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We are our sister’s keeper, and Truth’s Table: Black Women’s Musings on Life, Love, and Liberation was written in that spirit of sisterly love and affection. Over five years ago, Ekemini Uwan, Michelle Higgins, and Christina Edmondson decided to start Truth’s Table podcast, “a table built by Black women and for Black women.” We did not know that Truth’s Table would become an award-winning podcast with a companion book wherein we poured out our hearts on topics like colorism, divorce, marriage, singleness, Blackness, liberation, and more, just as we have done on the show. Black liberation is not only something we fight for now; we believe it’s our final destination.
Have the food ready!
Summer is a time for celebration. The weather is nice, the children are free, and work seems like an afterthought. But no event is official without food. So, you’ve agreed to host. Now, what do you do?! I think a grill is a perfect vessel for entertainment. A lot of people get caught up with cooking everything directly on the grill though. Make a lot of your items ahead of time, cook the ribs in the oven the day before, crisp your bacon for burgers the day before, caramelize your onions and cut your toppings before people arrive. The devil is in the details, and the success will be in preparations. Kiss these items on the grill and your guests will be kissing the chef!
A BON APPETIT BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • What is American food? In his first cookbook, the acclaimed author of Notes from a Young Black Chef shares the dishes of his America; dishes that show the true diversity of American food. Onwauachi is “the most important chef in America” (San Francisco Chronicle) and chef of Tatiana, the New York Times #1 Restaurant in New York City 2023.
As I knelt on the cool hardwood floor in my home office, surrounded by books that span nearly two hundred years of black cooking, I realized my ancestors had left us a very special gift: a gift of freedom, culinary freedom. And like the Biblical Jubilee that marks restoration of a people through deliverance, rest, and land conservation, and like Jubilee Day celebrations marking the emancipation of enslaved Americans, our culinary Jubilee is also about liberation and resilience. Our cooking, our cooks, shall be free from caricature and stereotype. We have earned the freedom to cook with creativity and joy.
Barbecue and Roast Pork
“The thirty-thousand-year-old practice of cooking over an open fire continues to be an integral part of Africa’s culinary heritage,” Heidi Haughy Cusick explained in Soul and Spice: African Cooking in the Americas. “In Togo today, street vendors cook michui, spicy skewered fish and meat, over charcoal. In Mali, whole goats are still ceremoniously roasted for weddings and other special occasions. Sidewalk vendors from West Africa to the Caribbean grill plantains to eat as a snack or with spicy grilled meats or stews; and in Bahia they carry small lighted charcoal-filled drums with grates on top for cooking fresh cheese.”
