, we’ll hear from Mashama Bailey, the chef and co-owner of The Grey, who I spoke with this time last year. Mashama and I talked about her restaurant in Savannah, Georgia, as well as the book she co-authored with her business partner, John Morisano. Titled Black, White, and The Grey: The Story of an Unexpected Friendship and a Beloved Restaurant, it is a unique memoir that delves into their relationship. And of course, it includes recipes important to both of them.
I love The Grey so much and have been fortunate to visit a few times. And Mashama is one of my favorite chefs – and people– around, so stay tuned for our chat.
Thank you to Kerrygold for supporting this episode! Kerrgyold butter and cheese is made with milk from Irish grassfed cows. Grassfed makes a huge difference in the quality of your dairy. Look for kerrygold at your favorite supermarket or cheese shop and visit kerrygoldusa dot com to learn more. We’ll hear a word from the Kerrygold folks in just a sec.
You might not know this, but Cherry Bombe started out as a print magazine! Yes. We just published hour 18th issue and it’s all about Beautiful baked goods and the creatives behind them, like Claire Saffitz, who so many of you know and love from YouTube. You can pick up a copy at your favorite local book store, magazine shop, or specialty store. Places like Fan Fan Doughnuts in Brooklyn, you know what I’m going to say, pick up a magazine and a doughnut; Le Dix Sept bakery in San Francisco, Book Larder in Seattle, and Golden Fig in St. Paul, Minnesota,
Let’s hear from Kerrygold then we’ll catch up with Mashama Bailey of The Grey.
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Kerry Diamond:
Nice to see you.
Mashama Bailey:
It's so nice to see you too.
Kerry Diamond:
So you were in New York for a project called Intersect by Lexus. Can you tell us what that project is all about. It's ongoing for a while.
Mashama Bailey:
So we were contacted by Union Square Hospitality. Danny Meyer reached out to us, and his team reached out to us and they told us about this project that they do. And they bring chefs from all around the world. It's been going on for about two years. Union Square Hospitality Group has this concept called Intersect and they invited us to do it, which was really awesome. We're the first domestic restaurant to be a part of this. They've had chefs from Mumbai and Paris and weightless RAs. And so I was up in New York for a couple of weeks. Well, before I get to that, it was supposed to be originally an in house dining experience. They have a beautiful space, beautiful restaurant, beautiful team, and because of the pandemic and because of closures in New York city and Cuomo shut down-
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, we have no indoor dining, unlike Savannah.
Mashama Bailey:
No indoor dining. Right. This restaurant is located on 14th street. So there was no way for them to build it outside structure. So we had to pivot, and to their credit, they pivoted in this beautiful way where it's a take home sort of three course meals. So you get a starter, a main side and dessert, and then you also get a little snack for breakfast. So they get like a biscuit and jam and you'll get granola. And so it's really well done. It's like the packaging is amazing. You can heat the food up right in the packaging that it's plated in. There're instructions, there's been videos and stuff like that. So they came down to Savannah, they cooked all the food. We went over the recipes and everything like that. The team is excellent.
Mashama Bailey:
Nicholas Martinez is the executive chef there. And he's worked for every chef you could possibly want to work for in New York City. He's been doing it for 17 years, super talented. And so, because we pivoted this concept, I went up and I looked at the packaging. I did a bunch of videos and stuff like that, tasted the food, altered some recipes, because it's so different. I don't even like catering, right? Catering to me is hard. It's hard to anticipate what the food is going to be 20 minutes after you cook it. And then when you serve it. It's like a calculus problem, I can't put it there.
Kerry Diamond:
I don't know that a lot of civilians realize that chefs don't necessarily love takeout. It's saving a lot of restaurants right now. But when I had my restaurant, the chef, my ex-boyfriend didn't even want to do takeout. We didn't do delivery. It was a whole thing. So now it's that way anymore.
