On Cooking, Blackness, and Louisville

As the morning mist rolled down the West Virginia mountains a few feet from her back porch, Grandma’s hands produced the identical pieces of potatoes in the palm of her small hand. Ten pounds each morning for breakfast, one by one, eagle-eye precision. One woman. 4’10”, 110 lbs. Long, silky hair in a net. Mother of six boys, two girls, buried her oldest and her youngest. 

I’d learned when I could have my grandmothers to myself for long periods. After breakfast when all the others went out to play, I’d sneak back into Grandma’s kitchen and sit on the same stool Daddy sat on as a child. Grandma rolled out her buttery pie dough by hand with a hypnotic rhythm. The apples cut to perfection. No recipe. Just hands, mind, heart. And an apple pie that would leave you dizzy at the first bite. Often she’d fluidly recite lines from James Weldon Johnson and other Black poets. She’d talk about her love of God, the hard labor assigned to Black folx—and, therefore, her body—and the pride she had in her children. Other times she’d tell me stories about how the white lady she once worked for encouraged Grandma to pass for white and if she did, the white lady offered to pay her college fees—if only Grandma wouldn’t marry Welton. “Grandma, did you regret not going to college?” “No, indeed, honey. I love your grandfather.” There was no trading miscut potato and apple pieces for dreams of “advancement.” Grandmother Hazel is now ninety-nine and still cooks for herself each day. 

My grandmother in Kentucky, Helen, who is ninety-three and who may or may not choose to cook nowadays, would also rise early in the mornings to cook for our family. I’d sit on the stool next to her as she peeled fresh tomatoes with a serrated knife. Peels so thin, you could see through them. Granny cut around any bad spots in the tomatoes and then sliced them in flawless circles. She’d crack fresh chicken eggs into a bowl and I awaited the double yokes. Meant good luck. Every third Sunday in August, Granny fixed her flour batter for the chickens she and Granddaddy had cleaned. She’d fry the chicken to a mouthwatering brown, pile it high on a single platter to cool, then pack it up after breakfast to carry to the homecoming. Granny fried in three skillets at a time. How do you stack three skillets of chicken on one platter? Her geometry was impeccable. 

Nowadays, my friends pine over my cooking. A few friends decided I was worth marrying over my salmon croquettes. Several lady friends offered me their lovin’ in exchange for my peach compote and pistachio rosewater syrup. All said they’d pay to eat my food, so I boldly went into my friends’ restaurant Spring Break 2003, toward the end of my fourth year teaching, and told them they needed some help. It was time to take my culinary prowess to the next level. That Tuesday I began and, though I’d offered to work for free in exchange for the finer details of becoming a professional chef, Friday I walked out with a check and was told I didn’t need to go to culinary school. Two months later, I became the head chef inside the city’s only all-Black, all gay kitchen.

I branched out into personal chef services after a year in the restaurant. Personal chef services was a study in plantation culture. I launched my business right around Derby. I detest the antebellum vibe of Louisville in general, but Derby hosts the plantation throwback party of a lifetime—every year. In my early thirties, I thought, “I bet one thing—some white people still want Black people cooking for them.” And I was right. My first Derby as a personal chef was smooth. I gained several contracts. At the same time, I learned just how many plantation fantasies are alive and well in Louisville.

In front of his cigar-smoking and bourbon-drinking friends, a client referred to me as his family’s cook: “That gal cooks for us.” Gal? Gal who? Gal what? Their laughter cut short when I curtly said, “I’m not anybody’s ‘gal’ and I’m not a cook. I’m a chef.” I walked back to the kitchen and decided not to “Celie” the lemonade I’d just made. The next morning, as I finalized preparations for the Oaks brunch I was handling for his family and friends that day, the client came into the kitchen. His fingertips firmly on the edge of the counter, he quietly said between his teeth, “I don’t know what your response was about yesterday, but if you ever do it again, you’re fired.” My heart began to beat hard enough to hear in my ears. African drums louder and louder. My great-great-grandmother’s heartbeat. The fugitive’s foot race. The yapping dogs. The field song’s rhythm. In that moment, I embodied every Black chef on every plantation in every slave owner’s kitchen. I took a breath from the bottom of my lungs. I wiped my hands, untied my apron, removed my cap, grabbed my knife pouch, popped a strawberry in my mouth, and walked out. 

As I put my things in my car, his wife ran down and screamed, “Aletha, where are you going?! My brunch is in two hours!” I said, “You’re right and Derby’s tomorrow. Good luck!” Her husband left several threats on my phone: if I didn’t bring my “Black ass” back to that house and finish cooking, he’d see to it that I’d never work another day as a chef in Louisville.

Honey, I laughed all the way to the bank. He’d already paid me. You can’t afford my dignity. I am still cooking when I want and for whom I choose. Bon appetit and Happy Derby!