United, We Eat: An Intimate Conversation with Miss Oddette
I spoke to Oddette Augustus of Miss Oddette’s Creole Kitchen, a pop-up catering company and BBQ sauce manufacturer, on a weekday in late June, and was immediately enveloped in the warmth of her words, as she noticeably put thought into each one she spoke. She has a voice and a tone that makes people want to stop and listen. It was hard not to incessantly smile when taking in her stories of love for people, food and laughter — like those from a nurturing, wise friend who carries a lot of passion and pride for building a happy community.
And she maintained that positivity even as talk turned to the aftermath of the death of George Floyd, and America’s deep resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement. Oddette, a black woman in a predominantly white community, saw that as the movement again began to take off, she received an overwhelming amount of encouragement as many stepped up to support people of color. On a weekend just a few days back, Miss Oddette’s Creole Kitchen served its signature mac n cheese for takeout in San Luis Obispo, selling triple the amount than expected for what an off-season weekend could bring in, during a pandemic no less.
“I think food is an excellent tool for bringing people together, whether it’s families or neighborhoods or whatever. People hear you [through food],” says Oddette. “It’s the food that has incredible capabilities to create positive change.”
And she maintained that positivity even as talk turned to the aftermath of the death of George Floyd, and America’s deep resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement. Oddette, a black woman in a predominantly white community, saw that as the movement again began to take off, she received an overwhelming amount of encouragement as many stepped up to support people of color. On a weekend just a few days back, Miss Oddette’s Creole Kitchen served its signature mac n cheese for takeout in San Luis Obispo, selling triple the amount than expected for what an off-season weekend could bring in, during a pandemic no less.
“I think food is an excellent tool for bringing people together, whether it’s families or neighborhoods or whatever. People hear you [through food],” says Oddette. “It’s the food that has incredible capabilities to create positive change.”
“My grandmother is my number one source of inspiration,” Oddette continues. Applying the same care and attention to her food as her grandmother once did, Oddette slow cooks her BBQ for hours on a smoker to decrease the fatty texture but enhance the meat’s rich flavor. And she continues to pay homage to her roots, serving food for the soul, such as pulled pork, tri-tip, ribs, mac and cheese and other Creole comforts not typically found in SLO County, delivering to the masses through pop-up formats and catering events all year long. Before the pandemic, her food was readily available at local establishments like McPhee’s Grill, D’Anbino Vineyards and Four Lanterns Winery.
Oddette didn’t realize that she could make a business out of cooking until the early 2000s when a family member suggested she sell food at a jazz festival in her hometown of Stockton, California. “I marinated tri-tip in wine for multiple days, then let it smoke for multiple hours and sliced it thin to be served up between sourdough slices, with a bit of BBQ sauce on the side,” the same type of BBQ she grew up cooking with her grandmother.
At the festival, customers couldn’t get enough of the lean texture and the smoky, fatty flavor of Oddette’s sandwiches. The tri-tips’ smoky flavor is different from that of California-style tri-tips, which are generally grilled over coals. And the standout quality of hers, Oddette shares, is that “you can take a bite of one of my sandwiches without all the meat falling out at once,” a necessity when eating while on the go at an event.
After working that first festival, which turned out to be a somewhat inadvertent focus group to analyze whether this food business could be well-received and sustainable, she returned home with a large stack of orders for her homemade sauce, the star of the festival. So in 2003, Oddette began selling her BBQ sauces commercially while
managing the pop-ups and catering events, which allowed her to eventually make her way to the Central Coast.
The story of Oddette’s BBQ sauce comes from a steadfast tradition of making sauces from scratch. In college, she was shocked to learn that her friends went to the store to buy premade sauce. Oddette’s childhood neighborhood in Stockton was full of families from the south, and each family had their own unique BBQ sauce. “You knew whose house it came from when you tasted it,” she says. Every year starting at age 13 she began making BBQ sauces with her grandmother to share with the rest of her extended family and friends.
Her sauces are both tangy and buttery, with a little bit of heat. Now, Miss Oddette’s Creole Kitchen sells three different sauces. “No Joke” is her grandmother’s original recipe, and the spiciest of Oddette’s sauces. ”Special Report” is a milder version. The other one is “Mighty High,” a cannabis-infused sauce that took Oddette three years to perfect. The inspiration came after taking a trip through Louisiana where someone murmured that they wished there was weed in BBQ sauce. Oddette, always one to listen to what’s desired in the market, lives in a state where she could make that dream a reality.
At the end of the day, Oddette feels the most joy when she sees the empty plates of her customers. With that simple appreciation for sharing the Creole-inspired food that she grew up eating and cooking, Oddette continues to embrace her past as she expands the breadth of cuisine, awareness and relationships here in our area.
