Ma Momma’s House of Cornbread, Chicken and Waffles Launches it’s Newest TV Commercial
NEW ORLEANS – Ma Mommas House took home the gold earlier this year and Rene Porche’-Poyraz aka Chef Reero became the “Red Bean Queen”. Ma Mommas House defeated Joey K’s (Magazine Street) in the final round of the 2018 Red Bean Madness Competition, with 57 pots of red beans competing from around the city of New Orleans where red beans is a Monday staple dish in the city.
“I grew up in the Fischer Housing Projects and my sister and her boyfriend helped us to move out when I was 13 years-old and we moved to New Orleans East where the restaurant is today,” said Chef Reero. “Growing up, we didn’t have anything. Mama would cook beans two to three times a week with two pieces of meat in it for us and if we ate the meat on day one, there wasn’t any left for day two or three.
Chef Reero, was born and raised on the “Dark Side” of Fischer Public Housing Development, on the Westbank of New Orleans and shared a single twin bed with her sister, Nicole. As a young lady in the Fisher, she was always the center of attention and engaged in extra-curricular activities in High School. Often times, says Chef Reero, “we didn’t have any food to eat, but when we did, we would share it with our neighbors”. Growing up in poverty, inspired her to learn how to cook and was one of the many inspirations for creating a new restaurant. As a teenager, she picked up on many recipes from her mother and grandmother.
Take Fo Records
Chef Reero is one of the founding members of Rap Duo -Da’ Sha Ra’. The rap group, best known for the Nola club hit “Bootin Up”, recorded several club and radio hits in the early 1990’s on Take Fo’ Records, with label mates DJ Jubilee and No Limit recording artist Mia X. Da’ Sha Ra’ was the labels first recording group and one of the first female rap artists in New Orleans. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzJhk4SH2aE
During the late 1990’s, Chef Reero co-hosted the cable access television talk show, Positive Black Talk (PBT), alongside Anthony Mackie, who has become one of America’s leading Hollywood actors, in films like “Captain America”, and “Hurt Locker”. PBT’s mission was to counter-act the negative images that existed in the African American community. Chef Reero later traded in her microphone for a cooking knife and is now the Executive Chef and part owner of Ma Momma’s House of Cornbread, Chicken and Waffles™ www.MaMommasHouse.com and @MaMommasHouse on IG.
Ma Momma’s House opened its doors to the public in February 2013. It is the brainchild of sister duo Chef Reero and Nicole P. Mackie, alongside Nicole’s husband, Earl J. Mackie. The team decided to open the restaurant to provide quality home cooked food in the Eastern New Orleans corridor, an area of the city that is still working hard to recover post Katrina and the recent Tornados that struck the community in February 2017. The sisters, who grew up in public housing, in a single parent household, strategically decided to open their restaurant in a low-income area.
In addition to making business sense for their new start up, it also afforded them the opportunity to serve as role models for other young people who are in similar living situations. When the community see successful people from around the world who travel from downtown New Orleans, it serves as a visual example of who and what they can become and drives economic development for Eastern New Orleans.
The restaurant was the first to introduce “Chicken & Waffles” to the New Orleans area and is currently a diner styled restaurant specializing in crispy fried chicken, made to order mouthwatering cornbread and hot fresh Belgium waffles. “Chicken & Waffles was never our only item but our most popular dish up until recently. Since most of our dishes are amazing, we have to start letting people know that we are a full-service restaurant and catering company” says Chef Reero.
The menu spans from familiar comfort foods such as red beans & rice and mustard greens to heart-healthy options such as grilled fish and shrimp. When you walk into Ma Momma’s House, you really feel like you are at your own Momma’s house with great food, great service and great ambience. The guests enjoy a quintessential food experience that exemplifies New Orleans Creole Cuisine and Southern comfort foods from a soulful “Momma’s” kitchen.
The motto’s are: “We have the BEST fried chicken to the BONE!” and the cornbread “Taste so good it should be illegal in Louisiana”.
Now that Ma Momma’s House won the “Red Bean Madness Competition”, people will realize that Chef Reero is the “Red Bean Queen”. Although the business operates in Eastern New Orleans, it’s headquarters is located uptown in the “Gert Town” community. In the fall of 2018, Chef Reero will launch her reality cooking show on YouTube “Cooking it Up with Chef Reero” and the restaurant has plans to expand into its second location closer to the Downtown District of New Orleans in the very near future.