Caribbean Flavors with a Paleo Twist: Althea Brown’s Culinary Journey from Guyana to the US

Chris Spear: 0:00

One of the things I really love about this show is the opportunity to talk to people that I can learn from. Today's guest is Althea brown who's from Guyana. It's a country that's located in South America bordered by Brazil and Venezuela. But the people there identify as Caribbean. Maybe you knew this, but I didn't. And that's just one of the many things you'll learn on this week's show. This is Chris spear and you're listening to Chefs Without Restaurants, the show where I speak with culinary entrepreneurs and people working in the food and beverage industry outside of a traditional restaurant setting. I have 31 years of working in kitchens but not restaurants and currently operate a personal chef business throwing dinner parties in the Washington DC area. After moving from Guyana to the United States, Althea started a blog called met mg where she shares traditional Guyanese recipes. The blog has been going strong now for more than 10 years. During that time due to health reasons, Althea started on a whole 30 diet, and now currently follows a paleo diet. If you don't know anything about a paleo diet, we'll get into that on the show. But this episode isn't really about diets, and you don't have to be paleo to enjoy her recipes. In fact, one of the things I found interesting is that Althea has both traditional recipes and paleo remixes on her website, and in her new book, Caribbean paleo, we dive into the blogging best practices that Althea swears by from SEO strategies to engage in content to gain insights into her approach to taking and sometimes ignoring blogging advice to stay true to her vision while navigating the digital space. Althea also shares tips for aspiring food bloggers on how to find their unique voice, create compelling content, and make an impact in the crowded food blogging landscape. And as always, I'll link to all of her info in the show notes, you'll be able to find her really fantastic YouTube page, as well as her book and all of her social media accounts. I hope you enjoy this week's episode, and the show will be coming up after a word from this week's sponsor. Are you a personal chef looking for support and growth opportunities? Look no further than the United States personal chef association. With 1000 members across the US and Canada. USPCA provides liability insurance certification lead generation and more. Consumers can trust that their meal experience is insured and supported by USPCA. Plus, Higher a Chef subscriptions are available to list your personal chef business at higher chef.com. To learn more about membership advertising or partnership opportunities, call Angela at 1-800-995-2138. Extension 705 or email aprather@uspca.com. So we just started talking so now you were born and raised in Guyana.

Althea Brown: 2:46

Yes, I was born and raised in Georgetown, Guyana. I've now lived in the US longer than I lived in Guyana, which sometimes is mind blowing. But also like, wow, you know, America has become my home. But Guyana will also just always be my home. As a guy, nice person. I also identify as a Caribbean person. Sometimes that's a little bit tricky, because Guyana is in South America. And people are always like, what come again,

Chris Spear: 3:13

I was I was wondering that. So it's on. It's in South America, it borders the Atlantic Ocean. And so it's not technically Caribbean. But there seems to be this overflow and you have a book that we're obviously going to get into called Caribbean. Paleo. Right. So but but I don't think of it as a Caribbean country. So can Yeah, I'd love to hear a little bit about that how you come to kind of identify with the Caribbean culture.

Althea Brown: 3:38

Yeah, so Guyana, geographically is on South America. So you're right. We are right on the northern coast. We're right above Brazil, we have Venezuela as our neighbor, and then we have Suriname as our other neighbor. But historically, and culturally, we've always identified as Caribbean people, because we have a history of British colonization, which meant that we were more connected to the British colonies in the Caribbean than we were to our South American neighbors. And so the things that we eat look very similar to other English speaking British colonies or former British colonies. So like Trinidad and Jamaica, Barbados, all of our foods have similar ties, also, because of the way the British moved people through their colonies.

Chris Spear: 4:31

Are there any other countries that you know of in South America that are like that? Because I, I'm sure a lot of people, myself included, kind of lumped them together. Like if you had a dish, you could identify and say, Oh, that's South American. But if I were to try your food, I would not guess that it would be from South America. So are there any other countries that you see who have a similar tie to the Caribbean?

Althea Brown: 4:50

There are other countries that are like that. There is Suriname, which is our neighbor to the right of us. If you look at a map, and they also had a little bit of British colonization, but So we're colonized by the Dutch. And so during that time of like plantation agriculture and the sugarcane boom, and, you know, slavery and needing to, like, fill your sugar estate with labor, they have a similar kind of history. So they have Africans that were coming there from enslaved Africans that were brought there. They have Indians that came to work, they have some Chinese, and that shaped what their food and what their culture looks like. So if you meet someone for Suriname, they'll say that they're Dutch. But they'll also say that we're Caribbean, which will be wild for people because they're like, well, which part of the Caribbean are you from? You know, and then you're like, Well, I'm on this lineman on South America, but our culture is very Caribbean.

Chris Spear: 5:45

I love this stuff. One of the things I love about the podcast is just learning because, you know, I think you stop learning things like this, once you get out of traditional school, I look at the stuff my kids are learning right now. And it's a good reminder for me, I'm like, Oh, I didn't either know that or remember that. And I think as adults, we start to think about the things in our wheelhouse, you know, whether that's food or business, and, you know, you get to be my age of 47. And I didn't even realize there was a country in South America that was, you know, Caribbean. So I think that's interesting. And your husband is from there as well. Now, did you know each other there, or did you make connections here in the US?

Althea Brown: 6:22

Yeah. So my husband and I actually went to high school together. We weren't highschool sweethearts, I always have to say this, because we were like, oh, high school sweetheart. So cute. We could do exactly what we reconnected once we found ourselves in the US. And we've been together for a long time. And I love that my husband is from Guyana, because I'm so into the food and the culture. And I think I would be even if he wasn't, but to be able to share things and have him say, Oh, my God, this was also part of my childhood. And some things that I share that were part of my childhood are not part of his childhood. So that's also while he's like, yeah, no, I've never had that dish. And then to like, talk about, like, how my mom made it and why she made it. And we grew up in different parts of Grands. So I grew up in Georgetown, which is a capital city, and he grew up in Wales, which is in the country. So across the Demerara River and a little farther out. And so he had a more like rural country life. And I had this like semi urban, not quite city, but like a suburb of the city life. And so kind of different worlds same place. But just different experiences. Is

Chris Spear: 7:34

he is into the traditional foods and cooking as you or is he just like I just want a hamburger and a salad.

