In Carolines words, “The recipes in Soul Food Love are love letters I wrote to my mother.  Part of getting the recipes out of my head and down on paper was wanting to save her life. The biographies that start out the book are my mother’s love letters to our foremothers. Just sayin’. That’s the home truth about our book Soul Food Love. But there’s some big world politics in it too. Here’s how those politics were described when our book was coming out by the amazing team at Clarkson-Potter, who have been supporting our journey to being kitchen sink amazons.

In May 2012, bestselling author Alice Randall penned an op-ed in the New York Times titled “Black Women and Fat,” chronicling her quest to be “the last fat black woman” in her family. She turned to her daughter, Caroline Randall Williams, for help. Together they overhauled the way they cook and eat, translating recipes and traditions handed down by generations of black women into easy, affordable, and healthful—yet still indulgent—dishes, such as Peanut Chicken Stew, Red Bean and Brown Rice Creole Salad, Fiery Green Beans, and Sinless Sweet Potato Pie. Soul Food Love relates the authors’ fascinating family history (which mirrors that of much of black America in the twentieth century), explores the often fraught relationship African-American women have had with food, and forges a powerful new way forward that honors their cultural and culinary heritage. This is what the strong black kitchen looks like in the twenty-first century.”