Jesse is joined by Nashville recording artist Hannah Dasher who is not only about to release to new album, but also her first cookbook. It’s called Stand by your Pan and features dozens of easy approachable recipes. Hannah talks about her career in music and her upcoming book signing appearance in Savannah on March 30th. It’s the most fun we’ve had in a 12 minute conversation possibly ever. Enjoy. Hannah is a certifiable hoot.

Jesse Blanco

All right, welcome back to the Eat It and Like It podcast. We got ourselves a little bit of a homecoming coming up here at the end of March that you are invited to. We’ll get to that in a little bit. But first I want to introduce you to a Nashville recording artist. She’s a first time cookbook author and she’s also my guest here on the Eat It and Like It Podcast. Her name is Hannah Dasher. How are you? Thanks for taking a few minutes to hang out with us.,

Hannah Dasher

Jesse, hey, I’m tickled!

JB:

You, I ask around, hey, I hear she’s from Springfield. You know anyone that knows her? And everybody, asked four people and everybody knew. They didn’t know anyone who knew you, but they were familiar with you and your work. So it is kind of homecoming. You grew up up the road here in Springfield, yeah?

HD:

Yes, absolutely. mean, I, you know, I’ve taken pictures with folks at the grocery store, kind of things like that. Anyway, but yes, it’s just up the road, 20 miles, 20 minutes north of Savannah.

JB

How often do you get back down this way?

Hannah Dasher

Not often enough, but yeah, probably four times a year. I’m tickled to be coming down, though on the 30th from my first book signing. Downtown is gonna be fun.

JB:

We will talk about that. The name of the book. You’ve got one right there. I’ve got one right here. It’s called Stand By Your Pan. And Stand By Your Pan. You’ve been, you’ve been up there doing your, you’re building your career as a recording artist. You do have an album coming up, which we will talk about here in a minute, but where this, this whole cookbook idea come from.

HD:

Well, I I loved to eat and I loved to cook, but I was home visiting my mother probably 12 years ago, home from Nashville, and Kimberly Schlattman of Little Big Town had a new cooking show at the time on TV. And my mother’s like, Sally, she calls me Sally, she goes, you’re a lot of fun, you really ought to have a cooking show. You should call it Stand By Your Pan. And we laughed about it, and I was like, mama, that’s brilliant.

JB

All right.

HD

So that Monday I went to my lawyer’s office with a check and said, let’s trademark this biscuit for later use. And so who knew that COVID or quarantine would present a perfect storm for me to test trial it. And then now here we are with my big deal cookbook as well. So I’m juggling a thinner and a frying pan. I write for Sony Music Nashville and then of course I’m in Harper Collins. So yeah.

JB

Was it something, though that, okay, you love the idea, mama, that’s brilliant, but was it something that you…

HD:

Well, I mean, I’m an astounding person anyway. And for years, I was the only female touring with a pedal steel guitar. I like throwback. Hell, look at my kitchen. And my clothes. I like throwback things. I live in a time capsule. I’m not like a weirdo. This was furniture that I inherited that nobody wanted, so I’ve just added to it. And now it’s a little honky tonk bracelet, and people want to have their photo shoots here.

JB

Yeah, and I see it. I see it.

HD

But Stand By Your Pan is, just, it’s a representation of the things that I love that I want to carry forward, even down to just good old classic hospitality tips.

JB:

Yeah, yeah. you’re flipping through it. I mean, I’m looking at some of the names here. You got Get your man beef roast. You got Sissy’s shepherd pie. You’ve got rockstar cabbage. These are all very, very, very approachable recipes. How long did it take you to collect them and put them together in any of these grandmas?

HD

You mean the hoochie grandmother?

JB

I don’t know. I’m not going there. I don’t know anything about that.

HD

Well, you hadn’t done your research!  Well, I’m going to, my recent viral series is about my hoochie grandmother. And I mean, it’s funny, I get stopped, remember, I go, I love, you know, I love your hoochie grandma. So yes, my, both my grandmothers loved to cook. But I do have a couple of, each of my grandmothers, a couple of recipes that are in here. But you know, traveling the world as a touring musician.

