"By The River" is brought to you in part by the University of South Carolina Beaufort, Learning in Action Discovered, the ETV Endowment of South Carolina, Community Foundation of the Lowcountry, Strengthening Community, Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at USCB, the Pat Conroy Literary Center.

A business owner, culinary docu-series star, biscuit maker and mother, Carrie Morey is serving up Southern food and tradition with a side of hard work, understanding and continuous improvement.

Her book "Callie's Biscuits and Southern Traditions" is not just a cookbook but a narrative of entrepreneurship and life in the Lowcountry.

- I'm Holly Jackson, join us as we bring you powerful stories from both new and established Southern authors as we sit "By The River."

♪ (upbeat music) ♪ ♪ Hey there, it is another beautiful day here at our waterfront studio.

Thanks so much for joining us again for "By The River."

I'm Holly Jackson, always glad to have you around.

This is what we call our love letter to Southern writing and we're bringing you powerful stories from both new and established South Carolina and Southern authors.

And we have a real treat in store for you today.

We are joined with Carrie Morey and she's the author of "Callie's Biscuits and Southern Traditions" and can't wait to talk all about this beautiful cover.

Let's go ahead and get right down to it.

Thanks so much for coming from Charleston to Beaufort and always a good stop I imagine to come this way.

- It's a lovely day when I get to drive these roads.

- Well, just, let's back way up and tell us where this all started as far as maybe your desire for being in the kitchen and just the Southern traditions.

- Yeah, so, well, born and raised in Charleston and my mom is Callie for whom the business is named and, you know, I grew up, I would imagine like a lot of Southern women and that entertaining and food were always in the forefront of everything that we did.

And early on, really connected with cooking and feeding people and I just think that's something that has always been in me and went on to as a teenager helped my mother in the kitchen with her small catering business in Charleston and was always the server.

And so I was receiving the compliments of these biscuits which now a lot of people have eaten.

And I just started thinking about how could we create a food business that wasn't a restaurant because I knew that I also really wanted to be a stay at home mom or a present mom where I wasn't having to hire a fleet of nannies to be a business woman.

And I think that's something that a lot of women struggle with trying to figure out that balance of how to create something on your own or have a career, something that will inspire you and make you feel whole at the end of the day but also wanting to be at home with your children.

So it was an idea that kind of came out of a problem.

How can I work in the food business which is my passion and be with my girls?

- Now, if you were to tell your younger self what all has, this is what it was gonna become, would you have believed it?

- Never, never.

I mean, I think back to those days when it was just Caroline, my oldest who's 16 now and I remember thinking, oh, I just wanna be able to work from home and be at the house but also have a job and expand my brain, it was really what it was.

I had lots of just ideas and thoughts and passion about food but I didn't wanna own a restaurant because I knew that that would be a really hard thing to do.

Just watching my mom have a catering business and she was gone every weekend.

So you start thinking how can you solve that problem?

And I'm still doing that today just in a different way.

- Well, this became a lot bigger thing than you anticipated and started out so were you able to hold true to that goal of being that present mom?

- I feel like I have done a great job with that.

I don't know how my girls feel but I feel that they would agree.

I mean, my goal is to be at home every day when they get home from school.

And before when they weren't in school, I would say, okay, can only work when they're in school.

So starting from preschool then as they stayed longer in school and grew up I took on more which is how we got to this point, right?

So I would say, oh, we've got a couple extra hours, we should open up a grab and go biscuit restaurant, we should do this.

And I think my creative brain just has ideas and I say, oh, I wanna do this, I wanna do this, I wanna do this but only on my terms when the time was right for our family.

- And one of the daughters you think might be interested in following your footsteps a little?

- I would be shocked if I didn't have at least one.

I think I don't wanna put that on them.

- Yeah, that's a lot of pressure I guess.

- That's a lot of pressure but I can see her propensity to gravitate towards food and her passion about it and her passion about business.

So a lot of my business calls happen in the car to and from volleyball and soccer and just natural mom things that we do and there's one of our girls that asks questions after every single call.

And I can just see her brain working and how is she gonna solve this problem?

What is, tell me about this.

And it's so interesting to watch her 'cause usually kids aren't really paying attention but one of mine is totally paying.

- Is one of those does.

- And always has been like that from very little.

- Very cool.

And the business kind of made a shift unexpectedly when your mom retired early on and as I read you kind of had to become more involved in the actual hands-on with the food instead of more so the business.

And I believe you relied a lot on some of the workers and kind of getting them to teach you.

When it comes to the Southern food, some people are real particular about this is the way it's gonna happen even something as simple as a biscuit.

So how did you decide which method I guess you were gonna lean on?

- Well, so the method is always been the same the way we made the biscuits and I technically knew how to do it.

