{"id":15946,"date":"2016-10-31T17:37:57","date_gmt":"2016-10-31T21:37:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/?p=15946"},"modified":"2024-12-03T16:07:37","modified_gmt":"2024-12-03T21:07:37","slug":"says-baby-girl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/?p=15946","title":{"rendered":"Says Baby Girl"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Linda Burton posting from Arkadelphia, Arkansas<\/em> \u2013 Caroline Randall Williams is a poet. Her debut book of poetry, Lucy Negro Redux<\/em>, came out in 2015. And so did her amazing cookbook\/family history masterpiece Soul Food Love<\/em>, written in collaboration with her mother, Alice Randall. Caroline is a Harvard grad, a teacher, and maybe the prettiest and most engaging person I\u2019ve met in quite a while. The picture above I took after her lecture at Mosaic Templars Cultural Center in Little Rock this month; we\u2019d finally gotten her downstairs to the gift shop so we could buy her book, and chat. \u201cWill you be at the Cornbread Festival tomorrow?\u201d I asked, an annual event in Little Rock\u2019s evolving and historic South Main area, SoMa. \u201cNo, I\u2019ll be cooking at the Smithsonian with my \"cover-soul-food-love\"<\/a>mother. We\u2019re demonstrating one of the recipes in our book at the Food History Festival.\u201d \u201cName dropper!\u201d I laughed. \u201cThe Smithsonian! Which one?\u201d Double answer: the National Museum of American History; the recipe Peanut Chicken Stew. The Museum\u2019s weekend celebration, dubbed \u201cPolitics on Your Plate,\u201d was all about the past, present, and future of food and community in America, and Soul Food Love<\/em> was a perfect fit. Food history, inseparable from family; identified with love, in whatever kinds of ways we live; a record of the way we come to know the world. Let\u2019s talk about the book. <\/p>\n

http:\/\/soulfoodlove.com\/ <\/a>An excerpt from the preface so you\u2019ll know exactly what the authors meant to do:<\/p>\n

This cookbook tells the story of five kitchens\u2014three generations of women who came to weighing more than two hundred pounds, and a fourth generation that absolutely refused ever to weigh two hundred pounds. It\u2019s the story of a hundred years of cooking and eating in one black American family. On these pages we share the kitchen memories, kitchen gossip, and foodways that sustained two great-grandmothers, a grandmother, and us: a mother and a daughter. Dear\u2019s kitchen, Grandma\u2019s kitchen, Nana\u2019s kitchen, Mama\u2019s kitchen (Alice\u2019s), and Baby Girl\u2019s kitchen (Caroline\u2019s). All are sacred places in our family. But only one is simple: Baby Girl\u2019s.<\/em><\/p>\n

We wanted to create a kitchen where \u201cwhat\u2019s good is good for you,\u201d says Baby Girl.<\/p>\n

The 80 recipes in the book came from four generations of black women; then, overhauled by Caroline (Baby Girl) and Mama (Alice) emerged as affordable, indulgent, healthful<\/em> dishes that still honor their heritage.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo how can that be?\u201d you may ask. Sugar, salt, and grease, isn\u2019t that the secret of the taste? Affordable and<\/em> indulgent? No way! I\u2019m flipping through my copy of the book (one of the most beautifully designed and graphically stunning cookbooks I\u2019ve ever bought, by the way) to check. Chicken not fried? \u201cFried chicken is a bad boyfriend,\u201d says Baby Girl, \u201ctime to kick that so-and-so out of the house.\u201d She offers instead Chicken Roasted with Lemon and Onion, Steamed Chicken and Broccoli, Spicy Pepper Chicken, and oh yes, that famous Peanut Chicken Stew. I paper clip the Spicy Pepper page, I\u2019m going to try that Saturday \u2013 cayenne pepper, olive oil, garlic cloves and a chicken, slather and roast!<\/p>\n

On to vegetables, A Mess of Greens is first. \u201cTraditionally cooked with a leg laying on top\u201d said Baby Girl at the lecture. Oh yes, collard greens and ham hocks, or a hunk of turkey leg. Baby Girl retains one part of that tradition: wash the greens seven times, one for each day of the week, including Sunday, the day of rest; that\u2019s the love. Today\u2019s ingredients, no greasing up the pot: collards, kale, mustard greens, or turnip greens, yellow onion, garlic cloves, jalapenos, hot sauce, apple cider vinegar. Cook about 2 hours.<\/p>\n