Althea Brown: 7:41

Now he is like super into traditional food. And it's also why I started my blog. After I got married. I had lived in New York, when I first came to the US lived in New York, lived home and went to school in New York, always had my mom's cooking always had a cook shop to go to if I felt like eating anything that was remotely Guyanese or Caribbean. And then I got married and moved to Denver. And suddenly I was like, I don't like I can't, I have to make everything I want. Also, not only do I have to make everything I want, I can't find the ingredients. I can't like just go into supermarket and find like some Dainese spice blend that my mom always uses and suddenly found myself calling my mom and saying, Well, I have a craving for this. How how can I make this or saying my husband's name is Shawn and saying, Shawn was just asking me if I knew how to make this. How can I make this for him? And like going through it on the phone, my mom and you know, Caribbean moms, ethnic moms aren't gonna measure anything, right? Like they're not measuring a thing. And so the first couple of tries of my mom walking me through something on the phone, it's like a pinch of this opinion that you'll know when it's ready, like But how, like, what am I looking for? Oh, you will just know, you've seen me do it many times, you'll just know, right? And I was like, I don't know. And a pinch not gonna work.

Chris Spear: 9:10

Yeah, it's hard. It's hard when one you have that, but then they're not there to try it with you or cook it with you. It's like I love Ethiopian food. And I'll read a recipe online. And it sounds so basic, like this recipe is just like saute onions and peppers and add the beef. I'm like I've eaten this 100 times. There's no way it's just, you know, like that. So I have a friend who's a chef and Ethiopian restaurant. And I asked him, he said, well, like, well, we carmelize the onions for like, almost seven hours. I'm like, Okay, well, like that's the thing. They're right. But they're not telling you to do that at home because are people necessarily going to do that. But those are the things where it's like okay, now I can kind of see where some of these things are coming out or it's like, oh, well we add this spice but it's not available in most grocery stores. So recipes just omitted like those things that you know, you kind of want to Pull on and figure out what they're doing.

Althea Brown: 10:03

Yeah, exactly. And so I remember like the first recipe I posted was actually something I made for my husband and it was baked custard, which there are tons of big custom recipes, but somehow because there has a chokehold on Guyanese people, and so they like make it any random time my husband's like, just like an egg custard like a traditional egg custard going out for brunch in America, like Southern baked custard like classic. And I didn't know how to make it. And I didn't think to like, look it up on it. And I just called my mom, because she makes it all the time. So I said, How do I make this and she's like, walking me through it. And I was like, Well, that seems simple enough. And then I went to make it. And I didn't actually put it in a water bath. Like I just put it in the oven and baked. Okay, they come out that crate. So I said, like, Mom, something's missing leg is missing. And she's like, oh, yeah, you know, you have to put it on about and bake it. And I was like, Wait, will you tell me that you know. And so I started writing these things down and like really tweaking whatever she said, and making it how she made it. And when I finally made it, and it tasted exactly the way she made it, I shared it with my friends. And they were like, wow, this is like the best vape custard I've ever tried. It's a basic, simple recipe, but somehow whatever my mom was doing was really great. And they were like, get more recipes from your mom and write it. Tell us. So I started doing actual Guyanese recipes. Now like hardcore Guyanese recipes, like her roti, her curries, how do you make this and writing it down. And once I nailed it, and it tasted exactly like hers, I shared it with friends. And that's how my blog started. What

Chris Spear: 11:35

year was that with

Althea Brown: 11:36

the blog. So that was in 2013, I was just like, newly married, just had a baby. And really like, wanting to nail these foods and flavors so that when I'm sharing it for my family, it's really the same experience that I would have when I'm eating it from my mom.

Chris Spear: 11:52

That's a long time to be blogging. I mean, I'm similarly I'm thinking about I was probably about the same time and I don't consistently blog anymore. But before my personal chef business was a business, it was a blog. And it was just kind of like, some of it was hardcore recipes. Some of it was you know, stream of thoughts, just like ideas that I wanted to put out there. And it was more for culinary Ian's or people who wanted to cook. And now it's just a component of my business website. And I've been thinking about how much I want to get back into doing it, because it's a lot. It's really funny. I'm sure you have a relationship with your, you know, readers, but people will still email me things. And I had a recipe that didn't quite work. And it was I talked about, like how it didn't work. And I think it was like 14 years ago, and someone last week commented and wanted to know if I tried this other thing. I'm like, dude, like that was 14 years ago. I wanted to make a graham cracker flavored waffle. And I just couldn't get it. And I put what I had done, and it just didn't work out. And this guy was like, Oh, but I came on the internet looking for a recipe for that. Can't you help me out here? I'm like, I'm sorry. Like, that was 14 years ago, like I gave up on this. But it was just funny that people are still finding those old posts and even going so far as to comment on them.

Althea Brown: 13:03

Yeah. And I think like when blogs, like in 2013, that's what blogs were like you like food blogs were all about you trying different things, experimenting, giving credit and saying like, Hey, I found this recipe, but I tweak these kinds of things. But you know, go read with this person said about it. And that's how my recipes were written. Like, some of them were like, Hey, there's this recipe in this classic Guyanese cookbook. When I tried to make it filled a couple of times, I realized that it's missing a couple steps. I've inserted the steps based on what I did. It comes out perfect. Now you guys try it, people try it. And they would be like, blown away. And then I started making video. And the first video I made was with my iPad, like, just with my iPad, no sound because my baby was like crying in the background the whole time, and dislike caption and it had like a million views. And a million views back then was like, holy shit. Like I have a million views. That's crazy, right? And so I think that's how it started. My blog is very different now. There's less storytelling in the actual roadmap and more like, a little bit of history, the steps, why do the steps I've tested that kind of stuff? And I think, because Google and the algorithm requires these things. And quite honestly, sometimes it's so boring, right? It's the same pattern for all of the recipes, and you have to resign. It's, it's missing all of that, like trial and error thing, because also nobody wants to say that, like I failed when I made this recipe like No, it's the most perfect recipe you've ever tried, like, try mine. And sometimes I struggled with that too, because I started in a place where I was like, here's a fail so even on my social media every once in a while I'll be like, and here's a fail that I had this week and people will be like blown away that oh my god you shared a fail like yes, because we all