It just wasn't a part of my everyday job.

So when mom decided to move on, I realized that in order to be truly taken seriously I needed to become a master of making biscuits because if I'm gonna lead a team, I can't ask them to do things that I don't know how to do.

And then I'm not willing to get in there and roll up my sleeves and do it.

And so I went to them and I said, "Y'all are really great at this on a production level and you can make it happen quickly, I want you to teach me."

And I think what that did was give me a little bit of respect that I was allowing them to teach me because when you take a home recipe and you scale it, it's very different than making it at home.

So I could recite the recipe and make them at home but to make it in a production kitchen was the part that I was missing.

And what that did was it allowed them to respect me and give me a little, okay, she really is, she's in it.

Because there was a little bit of a division when it was my mom running the baking side and me running the marketing arm of the business.

So I think it was great and I also conquered my own fears of this is not my safe space.

I'm really good at running the business, growing the business, selling the business but this was something that I had to master and I did.

And then I fell in love with it.

And now it's like a little bit of a vacation when I get to do that, which is rare these days.

- Wow, what an awesome experience for your daughters to see you go through all that.

And I'm sure it's very admirable for them.

I was watching "How She Rolls" which awesome show, loving it, the Thanksgiving edition.

And I love hearing from those different workers who were talking about their own Southern traditions from their moms and grand moms and one guy, I'm sure you know him by name who was talking about how I think it was grandma would never give him the stuffing, the dressing recipe.

I can't remember if he was one who called it the stuffing or dressing but she would basically make it and then just hand him the pan and then he had to put it in the oven.

I think that's so funny.

So people hold these recipes near and dear in locked safe but you're kind of letting it all out there.

Why are you choosing to let some of these, I guess, family secrets out for all of us to enjoy?

- Well, I think that it brings people together.

And I think that it's important to, if not for anything else I wanted it to be written down for my family.

Biscuit making is a perfect example of something that was a dying art when I first started this business, nobody did it anymore.

And so to be able to revive that and keep that tradition alive and be a part of a movement that I have seen in the last 10 years of people really gravitating towards biscuits.

There're biscuit restaurants everywhere all of a sudden.

That's something I'm really proud of.

And I'm a huge believer that sharing your recipe it's not going to be a deterrent to growing your business.

It's only going to help your growth.

If you share your information, if you share your knowledge, that's gonna come back to you tenfold so why wouldn't it be the same with your heirloom recipes?

And I constantly tell anyone that I'm teaching like write these things down, share these, this is so important, this is history.

- And let's get to the book.

Tell me about this book and I know you're working on another one.

Let's start with this one, when this began and kind of what your passion, what your mission was in making this book happen?

So there's a lot of great stories in it too.

- Well, I think it's important to note that I'm not a writer, I'm not a cookbook writer but I do have a lot of stories that I love to share.

And every food memory for me has to have a story.

So it was really a great journey to go back and think about, okay, when I think of my grandmother on my father's side, what do I think of?

I think of German chocolate cake and pineapple upside down cake and I think of her yeast angel biscuits.

And I think that a lot of people don't realize it but when they start thinking about the food that they have great memories of, there's always a story behind it so it's very relatable.

So that was a major part of this.

And then also simply just sharing it with my family so that we had a document.

And obviously we've shared it with a lot more than my family but I'm okay with that.

- And you said I'm not a cookbook writer so I'm guessing there were some challenges along the way.

What was kind of the hardest part about writing it all down?

Was it the storytelling or was it actually getting all those measurements and figuring out how much vanilla do I use?

- Well, right.

So for me, I'm actually a super organized detail oriented person but when it comes to cooking I'm the opposite.

So I'll have a scratch piece of paper here or a voice text in my phone and then handing all that over to a recipe tester that can make sense of it.

I mean, when I started writing these recipes down, I didn't even realize that you had to have an order because it was all in my head.

And so working with a really great recipe tester who could take my jumble and translate that into a beautifully written recipe that was easy for people to read and cook with 'cause I don't use recipes.

I love to read about food but I don't follow a recipe.

So that was a hard thing for me to do but I got some help.

- You did it.

- I got some help.

- Well done.

- I didn't do it, I got some help.

- Tell us about this book and what kinds of recipes they'll find in there.

- Well, there's obviously our first chapter's biscuits because that's where it all started.

So we go through all the fundamentals of our biscuits and then there's also my grandmother's yeast biscuits which is one of my favorites and actually how I really remember biscuits as a child which is very different from the way we make biscuits now.

But then it also just goes into the stories of my childhood growing up, the things that we have eaten as a family for years and years, a lot of recipes that my mom has made, some that my dad and my grandmother.

It's just a conglomeration of our history of eating really.

