IDELLA PARKER: THE HELP FOR REAL
It is Day 3 of a quick get-away to New Orleans and I am hopping over heaving sidewalks and the mammoth roots of heritage oaks as I jog toward the urban oasis known as Audubon Park in Uptown when up ahead, of all things, I encounter The Help. Now, instead of the...
read more
CARRIE ALBERTA LYFORD: SPIRIT THAT FOSTERS COMMUNITY
Today is Juneteenth, the day Texas slaves learned of their freedom. It is also the last day of the exhibit I co-curated at Project Row Houses in Houston as part of a fundraising effort I lead. The schedule of events is not a coincidence; it is one more example of the...
read more
LIZA ASHLEY: PEACE THROUGH PIE, CHEFS & THE PRESIDENT
Ask the children in my Garden to Table cooking and nutrition class why we gather together daily after school, while elsewhere in the city other kids are at home watching T.V. and hanging out with friends, and these ebullient third through fifth graders will shout with...
read more
APRON STRINGS CONVERSATIONS: AN EASTER GIFT
A warm, gentle breeze blew across the front porch at 2515 Holman causing the screenprint of the Turbanned Mistress to sway forward and back the way your grandmother might rock her chair to and fro after worship service on Sunday afternoon. It was as if she was there,...
read more
BETTY SIMMONS: IT WAS HARD BUT WE HAD TO LEARN
Betty Simmons sits leisurely on the back porch at 2515 Holman, in Houston’s historic Third Ward with a big, round metal pot in her lap and a curtain of voluptuous hydrangeas as her backdrop. She has a small knife in one hand, peeling what appears to be potatoes. Her...
read more
LUCILLE BISHOP SMITH’S TREASURE CHEST OF FINE FOODS
It seems hard to believe that nine months have whizzed by without even a peep from me and the women of the Jemima code. Please forgive us; we’ve been a little busy. Just this week, we traveled back and forth between Austin and Houston several times, first to introduce...
read more
CHEFDOM HONORED, INSPIRED ON THE SOUTH LAWN
I was busy digging around in American history looking for evidence that black cooks had earned the title of chef when the invitation to the White House arrived in my email. For years, I have been trying to clarify the fuzzy characteristics that epitomize chefdom in...
read more
CHEFS MOVE TO SCHOOLS FOR HAPPY EATING
This Friday when Michelle Obama welcomes top chefs and food professionals from around the globe to the White House to introduce the latest ingredient in her recipe for changing the food habits of America’s kids, the women of The Jemima Code and I will be among the...
read more
REBECCA WEST: TEARS OF JOY NOT SORROW FOR A HAPPY COOK
I didn’t mean to make anyone cry. Quite the contrary. I write thejemimacode to honor invisible women and to celebrate — as in party over here! But recently, more followers of this space are sharing intimate stories off-line of the women whose cooking made them...
read more
EMMA JANE JACKSON: A DOMESTIC WITH ADVICE FOR BRIDES
Everyone asks me the same question when I hand out my business cards: “What did you think of The Help?” Sheepishly, I admit that I haven’t read the best-selling novel. I can’t. You should know that my calling card bears the image from this blog on the front, and a...
read more
Comments