Chris Spear: 14:52

I don't know if you've ever seen ideas and food or know anything about them and they were the ones who inspired me to blog and they've it's probably almost like 20 years, but their their blog posts are sometimes two lines like now it's all about SEO and optimizing for headings and subheadings, and anchor text and all this. And I just loved that it was basically like their culinary journal that they shared with the world, and would just say, today, I thought about what would happen if I marinated chicken in, you know, yogurt, and like that was it or what, or whatever. And that was the post, and the comments section would kind of go on and people would interact, and then they'd share that idea on Twitter. And like 20, people would engage. And I love that. And now it's this very sterile, like, how do we interact with AI, like, let me write this thing and put it in the AI. And it'll optimize for all these things. And then you just read these things that all sound the same, it's all in the same voice. And it's all formatted the same way. And I don't mind good storytelling, you know, there's the whole conversation about like, just jump to the recipe, I don't need to hear your story. But I think that's because so many of the stories are boring, like you read them, you know, you're sharing a recipe for a margarita, which in my opinion is, you know, three ingredients that was made a long time ago, you didn't do anything new. But now, you know, you took money from the tequila company, so you have to do something. So you write this, like 800 word dissertation on a margarita that nobody needs, because you're not adding anything new to the conversation. And if you're not adding anything new to the conversation, in my opinion, it's just noise. But if you have a distinct point of view, if you have a great writing style, then I love that when I get to a website, but you know, it's it's kind of where we're at with social media and blogging and everything today. Yeah,

Althea Brown: 16:33

no, you're you're preaching to the choir. And this is exactly how I feel. I feel like for a long time, my blog, I always said like, I don't care about SEO, I just want to tell the story. I just want to put this stuff out, right. And my blog was a hobby. And so you know, I had this corporate job, my blog was a hobby. I didn't need to make money, I was just doing my thing. And so I kept doing that. And in 2019, so from 2013 to 2019. I'm just blogging whenever I feel like I have an interesting recipe to share, right? Like I made something Oh, wow, actually tweak, something came on amazing. I'm gonna share that with you guys hair, you know, here's the story, whatever. And I would share the whole blog and email and people would read it and then go to my website for the thing. And then in 2019, I had my third kid, I'm home again, I'm thinking I don't want to go back to work. And I have this blog, it gets good traffic on the once a month post that I do, how can I make this into more and be consistent, and then I start learning, SEO and all that stuff. And at first it was against my being right? to like have these pre set headers and kind of go in and plug things in there. And like every post, you have to say what the ingredients are and why you want to use these ingredients above law. And I realized, though, that in order to play the game, like these are the rules, right? And so kind of fallen into that. But I was also adamant that I do want to keep why this recipe is important to me because it is coming. It's a recipe for my grandmother or my mother, or like something that I tried. It's not something I'm pulling off of the internet, and tweaking two things and calling it my own. Like, these are recipes I'm calling my aunt for. And she's walking me through it. And then I'm trying to measure these things and get it right, you know, and I want that in there. So I started putting, but then I get comments like you're saying like people are like, Well, I didn't want to hear that that was a whole lot of unnecessary information. And by the way, there is a jump to recipe at the top of the page. So help yourself to that, you know, so it's just it's very challenging. But what I do love is for social media in my stories, I still get to do that. I've built a community, I still get to share what my day to day experiments look like, I still get to say, I tried this dish today it failed. Stay tuned to see if it actually makes it on the blog, or what it looks like, what am I doing wrong? And occasionally I'll try other bloggers stuff like something that goes viral and like, I tried this viral two ingredient cake. Here's what happened, it flopped. It doesn't work. But maybe I'm doing something wrong. You guys telling me and those conversations I really, really love.

Chris Spear: 19:15

And you have a pretty good following number wise on social media. How and when did that happen? Was it like a slow build? Because you had followers on the blog? Did you have some content that went viral? Like, you know, we have a lot of listeners to the show who are in the content creation space. So do you have? I don't know, I don't wanna say any tips. But like, what was your experience with that and how you attracted people? Yeah,

Althea Brown: 19:39

it was very slow and steady. In fact, sometimes I look at my numbers and I'm like, I should have more like I do so much as everyone feels. And then you know, Comparison is the thief of joy. And so you look at some people and you're like they just started and they blew up and you've been at this for a while. But I think what I love About my following is that like I said, I built a community. These are people for the most part that had show up for me all the time. No me. They're in stories I get a lot of I get very high story views, which I'm grateful for, and interaction, and I tried my best to interact with people and answer the questions and keep that going. And I think when I started saying that I'm gonna be like a full time blogger, I'm gonna take this seriously, in 2019, I only had 3000 followers on Instagram, I had no like Tiktok presence and my YouTube, my YouTube was okay, it was like 10,000 followers and making decent money. So it was feeling really good. And I decided to like put my effort into short form and like really build up my Instagram, I do have quite a few things that go viral. Anytime I do any roti recipe, it just goes viral. People love flour, they love anything that's flour and butter. Okay? Unfortunately, that's I can't do my whole five for one that and starting to build up like the Paleo part of it, the gluten free part of it and showing people that, yes, I do love to talk about a lot of traditional Guyanese food, and what that look like. But personally in my life, I actually can't even eat half the things I'm making, I'm making it for my family. So also sharing that side and kind of building it up and very, very slowly from 2019. From 3000. to Now it's grown to about 120 on Instagram. And so that feels really good. And the engagement feels like it's at the right point. And like, I've only had like one post I made that was completely out of the normal that kind of died on Instagram. And I was like, oh, no, what's happening here, but again, it was like a day in the life. Nobody wants to see that for me. Apparently, it's just did it. But for the most part recipes do really well, I'm doing a whole porridge, a series on porridge and different types of porridge. And it's doing really well right now. So it's

Chris Spear: 22:02

so hard because everyone talks about the algorithm and what works. And right now, you know, on threads, a lot of people are griping that the engagement is down and the views are down. And so many people are getting in this trap where they're just you know, like trying to create something to fit what they think, you know, some computer algorithm wants to show people and then you're just you know, then you stop doing what made you special or the things you love, and you're trying to chase the very fleeting thing, which I think they do intentionally, right, like, they want you to keep coming back, they want you to keep trying. And I don't think it necessarily benefits us that doesn't benefit us. Obviously, if you have a large following, you can get some great, you know, business prospects or make some great connections. So, you know, it's something I'm trying to find a balance with, especially as we're early on in 2020. For like, what my relationship with social media and the internet looks like this year. You touched you touched on diet, and I don't want to get in the weeds because diet is a whole thing. It's almost like religion. Right? So you've gone through the whole, I was gonna say the whole the whole 30 program, and ultimately, are doing a paleo diet. In fact, your new cookbook is Caribbean paleo. I guess maybe as a starting point, can you give a very brief overview of what paleo is for those who have maybe heard the term but don't know kind of what the main tenets are of a paleo diet?