Mashama Bailey:
Exactly, even at the Grey, we don't do takeout at the Grey. We do it now because of the circumstances we're in. And we pick foods that we think will hold well, that will taste it warm, that will taste good cold and you can leave it in the oven and it's okay. You won't judge us too harshly on what comes out. And now it's like... Oh wait, there's a whole concept that's being taken from here to home. So it was about getting things perfect and anticipating some errors, right? Because people are going to get at home. They got to heat it up for 15 minutes and you're at home. The kids are crying. The TV's blasting, the dogs barking, and 15 minutes can turn into 30 minutes and you've got to kind of cross your fingers and hope that what you're giving people will actually resonate an experience for them.
Kerry Diamond:
It's tough for chef to lose that much control over your beautiful dishes. Well, let's talk about the menu, because I know you worked hard on the menu and it's an evolving menu. So each week it changes, right?
Mashama Bailey:
Yeah, absolutely. So each week it changes and they're open from Thursday to Sunday, but they're keeping it kind of low. I think the first week people are getting a book, so that's good too. We can circle back about the book.
Kerry Diamond:
Mashama, can you tell us some highlights for some of the upcoming menus?
Mashama Bailey:
Absolutely. So one of the biggest highlights I think is everyone's going to get to try the collard greens that we do at the Grey. So we smoke them with a little bit of pecan wood and we dowel some in olive oil with a punch of onions and vinegar and a little pepper. So everyone would get a chance to try those, which was one of the dishes that have become signature for us. But definitely we kind of fell into and so funny because I didn't even love collard greens growing up. And this is one of the things that I crave every season. I'm like, yes, I got to get the collards. The frost is on the leaves, it's perfect timing. So that's something that people will be able to enjoy.
Mashama Bailey:
We are doing a devil foods cake, a butterscotch creme, we're doing smoked catfish. We're doing chicken country captain, which is a classic stew from this region, which has curry and chicken stock and tomatoes and peppers and stuff like that. We're doing a rec fish that we put in a food may block and it has some apples in it and some braids leaks. We're doing our leaks with country ham and tome. It's pretty expansive, but it's definitely dishes that have reoccurred at the restaurant. So you can have it at Lexus in a second. You may even come down to Savannah and we'll have it on the menu.
Kerry Diamond:
That's amazing. So when I was reading up on Intersect by Lexus, I came across this interesting thing. Instead of core value of Lexus is the idea of omotenashi, which I'd never heard of before. It's a Japanese term for hospitality or service from the bottom of the heart. And I read that and I was like, oh my gosh, that is the Grey. And I've been really fortunate to visit the Grey, I think at least like three times now. And few restaurants capture service from the bottom of the heart, the way the Grey does. So that must have just resonated with you right away. Can you tell us what that term means to you?
Mashama Bailey:
Absolutely. I think that's the belly of it, right? The part that fuels the fire. We work so hard and it's so interesting being in Savannah, even though it's lovely people, lovely restaurants, lovely food, but you're not in a chef driven city necessarily. So when you're not in a city that's really breeding and growing people in the industry, you start to have this kind of void when you're trying to hire and promote up, it takes a while, right? People come for stints and then they leave but it's hard to get people really cemented into the city because they're not a lot of places that they can go when they're thinking about food cities and in growing their career. So for us, it really is the essence of our culture to really lead with this warmth and create an environment that people can actually be nurtured and grow into.
Mashama Bailey:
We had a staff meeting today, and I use this example about Karate kid because like Cobra Kai's on Netflix and I'm sort of watching that. And I'm like, oh my God, that was one of my favorite movies. But it really is about trusting and believing in the parts of the system that are the toughest, right? Because that really is what starts to add pressure and create diamonds and create really special gyms in your life. These lessons that you learned that you use for the rest of your life, no matter what you do, right? So I think that was definitely a draw for us. Danny Meyer, and his philosophies and setting the table, we read it as a restaurant and book flow.
Kerry Diamond:
That's Danny's famous book on service, right?
Mashama Bailey:
Yes, exactly. So we read that as a restaurant group. And so I think for us, it was the most important part of partnering with them.
Kerry Diamond:
How did it feel to be back in New York?
