Nicholas Sparks on how his controversial chicken salad recipe turned into a partnership

Transcript

00:00When you look at yourself and how you're trying to market yourself just individually from your

00:04books, we all know about your chicken salad recipe by now. That went viral and your collaboration

00:10with Splenda coming up. How does something like that come about? It's not planted. It's not

00:15something that you're just looking to do. It was just you making your chicken salad.

00:20Yeah, that was kind of funny. So the New York Times is coming over. They're going to do the

00:25house. They're going to take, it was a house thing. They're looking at my nice house. And so she gets

00:33there at like 10 o'clock and I'm finishing up making my chicken salad. And it was a huge batch

00:39because I have five children and some of them are married and people come over. So I made a huge

00:44double batch. And she said, oh, what's in it? And so I told her what's in it. And among other things

00:51in it are 16 packets of Splenda because it's a double batch, people. And I use Duke's mayonnaise,

00:57not like a Hellman's because, and Duke's doesn't have any sugar and Hellman's does. So if you're

01:04using Hellman's, you're already getting sweetener. Anyway, for whatever reason,

01:09my house and 16 packets of Splenda is what I have. And of course I'm skewered on social media. Like

01:17this has to be the most disgusting chicken salad recipe on the planet. And it's not,

01:24by the way, it's delicious, by the way. It is. It is.

01:30I can confirm I made it in preparation for this.

01:32And it was a double batch. So when just, if you're using one rotisserie chicken,

01:36it's only eight packets, but okay. Anyway, instead of fighting it or ignoring all the vitriol

01:44on social media about what a horrific cook I must be. And I have no sense of flavor. I'm no class.

01:54We leaned into it. We said, yeah, this is my chicken salad and I'll put it up against anybody's.

01:59I made it on my book tours. We fed people. And sure enough, Splenda was thrilled. And so they're

02:07putting my chicken salad recipe on Splenda boxes this year. And on every packet of Splenda,

02:13I think sometime this fall, it's going to have sweet sayings from Nicholas Sparks in addition

02:18to the Splenda recipe. And yes, it's very good. Look, you want to put sugar in it? Go ahead.

02:22I just don't really have sugar in my house. I use Splenda. And it's really, really good.

02:28I'll defend it. Darn it.