My Ackee Tree

My Ackee Tree PDF

Author: Suzanne Barr

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2022-04-05

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 0735239517

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

*SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2023 TASTE CANADA AWARDS* NOMINATED FOR THE 2023 HERITAGE TORONTO AWARDS For fans of The Measure of My Powers and Notes from a Young Black Chef, a memoir about food, family, and the recipes that brought one woman home when she needed it the most. Suzanne Barr’s journey to become a chef started when she was 30. Her mother was diagnosed with cancer and she moved home to Florida to take care of her. Suzanne escorted her mother to doctor’s appointments, bathed her, and kept her company, but the hardest part of the experience was that she didn’t know how to cook for her. She didn’t even know where to begin. Fast-forward to the summer of 2017 when Suzanne became the inaugural Chef-in-Residence at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto. She wanted to create a menu that represented who she was as a chef and it emerged as a love letter to her mother. Her Rite of Passage Menu, as she called it, changed her. It started her on a journey that has brought her closer to her mother, to her ancestors, and to her Jamaican heritage. But a lot has happened before and since. My Ackee Tree tells the story of a woman who is always on the move, always seeking; who battles the stereotypes of being a Black female cook to become a culinary star in an industry beset by dated practices and landlords with too much power. From the ackee tree in front of her childhood home, through New York City, Atlanta, Hawaii, the Hamptons, and France, Suzanne takes us on her unpredictable journey, and at every turn, she finds light and comfort in the kitchen. Told in a voice as fresh and honest as her cooking, My Ackee Tree is a celebration of creativity, soul searching, and motherhood that asks, “How can I keep the things I love?”

My Ackee Tree

My Ackee Tree PDF

Author: Suzanne Barr (Cook)

Publisher:

Published: 2022

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781039555525

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

"For fans of The Measure of My Powers and Notes from a Young Black Chef, a memoir about food, family, and the recipes that brought one woman home, just when she needed it the most. Suzanne Barr's journey to become a chef started when she was 30. Her mother was diagnosed with cancer and she moved home to Florida to take care of her. Suzanne escorted her mother to doctor's appointments, bathed her, and kept her company, but the hardest part of the experience was that she didn't know how to cook for her. She didn't even know where to begin. Fast-forward to the summer of 2017 when Suzanne became the inaugural Chef-in-Residence at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto. She wanted to create a menu that represented who she was as a chef and it emerged as a love letter to her mother. Her Rite of Passage Menu, as she called it, changed her. It started her on a journey that has brought her closer to her mother, to her ancestors, and to her Jamaican heritage. But a lot has happened before and since. Homecoming tells the story of a woman who is always on the move, always seeking; who battles the stereotypes of being a Black female cook to become a culinary star in an industry beset by dated practices and landlords with too much power. From the ackee tree in front of her childhood home, through New York City, Atlanta, Hawaii, the Hamptons, and France, Suzanne takes us on her unpredictable journey, and at every turn, she finds light and comfort in the kitchen. Told in a voice as fresh and honest as her cooking, Homecoming is a celebration of creativity, soul searching, and motherhood that asks, 'How can I keep the things I love?'"--

Akee Tree

Akee Tree PDF

Author: Stephen Hanks

Publisher:

Published: 2013-04-01

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 9781939995001

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

What would compel an African-American man to spend ten years of his life tracing his family tree from the Pacific Northwest back to slavery times in Mississippi, and ultimately to its African roots? For author Stephen Hanks his quest begins with mere curiosity when he reads the obituary of his uncle, and soon blossoms into a full-blown genealogical investigation. Using standard genealogical tools-interviews, census records, and other sources-he delves into the past, soon finding that he must follow two families, his own and that of those who held his ancestors in bondage. The search takes on a life of its own when Hanks discovers some of the present-day descendants of plantation owner and slaveholder Richard Eskridge. With their help he is able to follow the trail back to Colonel George Eskridge of Virginia, whose namesake was none other than George Washington, the Father of Our Country. Hanks continues to probe, and eventually identifies and visits the homeland of his ancestors in Africa. Akee Tree is not only an honest and unbiased exploration into one family's history; it is a search for identity for a man and his people. Revealing and at times painful, the reader shares the joy of discovery and the shock of realization as author Hanks uncovers the truth about his ancestors. This objective and dramatic account is a powerful testimony to those who may share the same surname today but may have come from vastly different circumstances. In the end it is an affirmation of life and a powerful invitation to reach out to each other in the spirit of reconciliation.

