Biscuits & Jam

Ashley Christensen is a two-time James Beard Award winning chef, restaurateur, and cookbook author from Raleigh, North Carolina, who has a way of taking classic Southern dishes and making them the talk of the food world. She grew up with parents who loved to cook, entertain, and play music in the kitchen, and Ashley has channeled that spirit of hospitality into her restaurants like Poole's Diner a...

Jennifer Nettles was born and raised in rural South Georgia, where she got very involved in 4-H as a kid, a relationship that’s still a big part of her life. She went on to an extraordinary music career, winning a long list of Grammys, CMA Awards, and ACM Awards with Sugarland in the mid 2000s. By 2015, she’d started to work more in film and television, including her roles as Dolly Parton’s mother...

Tyler Florence is a Southern chef and Food Network star who, after 16 previous cookbooks, is finally releasing one that focuses on his passion for grilling. Tyler has been working in restaurants since he was a teenager in Greenville, South Carolina. Since then he’s lived and worked in Charleston, New York City and, for more than a decade now, California – where he and his partners run several high...

Since 1985, Emily Sailers and Amy Ray have been known as the Indigo Girls, and they’ve never once stopped making music or sharing their message of acceptance. The two met when they were kids in Decatur, Georgia,, and once they started playing together in high school, it didn’t take long for their unique sound to find an audience—first regionally, then nationally, and eventually worldwide. Last sum...

Kimberly Schlapman, a founding member of the band Little Big Town, has been a musician almost all her life. As a little girl she played piano alongside her mother at a Baptist church near where she grew up in Cornelia, Georgia, and even then people knew her voice was something special. Years later, on a choir camp bus when she was at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, she met Karen Fairchi...

Brian Baumgartner may be best known to many people, across at least a couple of generations, as Kevin from The Office, but there’s much more to the actor than his famous onscreen persona. Born and raised in Atlanta, Brian has a deep love for the South, a wicked sense of humor, an obsession with sports, and a successful podcast called Off the Beat. He also has a lifelong passion for barbecue – both...

Darius Rucker gained fame in 1994 when David Letterman heard his band, Hootie and the Blowfish, on a local radio station and insisted they play The Late Show later that week. The band’s debut album, cracked rear view, went on to sell over 20 million units worldwide and made them a household name. Despite all that success, Darius was always drawn to the songs and stories of country music, and for t...

Pat Martin probably knows as much about whole hog barbecue as anyone in the world. Best known for his eponymous restaurant chain, Martin’s Bar-B-Que Joint, he’s also the host of a new TV show on the Outdoor Channel called “Life of Fire,” cooking with barbecue legends and hearing their stories. Pat wasn’t always headed for a culinary career - at one point he was working in finance - but he eventual...

Scotty McCreery burst onto the country music scene when he became the youngest male singer to ever win American Idol back in 2011, when he was just 17 years old. He grew up in Garner, North Carolina, just outside of Raleigh, where he developed his talent by singing and playing music at the local Baptist Church. Scotty talks with Sid about his new album, Rise & Fall, which showcases some different...

TODAY Show co-host Craig Melvin has put a lot of thought into what it takes to be both a father and a son. His 2021 memoir, Pops: Learning to Be a Son and a Father, dealt with his experiences living with a dad who was an alcoholic and a gambling addict—and writing the book ultimately helped him salvage the relationship. At times emotional, Melvin also shares with Sid some of the backstory and moti...

Sid Evans, Editor-in-Chief of Southern Living Magazine, chats with Lauren Daigle, a musician who began her career as a Christian artist, but who’s more recently become a crossover sensation. Lauren Daigle grew up in Lafayette, Louisiana, where she enjoyed fishing with her dad, dancing to Cajun music with her grandparents, and rooting for LSU with her entire family. And while the rich musical tradi...

The Castellows are three sisters—Eleanor, Lily, and Powell Balkcom—who started sharing their music on Instagram just a couple of years ago, and now they seem to be everywhere. Their newfound success has led them to a fast-moving career in Nashville and to the recent release of a new EP called A Little Goes a Long Way. With beautiful harmonies and lyrics about a simpler way of life, many of the son...

Tyler Hubbard was born and raised in Monroe, Georgia, where he grew up working in the garden with his family, competing in motocross races, and playing music at his church. He met his bandmate, Brian Kelley, at Belmont University in Nashville, and by 2012 Florida Georgia Line was one of the hottest acts in country music. These days, he’s entered a new phase in his life and career. He’s a father no...