Mashama Bailey:
Oh, it felt good. It felt weird. It was weird because I was in the meat packing district, right? It's all 14th, and between Washington and Greenwich, the streets were empty. And so I thought it was such a bizarre. I haven't been back to New York really in over a year. And so to see it go from this sort of bustling city to almost quiet, even though there are people in the streets and working and stuff like that, it was still very quiet. So that took a little time for me to get adjusted to. And then also the fact that all the restaurants are shutting down, it's so sad. It really is. There are a lot of places that were not open for takeout or outdoor dining or any of it. And so that was a little bit of a shock for me.
Mashama Bailey:
But once I got over that initial shock of where we are in the world, right? Because I've been in Savannah and it almost feels like there's not a pandemic in Savannah, quite honestly. People are wearing masks, some people aren't wearing masks, but it's like business as usual in Georgia.
Kerry Diamond:
Are restaurants at 100%?
Mashama Bailey:
No, we aren't in 100%, but we are at 50% capacity. And for us, we have partnered with American Express. So we have this yard village.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, you do?
Mashama Bailey:
Yeah. So we have a yard village, which gives us 50 seats.
Kerry Diamond:
Where is the village? Is it in the part like that yard to the side?
Mashama Bailey:
Kerry Diamond:
Oh wow. Okay.
Mashama Bailey:
It's a yard to the side and we were able to put it on platforms and we have a special menu for it. So we're at 50% capacity, even with the yard village, but we're doing a separate menu for that. And we changed our menu structure in the main dining room. So it feels like we're just as busy as we've always been, even though we're not, but it just feels that way. And so to go to New York and kind of see it very quiet, I was aback or whatever the phrase is.
Kerry Diamond:
It's a little heartbreaking.
Mashama Bailey:
It's a little heartbreaking.
Kerry Diamond:
I don't know if everybody listening, realizes just how different every city feels right now. Nobody has the same situation. The dining scenes taken it pretty hard.
Mashama Bailey:
Yes it is. I'm very worried actually. But with that being said, it felt like home. There's this resilience of New Yorkers that I really contra and 25% relate to. And it felt like home. It really felt good to be back. I didn't want to leave as quiet as it was, and seeing people in this distant way and stuff like that and working, it just felt good. It just felt so good to be working in creating and being in the city and walking around and grabbing a salad for dinner. It was nice.
Kerry Diamond:
We have to talk about your book, obviously, because it just came out. But you had been working on that book for a long time. Every time I saw you, you're like... Still writing, or you wouldn't be at a function that I totally thought I would see you at. And I don't know, we text or something, and you're like your mom writing. How long did you work on this book?
Mashama Bailey:
I worked on the book for about two years and I think John worked on it for about a solid year before I even got my hands on it.
Kerry Diamond:
The book is called Black, White and the Grey. And it's not a cookbook.
Mashama Bailey:
Right. So Black, White, and Grey is a memoir about basically the opening of the Grey. And it starts from John's perspective. He sort of lays out the narrative of it, right? He's like, lets everyone know that he was kind of first on the scene. And he's like, okay, I moved to Savannah. My wife and I loved it there. We decided to sort of start to put some roots into this town and we wanted to open up a restaurant, but he didn't know where to start because I think Carol thought he was nuts. Carol is his wife, and she's in the book and she thinks she thought he was nuts. I don't think I know she did. And so he was a little bit going on it on his own, right? And he's like an accountant, right?
Mashama Bailey:
He's an entertainment entrepreneur, and he wants to come Savannah and open up a restaurant in the city that he never lived in before. So it was wild, crazy idea. And so he wanted to tell that story because not only did we have an opportunity to do so, but it just was something that we felt we needed to do. And I think initially it was supposed to be about a restaurant. We had a death in our restaurant family, our general manager was struck down by a vehicle.
Kerry Diamond:
And you were with him?