My Mother's Kitchen

My Mother's Kitchen PDF

Author: Peter Gethers

Publisher: Henry Holt and Company

Published: 2017-04-04

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 1250120659

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

My Mother's Kitchen is a funny, moving memoir about a son’s discovery that his mother has a genius for understanding the intimate connections between cooking, people and love Peter Gethers wants to give his aging mother a very personal and perhaps final gift: a spectacular feast featuring all her favorite dishes. The problem is, although he was raised to love food and wine he doesn’t really know how to cook. So he embarks upon an often hilarious and always touching culinary journey that will ultimately allow him to bring his mother’s friends and loved ones to the table one last time. The daughter of a restaurateur—the restaurant was New York’s legendary Ratner’s—Judy Gethers discovered a passion for cooking in her 50s. In time, she became a mentor and friend to several of the most famous chefs in America, including Wolfgang Puck, Nancy Silverton and Jonathan Waxman; she also wrote many cookbooks and taught cooking alongside Julia Child. In her 80s, she was robbed of her ability to cook by a debilitating stroke. But illness has brought her closer than ever to her son: Peter regularly visits her so they can share meals, and he can ask questions about her colorful past, while learning her kitchen secrets. Gradually his ambition becomes manifest: he decides to learn how to cook his mother the meal of her dreams and thereby tell the story of her life to all those who have loved her. With his trademark wit and knowing eye, Peter Gethers has written an unforgettable memoir about how food and family can do much more than feed us—they can nourish our souls.

Acceptance is the Beginning of Change

Acceptance is the Beginning of Change PDF

Author: Ralston G. Bishop

Publisher: iUniverse

Published: 2014-11-25

Total Pages: 125

ISBN-13: 1491752165

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The son of a single parent, a black Jamaican woman who was a poor domestic worker, author Ralston G. Bishop narrates the story of his life in Acceptance is the Beginning of Change. From his birth in Ocho Rios, Jamaica, in 1974, to growing up poor in the parish of St Ann, to turning to crime, to spending time in prison, Bishop shares his journey and discusses the lessons he's learned along the way. Now a farmer and a poet, he reflects on poverty and its far-reaching effect on people, and he tells of the importance of having complete faith and trust in God. From rags to riches and from riches to rags, this memoir shares Bishop's story as he learns to accept the regrets of his past and come to terms with a new present and future. Honest and disclosing, Acceptance is the Beginning of Change communicates that it's not about what one lacks in life, it is about what one has. It's not about the mistakes-it's about the lessons gained.

How to Love a Jamaican

How to Love a Jamaican PDF

Author: Alexia Arthurs

Publisher: Ballantine Books

Published: 2018-07-24

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1524799211

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

“In these kaleidoscopic stories of Jamaica and its diaspora we hear many voices at once. All of them convince and sing. All of them shine.”—Zadie Smith An O: The Oprah Magazine “Top 15 Best of the Year” • A Well-Read Black Girl Pick Tenderness and cruelty, loyalty and betrayal, ambition and regret—Alexia Arthurs navigates these tensions to extraordinary effect in her debut collection about Jamaican immigrants and their families back home. Sweeping from close-knit island communities to the streets of New York City and midwestern university towns, these eleven stories form a portrait of a nation, a people, and a way of life. In “Light-Skinned Girls and Kelly Rowlands,” an NYU student befriends a fellow Jamaican whose privileged West Coast upbringing has blinded her to the hard realities of race. In “Mash Up Love,” a twin’s chance sighting of his estranged brother—the prodigal son of the family—stirs up unresolved feelings of resentment. In “Bad Behavior,” a couple leave their wild teenage daughter with her grandmother in Jamaica, hoping the old ways will straighten her out. In “Mermaid River,” a Jamaican teenage boy is reunited with his mother in New York after eight years apart. In “The Ghost of Jia Yi,” a recently murdered student haunts a despairing Jamaican athlete recruited to an Iowa college. And in “Shirley from a Small Place,” a world-famous pop star retreats to her mother’s big new house in Jamaica, which still holds the power to restore something vital. Alexia Arthurs emerges in this vibrant, lyrical, intimate collection as one of fiction’s most dynamic and essential authors. Praise for How to Love a Jamaican “A sublime short-story collection from newcomer Alexia Arthurs that explores, through various characters, a specific strand of the immigrant experience.”—Entertainment Weekly “With its singular mix of psychological precision and sun-kissed lyricism, this dazzling debut marks the emergence of a knockout new voice.”—O: The Oprah Magazine “Gorgeous, tender, heartbreaking stories . . . Arthurs is a witty, perceptive, and generous writer, and this is a book that will last.”—Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other Parties “Vivid and exciting . . . every story rings beautifully true.”—Marie Claire

