tHE mAKERS

The world of CGP (Consumer Goods and Products) was made for the dessert world and has been a fruitful space for Black pastry artists for generations. In this episode, we talk with the minds behind some of the most delicious treats about subverting the restaurant space and taking their talents directly to the marketplace as independent entrepreneurs.

This week I talk with the always joyful and brilliant Cheryl Day owner of famed Back in the Day Bakery and renowned cookbook author about building a business with a core principle of afro nostalgia and how she's managed to thrive for nearly 20 years.

Next, I talk with cream impresario Michael 'Mikey' Cole owner of Mikey Likes It Ice cream about spreading the gospel of ice cream and centering happiness, authenticity, and strong brand recognition as the guiding principles of his amazing business.

Finally, I talk with Auzerais Bellamy owner and executive chef and owner of Blondery about her vision for her boutique brand, the power of strategic marketing, and centering luxury and beauty in her direct-to-consumer business.

Original Air Date: April 27, 2021

Bakesale Resistance

From Georgia Gilmore to Paola Velez, desserts have always had the power to transform social movements. From activist fundraising to the empowering construct of social entrepreneurship, baking and selling those treats has been a strategic tool in the Black community.

This week I got to share space with my sister-friend Paola Velez, where she talks about growing up in NYC restaurants, defining her artistic voice in the food, and keeping her ethical compass calibrated. She went all the way off on several topics and dropped so many pearls. Our long, robust conversation was edited into the half-hour you hear as a way to illustrate Paola's core philosophy and the ethos that drives her work.

Paola manages so beautifully to model leadership and a more ethical industry in every facet of her business. That work is hard, slow-moving, and long-term, but she's built for this, and she is changing the world one dona at a time.

I hope you follow her work both personally over on Instagram at @smallorchids or her philanthropic work at Bakers Against Racism to learn more ways to support her movement.

Original Air Date: May 6, 2021

Media Hype

The media landscape allows us to know chefs how the confines of restaurants or bakeshops don’t qualify. We get to know their lives and personalities, and in subliminal and overt ways come to understand more about our culture in the process. In this episode, we talk with the media personalities charming us and showing the diversity of Black identity while teaching us how to bake.

In the episode, we deep-dived into the usefulness of food media to extend the culinary reach of creatives across disciplines. First up i talk with Lani Halliday talked about her YouTube series Baking Outside the Lines and making content on her own terms, all while running and growing Brutus Bakeshop.

Vallery Lomas talked about leveraging social media into strategic opportunities, her time on competition baking tv, and her new book Life Is What You Bake It that is available for preorder wherever you buy books.

Lasheeda Perry shared her eternal sunshine, which is extraordinary given all the adversity she's faced, and talked with me about this new era of her work as on-air talent and translating her culinary career outside the context of the professional kitchen.

These ladies gave me so much of themselves for this episode so I hope you take some time to listen get into their work and diversify your baking media consumption cus there is so much goodness coming your way!!

Original Air Date: May 20, 2021

A History of American cake Design: In conversation with Master Pastry Chef Toba Garrett

In the world of cake decorating, there is one name that emerges among most professionals as a master of the craft, and that name is Chef Toba Garret.

She’s written the go-to text on cake decorating and is a living legend internationally, and I'm honored to share our conversation on the season finale.

In this episode Chef talks with me about the early days of an emerging American cake design world, her stewardship, and authorship ad Dean of the Institute of Culinary Education’s Cake Design program, and her thoughts on where the pastry world and, more specifically, the space of cake decorating is heading.

I hope that you deep dive into Chef Garrett beyond the episode, speak her name and buy her books, but for me, this episode was about hearing from a living legend in her own word and saying thank you for contributing to and transforming a space in this industry on her own terms.

Original Air Date: June 3, 2021

Diasporic Desserts

Sweets look differently across the African diaspora, where baking is less about decadent desserts to end a meal and more about special occasions, a taste of other parts of the world, and the botanical bounty of indigenous fruits.

I wanted to start this season with a grounding conversation about the West African center of the Black culinary diaspora. On this episode, I drafted my friend, the ever-brilliant Nigerian food explorer, culinary anthropologist, and food historian Ozoz Sokoh of Kitchen Butterfly and founder of Feast Afrique to help us reimagine Black desserts.

The conversation went a lot of places and Ozoz shared so much about her idyllic life growing up in Nigeria eating the most delicious fruits as well as her time traveling the world reclining home through the product market.

