SPRING ISSUE 2020
COVID 19: N OT INFECTED, BUT AFFECTED
Is social distancing actually bringing us closer together? 20XXtheMagazine.com | 1
COOKING with VIRAL TIKTOKER By Keya Talley How did you discover your love for cooking and what age were you when you started? I actually started cooking when I got in the military. I was working at KFC before then but I never worked the kitchen just the cash register. I hated the way my life was going so I join the military, and ended up becoming a cook. However it’s funny cause I never really cooked like this in the military, a lot of things You see me make is self taught. How did you get into creating content for TikTok? My first TIKTOK account, I was making videos just like I make now but wasn’t getting as much attention as I do because I was using the music TIKTOK promoted. I ended up getting locked out that account when I got a new phone. So when I made a new account I started playing around with features and music and people were like “Ohhhh who is this with the good food and old school music on TikTok?” It kind of just became a hobby that turned into a lucrative business.
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Most of my videos go viral but the barbercue chicken and Mac and cheese video hit a little different. Lol What's your favorite dish to cook? My favorite dish to cook is Chicken Parmesan. If I had a second runner up I love making different types of bread, especially pizza dough and loaves of bread. What does your family always request you to make? They never request anything lol! They just be ready to eat whatever I bring to the table. How do you come up with your recipes? A lot of them are stored in my internal memory from the Army. I just take those and remix them because Army food was so bland. I’m good at recreating too. I’ll see a picture of some food from a restaurant and replicate it. It’s fun, and it always looks better than theirs Haha!
What's your most viewed video on TikTok and did you gain any celebrity followers or people you've admired? My most viewed video right now is my seafood Mac How did you find out or did you even know that you and cheese, actually it’s running a close race with were going viral on Twitter? my Southern 4- Cheese Macaroni. I remember one I woke up one morning and people kept inboxing me morning my friend texting me saying “Loren Marsai on IG and Facebook like Yo Loren one of your TIKTOK Martin from Blackish follows you on TIKTOK.” I was videos is all over Twitter. You’re viral.” I’m like huh? Viral? stoked. I love her. 20XXtheMagazine.com | 46
UNTIE LOREN AUNTIE LOREN’S BROWN SUGAR GLAZED SALMON
AUNTIE LOREN'S BUTTERMILK CHICKEN TENDERS
Do you have any future projects coming up and if so what are they? Right now I am working on my cookbook! It’s full of a lot of the recipes you see on TIKTOK. It’s my first cookbook, it’s dope, and I can’t wait to share it. Tell me a little bit more about being a mom and a disabled army vet and how that affects your day to day life and if that plays into your passion for cooking. I love being a mom. I have 3 kids. Jaiden, Jojo, and Riley. They keep me grounded. They keep me motivated because they are kids they love TIKTOK, and they love seeing mom go viral. I don’t allow my PTSD or being partially deaf affect my life, and if it does become something that’s bothering me I just start cooking. Cooking is like therapy to me. How has this quarantine boosted your creativity in the kitchen or in general? Quarantine actually helped me big time in the creativity department because more people are home to watch my videos and cooking. They kind of pushed me in making this cookbook, and making a cookbook requires a lot of creativity. I have learned not to procrastinate as much, I could have been had the cookbook out... but it’s all the Upper Power’s timing. 20XXtheMagazine.com | 47
AUNTIE LOREN’S GARLIC BUTTER & HERB LAMB CHOPS
You can follow Loren for more delicious recipes and content on IG @auntie.loren and on TikTok @auntieloren
DAWN S First things first, how are you and your family coping with quarantine life?
the decision to shut it down was the right decision especially since we’re 5 or 6 weeks into quarantining you know but you feel bad. You feel bad for the amount of work that you put in as a staff and certainly the dreams of young people are shattered when something like this happens but again they are young, they are resilient. They will fight to get back to this place next year and then hopefully we can compete and get back to some normalcy first and then get back to getting on the court and competing for a National Championship next year.
I mean thankfully and prayerfully we aren’t impacted in a health wise way but I think what’s coming out of it is we get to bring it back to the simpler things in life. We are communicating a little bit more, staying at home where we are just in a lot more contact than otherwise because everybody just pretty much goes on their busy way and they got their own life. Now life has stopped for us and now we can put things in perspective and get back to some family things while we have an opportunity. It has been a major adjustment for all of us but like you said I too am grateful for the quality time that we’re getting to spend. Now I must say as a Carolina Alum and a Gamecock fan I was crazy excited about the possibility of us getting yet another National Championship so tell me what it was like for you and the rest of the coaching staff and the team when you guys got the word that the NCAA stop the season due to the pandemic.
Well our fingers are crossed and that is absolutely my hope. So thinking that we do see things to get back a little normal what can we expect on the horizon for the 2021 season?
I mean we got a team full of players who are extremely intelligent and they put themselves in vulnerable positions, and when I say that, it’s like they want to work on their weaknesses. Our players are like our coaching staff. Last year during their practices they would say to me, “I’m not talking enough. I’m not talking loud enough. I’m not communicating.” and she said I mean obviously we were devastated... “I’m going to make it my business to you don’t get as close as we’ve gotten not have any coach say that to me to win the national championship here this year.” You know that hit me at a very often but the times they do get place in which I was like aw babe this here you want to at least compete and team is this team is truly great. People live out your own fate. We didn’t get an want to be leaders. People want to opportunity to do that but I thought be vulnerable to their peers and that 20XXtheMagazine.com | 48
STALEY doesn’t happen very often. So you know every time we have a zoom call with our team somebody or a couple of players really say things that resonate with me to the fact that they want to get better. We can be our best coaches when our players use us as resources and that’s what this team wants to do and I’ll be so excited to get back with them and get to a place where we can hug up on them, we can love up on them and get to a place where we can push them to get better. That definitely sounds like the makings of another championship team so I’m looking forward to that. Now before I let you go I want to take a short trip down memory lane via some visual aids. Here we have college Dawn, Naismith 1991 and 92 Player of the Year. And I do want to point out that you did make history by becoming both the Player of the Year and Coach of the Year but tell me what were her dreams and aspirations during those early years? This was the early 90s... years before the WNBA was even around... what was she aspiring to become?
Photographer: South Carolina Athletics
Spain. I went over the Tarbes, France. I went over to Italy and Brazil, all chasing my dream and obviously it lead me to staying in the game and becoming a coach.
Well this next one is by far one of the greatest moments in my Alum’s history. Tell me what your thoughts were the moment the buzzer sounded that signal the end of the 2017 women’s college championship game.
What I thought about was just... I mean I had like a reflection of 17 years of coaching and then add my four years of playing Collegiate basketball and that moment escaping everybody besides the current players that were and coaching staff that was a part of that moment but I went into reflection mode. I, as a player, my teammates never got a chance to win a National Championship so I felt for them. And then every former player that I convinced to come to Temple and to come to South Carolina to experience that particular moment, they were robbed of that opportunity. So I was really in the moment with them... expressing my gratitude for them allowing me to to grow into that Oh wow that’s a good question. I mean space and to win. So what I did was, that was super competitive Dawn. that a lot of people don’t know, I gave That’s never left me. I wanted to win the miniature national championship national championship which that had trophies to every one of my teammates never taken place in my college career. in college, to one of my former players I wanted to play as much basketball that believed in me as a coach but we as possible and I didn’t care where I never got it done, and every one of my played it ‘cause I went over to Segovia, colleagues who was with me during the 20XXtheMagazine.com | 49