Althea Brown: 23:26

Yeah, so the main so the Paleo diet is really trying to get you back to a Whole Foods, lifestyle, right. So less convenience, food, processed food, and more like whole vegetables, whole protein sources, nuts, and really the things that support good gut health and just a good wholesome lifestyle, right. And those sorts of principles. There are also some things that are highly inflammatory, that have been proven proven to cause major illness illnesses aren't right is some of the cancers, acid reflux, all those kinds of things, that they're basically saying, like stay away from these things because they've known to be counter to what we're trying to promote. So in pure layman's term, what I look at as for my paleo lifestyle is just choosing whole foods. So choosing to load my plate up with vegetables and protein, and some nuts, maybe some fats like avocados or coconut oil, or even if you want to make yourself some mayo or some ranch dressing, to eat with your food, that's where you're, that's how your plates gonna look. And then you kind of stay away from highly processed things and things that cause inflammation, so gluten and grains and processed sugars, and like legumes have been known to be wildly inflammatory, and so really just staying away from those things in your diet. So I always say that I'm paleo ish. Because it's so hard to like have an all or nothing lifestyle. I don't eat gluten because it actually makes me sick. And so for that one thing, like I'm all or like nothing all or nothing for that, because it makes me sick. Although, sometimes if my mom comes over and she makes something, I'll take a little bite and deal with the consequences. Do not recommend, but that's my life.

Chris Spear: 25:24

And sometimes you just have to go for those things. Sometimes,

Althea Brown: 25:28

the aroma and the like memories, and you're like, I just want a little taste of it. And so, you know, I have a little taste. Ideally, I do that less now because I've remixed a lot of the things that she makes to be gluten free. So I don't even I'm like, Yeah, I can just go make my own gluten free version of that. And I feel like gluten free has come so far. And gluten free flours and well, yeah.

Chris Spear: 25:51

I love you know, like the King Arthur Flour chocolate brownie mix. Like, I almost prefer those to regular if I'm not making my own, you know, because I cook for people. I do dinner parties as a personal chef. And one of the nice things and one of the reasons people hire me is because I can accommodate any diet, right? Because you're not going to a restaurant, I'm just cooking for you and your friends tonight. But that being said, I could have a party of 10 where it's 10, nine people who eat everything in one person's gluten free and then I just have to decide, like, is everyone eating gluten free? Or do I do one or two portions. But when you get to something like a brownie for dessert, it's just easier for everyone to have the same. And I let everyone know like, these are delicious. Like they're, they're gluten free. And they're amazing. And just being able to buy like the cup for cup or whatever, keeping the gluten free. Like I used to make my own. And I still think sometimes there's a benefit to making your own. But it's also really easy to just buy like a good yes, you know, gluten free flour, blend. That's an all purpose keeping the kids and it's so

Althea Brown: 26:50

accessible and helps you and it helps you. What I love about that is it helps me to still participate in my cultural foods without feeling like, well, I can't eat that anymore. And I have to just have this boring diet or I have to like just eat this way and miss out on those experiences and participate in a part of my culture that's so important to me, you know. And so, for paleo was the same thing. That's kind of how we ended up with Caribbean paleo. While I was on this paleo journey and being like exclusively paleo, I started tweaking things that were like part of my everyday meals to make them paleo. Well, rice is a big part of the Caribbean diet, and you're gonna tell me for the rest of my life, I can't eat rice. Well, that's not gonna work for me. So I have to figure out like, what's gonna be really good substitute. And at first people will be like, try cauliflower rice, and I tried to like this is terrible, like, it tastes like wishy cut flour. And then I started experimented on ways to toasted ways to roast the cauliflower first, then puree it in Milan. And then Paul said, Maybe add some coconut milk and make a coconut cauliflower rice, using all the principles I knew from traditional cooking and transferring it into these new ingredients, seemingly new ingredients and transforming them in a different way. And I gotta tell you, like a win for me was when I made this like cauliflower cukup rice cooker price is a one pot rice dish that we make in Guyana with coconut milk, and peas and all these other things, right. And I made it for my dad, but I use cauliflower rice and he had no idea. No idea. He was like the rice is kind of different, right? Like what kind of rice you use, but ate it up and had no idea and my dad's such a critic, right? Like older folks, they will not give it not give you a pass out. All right.

Chris Spear: 28:39

I used to cook in a retirement community for like 750 people. So that was like three meals a day, seven days a week just taking a beating that it wasn't how their wife, mother, whoever made it for them. So yeah, to your point is

Althea Brown: 28:53

this, you know, and so like that, when my when that happened, I was like, okay, yes, I feel good. I'm on the right path. I feel confident enough to share this with other people. Because that's the other thing too. Like, I didn't want Caribbean people to feel like I was bastardizing our cultural food and a saying that was unhealthy and needed to be tweaked. And be then using all these things that maybe they don't even have access to. So I was very cautious about what that looks like for these recipes and how I did it. And actually, a lot of the recipes in the book are actually hardcore Caribbean traditional recipes that I didn't have to tweak I just didn't include recipes that were like rice and peas, you know all the vegetables. Exactly the way my mom makes it. The stews exactly the way my mom makes it, you know, the only thing was like in the dessert section. Those things I actually tweaked because I use like coconut sugar, maple syrup, honey, and an alternative flowers but for the most part, unless I'm swapping out rice for cauliflower rice. The recipes are legit traditional recipes has made authentic flavors, what

Chris Spear: 30:01

I thought was interesting in the book, you have a recipe and it talks about in the heading about using frozen cauliflower rice, because in your opinion, they use more stock. So you have more of the textural as opposed to the motion. I thought that was great because I'm someone who goes back and forth of like, do I just buy a bag of frozen cauliflower rice? Or do I blitz it in the food processor, and I've done both mostly based on you know, time and convenience. And, and price. I mean, like a whole head of cauliflower sometimes 350. And a bag is like$1.29. It's like, oh, this is less expensive. It's already done for me. When

Althea Brown: 30:36

people go on a whole food journey, and they're choosing healthy things, like a frozen item feels like counter right? You're like, ah, but maybe I should get the organic, fresh cauliflower and go through this process. Because now I'm going to like really be in the kitchen all the time. You know, in 2016 When I first tried cauliflower rice, I tried it with a whole cauliflower. And it was just so mushy because you get all the florets, and not part really has a lot of water. And then it gets really soggy. And I couldn't get behind it. And then I was in a supermarket. I saw a frozen one. I was like, I'm going to try this. I remember blogging about this, I really said like, why is this so much better? Why is this so crunchy and like the texture of it's so much better. And someone I shared this on a in a Facebook group and someone said, I work for a processing plant. And I'm going to tell you first we chop off the florets. And we put those in a bag. And then we take the stock and we put those in the like grinder. And that's the cauliflower rice. And I was like blown away. And I was like oh my god, this makes so much sense to me texturally like what I was feeling in my mouth. And how I was experiences this makes so much sense. I always say that. Or if you cook cauliflower often, if you like roasted up, roast your florets, save your stock and make the rice out of that.

