If you’ve spent any time on the food side of the internet, you’ve probably met Cortney LaCorte without realizing it. Known to millions as Cheese Gal, she’s the voice telling you exactly what to cook, what to buy, and what to put out when people are coming over in an hour and you have nothing.
Her story starts in her Nashville kitchen back in 2019, when she began making cheese boards just for fun. Those boards got elaborate, then they got noticed, and before long she was building over-the-top spreads for country music’s biggest names and going viral for her elevated take on snacks. Cheese Gal grew into a full brand, and Cortney became one of those rare food creators whose vibe is less chef lecturing you and more favorite guest at girls’ night.
Now she’s out with her debut cookbook, Oversharing: Anytime Snacks, Everyday Dinners, and Cooking for Company. It’s packed with the kind of food she’s known for, easy and flavor-forward, plus her Ten Kitchen Commandments, her refreshingly unfussy hosting philosophy, and chapter names like Bougie Couch Snacks and Weak-Night Dinners that tell you everything about her sensibility. She’s also a mom of two girls, which means she’s cooking for a real family on real weeknights, not just for the camera.
We talked with Cortney about the pantry staple she’ll never quit, why saltines are criminally underrated, and what she hopes her daughters take from the way she feeds people.
You’ve built a whole brand on making cooking feel joyful instead of intimidating. What’s the most common way people accidentally make cooking joyless for themselves?
Overthinking it. I think people get so hung up on doing everything “right” that they forget cooking can be fun! I am very much a throw-a-little-more-of-that-in-there person. Taste it. Add more salt. Use the cheese you already have. If you don’t have shallots, I promise dinner can still happen! Truly, once you stop treating a recipe like a set of rules and start treating it more like a guide, cooking gets a lot more fun. Pour something in your glass, turn on a good playlist – and relax!
What’s your actual, real-life hosting philosophy — not the Pinterest version?
My hosting philosophy is really that nothing is too precious. I love all the pretty stuff, obviously. I want candles lit, music on, a gorgeous table, a good drink in your hand. But I also want everyone in my kitchen, opening another bottle of wine and staying way later than they planned.
Use the good china, open the good bottle, light the fancy candle – but don’t be afraid to actually live around any of it, you know? I want you to feel like I made an effort for you, but I also want you to put your feet up on my couch. To me, that’s the sweet spot: beautiful and thoughtful, but relaxed enough that everyone can actually have a good time.
What do you want your daughters to inherit from how you think about food and hosting — not recipes, but the philosophy?
I hope they learn that feeding people is such an easy way to love on them. It doesn’t have to be a huge dinner party. Sometimes it’s making someone their favorite meal or putting out cheese and olives, and pouring a wine they love. I also hope they learn that you don’t need a reason to make an ordinary day feel a little special (hi, Bougie Couch Snack, ha.). Mostly, I just want them to have homes where people always want to hang out.
What’s the one pantry staple you’d never let anyone talk you out of buying, even when it’s “unnecessary”?
Really good extra virgin olive oil. I use olive oil constantly, so it’s one of those ingredients where I really think quality matters. Especially when you’re using it to finish something, you can absolutely taste the difference – a good EVOO has so much flavor on its own and can completely change something as simple as tomatoes, pasta, bread, or cheese. It’s basically an ingredient and a condiment in my house. I have entirely too many bottles and I’m not interested in changing! And don’t even get me started on French butter…
If you had to build the perfect cheeseboard with only three cheeses, what are they and why?
This is deeply unfair to ask me, but: a triple-cream Brie, a really good aged cheddar, and a funky blue.
You’ve got creamy and buttery, sharp and salty, and then something funky to round it out. I always tell people you don’t need 47 cheeses to make a great board. Give me three really good ones with totally different personalities and we’re in business.
How has cooking for your own family at home changed the way you develop recipes for the internet?
I have become ruthless about unnecessary steps. If something can be made in one pan, why are we using three? Why am I transferring this to another bowl? Do I actually need to finely chop six different things?
I want the food to taste like you worked harder than you did. That’s probably the sweet spot for almost everything I make. I love cooking, but I also have two kids and a life, and sometimes dinner needs to happen in 30 minutes. That doesn’t mean I want it to be boring.
What’s the most useful cooking skill that has nothing to do with a recipe — like a mindset or habit?
Taste everything. And then taste it again.
I’m always shocked by how many people make an entire recipe without tasting it until they sit down. Your palate is one of your best tools in the kitchen. Does it need more salt? Lemon? Parmesan? Hot sauce? Usually the answer is at least one of those things.
And the more you do that, the more you start trusting your instincts. You realize, oh wait, I actually know what I like – and I know how to get it there.
Pantry Puttanesca is in the book — what’s always in your pantry that could become dinner with zero grocery run?
Pasta, canned tomatoes, anchovies, capers, olives, garlic, Parm – there is basically always a salty little pasta lurking somewhere in my house.
That’s why I love Pantry Puttanesca. It’s very “we have no food” and then 20 minutes later you have a legitimately great bowl of pasta. Those are my favorite kinds of recipes because they make you feel very accomplished with very little planning.
“Bougie Couch Snacks” is such a good chapter name — what makes a snack “bougie” to you versus just… a snack?
It needs one unnecessary-but-wonderful thing.
Potato chips? Snack. Potato chips with crème fraîche and caviar? Bougie Couch Snack.
Crackers and cheese? Snack. Really good cheese, hot honey, something pickled, maybe a little prosciutto situation? Now we’re talking.
It’s basically food that feels a little fabulous but can still be eaten in sweatpants while watching Bravo. That is a very important category of food to me!
And speaking of couch snacks, what’s the one couch snack you think is criminally underrated?
Saltine crackers! She is criminally underrated, but zhuzhed up, a Saltine can be a pretty stunning bite. I actually have an entire sub-section in Bougie Couch Snacks called “Seriously Good Saltines” dedicated to exactly this. They’re salty, crispy, inexpensive, and basically the perfect little blank canvas for something a little extra on top. (I.e. a little schmear of herbed goat cheese, a halved cherry tomato, extra virgin olive oil, dill, a squeeze of lemon, flaky salt and pepper.) Suddenly, she’s quite fabulous.