- And tell me about the one that you're working on, the next book.

- "Hot Little Suppers" which will be coming soon.

And it's different in that it does start with a chapter on biscuits.

So we have more biscuits and different ways to use biscuit dough which has been really interesting for us to create other things out of biscuit dough.

But then it's more about what I cook now today for my family which is not just Southern food.

Southern cuisine is what got me here, is what really made me fall in love with cooking and entertaining but it's not what we eat every day anymore.

So we have really infused other cultures and we have Indian food and Mexican and Italian and Asian foods so it is a seasonal book and it's separated winter, spring, summer and fall by week night and weekend.

So I only have 30 minutes.

I need to throw something together and I don't wanna go through the drive through I'm gonna make this tonight.

And then, oh, I have more time and I'm gonna create a Sunday supper or we're gonna have people over for a dinner and have a dinner party.

So it's separated that way so that you can kind of navigate through a plan for your week and weekend and when you wanna cook.

- Can you throw out some of those supper ideas that are kind of your go-to zone on the regular as you say.

- Oh, yes.

Family favorites, Italian wedding soup, chicken tikka masala, Moroccan chicken over like a pepper vegetable salad, meatball subs.

I'm trying to think of some others, a pork Ragu, pappardelle pasta.

- And we'll find all these in that book?

- In the new book, cinnamon biscuits, biscuit bowls, eggs in a hole with biscuit dough.

And then there's a section on cocktails and we have desserts, best ever chocolate pie, eggnog which is a tradition in our family at Christmas.

And I'm trying to think of some others but yeah.

- Well, this has been kind of a new experience I guess for you with the "How She Rolls" the show.

- Oh my goodness.

- Tell me about what it was like, I mean, it must have been quite different because this all kind of happened, right?

Whenever COVID happened, right?

I'm sure that brought in some challenges but the show went on.

Tell me about that experience.

- Well, to have a film crew follow your whole family is interesting and I was very nervous about how this was gonna impact our family.

But it's a true testament to the crew because it became as if they weren't there and they were really non-invasive and it was easy and we were able to be our authentic self and go about our life and not feel as if we were acting.

It was just this is what's going on and I think we're blessed in that we have lots of things happening in our lives.

So there was never a shortage of when is this show (indistinct).

And that was really important to me to make sure we weren't making things up and needs to be.

And then COVID hit and at first you think, oh, this is gonna be the end but it was really the beginning of how can we document this?

Because this is a time in our history that will hopefully never happen again and it's affected everyone.

And so it became a really important story to tell and how do you pivot and navigate through this horrific event and make the best out of it.

And I'm really proud that we were able to do that in a compelling way and show the audience how you survive that and how do you laugh through that and cry.

- Right, and I'm sure you like the rest of us had a little more time to cook because, I've joked about this on the show before but it was comical all the pictures of banana bread, I would see through my Facebook feed, banana bread making.

- If you can find flour.

- True, right, so tell me about that.

I mean, that was a big deal for you, gosh.

- Yeah, we definitely had, I think there were three months of we didn't know if we were gonna every day it'd be like, how many cases of flour do we have left and it would inevitably get down to the very last few cases and we'd be getting ready to call off our team of bakers and then we'd get a call and they say, okay, you're gonna get a truck.

- Yeah.

- And we'd hooray and make an assembly line to get it in.

It's no different than anything else in life.

When you have a problem, you got to figure out a solution.

You can't just quit.

You gotta keep going and so that's what we just kept saying to our team.

This is a moment in time, it will get better.

And I don't think any of us had any idea that it was gonna last as long as it did.

But I'm really proud that we have persevered not just as a company, as a family, as a community, as a country, it's just been remarkable and it's a true testament that we can get through anything right?

- Right.

And reading the book and also watching "How She Rolls" it's just so clear how important tradition, family, that tight bond is to you.

And in watching now especially with your girls, I've got four girls by the way, I beat you one.

- You do?

I'm jealous.

- It's crazy.

There's so many reasons that you shouldn't do that, the ball fields and the meetings and all that.

So it can be difficult to make that a priority but it's clear that that's something very, a strong belief of yours.

So talk about that and just how much you drive that home with your girls too 'cause I've seen that you do that even on the show.

- This just happened this morning.

And when they were younger, they craved it, what's for supper and they know at six o'clock, somewhere between six and 6:30, that's what's happening.

And even if that means I've gotta create that on a soccer field or whatever it is such a grounding space for me.

But as your girls get older, they want to go here and do this and it just happened today and I said you got to give a little but at the same time I said, no, you don't need to do that today, we need to have family supper.

So I'm definitely pulling them back a little bit and they go and then, but I know that when I get them there, they appreciate it.