Chris Spear: 31:56

Also, I tell people like the greens are totally edible too. And you watch most people and they peel the greens and they go in the trash and they cut off the thick woody stock thrown in the trash. And then they cut off all the florets. And then they throw the gnarly stock in the compost. And I'm always trying to share recipes of what to do with the stock I like to slice it then on a mandolin and pickle it and there's some cool things you can do. But I do love the idea of just reserving that and doing the cauliflower rice. This

Althea Brown: 32:25

stuff like makes me go crazy in my like my heads like oh my god, this is so great. Um, but I love it. And there's so many good ways to use up all that stuff. Even with broccoli, right? You can make your own broccoli rice and do the same thing. But that's awesome. Going

Chris Spear: 32:39

back to kind of like diets, people sometimes get really preachy, and they expect everyone to be doing it. And you know, your your website is not if you go to your website, you have recipes that have traditional rice and your YouTube videos and things that are not paleo Have you from content airco perspective, have you thought about that, like you know, because always talking about niching down and finding your specialty and I'm sure if you had someone giving you business advice, they'd say, Well, now you're the Paleo person, get rid of everything off your website, scrub it, that's not paleo, and that you should go super niche and that have you thought about that, or you know where you are with that continuing to share traditional recipes, or I guess non paleo versus paleo.

Althea Brown: 33:25

I've definitely gotten that advice. As soon as things started to take off, people were like, that's your niche. That's where you need to be, you need to do a lot of that I used to share a lot of whole 30 recipes. And they will do really well. I've created some amazing content for an actual whole 30 group. And they do always go viral and do really well well. And I created another Instagram page called wholesome Caribbean where I only share paleo and gluten free things. And I was like, I'll separate the noise and like half that over there for other people. But I realized that people actually love the traditional stories. I think the traditional stories validate what I do with the paleo and gluten free world, right? I'm not this just random person who is going and looking up recipes for Caribbean food and then transforming it into paleo and gluten free without having any context or background. I am a Caribbean person, who if I could would eat straight up Caribbean food. And so I'm not preaching to you and telling you to put this away, it's not gonna make you it doesn't work for me. But by God, if it did, I would want nothing to do with this stuff. Like, I just happen to need to eat this way. And so I always say, for my family, we still eat traditional stuff. I make roti all the time for my kids. I make breads and all the grains and stuff for them. They don't have they're not showing that they have any sort of symptoms of things I have. So let them enjoy that they're thriving. They're doing well. I'm making the stuff from scotch, I know it's going into it. And it's all great and delicious food. But for me personally, I'll tweak a few things so that I remain healthy. And I continue to thrive. And that's always been my story in my platform. And that's why when you go on to mettam g.com, you will still see all of the traditional recipes. Now it's just organized in a really nice way. So if you wanted to get just straight Dinis recipe, you click on that, and you get into a part of the blog. That's just Chinese recipes, and you'll never encounter anything paleo. And the same way, if you wanted to just get the Paleo remixes or the gluten free your whole 30 remixes, you click on that part, and you go into that. And that was my way of settling and not losing, you know, a part of me, that's very important. And one of the cool things I did last summer was I was able to go to Guyana, and participate in an expo at the invitation of the government and do Guyanese Paleo Food with traditional focus. So keeping all of the like hardcore ingredients and flavors and things that people love and know, but using non traditional paleo ingredients, and it was amazing. And I thought to myself, like, I'm so glad I didn't, you know, give up that part of who I am to chase this, like, you probably move faster if you just niche down kind of dream, you know.

Chris Spear: 36:25

But I do think one of the benefits is that paleo is a, I don't want to use the, I'm gonna use the term normal. Like it's not a weird diet. It's like, if you look at keto, you look at some of those recipes. It's like they're not using any sugar. So there's a lot of sugar alcohols, and you're eating guacamole, but with like processed pork rinds, like that's not how I think a Yeah, traditional regular normal person would eat. But yours I mean, it's a cookbook, you're not putting processed foods in it. I think sometimes when you get into a specialized diet, it's like you need to totally rejigger your whole pantry with new things. And this is just like, No, you know, you're really focusing on what's probably we could all agree on the best things to eat, and you're just eliminating some. So, you know, if I were to look at your book and not know that it was paleo, I don't know that I'd necessarily pick up on it, except for maybe not having rice, and clearly not having like gluten. But for the most stuff. It's things that I think would be, you know, just like everyone would enjoy making i But I do think sometimes it almost is like exclusionary, like someone who doesn't follow a paleo diet would look at that and say, Well, I'm not getting a paleo cookbook. So this is me highly encouraging everyone to pick it up. Because I have the book, I've seen it, the recipes are great in there. And if people aren't convinced by me, just go to the website and check it out. And I think you'll really enjoy these recipes.

Althea Brown: 37:48

Oh, thank you so much. And you know, like, originally, I wasn't going to call up a Caribbean paleo. And again, you get into these spaces, and the people and the powers that do this for a living are like, well, you need to be niche so that you know, your book gets picked up, and people know what's in it. And so you kind of go with that. And you're like, alright, and you you know, fingers crossed that it works. But what I say to my community is exactly what you said, like you don't have to be paleo to buy this book. If you love good Caribbean food, and you want to lean more into like whole ingredients. And instead of getting some sort of a seasoning blend or something that has lots of fillers, you get onion and garlic and tomatoes, and you start there, and then work your way up through recipe, then this is a book for you. And there's so many really great fundamental, like, foundational Caribbean recipes in there that you can then build off of the chicken and asparagus. I love that recipe. It's basically my mom's chicken stew, but because we moved to America, and she saw asparagus in the supermarket and was like, What is this new vegetable I've never seen. I'm going to cook it exactly the way I cook every other vegetable. And we got chicken and asparagus.

