From eyeing the bourbon BBQ chicken wings to singing ‘Hey Steve’ piano tunes – Basket Co-founder Andy Ellwood breaks down the “hilarious,” “unreal” and “so fun” moments from the ‘STEVE’ show.
All last week, the Basket app was featured on the STEVE Show with Steve Harvey. For five days straight, Chef Lawrence Page, the star of WE tv’s Hustle & Soul and owner of The Pink Teacup, cooked up soul food dishes on the set with Steve, including: shrimp and cheese grits, bourbon BBQ chicken wings, cornbread crab cakes, five cheese mac and cheese, and sweet potato pie. The most delicious part? Each dish featured savings on the recipe items using Basket.
Basket co-founder and President Andy Ellwood was like a “kid in a candy shop” when Basket was given the opportunity to be on STEVE with only a few weeks’ notice, but was even more excited to be invited backstage during the taping. (We’re picturing Andy’s face like Charlie Bucket in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.) Being on the set of STEVE was “the most fun,” Andy says. “Steve Harvey is hilarious. He got the whole audience hyped up.”
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we know he’s funny, but what is Steve Harvey really like in person? “Steve was super gracious. He said how excited and ‘pumped’ he was that Basket was a part of the show, describing the app as ‘really cool.’ He also posed for pictures with our team.” (Andy proudly shows the picture that he took with Steve with Basket CEO Neil Kataria – check it out below!)
With a great host comes a great team. The Basket squad worked with STEVE’s digital and production staff leading up to the segments.
“The STEVE team all got to know Basket in prepping for the show and were really excited users,” said Andy. The best reaction Andy heard from the STEVE staff was? “This is like magic.” (Which, it is!) One STEVE team member also emphasized how he was going to call his mom about it! (Yes, you should!)
But, what Andy heard the most from the STEVE team was, “How has nobody ever done this before?” The answer Andy gave, like he does to so many others that have this reaction, is that Basket is not the first to do this, but we are the first to build a community that really wants to save time and money grocery shopping.
From the side of the stage at STEVE, Andy watched Chef Page cook up those Bourbon BBQ chicken wings, while a big screen emphasized the 32% savings on the recipe using the Basket app. With Kentucky bourbon, brown sugar, BBQ sauce, buttermilk and cayenne pepper simmering, Andy was salivating in the background. Steve took a big chomp and said, “Woo-ooh, you got some bourbon in here!”
After the oven turned off, Chef Page took some time to speak with the Basket team. He emphasized how he wished he would have known about Basket a long time ago. Being an untrained chef, he spent a lot of time perfecting recipes with tons of groceries … and that gets expensive.
Finally, apart from the Basket segment on STEVE, what got Andy singing all week (seriously, he won’t stop singing) is the “Hey Steve” musical edition, where Steve urged an audience member via a piano tune to take a “free vacation” to Hawaii with a guy she doesn’t have real feelings for.
“I was laughing the whole time,” said Andy. “We could see what was on the teleprompter. But he was just riffing.”
The only regret being behind the scenes at Steve Harvey? “Not getting a bite of those bourbon BBQ chicken wings.” Sorry Andy, get that recipe off SteveTV.com and get cooking – using Basket to save money first, of course.
Pssst – for more behind the scenes action, be sure to follow Basket on Twitter @BasketSavings!