JB

Okay

HD:

It took leaving home to realize, okay, all soul food’s not created equal. But what really affirmed that for me was traveling the world and trying to restaurants and just trying lots of great food and realizing what we do in the Lowcountry specifically in Effingham County is very special. And my goal was to give you my versions of these things. I’ve tried to perfect what I love.

And just to give you, to render the best flavor and the best texture. And also to break it down into a way that, you know, Brinley can cook like a Betty. But there’s a lot of these secrets that make a pound cake crust a little chewy and more decadent on the inside, went to the grave with the Miss Bettys and the Miss Evelyn’s of the world that we know. And so, you know, through trial and error, I’m sharing a lot of these secrets with you and stand by your opinion.

JB

Very good. Yeah, I’m looking right now, fried chicken livers with port wine sauce. saw a recipe for balsamic vinegar, vinaigrette, I should say. A lot of simple stuff here, biscuits. I mean, a lot of desserts.

HD:

Well, the chicken liver recipe, I’d say was inspired by Vicks on the River. We were having a Christmas Eve brunch there several, several years ago and they had fried chicken livers and onions on the appetizer. Yeah, as one of appetizers, it was delicious. And I thought, this would be good on mashed potatoes or grits. And I thought, you know what? This would be better with gravy.

Better yet, let’s make it a port wine sauce. But yeah, but it’s a versatile recipe. It’s so good. It’s really rich and really heavy, but add some big cherries and put a duck breast in it. it is for a sophisticated palate, but it’s also, again, this is your go-to for collard greens. This is your go-to for good macaroni and cheese that is going to turn out well and be flavored well.

JB

Yeah, I’m guessing everything in this book is heavy.

HD

The right texture, not too soupy, not too dry. It’s gonna be delicious.

JB:

I mean, I’m looking here at a recipe for tartar sauce. I mean, it doesn’t get much more simple than that, but it’s your recipe.

HD

Exactly, exactly. Well, it’s amazing to me that the amount of girls my age and younger who don’t know how to cook, not just girls, but guys. so I just, I don’t want that to die. don’t want, you know, like, don’t want anyone to grow up without home-cooked meals during the week, at least a few times. You know, there’s really something special about that.

JB

I hear you. Well, we’re going to talk about your book signing here downtown Savannah on the 30th, but first tell us about this new album you got coming out.

​

HD

All right, I call it what’s really a half record. Mark, D. Sanders, Hall of Famer, I love him. He’s an incredible songwriter, but he and I sat down years ago and wrote this funny thing. started, I had a verse and a part of a chorus written. Because 14, 15 years ago, nobody had written a song about Waffle House yet that I’d heard. Anyway, so I wound up foreshadowing my future viral internet friend, the cornbread cowboy. Bless his heart.

HD

But it’s basically my version of Loretta’s Don’t Come Home a’ Drinking With Love On Your Mind. And so I thought this would be a great time with the release of the cookbook, as busy as I am, to pull that one out of the vault and to join it with a few others that you might know. Stand By Your Man by popular demand, if you will. My fans have been asking me for years to cut that one. So I’ve reported a really cool version of that and a couple others that you may know.

Jesse Blanco (07:49.367)

Okay.

HD

And we put them on a fun little EP called Scattered, Smothered, and Covered. So I thought that would, we thought that pair well with this cook one from now. So at the end of the month, on the 27th, you can get Scattered, Smothered, and Covered as well.

JB

So that’ll come out the 27th. You’re gonna be here at Coastal Tables and Tales, or yes, Tables and Tales.

HD

Coastal Table and Tails. Yes, yes on March the 30th. I’ll be flying in. I’ll be honky tonking in Queens, New York and in Boston and then I’m flying right into Savannah. So it’ll be out. So much fun.​

Jesse Blanco

Very good. That is a cute little venue. I got to go there a few weeks ago for a book signing. It’s not very big, so if anyone wants to go, you know, yeah, yeah, that is…

HD

Yeah, get your tickets. Is it a walk-up thing or are they selling tickets?

JB

I think it’s on Eventbrite, so I assume there’s gonna be tickets, but I would suspect…

HD

Well let’s sell it out. maybe let’s cut this out of the interview so people know. I don’t want that to scare folks away from not coming. Lines, I want there to be a line outside and that’s a good look. So, heck yeah. It’s bigger than E shaver, right? So, but I’m so excited. I’m so excited.