And my hope is that they will wanna do that with their family.

But everybody's lives are so crazy with all the extracurricular and my husband and I we both travel so you gotta have that.

You gotta have that to create the memories and to create structure and love and when you have children you might have arguments within the daughters and it's just so important to bring everybody back to say, okay, for this 30 minutes, and I've had to regroup and say, "We're not gonna argue or talk about that right now, we're gonna have supper and we're gonna talk about the good things that have happened today."

- Right.

- So it's just a calming space.

- And is that something that you did or didn't have growing up.

- Not really.

I mean, I grew up in the 80s when everybody worked and everybody was on their own.

And I think that it was something that I really wanted to create and I had my best friend and director of operations.

I watched her family have this and I thought, I want that.

I wanna create that for my family because I think it lasts.

And then it creates a place for them to do that going forward in their family and I think it's so important.

- I agree.

Let's talk back about biscuits, back up a little bit.

I know this is kind of like asking a musician their favorite song but let's go through your family and tell me how everybody likes their biscuit.

- Oh my goodness, okay.

John loves the country ham biscuits and he can eat at least six in a sitting.

Caroline, Kate and Sarah all love cinnamon.

- Okay.

- But they do love the ham too.

But they love the cinnamon whipped butter and the cinnamon.

I tend to be a buttermilk girl just because I can turn that into so many things and there are days where I just want loads of butter on my buttermilk and then I wanna add a meat or something sweet.

So I feel like the buttermilk and I love the tanginess of it and it just has so many possibilities.

- I wanna make sure before we close out the show, we have the great opportunity to work with students from the University of South Carolina Beaufort.

And they're at that time where they're kind of wondering what am I gonna do when I grow up and it's getting really close.

So what kind of life advice would you give someone of that age who is just trying to figure things out and entering that real world?

- I get that question often actually.

And I am a huge believer in the more you work starting at age 14 when you're legally allowed to work, the better equipped you are to make a decision on what it is you love to do.

If you don't have a lot of different job experiences and you don't understand the importance of earning money and being able to spend your own money and save your money, then how are you supposed to figure out what you wanna do for the rest of your life?

So I tell everybody from the age of 14 and our girls at their birthday I'm like, all right, you gotta get a job, where is it gonna be?

I think that's a super important life skill but I also think it gives your children the opportunity to figure out what do you love to do?

How are you gonna know what you love if you don't experience it, right?

And I think the pressure that our young people have to figure out their career in college, I think it's nonsense.

I think you're never gonna know until you experience life.

So go experience life.

Make sure you can afford it.

- Right.

- 'Cause this is cutting off when you go to college but go travel, go live somewhere else, try three different jobs, whatever it takes.

So that's how you figure out what you're passionate about.

And if you are passionate about what you do, then a job isn't really a job, right?

Because you love what you do.

- And it's very clear that you do love what you do.

And I know we don't have a lot of time left but one more question I wanna ask, you've done the book, you've done the TV, you've done the restaurant, you've got biscuits out in retail stores, any more dreams that you wanna make sure happen?

- I would love to see the business continue to grow and be more of a national brand.

And I'd also really like to help other women in business.

I do that a little bit on the side and I just love helping people.

And so I hope that whether that is this entrepreneur here or there are my employees, I love helping people realize their own dreams.

So that will be something that I continue to do and grow and foster for sure.

- Perfect.

Thanks so much for stopping by.

Unfortunately it's all over now but I really enjoyed our conversation.

- Thank you for having me.

- I think it's really neat what you have going here.

Everybody thank you all for tuning in to "By The River" and we're gonna leave you now with our Lowcountry Poet's Corner.

We'll see you next time "By The River".

The man who got quiet.

It was a little after 2:00 a.m. when restless he rose.

Felt for his absent glasses, sat in a blur, reconstructing his steps to bed when he heard a metallic creek like the rhythmic spin of a windmill from some film set on the prairie.

And on that slate of grainy dark he saw an immense rippling of grass with a single tree on the horizon.

A fleck of gold sang from a wind worn branch and he didn't move for fear he'd startle that Meadowlark.

Though the device on the nightstand flashed its alerts, the man remained quiet, still as the one idol cloud in the boundless blue sky.

- Biscuits and family are as inextricably linked in my life as flour and butter.

Put them together and something magical happens.

You can even say that family is the secret ingredient to all my best recipes.

As I thought long and hard about which recipes to include in this book, I quickly realized that it was the people who popped inside my head even before the (indistinct).

"By The River" is brought to you in part by the University of South Carolina Beaufort, Learning in Action Discovered, the ETV Endowment of South Carolina, Community Foundation of the Lowcountry, Strengthening Community, Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at USCB, the Pat Conroy Literary Center.