- Atlanta Mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms
shared her mac and cheese on social media.
Well, her post went viral
and people had a whole lot to say
about her mac and cheese looked.
One person said,
"At least you tried."
(audience laughter)
Another person commented,
"Bless your heart."
Well, the mayor is here to set the record straight.
(audience cheering)
And I'm teaming her with the celebrity chef
whose mac and cheese game
will have us all looking like champions
at the gameday snack table.
Give a warm welcome to the mayor of Atlanta,
Miss Keisha Bottoms
and to the winner of Food Network star season four
Chef Aaron Big Daddy McCargo Jr.
(audience applause)
But now listen, this is what you did,
you actually turned the situation
into an initiative to help your community of Atlanta.
Tell us about it.
- That's right.
So we're joining with Kroger Grocery Stores
for the More Than Macaroni Initiative.
And what we will do is that for
January 31st, for a couple of weeks after that,
if you round up your purchase,
then the proceeds will go to the Atlanta Food Bank.
- Wow. - Wow.
(audience applause)
- Well that's how you flip the script on it, you know.
Thankfully though,
we've got Chef Big Daddy in here.
Now so we gonna get started.
- What I've got in this bowl is a couple eggs,
I've got some heavy cream, we've got some smoked gouda,
we got some mozzarella, some swiss,
and we got some sharp cheddar.
So this is the base right here.
We got some cheese lovers in the house.
Wow.
So what happens is, you put your cooked noodles--
and you wanna leave 'em kinda wet.
Now once you get your noodles in here,
a lot of folks over cook 'em,
cook 'em a little under so they don't get mushy
while they're baking in the oven.
But the key thing is, the Velveeta.
Now I know a lot of folks look down on Velveeta cheese
but I'm a Velveeta lover.
So this is the thing, once I dump this in the bowl,
you get your Velveeta and you lay it on top of this.
And I put it in the oven for like 15, 20 minutes
and then I take this fork.
And this is where you go and you stir this cheese in here.
And then
you put it back in the oven. - That's what happened to mine
see?
- That's what you're doing.
See, they didn't know that.
- Once you stir the cheese, you put it back in.
Now we got this going in.
Now this is what your finished mac and cheese looks like.
- Oh!
(audience applause)
- There you go, man.
Try that out right there.
- I will.
- Mayor, let me know what you think.
(audience yelling)
- Mm.
That is really good.
- I woulda brought fried chicken and ribs
but I figured I'd just...
(laughs)
(audience cheering)
Now I don't want y'all to get stuffed on that.
Now y'all quit eating and walk with me
because I got another one for you.
Now I'm coming from Camden, New Jersey.
Right across the bridge is Philly and cheese steaks
is the biggest thing.
So what I did was I took the master base
of what I had over there.
I got me some chopped steak, some sauteed onions,
a little bit of cracked black pepper.
Now what we wanna do is take the same mixture,
put this over the top.
(audience cheering)
So we got steak and stuff in the middle.
(laughter)
Then some of this white cheddar here.
(laughter)
We got the cheese steak mixed, the same process.
We take this finished dish, we throw it in the oven.
And believe me, you gonna take it out 15, 20 minutes,
stir the cheese in, same thing.
So what we're gonna do here
is because I love to make sure
that everybody's eating good,
you know I got the
big daddy
Steve cheese steak mac and cheese here,
piping hot out the oven.
Yes, it's about to go down.
It's about to go down.
- Come here.
Yeah, come here.
Come here.
(audience applause)
Y'all come here.
- [Mayor Brown] Oh, it smells so good.
- Okay, this is the cheese steak one.
- That's the cheese steak one.
Mayor, what you think?
- I think I like the first one
with the gouda.
- Yeah, I love that one.
Now listen to me,
Aaron, you're opening a beer garden
in Camden, New Jersey.
Tell us about it.
- Yeah, thank you.
So it's more than just a beer garden
because what we're gonna have is a lot of
different types of arts, different types of food.
So now we got an opportunity for all those folks
with talents such as painting, or singing,
or drawing, or poetry,
they can come down and showcase that
as well as get an opportunity to bring the family down,
have good food, great cocktails, great wine,
and it's just gonna be a great experience.
- Wow, congratulations.
- [Chef Aaron] Thank you.
- Now I wanna say thanks to Chef Aaron Big Daddy
McCargo Jr.
And we're gonna put all the recipes
up on the website and if you are in Camden,
make sure you check out his beer garden,
Camden Art Shop opening in March.
Now,
y'all a special thanks to my mayor,
Mayor Bottoms of a great city of Atlanta, Georgia,
which will be hosting the Super Bowl.
We'll be right back, everybody.
(theme music)