7 Things You Never Knew About Carla Hall, Straight From the Chef Herself

Carla shared details of her upcoming cookbook, due out in 2018, saying, "I'm so excited. I've done Cooking With Love, Carla's Comfort Foods, and the working title of this is Soul Food Revolution. I am not only digging into my heritage and my roots, but taking some of these recipes and trying to lighten them up and also keeping the flavor and keeping the tradition of growing up in the South as an African-American. [It's about] honoring that food, but also realizing that we have a different lifestyle, and I don't want the food to kill people [laughs]. When you talk about the foods that people ate on a regular basis — that's what I'm trying to get to. The stuff that you don't hear about because maybe it's not sexy and fattening and associated with a holiday." Carla elaborated by saying the cookbook will feature plenty of produce-driven dishes, like her popular collard greens and a stewed okra and tomato dish.