Mashama Bailey:
And I was with him. Absolutely. It was 4th of July and we were coming from a bar. We were crossing the street together and I turned around because I could hear people telling us not to cross the street, and he took one step forward. And that was the last time I saw him. So we were together. I the breeze of the car and all of it. And so that was a really traumatic time. And I called John right after that happened because I didn't have anyone else to call. So I think from that moment, we had to peel back the layers of what our relationship was going to be. And if we were going to have trust with one another and I realized in that moment that I was going to have to trust this person that I met three years ago, that we had already had a restaurant opened and operating together.
Mashama Bailey:
It's not that I wasn't fully in, I just think that there was a lot of things between our relationship that we weren't discussing. And this book kind of exposes those things. And it's about race, it's about class, it's about gender. It's about living in the South, it's about being New Yorkers. Then it's about cultivating a culture and growing or partnership. So there's a lot of stuff going on. It's very honest. And I think it took me so long to write it because I didn't understand how honest I was going to need to be for it. So I think the first year I was a little dismissive and it was very uncomfortable for me. Then we got some feedback. We sent out galleys, because this was supposed to be out last year. And we sent out sort of sensitivity reads to some people that we respect in the industry, friends and family. And honestly the white demographic of that read thought it was great, right? But John's writing was great, that my writing was good.
Mashama Bailey:
And then I sent it to my dad. I sent it to Gabrielle Hamilton, I sent it to-
Kerry Diamond:
Who you had worked for at Prune.
Mashama Bailey:
Who I worked for at Prune. And they were just like, this is not right. There was lack of transparency. It's from my part, and from John's part, there was a lack of honesty. And I didn't say as much as I needed to say in that book because I was sort of looking at it from, well, this is John's book and I'm just sort of adding to it. And I never took the concept of it. Like this is our book, regardless of how many words I write in this book, this book represents us. And then after those sensitivity reads, I really had to take a hard look at what my level of ownership was going to be in this book.
Mashama Bailey:
And I've never written before. I was taken on water, running the restaurant. I'm there all the time and I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to do anything else, but try to like be successful at this restaurant. And I had to take this book seriously. So we went to Paris, which is not a bad place to write. We went there the beginning of last year, we stayed for about six weeks and we read every single word of the book together twice. And we rewrote and wrote and rewrote, and the structure is still the original structure of it. Meaning John writes the manuscript and I sort of float in and out of the story. And whereas it almost reads as a conversation.
Kerry Diamond:
Were there some conversations you hadn't had in real life that you'd needed to have to make that book work?
Mashama Bailey:
Absolutely. And that was one of the things. So we were in it about four weeks in Paris and it's probably, I've cried twice. John cried about four times. And we're just kind of running through all these different scenarios in the book. And one of the things I said was like, I told him, I blamed him for it. I said, you wrote a book that our relationship wasn't ready for, because we never had those conversations before. We never talked about race. We just assumed like we were-
Kerry Diamond:
Really? You two opened a restaurant in a segregated Greyhound station. And you had never had a conversation about race?
Mashama Bailey:
Well, we had conversations about race, but they've always been on the surface, right? Obviously like, oh, we're opening a restaurant in Savannah. Savannah is 53% black. I want diversity within the space. We've had conversations like that, but really understanding how we felt, like how I felt about white men, how we felt about black folks in general. Having those conversations that friends have and people that you really know where they're coming from, you only have those conversations in your formative years, right? Unless you're an intellectual and you're doing these reads and books and you're surrounding yourself with people who want to have these conversations to enlighten other people are themselves.
Mashama Bailey:
You're not really necessarily across the table talking about like how the death of Ahmaud Arbery makes me feel, or how this up rise in social justice and the killing of George Floyd makes me feel, right? So all these things started to come out. And I think that's the part that we weren't discussing. We weren't discussing the things about race that makes us nervous, or the things about me working with a white man, the parts about that that makes me nervous. Him working with the black woman, the parts about those things that make us nervous because that's what really starts to expose those inherited racial biases.
