Jessie James Decker, country singer, cookbook writer, founder of Kittenish and former football wife, has one mission for you for the Big Game—save your celery. Jessie James, wife of former NFL player Eric Decker, knows a thing or two about curating a spread for Sunday football, and she has a gripe about how many innocent celery stalks get tossed out when all the wings are cleared. She’s asking us to join her in saving the celery by pairing it with Jif peanut butter—her current pregnancy craving. We sat down with Jessie James to talk football food, skincare, confidence and her hunky husband.
This collaboration is so funny. I need to know what your favorite thing to do with peanut butter is.
“What is not my favorite thing to do with peanut butter? We’re a peanut butter house, and we love Jif, so this partnership made all the sense in the world. We already had tons of it. I remember my assistant coming over like, ‘We need to get some for this commercial spot,’ and I was like, ‘I already have it in the pantry.’
It’s funny because celery and peanut butter have been a huge craving for me, actually. We did a road trip to Florida, and that’s what I brought in the car—Jif peanut butter and cut-up celery—so I could just eat it as my little snack. I love when it can be as organic as this is, but obviously, the message is to not throw out your celery and to save your celery, and I’m all about it clearly.”
Do you have a favorite dish you make for Sunday football?
“There are tons of things. We do a veggie tray, of course. Eric came from a family where they just had tons of veggies and stuff. We were bread and meat, so Eric has trained me to be such a healthy eater, so we always have veggie trays and fruit bowls.
I do these meatballs in a Crockpot that are so delicious. Of course, I do chicken wings. I’ll do my game-day chili that was in my second cookbook. Then I do cheese boards and tortilla chips and bean dip. I mean, we do it all. I go crazy.”
Let’s talk skin care. What do you love? Have you changed anything during your pregnancy?
“I will say I get asked about skincare all the time, and I feel like I have the most boring answer like I don’t have this sexy regimen, and I never have. I’m the most basic skin person ever. I’m always so impressed by my best friend Jessica (jesssouthern on Instagram). She has the longest, most amazing regimen of things she puts on her face and the light-up things, see I don’t even know. I’m a soap and water girl.
I use a bar of soap to wash my face. I just put on whatever face cream I have. I’m very allergic to everything. I learned early on to keep it simple. I don’t get facials because I usually break out in hives, so it’s just because I can’t do anything else or I have a reaction. So, I keep it simple, and I’ve done the same thing with this pregnancy. Just same old same old soap and water.
I do like the really fancy cream— Augustinus Bader ($185)—that stuff I love, and I do feel like there are not a ton of crazy ingredients in it. It’s so expensive, and I wish it wasn’t, but it’s one of the only things over the years that has really moisturized my skin and then not given me a breakout situation. Most recently, I have gotten into putting on the Sunday Riley C.E.O. Serum ($85) every day, and that has been amazing. I’ve done really well with that.”
Something that’s always stood out to me about you is your confidence. Where does it come from, and how are you trying to ensure your daughter inherits it?
“I owe a lot of confidence to my mother, Karen. She always made me feel like I was the most awesome chick ever, and she made me feel so confident. I really feel like I owe a lot of that confidence to her. She would tell me things like, ‘You get out there and you show them what you’ve got’ or ‘You were born to do this.’ She always just made me feel like I could conquer anything in the whole world, and I’ve taken that, and I’m that way with my daughter.
I see that same confidence in Vivianne that I had when she is about to go do her gymnastic meet. I’m like, ‘You got this go out there and shine, you show them how it’s done. Give it your absolute best, rock it,’ and I can see her just light up and have that absolute confidence that she can do it and conquer anything. I think, obviously, you’re going to have that within yourself, but I do believe when you’ve got that support system, there’s just nothing like it. I’ve been very blessed to have such a supportive mother, and I’m so glad that I was able to take that from my mother and give that to my daughter as well.”
Valentine’s Day is close, and you’ve always struck me as a couple that’s genuinely so in love and still so attracted to each other. What’s the secret?
“When we first met, we were just really attracted to each other. I thought he was so hot, and he thought I was so hot, and I just think that we still think each other is hot. So we’re attracted to each other, but we also have been together for a long time. We’re coming up on 13 years. I think other than the attraction, we built a really great foundation, and we just genuinely like each other. We view the world the same way, and we just want to have fun together, and I think that it just works, but obviously, I think he’s hot.”
