Hey y'all, welcome to Biscuits and Jam from Southern Living. I'm your host, Sid Evans,

and today I'm talking to someone who has in many ways become the face of Southern Living,

our very own senior editor, Ivy Odom. In addition to creating videos about all things Southern

on social media, Ivy is a writer,

recipe developer, and television host. And now she's also an author with a brand new cookbook

called My Southern Kitchen, From Suppers to Celebrations, Recipes for Every Occasion.

The book is a collection of Ivy's favorites from a lifetime at the stove,

starting with her childhood in Moultry, Georgia, where she learned to cook and entertain

from her parents and grandparents. She actually started off her college years thinking she'd

be a home ec teacher, but an early mentor persuaded her to look at culinary school and food media as a better fit for her ambitions.

She finished first in her class at L'Academy de Cuisine and Gatorsburg, Maryland, and then, thankfully,

she landed here at Southern Living.

We sat down in the Southern Living offices and talked about all that, plus her dad's

competition barbecue team called Butts Unlimited, her love of tailgating for the Georgia Bulldogs,

and the astounding 18-layer chocolate cake that launched her career, all in this week's Biscuits and Jam.

Ivy. all in this week's Biscuits and Jam. Ivy Odom, welcome to Biscuits and Jam.

Thank you. This is so fun.

Well, I mean, I've worked with you for so long, and it is very rare that we actually get to sit down and have a conversation. So I'm kind of excited about this. I'm very excited. It's fun to work in a place and listen to all these cool people. And now I'm one of those cool people, I guess. Hopefully I'm half as cool as some of the people that we get to interview. You're the coolest. I don't know. We'll see. So glad you're here. I want to say off the top,

congrats on the new cookbook. Thank you. It's very exciting. Long time coming. It's called My Southern

Kitchen and it's right here. Exciting. We got it, blue and white, very Southern. It's a beautiful

cover. And of course, that's all we have right now.

We don't have the finished book yet.

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