Amena and Edna
Words by Amena Brown
Photos by Lyric Lewin
I found my way to Edna Lewis when I was in the process of healing, a body broken by major surgery and weeks of recovery. A friend came to my house and made me biscuits from Edna Lewis’ recipe and they were so much better than the hockey puck of a biscuit I’d tried to make myself. During the weeks I waited for my lung capacity to return, I started to read Edna Lewis’ The Taste of Country Cooking. I was transported to Freetown, Virginia to the farm and the hearth kitchens of Black women who cooked and planted and reaped and sowed according to the season.
It was summertime, when I was finally strong enough to return to my own kitchen. I reflected on Edna’s summer stories of her Virginia upbringing as I cooked my way through her recipes in my Atlanta home. I made biscuits. I baked blueberry cake. I learned to let the dough rest. I learned to let myself rest too. I brandied and canned peaches. I fried and roasted chicken. I poured cream over fresh strawberries.
My mom and grandma came over to be joyous taste testers, and somehow Edna met us in the kitchen. It felt as if even my grandmothers who had passed on joined us. I remembered how much joy and strength and humor I learned eavesdropping in the kitchen with the women in my family. The kitchen became a salon, a restaurant, a place to hold court, be petty, and talk trash; a place to pray or admit you could not find the words to pray for yourself. I return to the spaces I’ve held with Black women when I am healing. I return to the beauty of our hair and skin, the glory of our bodies, the timbre of our voices.
It is healing and Edna that have returned me to my kitchen again. It is again a Southern summer, while at the same time being a summer that will leave its mark on all of us. It is summer in a pandemic. My home outside of my husband and I is mostly empty of visitors. It is a summer in the middle of a global uprising as Confederate statues and statues of Columbus are toppled; as the community has taken to the streets to fight against police brutality and fight for racial justice, equity, and equality.
I returned to my kitchen and returned to myself following a recipe that is Edna’s and my mother’s and my grandmother’s and my great grandmother’s. I am following a recipe that belongs to Black women writers, activists, artists, scientists, teachers, chefs, poets, doctors, theologions. We are gathering as we always have been. We are raising our voices in the streets, in boardrooms, in education, in government, and in entertainment. We are taking up our space on pages, in meetings, on stages, from platforms we built ourselves. We are standing up and speaking out wherever we are. We are and have been doing the work, and as we do the work may we continue to heal, receive the love and respect we are due, and bestow upon ourselves the care and gentleness we deserve.
Our Own Potluck
Black women
Let’s gather our love for each other
And find a meeting place
The table
The kitchen
The porch
The worn couch in the living room
The flesh underneath our arms
The curls at the nape of our necks
Let us bring our souls and hips to our own potluck
I will bring my ability to find humor in just about anything
And you
You will bring your shyness, your softness
And you
You will bring your takes-no-bullshit attitude
And you
You will bring your singing voice that pierces through the air like the first morning light of the sun
And you
You will bring greetings and say a prayer
Of blessing
Of lament
Of love
Of grace
We will spend time saying their names
The Black women and Black trans women who were taken from us
We will hold their names close to our collarbones
We will let their names rest in the silence of our breath
And we will fight for them
We will then speak our own names to each other
To the flowers as they remind us we still bloom
To our bellies as they remind us our bodies are worthy
We will bump hips trying to set the table
We will gather ourselves to heal
To remember
We will touch shoulders
And find ourselves in each other’s smiles
Pass me a plate
Pass the peace
About Amena Brown
Amena Brown is a writer, spoken word poet, and stage performer whose work interweaves keep-it-real storytelling, rhyme and humor. She is also the host of HER with Amena Brown podcast, which centers the stories and experiences of Black, Indigenous, Asian and Latinx women. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia and believes in a world of no carb shaming.
About Lyric Lewin
Lyric Lewin is a Food Culture Journalist based in Atlanta, Georgia. As a writer and photographer she focuses on stories around the world that use food as a platform to discuss equity. Her work has appeared in CNN, Condé Nast Traveler and Zagat, among others. See more of her work on her website and Instagram.