Kerry Diamond:
I think of you two as such a dynamic duo, but I guess you also have to think just when you're opening a restaurant, it's not like you're spending a lot of time shooting the shit, you're just working constantly, and you're so exhausted when you're the boss and the chef and all of that. So I can understand why you weren't... Let's go grab a beer every night after dinner and talk about these very important subjects. So did these conversations take place in Paris? What was that like?
Mashama Bailey:
I guess to your point, they've always sort of taken place and then you'll see that in the book, how these conversations unfold throughout our relationship. We have been constantly talking about race, right? But to really talk about those formative examples in your life, that molds you as a person, those conversations didn't really happen until we went to Paris.
Kerry Diamond:
How do you feel now that the book is out in the world?
Mashama Bailey:
I feel good. I feel relieved. I'm anxious. I'm curious as what people think. Don't get me wrong, a lot of why I cook is to stroke my ego, right? I felt like I really love being behind the scenes and I felt I was a very quiet child. And so I think that cooking has really helped build my confidence. And I hope that this helps to build my confidence too, or just might knock me down a peg and be like, listen, go back to the drawing board.
Kerry Diamond:
What do you hope people in general take away from the book, but what do you also hope people in the restaurant world take away from the book?
Mashama Bailey:
I think in general, I hope people take away that we're just two folks trying to figure it out. We came together at a very vulnerable time for the both of us. And I think that we nurtured each other in that time. And we grew from that, I think. And so I hope people take that. We're just normal folks trying to have a conversation. And from the restaurant industry, I hope people take away how to communicate with your partnerships, whether it's the line cook next to you, whether it's the front of house manager, whether it's your business partner, I hope they take away like it's okay to kind of be vulnerable and ask for what you want, because there's no harboring of resentment and what's the worst that can happen. If you just sort of like say, well, you know what, this is what I want but you got to be ready to hear what the other person has to say too.
Kerry Diamond:
Now this is not the book that fans of the Grey were expecting. I don't think this is a book that anybody was expecting. I'm sure like myself, we all thought the first book out of the Grey would be a cookbook. Why did you decide to go with this rather than a cookbook?
Mashama Bailey:
So it's really interesting. So David Black, our literary agent, I met him at Southern Foodways Alliance probably in 2015.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, is that when we met? When you did the-
Mashama Bailey:
When I did the lunch.
Kerry Diamond:
Yes. Yeah.
Mashama Bailey:
So we met that year. I thought he was low key aggressive, he was just like... If you know David Black, he's a very sincere, lovely man. He's a little bit of a close talker. He's kind of wears his heart on his sleeve. And when you are in a room full of people that you admire, and you're trying to create a lunch that someone sort of commissioned you to do, and you're like, I really just hope that my rice isn't over cooked or...
Kerry Diamond:
There're big pressure on those lunches.
Mashama Bailey:
There're big pressures on those lunches, because they're food writers. It's like, who's who of Southern cooking is in that room. So here's David Black trying to convince me that I should do a cookbook while I'm freaking out about whether or not my sauce is going to break in my oyster hand pie. So I'm like... You got my email address and he emailed me the day after. And I just came back from the trip and I was downloading to John. And I said, listen, this guy is nuts. And I just think that he wants me to do something and I don't think I'm ready to do a cookbook. We're just like, whatever. So that was the original thought that we were going to do a cookbook.
Mashama Bailey:
Then John goes to New York City and he tells David Black. He's like, listen, Mashama's not going to do a cookbook, but I want to write a book. And that's basically how it happened. And I'm paraphrasing obviously, but definitely like John went to defend my honor with David Black and tell him to back off and he comes back down. He goes, oh my God, this guy is great. Guess what?
Kerry Diamond:
That's so funny. Well, the good news for your fans is the book is a memoir with recipes. You really had to edit down your recipes. There are only a handful in the book, so they're all meaningful to you, but can you tell us two that really stand out?