The O. Henry Prize Stories 100th Anniversary Edition (2019)

The O. Henry Prize Stories 100th Anniversary Edition (2019) PDF

Author: Laura Furman

Publisher: Anchor

Published: 2019-09-10

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 052556554X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Now celebrating its centenary, this prestigious annual anthology gathers the twenty best new short stories published in the previous year. An Anchor Books Original. The O. Henry Prize Stories 2019--continuing a century-long tradition of cutting-edge literary excellence--contains twenty prize-winning stories chosen from the thousands published in magazines over the previous year. The winning writers are an impressive mix of celebrated names and new, emerging voices. Their stories evoke lives both near and distant, in settings ranging from Jamaica, Houston, and Hawaii to a Turkish coal mine and a drought-ridden Northwestern farm, and feature an engaging array of characters, including Laotian refugees, a Colombian kidnap victim, an eccentric Irish schoolteacher, a woman haunted by a house that cleans itself, and a strangely long-lived rabbit. The uniformly breathtaking stories are accompanied by essays from the eminent jurors on their favorites, observations from the winning writers on what inspired them, and an extensive resource list of magazines. List of 2019 winners: Tessa Hadley John Keeble Moira McCavana Rachel Kondo Sarah Shun-lien Bynum Stephanie Reents Alexia Arthurs Valerie O’Riordan Patricia Engel Kenan Orhan Sarah Hall Bryan Washington Isabella Hammad Weike Wang Caoilinn Hughes Souvankham Thammavongsa Liza Ward Doua Thao Alexander MacLeod John Edgar Wideman Prize Jurors 2019: Lynn Freed, Elizabeth Strout, Lara Vapynar

The Rasta Girl Who Escapes from Babylon

The Rasta Girl Who Escapes from Babylon PDF

Author: Elaine Maskel

Publisher: Page Publishing Inc

Published: 2022-11-03

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 1662414498

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

It took several hundred pages of manuscript and over thirteen years of labor for Rasta Girl to become this very unique book that weaves fiction into reality from a Rasta perspective. You will go on the ride of your life as the heroine stretches you across international borders while at the same time confronting various trials in her quest to escape Babylon--on a spiritual journey to get to her true earthly home: Ethiopia! The main character, Princess Natasha, was born on the island of Jamaica and was taught the Rasta way through the eyes of her father. When her father suddenly passes away, she moves to Philadelphia with her younger brother, where they encounter extreme prejudice and the shock of being forced to live in a foreign culture: Babylon! After meeting Jamal, her journey takes her into a Catholic boarding home, but after staying there for a while, Jamal convinces her to move to Washington with him. Once there, Natasha begins to experience mysterious revelations about Jamal as his true character is revealed, and Natasha quickly finds herself in the unfortunate position of having to confront and defeat secret enemies. Rasta Girl is not for the faint of heart, as there is sex, lies, murder, violence, and war in Natasha's quest to reach Mt. Zion, and all the tribulations and confrontations that a Rasta must experience are explored in this exciting book. There are many twists and turns that will keep you turning the pages. Enjoy the ride!

Let the Sun Shine on My Face

Let the Sun Shine on My Face PDF

Author: Ilis Trudie Palmer

Publisher: BookLocker.com

Published: 2022-05-15

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This book of tiny stories is the second in an ever-expanding series. The author continues to narrate the experiences from the first stirrings of a soul triggered by the “who and I and why and I here’ question. She shares the ongoing journey that continues to be fraught with happy happenings and joyful happenstances. Simple, ordinary language has become her trademark style as she artfully crafts stories and poems which transports the reader along this soul adventure. Stories are birthed out of everyday living and demonstrate the beauty and magic in the mundane, an experience missed by many.

Memoirs of a Stranger

Memoirs of a Stranger PDF

Author: Tamar Douglas

Publisher: eLectio Publishing

Published: 2014-05-13

Total Pages: 45

ISBN-13: 1632130238

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Asha Shakes is a middle-aged woman with Caribbean heritage who is trying to "cure" herself of her culture. Her heritage and family history make her extraordinarily irrational and paranoid, with a firm belief in witchcraft. When these factors reach critical mass, she is committed to a mental institution, where she believes her race and culture are to blame. In the mental hospital, she refuses to speak to anyone—with the exception of one doctor: an African American woman she calls Dr. Gayle. When Gayle disappears and Dr. Knightly shows up, Asha is convinced he is an angel sent to help her. She opens up to him and recalls specific childhood memories triggered by everyday occurrences at the hospital. But when the sessions begin to force her to question the very foundations of her paranoia—and her life as a whole—the truth she uncovers will rock her to the very core of her existence.