Soul Week At-A-Glance

New York Times writer calls out Black people for lovin Red Lobster and she ain't lyin'! it all stems from the definition of "soul food" and a mild argument is if we go by patronage then Red Lobster would have to be it and I'd actually have to agree. There's a Red Lobster 3 blocks away from my home and it's allways rammed with Black faces. as a proud Nova Scotian I'd NEVER go ther (barring my old as shit grandparents didn't force me or somethin') but it is a popular spot.

1300Filmore in San Fran has a lock down on the upscale soul food fusion that eludes Harlem restaurant. Ironically, chef David Lawrence is actually Jamaican.

I LOVE fried anything so the thoughts of a fried peach pie that takes 3 days to make at A Taste of Memphis, a new resto in Boise Idaho, makes my mouth water. 3 days though? Really?

October shall hence be known as Alabama Food Products Month.
I'd say "yum-o" but I HATE Rachael Ray. It does sound good though ;-)

Soul Food recipes from the dirty dirty? Loves it! Here's a young entrepenour writing and self publishing a soul food cookbook. Cool beans! I really dig that you can download it for a cheaper price and print it off yourself. If you're anythig like me you like a spineless cookbook anyway and an environmentally efficient option is seriously cool.

I don't quite know how I feel about B. Smith (the Black Martha Stewart) endorsing a General Mills soul food endeavour. One part of me says "high-five sista!" and the other says, "damn you sold out sista". But then everyone derves a little soul and the fact remains that Black folks need to be eating a much healthier version of our cuisine so if this helps then so be it. Betty Crocker's sweet potato pie smoothies sound gross though! Check out their website Servin up soul.

Aiken, South Carolina, has a new soul food resto called the Soul Food Shack.

While I can agree that Bill O'Reilly's comments last week about how civilized Black people were at Sylvia's resto were ignorant, I'm still sure it was also racist. Ignorance + racism are a deadly combination and rarely are they separate from each other. On this basis Ben Greeman's latest article is naive and IMO wrong. Funnily enough he sites Juan Williams as one of the Black commentators who is defending O'Reilly, failing to note that he is also the other voice on the infamous audio proclaimin "oh please--" to O'Reilly's shit. Poor Ben actually thinks O'reilly can be belived when he claims to be on a new no-smear campaign when he himself is the biggest smear bandit.

Sweet Georgia Brown's gets a management makeover in Detroit. Nice to see some resto's are staying put and changig up the formula instead of packin' it all in like others...

...Like Diddy's Justin's closing. He claims it will reopen bigger and better but good business ususally means securing bigger and beter space to facilitate a seamless move instead of closing and starting from scratch.

Soul Week At-A-Glance

NBA great, Nate Thurmond has been running Big Nate's Barbeque for 17 years and loves it.

Port Chester in NY, got a Soul Food cookout of their own on Saturday. What a nice idea: a free family event, with healthy versions of soul food (although I did spot jerk chicken on the menu SMDH).

At the event, there was a milk taste test to convince kids that 1% and 2% were just as tasty as whole milk and better for you. 6-year-old Keshawn Ellis, declared his love for the new milk thusly: "It's like I'm going to marry it." Adorable.

Rosie's in the O.C. (of all places) get's it right with a menu of sweet tea, black-eyed peas, coleslaw, sweet potatoes, collards, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, Po Boy sandwiches and catfish! Besides soul food I also love to get my drink on and I'm hella intrigued by Rosie's black-eyed pea martini!

New Jersey's got soul.

Bill O'Reilly "treated" Al Sharpton to dinner at Sylvia's in Harlem where he claimed everyone in the joint watched his O'Reilly Factor show. He "had a great time, and all the people up there are tremendously respectful." Ugh.

He had the meatloaf and loved it and was surprised that "there wasn't one person in Sylvia's who was screaming, 'M-Fer, I want more iced tea.'
He exclaims further, "You know, I mean, everybody was -- it was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb in the sense of people were sitting there, and they were ordering and having fun. And there wasn't any kind of craziness at all."
WOW!
He also talks of going to an Anita Baker concert where the Blacks where well dressed, like it's a new thing. Her band was in tuxedos and he claims that White America doesn't know that we can look and act respectfully. Download the audio here if the link wears out.

