Fashion is Scot Louie‘s first love.
The Brooklyn-bred stylist, who has worked with the likes of Lil Kim, singer Kehlani, and actress Ryan Destiny, and starred in the VH1 reality spinoff The Impact: New York, knows his way around a fashion closet. But those who have followed the sartorially savvy creative are aware that he also knows his way around the kitchen, too. That’s why he’s releasing his first cookbook, Tastemaker. The man can do it all, and he says that ability is all a part of his Jamaican background.
“My mom has eight sisters and brothers, and I grew up with all of them in the hair salon. They’re Jamaican, so you have to know how to do everything. Cooking was one of the skills, as well as cleaning the house and rearing children, all of those things. And I just took to cooking.”
A fan of the Jamaican cuisine created in the kitchens of his loved ones, including in the countryside of the island nation during summertime visits, he learned a wide variety of talents that stayed with him. “I learned things from my grandmother. Different skills and how to properly do things, like sift flour and make coconut milk from scratch,” he says. “Those are some of my fondest memories and really where I get my skillset from.”
While his work as a stylist garnered him a following, Louie didn’t let his love for food sit on the back burner. Pun intended.
He started sharing recipes with the Internet via a separate page he created called DinnerPlus on Instagram. His foray into being a beloved cook was very similar to the way he broke into fashion.
“I’ve used the internet as my tool for as long as I’ve known. My first celebrity client was Lil Kim. And how I got Kim was I found her assistant on Twitter, found his email and emailed him mood boards for two years straight, showing him how I wanted to dress her. When he finally got tired of me, he said, ‘Kim wants to give you a chance.’ That’s how I got my foot in the door as a stylist. And it’s the same thing with DinnerPlus,” he says. “I just got on the internet one day, and I was like, okay, I’m going to make a separate page. I didn’t want to call it Scot Louie Cooking or anything like that. It was just its own world. And I started posting recipes and things I would cook four or five times a week.”
His consistency turned into the creation of a successful line of spice blends called Oh, Wow., and caught the attention of the woman who would become Tastemaker‘s editor. One of his viral recipes, the Soul Bowl, a combination of a rice dish, collared kale, black-eyed peas, Asian creamy chicken, and roasted sweet potatoes (seen on the cover of his book), left her curious about whether or not he was interested in doing a cookbook.
“I was like, ‘Girl, hell yeah!'” he says. “I had always thought, okay, if I’m going to do a cookbook, I’m just going to have to self-publish because I don’t know what that process is like and how that works. And I’m a Capricorn, so everything is like, okay, if I’m going to do it, I’m just going to do it myself. She reached out to me, and I was over the moon. I jumped at the opportunity, and two years ago, I spent seven months testing recipes in my Brooklyn apartment and trying and failing and trying again. I cried so many times during the dessert chapter. It was so hard. It’s really, truly, a labor of love.”
The book is all-encompassing, showing off his talents, creating everything from Garlic & Lemon Pepper Lamb Chops, Honey Butter Cornbread Waffles, Blueberry Compote Crunch Cake, and Bougie Chopped Cheese Sliders. He even tries his hands as a mixologist with the Sorrel Margarita. Louie proudly puts on for home culinarians, not trained in traditional schools but in kitchens ’round the world.
“I am in fact a home cook. I’m not a chef by any means. I did not go to culinary school, so I wanted to showcase that as a home cook, we can still do this too,” he says. “There are a lot of home cooks on the internet who, like myself at one time, felt like this is just a hobby. I can’t really turn this into a business. I can’t turn this into a bigger thing. So I really want to showcase that even as a home cook, you can really turn this sh-t up.”
If you need further confirmation that he indeed is a true talent in the kitchen, Louie’s styling clients will certainly back him up. He’s been cooking for the girls and keeping them dressed to the nines.
“Them girls always want me in the kitchen, honey,” he says. “Listen, Ryan [Destiny] will probably kill me for saying this, but Ryan does not love to eat vegetables. She absolutely loves my cauliflower fried rice and salmon, and that’s a big deal for me. She does not like vegetables. And to get someone to eat a vegetable like cauliflower—and it’s not just cauliflower, I put peppers and onions—I wear that as a badge of honor.”
When asked where he sees himself taking his love of food next, the sky is the limit. Louie sees his spices and maybe even some cookware in big box stores like Target, Walmart, and Whole Foods. And the former Impact star would love to return to TV, trading in reality TV drama to deliver his go-to recipes in a wholesome way on the small screen.
“It was different. It was just a different process,” he admits of his time on the one-season series, a spinoff of The Impact: Atlanta. “I do think that there was a lot that was missed, a lot that the audience didn’t get to see. The main thing that was missing from that process was resolve. We didn’t get the resolve necessary, and it kind of just left the viewer hanging. But overall, I thought it was a great experience.”
Louie adds, “I would love to be back on television again. I would love to have more of a food-related presence on television. For example, a cooking series where I have guests on and we cook together would be something that’s very exciting for me. But TV is something I would do again, in a different arena, in a different capacity, less drama, God willing.”
Tastemaker: Cooking with Spice, Style & Soul is available September 3, wherever books are sold.