Chris Spear: 38:59

Yeah, I saw that and was thinking hmm, I wouldn't think of this as a Caribbean recipe. But the marketing, the marketing definitely makes sense. Because you know, I'm sure the wall is not as wide a breadth of cookbooks that say like Italian or French. I'm sure there's already a ton of Caribbean cookbooks out there. And you just put out a book that said, you know, your name, the Caribbean recipes. Yes. What would make you stand out. So having something that clearly differentiates you from the pack, I think is is great. But again, we're living in the age of marketing and niching down and, you know, finding your thing. You know, I'm trying to eat better this year. I say that every year and I think I've gotten better every year just kind of figuring out what that looks like. For me. It's the processed foods like really shaking off the prepackaged things, especially things that have more than you know, four ingredients and the added sugars and stuff. It's just it's so challenging, and I don't think I can't personally like just go cold turkey with that. You know, I think it's really hard to just like, I think that's what people have trouble with when they change their diet is like, you know, New Year New you I'm going to stop drinking alcohol and stop consuming sugar and not have processed foods and go paleo and all this. And it's like, yeah, it's not necessarily sustainable. I feel like there's sometimes an easing in process.

Althea Brown: 40:14

No, I think you're 100%. Right, right. Because in your normal, everyday life, you are not making every single meal that you eat. And if you are, that's amazing, like, keep doing that. But most people aren't right, you might make breakfast one week, and then one day, and then tomorrow, you might have something some cereal, you might have some oatmeal, and those things are sustainable. And it's good to like, keep that in mind when you start a new diet, right? Like even like, if you're going to do the whole 30 all, when it first started, you really have to make all of the things that you're going to eat. So it was really hard, because suddenly it's lunchtime, and you're like, I gotta go make another meal. And then I gotta make another meal. And then you start thinking about like, Well, how do I meal, plan this and prep it, so I have things in the fridge, but then that means you're buying this, you're making this big pot of thing and you're eating it over and over again, you get bored, and then you fall off because you're like, This is not sustainable. This is not how I eat. So if you have a diet, diet, meaning the way that you eat and not necessarily eating to lose weight, you have to have some plant parts of it, where you can have something that store bought, where you can have something that maybe you grabbed from the freezer section that you have a little cheap for, I'm gonna go to a restaurant and I need to get something Well, hey, you can get some steak, you can get some salmon and some vegetables. And that's paleo, you know, and you've you figure that out. And I think that that's why this works for me, because I don't feel like again, I don't feel like my diet is all or nothing and people who are like hardcore paleo are gonna like this girl is talking nonsense. It shouldn't be. But for me, it's not like I need the flexibility. I need to be able to get takeout at some point in the week because I am chauffeuring three kids all around. And that day, when I come in, I'm dead to the world, you know, I don't have energy to like, make anything else. And so that's kind of how I flex between, you know, making really good meals that my family enjoy, and also having a bag of chips, because I've read the ingredients and everything in here works with my diet, you know, it's a

Chris Spear: 42:29

lot. I mean, I, you know, I'll get the kitchen cleaned up by like, say four o'clock and then work on dinner, my in laws live with us. So there's six of us here. And then when we clean the table, Mike, how is the kitchen destroyed, and the sink, both sinks are full just for dinner. And then it's like, by the way, we got to clean this up, do all our stuff for the kids. And then it's like making school lunches for tomorrow and getting ready. And it's a lot and I empathize with anyone. I mean, anyone who's trying to just cook at home, but the more people you have, it gets to be really challenging. So you have to have a little grace with yourself.

Althea Brown: 43:02

And then you're cooking is your day job. So even that, like

Chris Spear: 43:07

I know people always say like, you must eat so great at home. It's like, well, if I'm at your house talking to you right now, I probably didn't do the dinner at my house, right? Yes. Had to get up in the morning and prep that out for them. Do you have entry recipes for people like okay, they've never cooked anything? They've now no have you? You've got your blog, maybe they have your book? What do you recommend people try? Like, is there kind of a gateway recipe or two that you'd recommend people start with?

Althea Brown: 43:33

Yeah, so from the book, definitely write any upfront where it says, you know, my Caribbean favorite. Take a look at does the braised oxtail it's pretty simple. It does require like just put it in the oven, leaving it alone for four hours. So I feel like it's doable. Don't let that it's still scary. You just

Chris Spear: 43:54

feel so expensive. Now it used to be reasonable isn't expensive, where you want it and

Althea Brown: 43:58

everything. It's so expensive. People are putting it in everything. I want to say like Guess what? Short, sharp, sharp ribs do the exact same thing that oxtail does like?

Chris Spear: 44:10

No, no, no dough dough. Short ribs was my number one thing on my menu. I actually did a Instagram video on this. They crapped last year from 899 a pound to 1499 a pad I've documented it I took pictures on the labels of where it was and like what month and like it is literally crept from 899 to 14 Nine which is insane because that was for me my that was my less expensive people were ordering filet mignon all the time and roasted tenderloin, and then they wanted ribeye, I was like, no do short ribs. There's so much more delicious. They're better. And now that's the premium and I'm paying more for short ribs than for ribeye steak. So I don't know like again, it's the same thing as the oxtail. It's like we're gonna take this thing that's reasonably priced on the market, you know, for the stores to buy and then they're just going to jack the heck out of it. I can't. I mean,

Althea Brown: 45:01

no one was buying oxtail. It used to be like 499 a pound you'd get like really nice oxtail. You'd make Sunday dinner I used to make I used to buy four pounds of oxtail, and make Sunday dinner was like a kings feast. No coupons. It was like 100. It's not I'm not making that at all anymore, like, though, but um, okay, well, I'll stop telling people to buy me counting issue, but I am to answer your question. I would also recommend you try the pumpkin cauliflower rice. That one's a really favorite of mine, it comes together really quickly on the stovetop, it's loaded with lots of flavor. If you can't find dried shrimp, it seems like a very unusual ingredient you can get on Asian markets. I've even seen a little like Walmart and that stuff in the Mexican section. But you can use fresh shrimp in there, it's not going to have exactly the same flavor, but will have the same similar texture. Try that one. It's really, really simple and easy to make. And then any of the stews are really good. The pumpkin and sweet potato stew. It's winter now. So you want that like coziness. It's actually pumpkin and sweet potato curry. So it has a little bit of heat, a little bit of that like warm spices really delicious. When asparagus season comes back around, try that as far as and chickens do. Like, it's really good.

