Lauren BairShe’s a mom of four and lifestyle mogul juggling a high-profile marriage along with multihyphenate success in country music, reality TV, fitness, fashion, and food. But Jessie James Decker always makes time for a home-cooked meal — and her latest cookbook invites the whole family to savor the good life.
Following Jessie’s previous New York Times bestsellers, “The Secret Sauce: A Family Cookbook Seasoned with Love” hit shelves on Tuesday, featuring crowd-pleasing recipes and heartwarming stories from Jessie, her sister Sydney Rae Bass, and their mom Karen Parker. Their Southern, Italian, and Cajun heritage pops off the page, accompanied by photos of Mardi Gras chicken pasta, marry me key lime pie, and Tuscan tomato salad. Just reading it almost feels like picking garden vegetables with Nonna, cooking up a storm, and eating like you mean it.
I chatted with Jessie the afternoon before she headed out on tour for her book. She’s a born entertainer, but I wonder if she still gets butterflies when she’s playing to more bookish, food-loving crowds than those at The Opry or one of her stadium shows. These days, Jessie’s focused on raising her kids at home — not spending life on the road. But no one’s going hungry in this family.
“I’m not a chef and I’ve never pretended to be, but I’m a really good home cook,” Jessie says. Preferring cooking to baking, she could probably make most of these dishes by heart. Now a Nashville local with a Southern vibe, Jessie explains, “My mom’s side of the family all came down from Sicily and settled in a little town called Independence, Louisiana, and it’s filled with Italians. I was literally raised on Cajun and Italian food.”
If she had to pick a favorite from her newest collection, Jessie would point directly to her mom’s red beans and rice. “It’s a Cajun Louisiana staple,” she says. “It brings me back to my childhood. Anytime I would travel or go on tour, that was the meal I requested be there when I got home. Even now whenever Eric and I go out of town and my mom watches the kids, we’ll come home and she knows to have red beans and rice on the table. It’s sausage and rice and beans and it’s got a bell pepper and bay leaf — it’s just very, very good and the kids love it. So that’s a very special recipe to me.”
Jessie describes these types of treasured dishes as “genuinely secret family recipes that I still cannot believe my mother was okay with sharing. There’s a couple that I’ve asked, ‘Mom, have you told Gigi that that one’s in there?’” She laughs. Her grandmother ultimately approved the family’s pink maraschino cherry cookies in the final edit.
Still, Jessie keeps the mother sauce of Italian cuisine secured in the vault. “The Sicilian gravy … will die with us,” she says.
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Jessie and her mom and sister have the kind of “fun wine mom” energy you want to participate in — even if they’re just hanging out in pajamas with coffee around the table. It’s an unbreakable bond that just seems to grow bigger as more people get added to the tribe.
Regarding her light and cheeky Instagram where she entertains over 4 million followers, I suggest that Jessie should win Best Director for convincing her hubby to do stunts like the “naked” cookbook promo. After spending almost 16 years with her, he clearly trusts Jessie’s creative eye behind the camera. She could spot talent a mile away. The couple started dating once a mutual friend connected them via Jessie’s Blackberry.
“She sends me a picture to my Blackberry, and it takes a minute to load,” Jessie recalls. “I saw the photo and I was like, well sh*t, this guy is gorgeous. Totally what I had just envisioned: tall, dark, and handsome.”
Fans caught a first glimpse of Jessie’s marriage to former NFL wide receiver Eric Decker on their first reality show, “Eric & Jessie.” Anyone following along will remember their couple’s exit from “Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test” when they confirmed, “We ride together, we fly together.” But it’s only an illusion that she’s offering up their full story.
“We’re actually more private than you would ever realize,” she says. “Our relationship and our marriage is very special and sacred to us. So is our family. That’s why you haven’t seen us on another reality show because it’s just too precious. You don’t have to share everything.”
As for how she does it all while maintaining a level of fitness to keep her JJD Fit community rolling, Jessie’s all about balance. “I’ve always had such a great relationship with food, and I know a lot of people don’t,” she admits. Considering that she entered the music industry as a teen, that mindset is nothing short of a miracle. “I don’t do the sad salads in plastic, like I just don’t play that game,” she says. “I want good stuff. Food to me is a celebration. I want it to be just delicious and fabulous. It’s like a treat. I look forward to it.”
“I don’t overindulge in anything,” she says. “But I never cut myself off. Don’t ever cut yourself off from the pleasures of life. If you want to have a cookie, have a cookie. If you want to have a glass of wine, have a glass of wine. Everything in moderation.”
Still, Jessie’s real about not always toiling away in the kitchen. “I’ve definitely had my McDonald’s chicken sandwich from time,” she laughs. “But I crave heirloom tomatoes and basil and balsamic as a snack.”
Considering she’s about to head off to Mexico on a girls’ trip, a food and fitness travel show doesn’t seem completely off the table. “I would love to do kind of what Denise Austin did back in the day where I could travel to all these places, do a workout, and then go eat something after and talk about it. I do feel like fitness and food go hand in hand.”
When it comes to diet, Jessie’s advice is to go back to basics.
“We’ve gotta make it a little bit simpler. Eat your meat, eat your steak, have your butter, have your vegetables, drink your milk,” Jessie says. “These are all things that our grandparents ate. Just feed your body real food and don’t overthink it.”
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