Mashama Bailey:
Oh yeah, absolutely. So I'll tell you one for me and I'll tell you one for John. So for me, one that really stands out is carrots and harissa. One of the biggest struggles with coming to a different city, one of in struggles I've found coming to Savannah is that you really have to figure out your network, right? So if you don't have any connections in the city before you get there, you got to talk to people, meet people. And we had this wonderful farm called Walker Farms and she had these beautiful carrots. So every season, well, the first she was open for about two years. So by the second year, she would have these beautiful rainbow carrots with stems and everything that we tried to figure out how to use them. And with this utmost integrity. And I think that that dish was one of the dishes.
Mashama Bailey:
It was just a very simple carrot, sort of started dish roasted. We took the tops man, self Verde out of it and use Teresa, which was one of the sauces that I started to use when I moved to Savannah. I never really used Teresa in New York city. And we tried to pull all the things that the regional style cream or whatever, but it was one of those early celebrated dishes by people that were like, oh, this is good. You can get good food here. And I really liked that dish a lot. We haven't done it a long time, but it's one of my favorites. Another recipe, and it will take you all day long to make it, but I think once you make it, you will be really satisfied and you can eat for two weeks.
Mashama Bailey:
There's the Sunday gravy recipe. And that's very special with John because I think that really is the foundation of how he came to food and why he loves all parts of the industry. So his grandmother's recipe and it's about 55 different cuts of meat, but it's a really beautiful story behind it too.
Kerry Diamond:
Did you tweak it at all?
Mashama Bailey:
Tweaked it a little bit, but I don't think too much. It's like we did the audio book, John and I read the audio book.
Kerry Diamond:
You did? That's so cool.
Mashama Bailey:
Yeah, but he read this recipe and I was looking at my watch. It was so long. I was like, okay. Okay. Okay. So it's definitely when you got to plan around, but I think once you make it... He's made it a couple of times and it's delicious.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, that's fun. All right. I wanted to ask, how was your team doing? You said that it's very different Savannah compared to New York, but I was just curious how you're keeping their spirits up and how they're doing.
Mashama Bailey:
I think they're doing pretty good. We had a staff meeting today, so I was in New York for about two weeks. I just got back. I got back on Sunday and we're closed until tomorrow. So I haven't really seen the team. And we had a staff meeting today and they seem excited. They seem pretty in tuned. We're hiring. So that's important for us because I am going to start to move away from the daily operations of the kitchen and move into more of an executive role, which I haven't done yet. Really, I've been sort of cooking and mopping floors and doing interviews and stuff like that. But I haven't actually been able to like look up and see like the bigger picture. So hopefully this year I'll be able to do that a little bit more focused.
Kerry Diamond:
Wait, you slipped in there that you're still mopping floors. I caught that.
Mashama Bailey:
I am still mopping floors. It's nice though. I'll grab a broom and then someone else would grab it out of my hand. So that's good, where a few years ago they would just step over the [inaudible 00:29:57] weaving up. So that's pretty cool. I'm moving up in a while.
Kerry Diamond:
How do you feel about taking on that role and being in the kitchen less?
Mashama Bailey:
Oh, it's scary. I don't know if it's going to improve my cooking or if I'm going to get rusty. It's felt funny when we reopened, I felt like I was on roller skates, right? You know how the feeling, how you run on a treadmill and then you get off and you're a little sort of, you got to kind of your barrier.
Kerry Diamond:
You're woozy.
Mashama Bailey:
Well, I felt very woozy in the kitchen. And when I used to be able to move around with such efficiency, I was kind of in there wasting steps in time a little bit. So it scares the shit out of me that I'm not going to be cooking, but I'm hoping that there's a greater good that comes out of it.
Mashama Bailey:
It's hard for me to work every day, all day and still make time to be creative. And I'm noticing that I need to make space to create. And I'm hoping that this will allow me to create some of that space because I just think that when I'm working all the time, the anxiety is around finishing these tasks and not around creating something a little bit more tangible for the team. And so I'm hoping that it opens up some space for me to kind of improve, but I know I'm going to get rusty and I'm scared of that.
Kerry Diamond:
Are you still planning on opening additional restaurants? I feel like the last time we talked to you at a project in Austin?
