STONEWALL — Brittany Kham was just a regular girl from South Louisiana when she decided to download popular video app TikTok out of sheer boredom. Now, she’s sitting at 1.2 million followers and counting.

Kham was born and raised in several southern Louisiana cities — including Sulphur, Kinder and Lake Charles — and now resides in Stonewall with her husband. While she didn’t grow up cooking, she was always present in the kitchen watching and learning.

She started out her culinary journey learning to make simple dishes like rice and gravy or her mama’s stew while she was babysitting her younger brothers. From there, she went on to become the meeting spot in college where she began really testing her skills.

Like many others, Kham downloaded TikTok as a joke to cure her boredom. Used to a busy lifestyle with two jobs and college, she found herself having a lot of unwanted downtime with a regular 9-5.

The first video she ever posted went semi-viral. An old video she had saved in her phone of her competing in a corn-eating contest where a beauty queen beat her by a single kernel. She continued to post random videos until the rude comments got to be too much and she deleted the account.

She didn’t stay gone for long though and ended up creating a whole new account — @brittkham— where the TikTok algorithm seemed to put her on the food side of the app. A popular sound being used where it asks you to show people your spice cabinet, proudly showcasing her giant can of Slap Ya Mama seasoning is what catapulted her onto FoodTok.

Kahm started out trying to make recipes she was finding on the internet and even going so far as to make her own pasta and purchase expensive ingredients. However, the video that brought her the most attention was when she decided to upload her mama’s spaghetti recipe that included sugar where the comments became a debate on whether sugar belongs in the popular dish or not.

“I realized that some people were interested in the way other people do things, so I kinda took that idea and ran with it.”

She reshaped her entire account and focused on making recipes that she grew up eating with no rules and no measurements. She’s become known for her obsessive use of Slap Ya Mama seasoning, allowing substitutions, because it’s “whatever makes your little heart happy” and her measurement for garlic being “until people start asking if you’re OK.”

Just a few months ago she officially became part of the Slap Ya Mama “Slap Krewe” where she received a box of their products and merchandise and they even sponsored a giveaway for Kham reaching 1,000 followers. Her love of the famous seasoning came about from when a friend left his can of it at her house and she tried it and never went back, she even threw out her can of Tony Chachere’s.

While TikTok hasn’t verified her just yet, Kham isn’t too upset about it.

“That would be really cool, but I’ve heard the stigma kind of changes when you’re verified; people expect more out of you.”

Still working full time as a deputy clerk and expecting the birth of her first child any day, Kham has a lot on her plate and wouldn’t mind for the expectations of her to stay put for now. As for the coming year, she’s toying around with the ideas of making recipes that her parents and grandparents grew up with and maybe updating them to appeal to this generation.