Chicago Tribune

"Soul of A New Cuisine"  

Click Images to Learn more about Southern and Soul Food Recipes, Cookbooks and Chefs:

Lem's BBQ

(Chicago Tribune & CLTV)

"Foods of Chicago"

WTTW (PBS)

Edna's Restaurant

(Chicago Tribune & CLTV

"The Great Migration Chicago"

Augie Lehmann's

Black America Cooks

(Beta)

Celebrating Cooks who Stir Culture, Tradition & Soul into Recipes...  

Donna Pierce

Skillet Diary™

Recipe For Change

©Donna Pierce

 Aug. 28, 2010

This button is my reminder to always choose showing up for what you believe in. It was worn at the March by a family member who also counted this quote among her favorites:

"The world is dying for lack of compassion. It is the food of life, so everyone must give what they can.

Whatever the question is, love is the answer, yet somehow there is never enough. But there could be as much as we need and then some. You just have to give yourself." …Merle Shain

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Skillet Diary™

Making Promises to Keep

©Donna Pierce

 Aug. 21, 2010

If it were not for the ornament we’ve hung on our tree every Christmas since he was a toddler, my son would not remember Fievel or the film, "An American Tale."
He was 3 years old the afternoon we spent in a movie theater watching the Disney feature-length cartoon about a young mouse separated from his family during their voyage to a new home in America, where, according to rodent legend, mice enjoyed life without cats.
The movie introduced a song, "Somewhere Out There." And when it was over, I sang it softly to my little boy as we walked to our car. MORE

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Skillet Diary™

Happy Birthday Julia

©Donna Pierce

 Aug. 16, 2010

 I celebrated Julia Child's birthday yesterday recalling her encouragement during a time my ideas about food writing had been challenged by my mother, who described the shift as a

"ridiculous limit of my talents." MORE

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Skillet Diary™

Family Rolls

©Donna Pierce

Aug. 12, 2010

When my mother's kid sister, our last direct genetic link to Mom, joined our family for last night's reunion dinner, emotions surprised me. For the first 10 minutes around my sister's dining table, I felt about 8-years-old … hungry for her approval. MORE

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Skillet Diary™

South of the South

©Donna Pierce

My grandmother, who like many of her "girlhood" friends, honeymooned in Havana in the 1920s, was fond of describing her Mobile, Alabama home town as "South of the South" based on cuisine and lifestyle. MORE

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Soul2Keep Southern and Soul Food Recipes Include:

Fried Chicken, Gumbo, Potato Salad, Macaroni and Cheese, Jambalaya, Barbecue, Greens, Biscuits, Calas, Chitterlings, Cornbread, Yeast Rolls, Sweet Potato Pie, Peach Cobblers, and other Southern and Creole Historic Recipes from our grandparent's kitchens with menus designed to promote healthy eating for children and adults.

Highlighting African Americans and People of African Descent with:

Soul Food 2 Keep

African Americans, Caribbean Americans and Blacks of African descent have long stirred pots containing more than soul food in North America, the Caribbean, South America and Europe. But the soul food label, made popular during the 1960’s and 1970’s, survives in the 21st century as a delicious brand that includes family celebration dinners and survival recipes we don’t want to lose.

At BlackAmericaCooks.com, we pay deep respect to the skill and contributions of unnamed top chefs and family cooks who created and/or revised soulful, southern, “down home” and upscale “uptown” recipe renditions ranging from beaten biscuits to cheese croquettes and sweet potato pie to Strawberry Sarabande.

BlackAmericaCooks.com menus, recipes, videos, interviews, blogs and columns highlight home cooks, top chefs and restaurant recipes and dishes (from French to Finnish) inspired by someone Black in the kitchen.

Honeyboy Edwards

May 11, 2010

After Honeyboy Edwards, 95-year-old Blues Great, sang "Sweet Home Chicago" at the Chicago Cultural Center, the Grammy Lifetime-Achievement Award Winner described his Favorite Dessert to Black America Cooks. Inspired by Mr. Edwards, we share a Blackberry Cobbler recipe.

Dorothy Height, Leah Chase and Other Legends....

“Don't give up on your vision. It's a valuable one.”

Dorothy Height, Chair and President Emerita of National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), offered advice regarding plans for BlackAmericaCooks.com during the National Black Family Reunion.

Black America Cook's booth at the Black Family Reunion (pictured right) held in September, 2009 in Washington D.C.

Click here to play video

This video was recorded during the summer of 2009 at Dooky Chase restaurant in New Orleans. It served as a wake-up call about the importance of  holding nothing back from Leah Chase” who nudged us to full disclosure with recipes from our family collections. Click on each of the recipes for previously undisclosed family recipes.

Meet Donna Pierce

Donna Pierce is a national award-winning food and travel journalist and former Assistant Food Editor and Test Kitchen Director for the Chicago Tribune. She grew up with deep roots in Mobile, Alabama, where her family lived for five generations before her parents moved to Missouri.

Donna lived in San Francisco and Los Angeles before a return to Missouri where she was an adjunct instructor for the University of Missouri Journalism School.

She has traveled to Africa, Europe, and the Caribbean exploring the roots of African American culinary traditions. She is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists, the James Beard Foundation, the Association of Food Journalists and Les Dames d’Escoffier.

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Radio Interview

Click here to listen to an interview in 4 parts with John Key of "Higher Ground" discussing "Food and African American Culture" with Donna Pierce.

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