Chris Spear: 46:22

And your blog is named after a traditional dish, correct. It's what a root vegetable soup or stew. Yes,

Althea Brown: 46:30

so mettam G is our root vegetable soup, our stew depending on how you define those things. It's really root vegetables cooked down in coconut milk. It's innately vegan. And so you know, like you have your aromatics. And then you just have this coconut broth that it's just cooked in until the oil separates from the coconut mill. So you see like little kernels in it. That's the telltale sign of a good mettam G. And mostly, there's there the steamed dumplings in there that are not looking for you. But I have a free version on my site. And then it's topped off with fried fish. And sometimes people add a boiled egg. And so it's sometimes a Sunday afternoon meal in Guyana. And my grandmother made that meal. It was one of the things that she made. She's no longer with us, but that I absolutely absolutely love. And when I was writing, started my blog, one of my friends said, Well, why don't you just name it after a dish that you love. And I jokingly said, You think I'm going to call it mettam G. And they were like you shut it. What was great about that is it gave me a lot of traffic. Because anytime people were actually looking for that dish, they would find my blog. And for a long time, I didn't even have a meth mg recipe. So it was a running joke. Like, people would message me I came on here looking for meth mg and there isn't even a recipe but I'm glad I found you. And when I finally shared meth mg recipe was when I actually got it to come out of the way my grandmother makes it. She had already passed and it was kind of like to honor her. And so now I have the meds mg recipe on there. And I jokingly like finally I made it the way she makes it. And maybe she was with me when I was doing it. So it really, really, really is something that is important to me. And I don't think I'll ever change the name. Even though at some points, I kept thinking I should make it like something that people understand versus like having to go through this whole explanation every time. I

Chris Spear: 48:39

love that SEO tip of like, if you're starting a blog, maybe like what do you want people to find you for and create that name around that that's a that's a great way to do it. Do you ever do any non traditional like whether we want to call it fusion or experimental where you're taking maybe the flavors or technique and trying something a little different in a non traditional way or a different protein? Or are you really just sticking kind of with the the traditional classic ways of making these dishes except for maybe adjustments for paleo.

Althea Brown: 49:14

So I think right now there's so many traditional dishes that I haven't even shared on my blog. So I'm really trying to cover those off. I really am trying to be the place where Guyanese people go first. Because the recipes are high quality, the steps are really laid out, and that they go there and get their recipe. A lot of the things that people say to me is that they will remember a dish that their mom made or their grandmother passed and they come to my blog for the measurements. But then they do whatever little tweak their grandmother would have done in the background or they add whatever ingredient that she might have added and made a special for them. And I love that so I want to keep doing more of that. I want to get all of those traditional recipes on there in my personal life things that don't make it to the blog. I make all sorts to foods, I try all sorts of cooking techniques. I see a real just like anybody else. And I'm like, Whoa, what? 100 layer? potato cake. I'm on it. And I'll do I don't share that, because that's not what a platform is about. But I want to try that. And I want to see different techniques, I have all sorts of gadgets that I want to try out. And my my, like creative mind just goes really wild, because then I think about, okay, 100 layer potato fried potato, right? Can I do that with with EDOs? EDOs is kind of like a Tarot route, and so smaller like belongia, like, can I do with that? And what would that look like? So then I want to try it with that. Those things. Don't ever make it to the blog. But if I ever have a dinner party, that's the stuff I'm sharing, I the stuff I'm making is all of the fusion stuff, because I love to show off things like that. So for the blog, definitely going to keep on the traditional path until I hit like a level of recipes where I'm like, Yeah, I think I'm good. I think I covered off things. There's nobody asking me for anything. I have a long waiting list of recipes, where people are like, Hey, I didn't see this on your blog. Can you get to that? And I'm like, I'm adding it to the list and like working through it. But for the most part, I'm just sticking with traditional except for the remixes. And except for someone asked me for a remix that they have some I can't have this one thing I noticed you used it in this, then I'll try and and I'll add that as a note. I know personally, what it feels like to not be able to eat something because I'm an ingredient that you are allergic to. And so if someone asked me for that I almost dropped anything and say, okay, hold on. Let me go try it out. Yep, it works. Here's your thing.

Chris Spear: 51:45

Do you think you're a creative person?

Althea Brown: 51:48

I think I'm a highly creative person. I didn't for a long time, I thought I was just in my like, corporate world. I think I'm a highly creative person. I think if people put a couple of ingredients in front of me, my brain goes, we could do this, this, this, this this. And then I start like, going to work I did a tasting the other day where I did some plantain tacos. Last year, I created these plants and tortillas where you just use plantain. You boil them, you crushed them, you mash them into tortillas and you cook them. single ingredient. You need nothing else. It's paleo. It's whole 30 All that stuff. Well, it kind of went viral. And everybody's making them now and but they're adding all sorts of flowers and all this stuff into it. Great. It's good. But I had this opportunity to create these kind of little bites for a party. And I did for an expo actually. And I did these plantain street tacos. So I made that same tortilla really tiny. I made it out of booth in a place. I made like this chicken tacos made a quick pickle with local ingredients. Like added some jam for sweetener. Like, I don't even know where this thing came from. People kept saying like, is this on your blog? Where can I get this recipe? I'm like, you can't cuz I literally just made this with these ingredients that I was given and tasted it. And it was like, Wow, this worked out so great. And I think it's because like I said, like when I see something, I'll go play around with it. Like my mind still on the fact that you said you make pickles out of cauliflower stock. So I'm thinking now I bet that would be great with kimchi, right? Like I bet that could be a great kimchi. And so now when we get off of here, I'm like gonna go make kimchi like, and I'll never make it to my blog or my social media, but that's just

Chris Spear: 53:33

totally sure, you need to have a place for that. I know, it's so hard because like you already do this thing, cuz I do the same with like, I have so many interests outside of food and cooking. And again, you're supposed to niche down and your Instagrams always supposed to be this thing. But like I love photography, as some of it would creep onto my page, just like I guess I just need to start like my own Instagram, just for that stuff, where it's like I follow people who are in music and artists and things a place to share that other stuff. Because there's so much more that I feel like I want to be creating for the world that you're not supposed to put into your carefully curated social media feeds in your niche business space, right. So I have found that there had to be a place for me to let some of this stuff creep out. So yeah,

