Welcome to Seeds & Receipts an ongoing, multimedia project honoring elements of my food story and how it is (and sometimes isn’t) interconnected with larger stories of food in the African diaspora.
Here you’ll find three main galleries . . .
Food Personal food writings alongside recipes from my past, present and future;
People Dedications to the people who’ve fed, cooked with, or influenced me;
Plants & Animals Ingredient profiles for those who are interested in getting nerdy. (1.24.22 update: This area of the site has evolved into the educational project Deep Routes, click here to learn more).
There’s something about pork that makes me feel like an extremely wealthy person. The fattiness, the time certain cuts require to get the perfect texture, the look of it. Ugh, all of it.
Food Galleries
Summer 2020: Joyful Summers of Mourning
Baking in the summer is a delight when you have A/C, but if you’re a masochist, you bake with only the windows open.
The glow of fried chicken bringing peace and resolve during self-isolation.
Spring 2020: Delicious Religious Conditioning
My mom’s general rule with any oily, fatty chicken and bread loaded meal was to have a salad to balance things out.
Because chicken roasting wasn’t as recipe centered as making cornbread and other dishes, the process left more room for informal conversation about things that were important to my mom and me.
This food gallery recreates the food memory of a comforting post-church meal with some traditional and non-traditional recipes.
Buttery, flaky, and able to go with literally anything that’s spreadable or dippable. These are the reasons my love for butter crackers runs so deep.
A big batch of chili is, on the surface, a simple lunch I can make on the weekend. However, once I reheat it during my lunch at the farm, and sit down, for a moment I’m transported.
Although our attempts at making pupusas were hit and miss (leave it to the pros from South and Central America) we did get the hang of making our own corn chips to accompany lunch-time sandwich situations.
As a little girl I’d have been delighted to have known that a decade or so later I’d be able to enjoy the rain in New York just like Momo. After all my dad was always talking about New York, it seemed like the place to be.
Fond, but increasingly blurry, lunchtime memories surround oodles and noodles. Intense sibling debates about pop culture brewed, secrets were shared, loose pacts were made, sibling produced tv shows were performed table-side, and sometimes it was just nice to have food in the house and we were too busy eating to talk.
Freedom looks different for different people. For my parents freedom seemed to look like teaching their kids at home. Free to offer their kids a combination of curricula to suit each of our differing ages and learning needs and desires.
“My soul. My soul is in control [it goes], “Nah, we’re not doing that.“ I do enjoy cooking. But I wouldn’t mind if I was on a beach somewhere, and I made something over a fire. I don’t need a lot. I don’t want to make a lot or cook a lot. I want to travel, but I don’t want it to be stressful. Italy, someplace warm. No more than an hour drive to the beach.”