Mashama Bailey:
So that's still happening. And that's a lot of the reason why I think I need to staff up the team and just kind of hand over the reins a little tiny bit more. And so in order for me to make space for Austin, because that's coming up real quick, it's going to be-
Kerry Diamond:
Can you tell us about that project?
Mashama Bailey:
Absolutely. So we're teaming up with the Thompson Hotel Group going to be in the off of the lobby of the hotel. So we have the Grey market that's going to be in Austin. And we also have a larger version of our diner bar. So at the Grey, there are two essential eating spaces, the front bar, which was originally a 24 hour diner in the Greyhound bus station. We've kind of created a little bit of a cocktail bar/ snack thing.
Mashama Bailey:
And it's been from like sandwiches and security. And now you can actually get some of those earlier dishes from the Grey in there. So it's a little bit more of a complete concept. And that's what we're going to do with the Grey Diner Bar in Austin, is create more of a cohesive dining experience. And then the market is our concept of like bodega-meets-lunch counter.
Kerry Diamond:
Grey market's the best.
Mashama Bailey:
Yeah. So we're excited about that. So yes, we started all over again. Then in a couple of months, we do the same thing. We go to another city and started all over again.
Kerry Diamond:
Are you excited to learn all about a new city?
Mashama Bailey:
Totally, and Austin looks amazing. I've only been there once. I'm excited to see what we can do there.
Kerry Diamond:
All right. We've a few more minutes. Is that cookbook and the works? Will we ever see a Grey cookbook?
Mashama Bailey:
Well, yes. Yes, but I don't know when.
Kerry Diamond:
You're like leave me alone. I just finished a book.
Mashama Bailey:
Oh leave me alone. I don't know when. It's funny because David Black still wants me to write a cookbook. He just brought it up the other day. I kid you not, he's like, I just want to point out, so he's doing his job. So I'm sure there's definitely conversations surrounding that idea.
Kerry Diamond:
And then I have to ask because today's the inauguration. As soon as we finish this interview, we're going to go watch the speeches. How do you feel about what's going on right now and the fact that Kamala Harris will be in the White House and it's a brand new day.
Mashama Bailey:
Oh, I feel energized honestly. I feel so good about being in Georgia right now. Georgia has really done a lot for the country.
Kerry Diamond:
For the world.
Mashama Bailey:
Yeah, exactly. I'm so excited to be in this state and I'm so excited to have been here for a few years and see the evolution of a lot of neighborhoods that are just even right outside of the historic district, where the Grey's located. It's just a really monumental time. And I think that way more people are paying attention, which it's very exciting.
Kerry Diamond:
Absolutely. Well, thank you. On behalf of the planet, to the people of Georgia, how remarkable. Do you feel a different energy in Georgia?
Mashama Bailey:
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I think it's all the liberals are coming out of hiding. I think.
Kerry Diamond:
You're funny. Well, Mashama, it's so nice to see you and talk to you and you know the Grey is one of my favorite restaurants ever. You just built such an incredibly special thing. You and John and the food is amazing. Your team is amazing and thank you for everything you've done.
Mashama Bailey:
So appreciate your... You guys are constant. You're constantly in our corner and we really appreciate you and thank you so much. You wouldn't have it any other way.
Kerry Diamond:
Thanks Mashama. I can't wait to come back and see you and now we're going to have an Austin restaurants, go and visit. I'm so excited. All right. Give John my love and the rest of your team, okay?
That’s it for today’s episode. Thank you so much to Chef Mashama Bailey for joining me last year. You can pick up a copy of Mashama’s book, Black, White, and The Grey from your favorite local bookstore. And hey, if you find yourself in Savannah, be sure to visit The Grey or The Grey Market. Two of my favorite places in one of my favorite cities.
If you liked this episode be sure to subscribe to our show. You can catch past episodes with other great chefs like Angie Mar, Ruth Rogers, and Sohui Kim. Thank you to Kerrygold for supporting this episode. Thank you to our assistant producer Jenna Sadhu. And thank you for listening. You’re the Bombe.