Past Sponsorship Leads to Friendship...

Hi Readers! Here's a guest post from one of our awesome past sponsors (who has since become one of our very own 37 Cooks)!  Read all about how Luke Deville, the owner of Teet's Food Store, and 37 Cooks came together for a fun challenge, which led to friendship! ~ Susan

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Grandpa "Teet"

Hey guys, this is Luke Deville. I am the 3rd generation of my family-owned store here in Ville Platte, Louisiana. My Grandpa "Teet" (short for petite) and my Grandma Ruby opened up Teet's Food Store on August 11, 1955. Together they worked night and day to provide the best smoked meats in Louisiana.

In the 1980's my father, Chris, came back to Ville Platte to help Teet run the store and in 2011, I moved back to help my Dad. Today, we have a website and social media accounts. When I launched the website, I was looking for more ways to spread the word besides using Facebook and flyers posted on the doors at the store. So, I went to visit Joe and Jack at Slap Ya Mama to see if they had any ideas on how to spread the word about our online store. They told me about this cooking group, 37 Cooks, and I was like "this is perfect!!"

When I left Joe and Jack, I went online to check out the 37 Cooks website and decided to email them to see if they would like to try out our meats and help Teet's get more exposure. Sure enough, they responded and they were thrilled, probably as much as I was! 

Grandpa Teet, my dad Chris, and me 

After all the ducks were in a row, I sent out meat packages to the cooks who took up the challenge, and within two months there were recipes being posted on their blog and social media accounts. I was so excited!!! I was very impressed with their recipes, because most of them were things that I had never heard of or thought of doing with our smoked meats. My family was also very impressed!

With the help of 37 Cooks, our online store's traffic has increased dramatically. I believe that asking 37 Cooks to help me spread the word about our website has helped with the success of our online store. These guys rock! They are so awesome that they even asked me to become a cook when all was said and done! I am learning so much about cooking and have made great friends! I was able to meet a few of them this past year and in June we had a "37 Cooks 2nd Year Birthday Celebration" in Houston that I was able to attend! This has been a great experience and I'm just beginning!