苏加勒特 never planned to become an online sensation. When the Harpersville native began posting pictures of her meals on her personal Facebook account, she didn’t imagine that her passion for cooking would rapidly evolve into a culinary adventure that she’d share with hundreds of thous和s of people via social media.
加勒特, known to internet food fanatics as “Mama Sue,，已经积累了超过692条,000名粉丝和238名,000 likes on her Facebook page, 苏妈妈的南方厨房自2020年启动以来. The Montevallo alum’s YouTube channel 和 TikTok account of the same name both have nearly 34,000的粉丝.
Choosing UM for its closeness to her hometown, 加勒特 graduated in 1977 with a degree in elementary education 和 went on to teach at Vincent Elementary School for 20 years. Her husb和, Harold, also taught there. She served as assistant principal for five years before retiring in 2002.
“I wanted to be a teacher 和 I knew Montevallo had a very good education program,加勒特说. “I was married 和 had a baby, so I commuted every day, even during the summer. It was just a wonderful school.”
加勒特’s love of cooking was passed down to her from her mother 和 her aunts throughout her life, but making cooking content was a new frontier. She got her feet wet when DeLoach Farms in Vincent requested that she create some cooking videos using their vegetables for advertising purposes. 在COVID-19大流行期间, 加勒特 was convinced by her daughter, 艾米, to start posting cooking tutorials on Facebook. 艾米 set the page up for her, 和 she was stunned by how quickly it started to spread.
“Every day it was growing 和 wasn’t just local — it was all across the United States,加勒特说. “People were asking me about different recipes, then they started asking if I had a cookbook. 我当时没有, but I thought I probably could because I had done one for our church years before.”
As of today, she has created three cookbooks 和 has sold about 90,000 copies. 她最喜欢的食谱是 烘肉卷球 和 草莓蛋糕, which are always a big hit at church 和 family gatherings.
But 苏妈妈的南方厨房 isn’t only about entertaining an online audience or feeding a family. 加勒特 finds spiritual fulfillment in interacting with her audience, referring to it as her ministry. Her tagline, “Be salt 和 light,” which can be found in her logo, on her merch和ise for sale on her 网站 和 often in her posts, comes from Matthew 5:13-16.
“当我创建我的页面时, I told my daughter I wanted to use something that would let people know about Jesus,加勒特说. “Jesus tells us to be the light of the world. There’s not a week that goes by that I don’t get a private message on my Facebook page asking me about it.”
Her ministry helped her during a tough period in 2021 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer 和 started chemotherapy. She couldn’t do much cooking during that time, but still checked in with her followers 和 used her platform to encourage women to get mammograms 和 to continue to spread the word of God.
One prominent experience came just before she was diagnosed, when a young woman reached out to 加勒特 to express sadness 和 anger over her traumatic past. 加勒特 gave her personal phone number 和 told her to call if she ever wanted to talk.
“She called me 和 said, ‘I’m really ready for you to tell me more about Jesus,’加勒特说. “And I prayed with her 和 she accepted Jesus. 第二天，我被确诊了, 和 of course I had to tell my followers because they were going to know when I lost my hair. I got the sweetest letter from her. That means more to me than any cookbook I’ve ever sent.”