Now that you know who Lil Gotit is, let’s get cooking. Each of the cookbook’s recipes is inspired by a line from one of Top Chef Gotit’s tracks, and some of the connections between the lyrics and the recipes are more obvious than others. On “Toosie,” he raps, “Respect all my elders, I’m fucking a cougar,” which is paired with garlic mashed potatoes; maybe the older woman Gotit is involved with cooks him the meal when he comes over (and yes, I know that sounds like a strange relationship, but also this is not a dating advice column). On “Burnt N Turnt,” he coos, “Shorty get hungry, my dick she gon’ munch/Pinky ring pissy, I pop pills for lunch,” which is paired with a fried chicken technique (and I’m afraid to dig any deeper to find out why).
But the one I wanted to recreate was based on a line from “Get N Dere Gang”: “Pull up I get in dere then I get outta dere/YSL they are not hot as us,” he raps, leading us to a recipe for hot lemon pepper wings. Atlanta rappers often speak about lemon pepper wings like a contestant on Top Chef might talk about a perfectly cooked risotto. The local fandom for the wing flavor is so intense that Donald Glover made it a plot point in an episode of Atlanta, and Waka Flocka Flame once said, “If you eat chicken and never had a lemon pepper wing, smack the shit out of yourself.” Since I have never set foot in the city, the only time I’ve had the dish was during an underwhelming trip to Wingstop. For years, I’ve been left to wonder what is so special about it. Finally, here was my chance to recreate the magic.
First, I needed to collect Gotit’s list of ingredients: garlic powder, onion powder, lemon pepper seasoning, hot wing sauce, and olive oil. (Important note: A basic lemon pepper wing wouldn’t normally include hot sauce, but Gotit’s personal touch was, if you recall, to make hot lemon pepper wings, based on him rapping the word “hot” in that one line.) Next, I went to my local grocery store to pick up a package of chicken wings. I stood in the meat aisle for 10 minutes contemplating if I was really about to spend $13 on a pack of wings that might not even turn out well, but I shrugged and figured I would just send big Condé Nast the bill.
