Recently Charles Davis, First Husband of Furman University, independently published his first cookbook, aptly titled “Nutmeg and Nepotism, Recipes from the White House. On the back cover, Davis writes, “This is a compendium of shower thoughts, musings, and things my wife makes. I’ve found that with my abundance of free time, I can give back to the community. I can give them a taste of my life, quite literally.”
When I went to visit Mr. Davis for our interview, he answered me in his morning robe and offered me a beer. After turning his Xbox off, he proceeded to drink orange juice out of the jug with a significant amount of backwash. The kitchen was spacious and cluttered in a sort of way that exuded genius. “You ever seen Ratatouille?” He asked.
I started by asking, ‘why a cookbook?’ “I’m already a business professor at Furman and Baylor. Why not add something to my plate? No pun intended!” He belly laughed for five minutes straight while I stared at him.
I then asked him to speak of his culinary inspirations. “Anthony Bourdain, Jeremy Allen White, Bob Belcher, Julia Child, the Swedish dude from the Muppets, and Martha Stewart’s trading practices.” He then expressed “an absolute love” for Tiktok star Cooking with Kya, and informed me that he has also messaged Quen Blackwell multiple times to no response.
Three dishes were set before me, all drawing from the new book. The first seemed to be some sort of egg-like mass of green yolk and brown gelatin shell. The second was a Canadian jellied moose nose, a Yukonese delicacy. The third was a cheeseburger with swiss cheese. “The last one is a bit progressive. I typically like to color outside the lines a bit with my cooking, even if I don’t let my business students do it in class.”
Trying to distract him, I pointed down the hallway and told him that Gordon Ramsay was verbally abusing two children over there. “Where?!” he yelled cartoonishly and vanished down the hallway, allowing me to sneak out the front eating his cheeseburger. As I got in my car, he peered out the front door red-faced and puffing. I watched him finger his phone for a moment, and Officer 21 materialized as if summoned, blocking my car in.
“I called the evilest person I know,” he said, laughing maniacally. “Now sit and eat my food or I’ll force feed you Moes until you turn purple.” Wow, did that change my tune. I can’t describe how good that food is. Everyone should buy his book right now. That man works miracles. And he’s good at Fortnite.
