Category: Black History Month

Black History Month · In the Kitchen

Black History Year

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I did not get through my ambitious syllabus in February, so I guess 2025 is going to have to be Black History Year… I’m not mad about it.

One thing I did do: cook using recipes by Black recipe developers.

First up: Bryant Terry. He specializes in vegan food, which I enjoy, and the cookbook I used is one I already own (bookshop.org link): The Inspired Vegan. It’s a cookbook for entertaining, with recipes for whole meals, including drinks, books, and playlists. He handles tofu really well; I could eat buckets of the tofu from his tofu saag.

A couple of weeks ago, I made congee and tofu with peanuts and chili oil. I did not mix my rices, so I didn’t follow the recipe exactly, but it was still delicious… so delicious that I had leftovers for breakfast the next day.

This one will be in the rotation. It’s really good.

As I type this, I’m making Terry’s masala chai, which I have also been enjoying for the last few weeks. I’ve done some research online, and his technique isn’t entirely traditional, but it’s very tasty (and it makes the house smell so good while it’s in the works).

Since these recipes are for entertaining, I halve them so we don’t end up eating (or drinking) dishes (drinks) for weeks. What I should do is make the whole tofu recipe, and halve the meal it comes with, because the tofu is just that good.

Next up: Jerrelle Guy’s sweet potato tart with chocolate hazelnut crust, from (bookshop.org link) Black Girl Baking. Look, I know I said I was going to do something new to me… but I can’t convey to you how delicious this tart is, and I really wanted to eat some of it (confession: I’m having a slice right now).

It’s really pretty, right? It has some citrus zest and juice in it, which gives the sweet potato filling a nice, bright flavor. I think this is going to replace the pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving (or at least be an addition).

The tart has eggs in it, but it doesn’t have any dairy, so it’s safe for fabulous and talented husband to eat (the whipped cream is also non-dairy).

So yes, it’s true that I did not do all of the reading I wanted to do, but it’s only March; there’s plenty of time left in Black History Year.

Black History Month

Black History Month: Kadir Nelson

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Kadir Nelson is a talented, prolific, accomplished artist. I became aware of his work because of his New Yorker and Rolling Stone covers, which are… just… breathtaking. In addition to his incredible skills as a painter, his narrative chops are second to none.

He has a website, with a gallery and store: https://www.kadirnelson.com/

In 2022, the Norman Rockwell Museum curated an exhibition titled “In Our Lifetime: Paintings from the Pandemic by Kadir Nelson.”

He has written and/or illustrated a number of children’s books (autographed copies available).

And he painted what is, quite possibly, the best bookstore poster of all time (in my humble opinion):

Norman Rockwell was able to create self-contained visual narratives, using incredible drawing and painting skills. I would argue that Norman Rockwell was good at showing us what we already knew, sometimes even when we didn’t want to know it. That is a very particular, very specific skill. It is rare, and it is special.

Kadir Nelson is wholly original, artistically — he is one of a kind — but I think he does a similar kind of narrative work, with a similar skillset, and that his work is incredibly important in our time.

Black History Month

Black History Month: Augusta Savage & Annie Easley

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Gamin (1930), by Augusta Savage. Photo credited to the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens, Jacksonville, Florida. Image featured in Sculptor Augusta Savage’s Towering Impact on the Harlem Renaissance, by Niama Safia Sandy, on artsy.com.

This morning I learned about two extraordinary Black American women: sculptor, poet, teacher and gallery owner Augusta Savage (1892-1962), and mathematician and computer scientist Annie Easley (1933-2011).

[The New York Public Library has a great libguide for Augusta Savage.]

Thank you to Mariame Kaba (@prisonculture.bsky.social) for posting a link to a PBS American Masters segment about Augusta Savage:

Annie Easley was a NASA “computer.” Hidden Figures (the book by Margot Lee Shetterly, and the film of the same name) featured profiles and stories of Black women hired by NASA for their skills and mathematics and engineering. Annie Easley wasn’t featured in that work, but she shared a similar skillset. Among her accomplishments, she created code for the Centaur rocket stage that allowed it to be used successfully (it was blowing up on launch). The code Easley created allowed the Centaur stage to be used in more than 220 launches; the technology was incorporated into other rockets used for missions to the moon, and for the space shuttles.

Annie Easley is one of the featured women in an article at biography.com: NASA’s Hidden Figures: The Unsung Women You Need to Know

Caitlin Aamodt, PhD (@caamodt.bsky.social) posted a gift article of an obituary for Annie Easley, published on February 1, 2025, by the New York Times in their “Overlooked No More” series: https://bsky.app/profile/caamodt.bsky.social/post/3lh7czy27ws2r

The Times summed up some of her skills this way: “She analyzed systems that handled energy conversion and aided in the design of alternative power technology, including the batteries used for early hybrid vehicles.” (For those of us who flirt with data transmission, the article also mentioned that she worked with SOAP.)

Easley spent her retirement mentoring others, and served with the EEOC.

From the Times piece, in a 2001 interview, Easley said this: “My thing is, if I can’t work with you, I will work around you.”

Wise words.

Black History Month · The Personal Project

Black History Month

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Meteor Shower
by Clint Smith

I read somewhere that meteor showers
are almost always named after

the constellation from which
they originate. It’s funny, I think,

how even the universe is telling us
that we can never get too far

from the place that created us.
How there is always a streak of our past

trailing closely behind us
like a smattering of obstinate memories.

Even when we enter a new atmosphere,
become subsumed in flames, turn to dust,

lose ourselves in the wind, and scatter
the surface of all that rest beneath us,

we bring a part of where we are from
to every place we go.

—* — *—

February is Black History Month. Here is how I’m celebrating:

Watching:

Crash Course Black American History, hosted by Clint Smith (YouTube)

Red Tails (Disney+)

Captain America: Brave New World (Releases February 14)

Photo of an iPad with a Kindle book, a library book, a book of essays, and two cookbooks.

Reading:

Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lord

The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together, by Heather McGhee

Live Nourished: Make Peace with Food, Banish Body Shame, and Reclaim Joy, by Shana Minei Spence, MS, RDN, CDN

Cooking:

New-to-me recipe (TBD) from Black Girl Baking, by Jerrelle Guy (The sweet potato pie with chocolate hazelnut crust from this book is *chef’s kiss*.)

New-to-me recipe (TBD) from The Inspired Vegan, by Bryant Terry (Terry’s saag tofu is my go-to; his recipe for the tofu is out of this world.)