Althea Brown: 54:22

and you know what, I had a Content Manager person who, when I was like, really, really growing, I said, I want to know, like, what am I doing and what I should keep doing. And you know, you see all of these people are like, do this say this follow this trend, follow this here are these tricks. And what she said to me was that I could share all these things, but as part of the pillars that I share for social media, but just be consistent. So if I have five things I want to share once a week I share each of them then people who follow me know that like this is who I am as a whole. The problem with that is I spent so much time already creating content for the main thing that I liked to not have a camera on, when I'm doing my little experiments and figuring out, I like to be free, I like to not think about, well, I need to pour this. But if I poured with this hand, it's gonna block it and have a shadow. So I gotta pour it with this. Like, I like to not have to be thinking about that when I'm doing the need to just do you know, and so it's so like, I'm perfectly okay, with that being a different part of me that I get to like, be in my space and make these nice meals for friends and family that are very different. But then come back to the thing that you know, people that are really helping people, and do that really, really well.

Chris Spear: 55:49

Is the blog, the main thing? Yeah,

Althea Brown: 55:52

so my blog is the main thing. Social media is like a vessel to get people to the blog and to try the recipes. Although I spend so much time on social media now, maybe that's the main thing. But yeah, I just, I love having a place where these recipes live on and anyone, whether you are of Guyanese heritage, or Caribbean heritage, can come to it and say, Oh, I've never heard of Guyana. Oh, their foot looks kind of interesting. What can I try and try something and say they've nailed it. I've had a lot of people who are like, I'm dating a guy, a nice guy. And I want to impress him with a meal. So I went to your blog, and I made this and oh my god, he said it tastes like his mom's like, that's, that makes me feel amazing. I don't even care in the next

Chris Spear: 56:35

year they were married because

Althea Brown: 56:37

I'm invited me to her wedding. Okay, yes. But like those things make me feel really good. And that's I keep doing it. You know?

Chris Spear: 56:46

Do you have any resolutions for the year? And it's okay, if you don't, because a lot of people don't believe in that, or any goals or things that you can share with us that you maybe have coming up besides the you know, business as usual. Yeah,

Althea Brown: 57:00

so I do have resolutions for a long time I was anti resolutions, but I realized that they really do help you to like refocus. And even if they don't work out, at least you start off with like, here are things that I want to do. For my own personal goal, I need to drink more water. So that's my like, goal. I have a big cup here. It's the one that everyone's killing themselves for right now.

Chris Spear: 57:21

But that's a whole thing. But like, good, I've

Althea Brown: 57:25

had mine for like three years. And so I was like, why is this a thing, suddenly, the only reason I have is because it was 40 ounces. And I don't have to fill it up. And I struggle to drink water. And so like that's my goal, like every day, I'm just trying to drink this 140 ounce tumbler of water. And so far, I've been doing really good. That's my only like health related goal, because I feel like I don't want to just have all these goals, and then I can't get to it. In terms of my business, I do want to keep growing and be very strategic about the recipes that I share, I want to do more serious because I feel like they really get you going and talking about a group of a food group. And so like I'm doing this plant in series, right now, I might do one on flat breads and rotis. And I want to try a dish from a different culture at the end of the series. So right now I'm doing plant in series, I've had a lot of Asian people come on and say, we make something very similar to that we add a different ingredient. At the end of the series, I'm going to choose one of those and then make it and be like, now I know now I've learned a new dish from a different culture and then give credit to whoever recipe I'm using, right? And that recipe will never end up on my blog, because I don't need to saturate that person's, you know, niche, but I can, you know, try their food and highlight it. So that's kind of where I am in terms of my blog and my business. And what how I see things going with that.

Chris Spear: 58:54

What's your routine for like blog recipe creation? I guess what I'm trying to say is like, how often are you releasing things? Do you have a set schedule of like, yeah, once a week, every other week? What's that look like?

Althea Brown: 59:05

So last year, I didn't do a lot of new recipes, because I was really just working on the book. And then I did a lot of media and a lot of like, I did a book tour and all that kind of stuff. So I was really like stressed out. So I did a lot of re sharing of old content, repurposing things pushing to things that always do well. But this year, I'm trying to do one new recipe a week, and then just kind of get that going because I really do need to get those recipes I have on that list off that list. And then really wanting to share more like recipes that are around special traditions and holidays. So really going through that and getting that up and I try to batch my recipes. So if on a Monday I'm like okay, we're going to do some recording today. Let's try to do at minimum two recipes. If we do a third one, that's bonus. I also I'm only one working between hours when my kids are in school, so still got a short window to get everything done. So just kind of doing that, and then I edit at another time and then post as I need to.

Chris Spear: 1:00:11

Well, it sounds like there will be a lot of great stuff for people to find this year. Well, I loved having you on the show. I always link everything in the show notes. So people will be able to find your social media, the blog, the book, all of that. Is there anything you want to leave us with that we didn't, anything we didn't get into today. Any last words? Just

Althea Brown: 1:00:29

to say, you know, thank you for having me on and try Caribbean food, even if it's not my food, even if you're just go out and you're like, hey, I have a Jamaican restaurant in my neighborhood. I'm gonna go try something for there. And if you are a home cook, please go to my blog. Look for something in a category that you really enjoy. And just go for it. And I'm very responsive. So if you run into any trouble, respond, shoot me a message and I'll respond. Awesome.

Chris Spear: 1:00:59

Well, thanks again for coming on the show. And to all of our listeners. This has been Chris with the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast. Thanks for listening and have a great week. You're still here, the podcast is over. If you are indeed still here, thanks for taking the time to listen to the show. I'd love to direct you to one place and that's chefs without restaurants.org. From there, you'll be able to join our email newsletter. Get connected in our free Facebook group, and join our personal chef catering and food truck database so I can help get you more job leads. And you'll also find a link to our sponsor page where you'll find products and services I love. You pay nothing additional to use these links, but I may get a small commission which helps keep the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast and organization running. You might even get a discount for using some of these links. As always, you can reach out to me on Instagram at Chefs Without Restaurants or send me an email at chefs without restaurants@gmail.com Thanks so much.