Looks like a White girl in Kentucky had Ethiopian food and had the same reaction as O'Reilly in that the food was actually good. At least I can give it to her that African food is probably few and far between in Kentucky and she seemed to really enjoy it. I don't know about the tone of the piece, there's just somethign about it that bugs me, but it's an interestign review nontheless.

Harlem looses a huge stretch of real-estate to ever more gentrification. Less soul food joint's to follow I'm sure.

Soul food as fast food for university students at SFU? Interesting!

2 Greeks run a well-loved soul food spot in Fayetteville for 50 years. Crazy!

Sounds like Silqui’s in Miami needs to step their game up, but they get props for bringin' soul food and Harlem-style entertainment to Miami.



Saveur Magazine dedicates their latest issue entirely to Chicago and includes the low down on soul food.

Patty Pinner, soul food baker, has new book.

Soul Week At-A-Glance

·Soul Food Festival in Indiana sounds like a blast!

·6 brothas come together to bring upscale soul food to Houston. Hmmm wonder if at least one of 'em is single?

·Eat somethin' before you read about Mrs. Jones Restaurant in Dorchester, MA. I'm dyin' for a fried pork chop smothered in gravy now!

·What's a southern meal without black eyed peas and Kool Aid? Houstonist will tell you: it's food with no soul.

·Dang, I'm tempted to hit up Florida next Sunday for Victor Kimble's Soul Food Brunch. If only I had a car...and a license to drive I'd be on it with the quickness!
The official flyer pdf is here.

·Now I tried to find some info on Victor to see what his story was and stumbled on this gem: I lived in Australia for 6 months and never found this place. Ever the intrepid reporter I found that the Victor Kimble is retired from the navy and did indeed settle in the land down under! Cool beans! Me thinks that maybe- just maybe - I'ma hafta go back to Sydney and see if they're really cooking with soul ;-)

Sister's are workin' it out on the soul food tip in Arizona too!

Remember Vern's Place from my last post? Well according to Back Talk, they're having a fundraiser to try and raise money for the $450 per month rent raise that's comin' down the pike from the new building owners. If you live in Dallas, get thee to Vern's Place!!

Soul Week At-A-Glance

In an effort to make me more accountable to this blog I've decided to keep tabs on the soul food blogosphere and report back so when I finally get a reader they can't say I never shared ;-)
The criteria I'm using besides soul food will be that the subject or blogger must be Black. There are thousands of food blogs and food blog/news round-ups for every color under the sun except us, so now it's our time to shine.

Sunday in Soul:

·Soul Food the Showtime series has recently released their second season and of course their first season was the shit.

·And oddly enough the movie that started it all is dead cheap right now - even in Canada. I've always felt there's a conspiracy to keep Black movies and music expensive so this is a joy. As an aside they also have Eve's Bayou for $6!

·Apparently I've slept on the fact that June is National Soul Food Month in the States. Duly noted for next Summer.

·And Memphis has a Soul Week!

·In NYC they have an organization called NoshWalks that takes groups to different neighborhoods for a stroll and some eats. I'm not in NYC so I wouldn'a been able to go anyway but according to Harlem's Uptown flavor website they posted the deets on Friday for an event on Saturday. Booooo. CP time fo' real.

·Grubgirl visited the Hard Knox Cafe not too long ago, servin' soul food in San Francisco and gave it a decent review.

·Off the Broiler did Pachal's in Atlanta and it looks mighty good.

·Ike and Tina's former back-up singer, Robbie Montgomery, does good in St. Louis making up soul food for the masses with 2 restaurants. Recipe included!

·Vegetarian soul food anyone?

·Looks like New York's gentrification of Harlem isn't an exclusive phenom. Dallas's soul food legacy, Vern's Place, is being forced out too. Thanx to CB9M Chairman's Blog for the unencumbered NYTimes article.

·Philly Restaurant gets big time kudos in a Black Enterprise Magazine as Best Soul Food!

·The latest article to bring attention to the unhealthy aspects of soul food. This time from Oregon. Don't get it twisted tho' it's mostly the use of lard, cream sauces, copious amounts of cheese and butter - I'll steer you healthy and right on this blog...most of the time ;-P

·I'll put it on here even though it was a while ago and I'm not that impressed: Justin Timberlake opened a new resto in his Southern tradition, imaginatively named Southern Hospitality BBQ