Better Know A Culinary Icon: Edna Lewis The granddaughter of freed slaves, Miss Lewis grew up in Freetown, Virginia, left town at 16, and eventually made her way to New York City, where she found work at a Brooklyn laundry. She refused to iron and so she was fired. She worked for The Daily Worker, campaigned for FDR, married a communist, and in the late 40s and 50s, she was the celebrated chef at Cafe Nicholson, a Midtown favorite frequented by Faulkner, Brando, Capote, Avelon, Vreeland…. This at a time “when female chefs were few and black female chefs were even fewer.” (Via.) In 1972, with the encouragement of the legendary Knopf editor Judith Jones (who helped make The Art of French Cooking a reality), she published The Edna Lewis Cookbook, to great acclaim. She put out two more books in the 70s and 80s. In her later years, she befriended Alabama-born chef Scott Peacock. A few years before she died in 2006, at age 89, Lewis and Peacock published The Gift of Southern Cooking. I don’t own any of her books, but I’m hitting up ebay. I just spoke to Peacock. A delightful, lovely man who calls her “Miss Lewis,” always. (Wikipedia, Peacock’s Watershed Restaurant) xx Nora
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Better Know A Culinary Icon: Edna Lewis

The granddaughter of freed slaves, Miss Lewis grew up in Freetown, Virginia, left town at 16, and eventually made her way to New York City, where she found work at a Brooklyn laundry. She refused to iron and so she was fired.

She worked for The Daily Worker, campaigned for FDR, married a communist, and in the late 40s and 50s, she was the celebrated chef at Cafe Nicholson, a Midtown favorite frequented by Faulkner, Brando, Capote, Avelon, Vreeland….

This at a time “when female chefs were few and black female chefs were even fewer.” (Via.)

In 1972, with the encouragement of the legendary Knopf editor Judith Jones (who helped make The Art of French Cooking a reality), she published The Edna Lewis Cookbook, to great acclaim. She put out two more books in the 70s and 80s.

In her later years, she befriended Alabama-born chef Scott Peacock. A few years before she died in 2006, at age 89, Lewis and Peacock published The Gift of Southern Cooking.

I don’t own any of her books, but I’m hitting up ebay. I just spoke to Peacock. A delightful, lovely man who calls her “Miss Lewis,” always.

(Wikipedia, Peacock’s Watershed Restaurant)

xx Nora