Emmy Russell was born in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee, and grew up touring and performing with her grandmother, Loretta Lynn, as well as her mother, Patsy Lynn. She doesn’t sound much like the “Queen of Country,” but Emmy has a beautiful voice and plenty of talent as a songwriter. On an episode of American Idol earlier this spring, she wowed the judges with an intensely personal song that caught the...

Jennifer Nettles was born and raised in rural South Georgia, where she got very involved in 4-H as a kid, a relationship that’s still a big part of her life. She went on to an extraordinary music career, winning a long list of Grammys, CMA Awards, and ACM Awards with Sugarland in the mid 2000s. By 2015, she’d started to work more in film and television, including her roles as Dolly Parton’s mother...

Cedric Burnside is the grandson of the famous bluesman R.L. Burnside, and he’s also a Grammy-winning artist who’s taking the genre into new territory. He started playing the drums when he was still in grade school, and by the age of 13 he was playing juke joints and traveling the country with his grandfather, whom he referred to as “Big Daddy.” Cedric talks with Sid about his life growing up on a...

Devon Allman grew up in Texas and Missouri, and didn’t meet his father, Gregg Allman, until he was a teenager. A simple letter brought the two of them together, and before long Devon was going on tour with the Allman Brothers Band—and getting to know his dad. In another twist of fate, he met his longtime collaborator Duane Betts, whose father, Dicky Betts, was also a founding member of the Allman...

Camila Alves McConaughey may be best known for her connection to her famous husband, Matthew, but she has a career and a fan base of her own. After growing up in Brazil and then traveling the world as a model, she settled down to raise a family in Texas, a place that now feels very much like home. Not only has she co-founded the Just Keep Livin’ foundation with Matthew to support and empower high...

Charles Esten was born in Pennsylvania, but moved to Virginia with his mother and his sister after his parents divorced. After college, he played Buddy Holly in a long-running UK stage production before becoming a member of the casts for both the UK and US versions of Whose Line is it Anyway? Eventually, he landed a role on TV’s Nashville as troubled songwriter Deacon Claybourne, where he got to s...

Nashville-based country star Brittney Spencer talks about her deep respect for The Chicks, her admiration for the trailblazing country artist Mickey Guyton, as well as what she’s learned from performing with Bob Weir, a founding member of the Grateful Dead. Spencer hails from the city of Baltimore, where her family runs a popular Southern-style restaurant called Granny’s. Her debut album, which is...

José Andrés was born and raised in Spain and has brought his love of Spanish cuisine to successful restaurants in New York City and Washington DC. While he now has dozens of dining establishments in a host of different cities, what really sets him apart is the work he’s done with World Central Kitchen. Founded in 2010 in response to the devastating earthquake that hit Haiti, World Central Kitchen...

Southern Living is excited to announce the launch of Season 5 of Biscuits & Jam on February 20th, 2024 with chef José Andrés. Since 2020, Sid Evans, Editor-in-Chief of Southern Living has been interviewing Southern icons like Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, Wynonna Judd, Darius Rucker, and more about their family traditions, meals that remind them of home, and of course, what it means to be Southern....

Before he starred in Breaking Away or The Big Easy, Dennis Quaid was a kid from Houston, Texas, who grew up loving Elvis Presley and wanting to play rock and roll. His early success as an actor led him to a legendary career in movies, but he never gave up his musical ambitions. As the longtime frontman of Dennis Quaid & the Sharks, he’s built a reputation as a legitimate, high-energy rock star. Re...

Country star Thomas Rhett grew up in Valdosta, Georgia, with a father and grandfather who primed him to be a Bulldogs superfan. Meanwhile, his wife, Lauren Akins, bleeds the orange of the Tennessee Volunteers. Somehow they’ve managed to build a lasting romance and a loving family in spite of rooting for teams on opposite sides of the field. In this episode, they talk about where they grew up, how...

On this episode, Sid Evans, Editor-in-Chief of Southern Living Magazine, chats with Hoda Kotb, one of the anchors of ‘The Today Show’ on NBC and an author. She was raised in West Virginia while visiting family in Egypt. Unfortunately, her father passed away while she was in college, which of course took an emotional toll, but the lessons she took from the experience has helped her to move through...