Cooking for the Carters: Andrea Walker's journey from neighbor to personal chef

PLAINS, Ga. - Not everyone can say they cooked for the Carters, but Andrea Walker can, and it was not just once.

Walker estimates she cooked at least 300 to 400 meals for Mr. Carter and his late wife Rosalynn. She says his most requested meal was bacon, eggs, and grits.

"He was a simple guy and liked the things that he grew up with," Walker said.

She met the Carters when they became next-door neighbors in the early 2000s.

"To be able to say I knew both of them in a way that the general public did not. They saw the stoic, they saw the drive, but we saw the fun side of him as well," Walker said.

FOX 5 first introduced you to Walker in the days after former First Lady Rosalynn Carter passed. She brought us back into her kitchen this week, the same one she cooked the final meal for him, a veggie plate, a matter of weeks ago.

She is a home cook who can say she knows the way Mr. Carter liked to eat, and one thing he loved was his bacon. She says the secret is a thick cut so it is crisper.

"He would make sure to whisper so that Mrs. Rosalynn couldn't hear, make sure it's real bacon as opposed to the soy-based, plant-based bacon that she served," Walker said.

Walker says while bacon was important, his favorite thing was the grits. To make them creamy she says, use half milk and half water then just stir. She also has a secret for the eggs too.

"A lot of people put milk in their scrambled eggs; I use water because they get a little fluffier," she said.

She says in the scrambled eggs you cannot forget a little bit of bacon grease for the added flavor. While she says each meal tasted great, her love for the Carters is evident by her aprons which say, "I love Jimmy Carter" and "I love Rosalynn Carter".

"Depending on my mood, I would wear hers sometimes, I would wear the one that says his name sometimes," Walker said.

Walker says his love for bacon, eggs, and grits is a reminder of Mr. Carter’s humble beginnings, a man who made it from the peanut fields of Plains to the presidency, then a decades-long career as a globetrotting humanitarian.

"He wanted everybody to enjoy life and know that you didn't have to have the flashiness to be happy and this [bacon, eggs, and grits] made him happy," Walker said.