2010 Manefesto!!

Hello everyone.

Around a year ago my life changed when I started this group. I was at a transformative crossroads in my life and career, and needed an outlet for culinary catharsis that would feed my spirit as a chef, but would also connect me with other chefs in a substantive way. Cut to today where the group has grown to over 450 members that include culinary legends like Chef Joe Randall, some new school brilliance like our brother-Chef Bryant Terry, and countless other beautiful spirits invested in our history in food.

The goal last year was pretty simple. I had this very personal manifesto that I put out to some folks about what I was feeling as a chef and how I thought we could begin a dialogue. Over time I have come to realize that what this group has to be is the voice of our collective culinary legacy. It has to be our daily connection to why we each chose this work, and why those of you outside the work have taken an interest in this topic. I feel proud of the group and the progress that’s come, but I feel that in order to grow there has to be an expansion of the original premise. This group has to be about more than putting our history down for preservation, it has to be about us being a living legacy in our daily work. Over the next year the goal is really to get down to business and provide the tools to facilitate this!! There are three areas that the group will focus on.

The first is visibility. There are hundreds of you that I’ve met, chatted with, become friends with that are doing work that everyone needs to know about. There are hundreds still that through networking, research and good old fellowship I will come to know about, so profiling everyone and creating a sort of BCH muse moment space to feed us daily and keep us excited and inspired is going to be my commitment to you all!!

The second point of focus this year is on mentorship. When I began the main thing I was motivated by was the fact that, on average, five percent of culinary students are African American competing for jobs in environments were they will undoubtedly be represented even less than that. The idea is that we have to be the bridge over this gap in perspective. Our kids have to know that they are part of a bigger legacy than the one they are taught in school and have to be fortified with our support and guidance. What I’m working on is a sort of big brother/big sister program for chefs!! More to come on that!!

The third area that this year is going to focus on is fellowship. One thing this group has taught me is that you folks are some of the coolest, most talented, and inspirational chefs and hospitality professionals and that we have to take our fellowship beyond the online group. One of the things I’m working on is a traveling underground dining series that will showcase the talents of our chefs, restaurant owners, wine makers, and purveyors in a way that is restorative, creative and honors the spirit of our ancestors. Also some culinary town halls that will be similar to the tavis smiley 'state of black america' where we have panels of professionals putting issues like representation, history, work ethic, and business ownership and operation out in the open to be sure that we are all as sharp and informed about whats really going on in the industry as possible.

These are the things that I feel will take the group to the next phase of evolution and its your support for the vision that has helped me to refocus and to feel so inspired, so I just want to say thank you all for being part of my dream. What I need now is your input. These projects are all in the planning stages and need fresh eyes so those of you who want to roll up your sleeves and lend your time and support please let me know. This is going to be a great year and my hope is that our numbers grow both here and at our ning.com group and that next year we are in an even more exciting place than we are now. Thanks again for your support and Happy Holidays, with much optimism and excitement for the New Year!!

Best wishes!!

Therese Nelson
Founder
Black Culinary History

Living legacy!!

A very cool chef friend of mine had an experience today that is at the heart of this project. She sat down with some living legends and some brilliant contemporary black culinary minds at a sort of underground round table and left feeling changed not only as a chef, but as a black person.

It got me thinking about the importance of a living legacy and how each of us can create our own. In the next few weeks I will be putting together a series on blogtlk radio to create these intimate conversations with chefs we all need to hear from as a the starting point for BCH's contribution to that living legacy so plese if your interested in joining in the conversation, or have a chef you think should be included please let me know. I am feeling so inspired and so elated that so many chefs see the need for this work and are pitching in to make sure they are contributing But I need your help to keep this momentum going so i look forward to hearing from you!!

Chef Bryant Terry

As an eco-chef, food justice activist, and author Bryant Terry is a chef making a big difference in a unique and soulful way.

Early on Bryant made the choice to focus his culinary career on sustainability and socially conscious eating. A graduate of the Chef’s Training Program at the Natural Gourmet Institute for Health and Culinary Arts, New York University with an M.A. in American History, and Xavier University with a B.A. with honors in English Bryant is not only brilliant but well rounded.

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As a writer, Terry offered Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen as a sort of manifesto for the vegan/organic food movement. It’s part cookbook, part social critique and all brilliant insight and instruction into how simple the idea of eating well is at its core. His next book, The Vegan Soul Kitchen, will be out some time in March as a love letter to soul food rethought for the vegan kitchen. If you cant wait for it he’ll be offering a teaser called Getcha Grub On: The Mix Cookbook, a free downloadable (PDF) compilation of his recipes that have been published in magazines and on websites from 2006 until 2008

If all this isn’t enough for a crush Bryant is also serious about giving back and to that end founded the Black and Green Food Justice Fund, b-healthy! (Build Healthy Eating and Lifestyles to Help Youth), The Southern Organic Kitchen project, and is a fellow with the Food and Society Policy Fellows Program.

These are just a few reasons this man is the coolest, but you can find many more if you check out his site www.bryant-terry.com.

Potential!!!

I was thinking today about how many applications this industry has to offer and how as professional chefs we have a responsibility to the expansion of our industry and to explore as many of those ways as possible. I sit here as a young chef armed with all the tools to make magic happen and its really only a matter of how far I'm willing to stretch my mind or how hard I'm willing to work. Its a beautiful thing to know your potential is only limited by you!! That's my though for today, its a simple one and one that I'm sure I'll need to use as inspiration as I go into the next phase of this history project and the need to convince people of its importance begins to drain me, but as of this moment I'm fired up in a pretty spectacular way to make all the ideas I have swimming around in my mind flourish into great things!!!!