In each episode, we'll also introduce you to one of our exceptional Talenti small business grant recipients. This episode's the dynamic team of Peter and Jeanine Prime of Cane Bar and Restaurant is our featured business, so please give them a follow here on Instagram and support their gorgeous restaurant next time you're in Washington, DC.

Original Air Date: November 17, 2021

Pie Art!

Extending our thinking about desserts outside of American culture, I talk with the dynamic Tiffany Anne Parks, curator of the pastry arts practice Pienanny, about going up Jamaican by way of South Florida and what happens when Caribbean foodways get translated across the diaspora.

We talk about immigration, assimilation, and diffusion, and her use of pies and Caribbean baking traditions as a catalyst to examine cultural, class, and gender identities.

As with each episode this season, we also highlight a Talenti small business grant recipient. In this episode, we lift up the brilliant Tall Grass Food Box team of Gabrielle E.W. Carter, Derrick Beasley, and Gerald Harris and the fantastic work they're doing to bring Black farmers to the tables of their North Carolina community.

Original Air Date: December 1, 2021

Community Cake

Nostalgia is a huge factor in the baking traditions in the African American culinary canon and the keepers of southern cake and desserts recipes are preserving that legacy for a whole new generation.

If you remember, last season, I talked with Chef Paola Velez about community building and intentional career growth. It was a dope and insightful conversation, but because of how prolific Bakers Against Racism was, we mainly discussed her extraordinary career.

This season though, the seeds of that conversation that interrogated social conscience and community engagement as central operation principal were too rich not to explore, so I tapped Arley Bell of Richmond, VA, based Arley Cakes, to talk about her viral cakes that helped make the Bakers Against Racism media campaign palpable as well as building a mission-based business in the time of Covid-19.

I also had the honor of chatting with Chef Colette Knight of Atalanta, GA, based Gud Gud Pudin, who left her life on the west coast to restart her pastry practice in the city that started her culinary career. We talked about how she's using her new platform to heal from loss and carry on her family's hospitality legacy.

As with each episode this season, we also highlight a Talenti small business grant recipient. In this episode, we lift up New Orleans-based 2 Brothers 1 Love, who use their food space to share modern diasporic cuisine on their terms.

Original Air Date: December 15, 2021

Bean to Bar Chocolate

If you remember, last season, I talked with Erika Dupree Cline about her extraordinary career in pastry. She opened up about so much, and while it was a joy to speak with her about how she built her lauded pastry career, we didn't spend much time talking about her true passion, chocolate.

The first time I ever tasted raw cacao was in her chocolate lab in Tortola BVI. It was a life-changing experience that got me thinking about where chocolate comes from and why the system is so inequitable.

In this episode, I called on the brilliant farmer and activist Gillian Goddard of the Alliance of Rural Communities to talk with me about the realities of the chocolate industry ecosystem and what chocolate means in the global south, as well as the work she's doing with her Cross Atlantic Chocolate Collective project that networks member cacao farmers and chocolatiers across the African diaspora to empower them to reimagine a more equitable chocolate industry.

I also talked with Uganda-based member farmer Solomon Winkey, a third-generation cacao farmer, and social entrepreneur, about his work and what it means to reclaim cacao farming on his ancestral land.

As with each episode this season, we also highlight a Talenti small business grant recipient. In this episode, it only made sense to highlight my sisterchef Erika Dupree Cline and her chocolate company Simply Erika.

Original Air Date: December 29, 2021

The Light and Shade of Black Nostalgia

The world of desserts can feel indulgent and decadent in ways that overlook the practical impact our cultural relationships with food have on our lives. The joy and celebration, the emotional connection and comfort in good and bad times our dessert traditions have are as much an heirloom as the recipes themselves.

In this episode, I wanted to talk with two women whose work gives us an insightful look at the twin poles of nostalgia and offers us ways to reconsider our relationship with desserts.

First I spent time with nutrition and wellness coach Shelley Chapman host of the Mindful Plate youtube channel and founder of The Mindful Nutrition School about the importance of naming and clarifying our emotional relationships with food.

In the second segment, I talk with pastry chef and end-of-life doula Dr. Monica O’Connell about how she is using symbolism and emotional connection to cakes to interrogate end-of-life care for patients and families.

In this episode for our Talenti Small Business spotlight we celebrate our recipient nutritionist, author, and activist Tracye McQuinter and her 10,00 Black Vegan Women initiative that has helped 15,000 black women and counting go vegan to live longer healthier lives.

Original Air Date: January 12, 2022