And what about Fiery Green Beans? Not boiled until they\u2019re nearly black, Baby Girl\u2019s green beans are a 10-minute roast in a baking pan, along with some green onion, parsley, cilantro, red pepper flakes and a drizzle of olive oil. When done, splash with lemon juice and just a touch of salt. \u201cServe hot or cold,\u201d says Baby Girl, \u201cthey just get better as they sit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chopped up fruit bits in a can with sticky syrup is not fruit salad, but \u201can abomination that should be stricken from school cafeterias and pantry shelves!\u201d Baby Girl declares. \u201cThere is almost no fiber, few vitamins, too much sugar, and too many calories.\u201d Try New School Fruit Salad instead. Chop up some seedless watermelon, cherry tomatoes, and avocado, stir in some olive oil, lemon juice, and feta cheese. Eat healthy, with a smile.<\/p>\n

They served Baby Girl\u2019s Meringues at the lecture, \u201ca near-perfect dessert,\u201d she claims, adding \u201cI limit my sweets to those I make myself. It doesn\u2019t mean I never eat sugar, it does mean I eat less.\u201d Meringues are simply egg whites and sugar whipped and baked; add a bit of coffee or vanilla sugar for variety.<\/p>\n

This cookbook goes far beyond ingredients and nutrition savvy, let\u2019s not forget; it starts with memories, a tale of living with the limits of the times, of hurt and overcome, of strength and fire, of love and soul wrapped around the day-to-day of food.<\/p>\n

\u201cDear\u201d was born in 1897, lived in Selma, Alabama, and then Detroit. In childhood she sucked sugar-tits, raised by a black grandma, her white father from a prominent Alabama family. \u201cGrandma\u201d was born in 1906, married Harlem Renaissance poet Arna Bontemps, lived in Nashville, baked a birthday cake for Jesus every year, the youngest child would blow the candle out. \u201cNana\u201d was born in 1927; married Avon Williams Jr, the first black senator elected \"baby-girl-and-family\"<\/a>in Tennessee since Reconstruction; their home a central spot for the Nashville civil rights movement. \u201cMama,\u201d Alice Randall, (far left)<\/em> has many claims to fame, a best-selling author, including The Wind Done Gone<\/em>, writer of many country songs (the only black woman to have written a number one country song, XXX\u2019s and OOO\u2019s, An American Girl<\/em>, 1993), graduated from Harvard, studied with Julia Child, worked on Johnny Cash videos. And had herself a Baby Girl.<\/p>\n

So, back to Caroline Randall Williams, aka \u201cBaby Girl.\u201d When Mama Alice decided she\u2019d be the last woman in her family line to be fat, she enlisted her daughter\u2019s help. The work of reinventing recipes took several years, a labor of love, and common sense. All the recipes in Soul Food<\/em> Love<\/em> are from Baby Girl\u2019s kitchen.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can cook every one from a Walmart shelf,\u201d she says, \u201cor from your home garden, or Whole Foods\u2026.our kitchen celebrates soul food staples\u2026.but foodways in much of black America are plain broke-down. Too many young black women have lower life expectancies than their mothers\u2026.and it\u2019s not just black America. The Sun Belt is now the Stroke Belt. Fat-fueled diseases \u2013 diabetes, hypertension, stroke, and cancer \u2013 ravage the nation. We can change that in the kitchen, on the quick and on the cheap. We know because we did it. Our ideal is a table that delights, fortifies, and remembers.\u201d Excerpt from Soul Food Love <\/a>by Alice Randall and Caroline Randall Williams<\/a> (Clarkson Potter, 2015).<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0Praise for Soul Food Love<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cSoul Food Love has preserved our traditions but reinvented how they\u2019re prepared. Its focus on health is a godsend.\u201d \u2014Viola Davis<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a book about redefining soul food for the future, not romanticizing its often calorie-laden past.\u201d\u2014The New York Times<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe book redefines traditional soul food cooking with a healthful spin.\u201d\u2013Southern Living Magazine<\/em><\/strong>, naming Caroline one of the \u201c50 People Who Are Changing the South in 2015<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

Visit<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, Little Rock, Arkansas http:\/\/www.mosaictemplarscenter.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Linda Burton posting from Arkadelphia, Arkansas \u2013 Caroline Randall Williams is a poet. Her debut book of poetry, Lucy Negro Redux, came out in 2015. And so did her amazing cookbook\/family history masterpiece Soul Food Love, written in collaboration with her mother, Alice Randall. Caroline is a Harvard grad, a teacher, and maybe the prettiest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4588],"tags":[3308,3310,3307,3312,3309,3311,3306],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15946"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15946"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15971,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15946\/revisions\/15971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}