New venture...please join me

The winter has come.  I am buttoning another notch on my coat while bustling through the crowd downtown New Haven. There is a shop next door that is specializing  in cardboard furniture. The owner does fun silent shows from his window, like Michael Jackson moon walking impersonations to attract attention. The next day  he plays 'the sax' with no notes to be heard but all the gut and soul facial expressions to make it feel real. Everyone these days is  trying to find their niche. Something that will separate them from the crowd and express who they are and what they stand for. For me, I found that "freedom" in the kitchen. I've ventured in so many directions and careers in life, that there's something strangely comforting and correct for me being in the presence of Whole Foods and heat and allowing my innate senses lead me to a creation of taste, flavor and flair. Being a young Chef, in the essence of no formal training at a top notch culinary school, my food is primarily based upon deep inner connection to what feels right and appropriate. What hits the spot for me and hopefully for another. I've  gained a lot of inspiration from my mother and other women in my family. They are all Southern Bells that brought the rich satisfying soul food jazz up North to Chicago. Ironically, both of my grandmothers owned soul food restaurants. My grandma Connie, on the south side of Chicago had a Bar-b-que restaurant called Big Daddy's... ribs that just fell off the bone and sauce that was as one person I remember saying was "down to the ground." My other grandma, whom I never meant had a 'juke joint' in Mississppi. After being a maid for a wealthy inherited a modest "fortune" when he past. She then opened a place in her hometown Canton, MS where southerners would come, eat, dance, cheat on wives, fallout from too much boot liquor, wake up and do it all over again. Being raised on the out skirts of Chicago I became very fond of listening to my mother, aunts and uncle recall their "glory days' of being put to work as youths cooking and serving in the all night  popular "cafe".

My cooking style is very different than the rich, flavorful cast iron cooked dishes I grew up loving and eating as a kid. They are close to my heart....there is nothing like some good southern food cooking on a Sunday afternoon and having people drawn to your house because the "smells" consumed the block and they can't hold back from trying just a 'piece" of those oxtails cooking in the Crock Pot. Just by chance, I stumbled across a Whole foods way of cooking and first really rejected it. "Where is the soul and flavor in this food?" I questioned at first after having a cup of miso soup. This went on for awhile as I continued dibbling into vegetarianism.  And I still battle with it...espeially when I call one of my 'girls' in my family and they say " Whatcha cookin today?" And I saw Kale with almonds, olive oil, a touch of garlic and Shoyu." They are quiet..." Child, what is Shoyu and you don't cook Kale you cook Collard Greens, with some vinegar, water and salt pork!"  None the less, they may never get it I may never stop craving some of those childhood fav's that were yes "down to the ground" but I started to allow my body not my mind talk to me....after some training I allowed myself to start trying to just accept and eat a carrot in its natural form...no sauce and smothering. And then little by little started thinking how can I make this carrot taste like something I remember without all the grease and grit. Its a task...but hopefully overtime, you will tune in as I am as well...and we can figure, stumble across and experience some things that will make my "girls" and make grandma Connie and Medea proud.