Soul Food Love: Healthy Recipes Inspired by One Hundred Years of Cooking in a Black Family: A Cookbook, (Hardcover)

Soul Food Love tells the tale and shares the recipes from Harvard- and Oxford-educated/Julia-Child-trained/country-music-hit-writing/best-selling novelist/cookbook expert/Vanderbilt professor and all-around super-woman author Alice Randall's life and family. A 77-page family history walks us through her family's history and hardships, dwelling on the foods they made and enjoyed. Each of the many recipes includes a paragraph or two explaining how the recipes have played a part in their lives — and explained what changes were made to make them healthier. “Our ideal,” she writes, along with her Harvard-grad daughter, Caroline Randall Williams, “is a table that delights, fortifies, and remembers.” This turns out to include many soul-food favorites alongside other foods her family enjoyed — all updated for a modern palate. What surprised me was an emphasis on flavorful vegetarian recipes, which would be welcome on any kitchen table. For example, there are two humus and baba ghanoush recipes each, two of which are later combined into a pita-bread “pizza.” It is, I swear, as good and wholesome as anything I've eaten anywhere. We also really loved the Sweet Potato, Kale, and Black-eyed Pea Soup; it wasn't something my mother made, but it sure tastes like it was. These are recipes well-suited for the body and soul, and each comes with a side of love.