Feasts of Fiction: Recipes from Literary Legends

To be a writer is a cerebral gift from the heavens; to be a cook is a gift of sorcery from the Earth.

It’s been nearly a month since we last connected, and I’ve miss y’all. My hands have been full caretaking for a family member, traveling across the U.S., visiting friends and loved ones, and of course, trying to make this bread. I’ve been absent but now I return, eager and energized to be writing here again. Please accept this special end-of-year recipe roundup and new series as a holiday offering :*

Toni Morrison and Alice Walker in a kitchen, 1974. Photo for Jill Krementz.

Duality.

It’s one of the most conflicting characteristics of my personality. I often seem to exist in between, floating and teetering in the crevices of two spaces—whether that’s being West African or American, queer or straight, humble or full of hubris, serious or absurd, stoned or sober, a writer or a home cook. I guess that makes me both and all of these things at once.

I’m a writer who cooks, and a home cook who gets just as excited reading about food as I do bathing in the pleasure of food itself. Living withi…