FEMI Magazine had the pleasure to chat with Chef Darrell Johnson and Aunna Johnson about their experience in the culinary world!
- What was the experience and the impact on Food Network’s Cutthroat Kitchen and The Great Food Truck Race?
It gave me validation. I felt like I always had the talent, and I’ve put in the work to develop that talent into a skill. So being on Cutthroat Kitchen and winning The Great Food Truck Race told the world my name. It allowed them to trust me.
2. What’s the story and impact of the connection and love you and your grandmother had or have shared when it comes to the world of culture and Food?
I honor my great-grandmother in every dish that I do. She is the inspiration for all that I do. She has always been and will always drive me to strive for excellence.
The one-story that comes to mind was when I was about 12 years old, I was in the kitchen with her while baking a cake, and I was sitting there waiting to lick the bowl… and she asked if I wanted to help. I was putting the icing on the cake very fast to get the bowl empty to enjoy the remaining icing. As I was putting the icing on, she stopped me…. She asked me why I was going so fast. I told her that it shouldn’t matter how it went on there because we would cut it and eat it.
She said that If I didn’t do right, I didn’t do it at all. Food is an art, and I better treat it like that, or I could go and sit in the living room with everyone else. That moment I learned that Food indeed was an art, and the passion and respect that I have for Food today, comes from that moment in the kitchen with my great grandmother.
3. What’s your and Aunna’s favorite Food or recipe that both you have taken part of
My Eggplant Napoleon is the only recipe that we’ve worked on together. So, it is shrimp and crawfish tails sautéed in white wine butter, and garlic tossed in three of my made from scratch sauces (Alfredo, shrimp butter, and Tasso cream) and poured it over a bed of fried eggplants. The way this came about was in my restaurant during some downtime, and my wife was hungry, and the ingredients started to flow. I jokingly said, well, if you’re hungry, then I guess you better cook something. She said OK…. now, my wife is great at many things… cooking isn’t one of them. She played along, and we came up with a masterpiece. She grabbed some eggplants, and badly I mean, horribly started to butcher them. I said, hold up, wait, what do you want to eat? And it was her who gathered the ingredients, and I put them together and cooked them, and the rest is Creole and Cajun history.
4. What impact do you and your wife want to showcase for the younger generation you might be inspired or interested in?
We want to show two things: the first is that you can have success in business and marriage. We are partners in every area of our lives, and it makes the work… the hard work…the long days and nights so much easier when you have each other’s backs. Being an entrepreneur is extremely difficult. It’s even more difficult when you are fighting alone. We fight together, always. My wife is the butter on my biscuit, the ketchup on my French fries, and the syrup on my pancakes. I’m all that for her as well. We want to show that you don’t have to wait for all the stars to align to begin your dream. Just plan even if it’s a shitty plan… you have a plan, and you can adjust it from there. It’s like playing darts. Most times, that first throw is horrible. However, every time you throw after that, you can re-adjust your aim and get closer to the bullseye. We started our first restaurant with $1,500, and we took the stove out of our house to use to cook with. We kept on pushing and kept re-adjusting our aim.
5. What’s the advice for the upcoming cooks?
Please find the best chef that you know and wash their dishes. Learn the business from the bottom up and appreciate the journey. You can’t rush the process; what you learn along the way will help you develop your voice as a cook.
6. What are both of your signature dishes? What do people love about it?
Aunna always recommends the Pasta St. Charles; it is a showstopper. Its shrimp, crawfish tails, crabmeat, crab cake, made from scratch Fettucine pasta, white wine crab sauce; it’s one of a kind. If you want to know who I am as a chef, know my signature style, New Orleans style Gumbo. It personifies me as a chef overall.
7. How do you describe your overall cooking philosophy?
My philosophy is simple… it’s the same thing that my great grandmother told me all those years ago… Food is an art, and it should be treated as such. I get a chance to put my heart on a plate each time, and I hope that my Food touches not just people’s tongues and stomachs but their souls.
8. Name two of your strengths and two of your weaknesses as a chef?
My main two strengths are that I am creative… I come up with great ideas that stick to my brand while also being innovative. My other strength is my speed. I am an absolute monster in the kitchen. I have run complete shifts by myself. My two most significant weaknesses are that I am a perfectionist. It’s never quite right. Even when everyone says it’s perfect, I still want to tweak it. Sometimes those last few adjustments don’t make it better… sometimes, they make the dish worse. And lastly, another weakness is my lack of trust. I sometimes feel that I must cut every onion… slice every pepper and cook every dish. I must continue teaching and training and have faith in my team to do what I have taught them.
9. Both of you, can you describe the impact of the culture of New Orleans food
(Darrell) the culture of my city ultimately impacts my take on Food. The city’s culture as it relates to Food is it brings everyone together. When my great-grandmother would cook, everyone would come over to our house. Even if they were on bad terms or not speaking, when my great-grandmother would cook, everything was all right with the world. (Aunna) the culture of New Orleans impacted the way I see the world. It taught me that every place has its share of problems. Each city also has a specific culture that is shown through their Food. No matter how hard times get, a great po-boy or a big crawfish boil will make me smile.
10. What are both of your journeys educationally and in the culinary environment?
Aunna has more of an educational journey than a culinary one. She has two master’s degrees, one in education and another in business. She is currently working on her Ph.D. in leadership. I have a degree in culinary management and a degree in psychology. I am currently enrolled in a master’s program focused on industrial and organizational psychology. My culinary journey began in my great-grandmother’s kitchen and took me washing dishes to cooking in Paris, France, and owning several restaurants, tv shows, and so on.
11. How do you feel being the first African American to accomplish winners of the competition?
Its monumental. Being the first comes with great pride but also a great responsibility. It’s the duality of being the first. You are celebrated, but this is also a great responsibility placed on you to be the only ones.
12. It’s evident that running a business isn’t for any for sensitive advice
A few of my keys to success are: 1.) Surround yourself with only quality people who have the ability and the desire to support you; you don’t want to fight alone. 2.) You must do it because it is more significant than yourself… if every decision you make in business is all about you, eventually, you will run into something bigger and more challenging than you; and it will make you quit. We don’t stop because of what we do; we stop because we forget why we are doing it. And lastly, improve your communication skills. Once you open your mouth, you tell the world who you are.
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