JB

They’re going to be doing cooking demos in there and all that stuff. It’s, it’s really, really nice. yeah, yeah, yeah. You’ll have a good time there. so do you have, do you have, I’m gonna put you on the spot. Do you have a favorite recipe in this book?

HD

Coastal Table and Tales, right? It’s on Bull Street. 530. March 30th.

HD

Heavens. You know, I guess it depends on whatever I’m in the mood for. If I’m in the mood for something sweet, my little layer of chocolate cake is really, really hard to beat. Actually, my triple chocolate pound cake is probably my favorite. As far as that goes, it’s rich and chocolatey like Kevin Hart and it’ll, you know, it’ll hurt people’s feelings. It’s so good.

Jesse Blanco

Well, I’ll tell you what, I’ll tell you what. If I, if I don’t know that I’m going to be able to attend on the 30th, but if I do, I will fix you one of them pound cakes and I’ll show up with it.

HD

love it, I love it, I love it, I love it, I love it. Well good, there are several secrets that I include. There’s one I don’t tell you, but three of my four are in this recipe. And you know how competitive cooks and things are. You interview chefs all the time, so you know. Anyways, I just, it’s such a decadent, like I had to fight with the editor to get certain things in here, because fancy.

Jesse Blanco

There you go.

HD

Cookbook chefs or editors, they only do things in 25 degree increments. But not if you want the right texture on your pound cake. So bake it at 315, trust me on that. Don’t put it in a cold oven. It’s gonna be good. Either way, but yeah, for a sweet, for a savory, again, I mean, that king butter, that oven-fried king butter chicken is really hard to beat. It’s so good, but so good. And it’s easy.

Jesse Blanco

Okay, sounds good, sounds good. Okay, so the album comes out the 27th, it’s called Smothered and Covered.

Hannah Dasher

Scattered, smothered, and covered.

Jesse Blanco

Scattered, smothered and covered. That’s the 27th. On the 30th, you’ll be here in downtown Savannah for the book signing. The book is called Stand By Your Pan.

Hannah Dasher

Yes, at 5.30 PM.  Stand by your pan, yes.

JB

Her name is Hannah Dasher, Springfield, is Hannah Dasher. Give you an early welcome home young lady in case I cannot make it. I’m sure it’s gonna be fabulous. A good time will be had. You’ll have copies of the book there, right? Of course.​

HD

Absolutely, I’ll be signing copies, taking photos. I think they’ll do a Q &A. Kind like what they do with Maddie, Madison, know, just a fun little interactive. It won’t be dull, I’ll tell you that. But this is a cookbook unlike any others. It’s a good read, even if you never cook out of it. I would just encourage your followers to just pick it up. It’ll leave them in a better spot. They’re gonna laugh.

JB

I bet, I bet, especially after these, after the, yeah, after these 12 minutes, these are a hoot if it’s anything like this in there, my goodness. Hannah Dasher, thanks so much for taking a few minutes. Good luck with the album and the book and hopefully I’ll, hopefully I’ll get to hug your neck on the 30th.

Hannah Dasher

You’re so sweet.  Yes, please do. Hey, what are some new places, when we’re off air, but what are some new places that you recommend? Because I have not been in the Savannah food scene. Yes, in Savannah, yeah. It’s your 11, okay. Good, all right.

JB

Go eat? I’ll email you four or five. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, Savannah’s food scene is about to go, you ask me, it’s about to go like through the roof. It’s already good, but we’re about to start getting closer, closer to Charleston if you ask me, but yeah, yeah, yeah.

HD

Is Ford Fry opening a place down there? Is that just rumor? Is he doing, he’s got The Optimist here and I think he’s done something in Charleston. Ford Fry, you keep up with him?

JB

Ford Fry, I haven’t heard that one. Wouldn’t surprise me though. I hope he does. I know people who know him. I could find out. So you never know. It would not surprise me at all. Yeah. Yes. Very good. Thank you for taking some time and good luck to you. We’ll see you soon. All right. Take care. Bye.

Hannah Dasher

Yeah, I always got a place coming Savannah. Well, I’m tickled to hear your list because I’m always looking for a good shot, but thank you for making time.

Hannah Dasher

You’re right, I’ll say thank you again.

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