In Good Taste

Chef Spotlight James Hemings

Today, celebrity chefs are commonplace from G. Garvin and Sylvia Woods to Carla Hall and Delicious Miss Brown, but in the late 1700’s they were anything but. That is where James Hemings–America’s first famous black chef– made his mark. Born into slavery, Hemings was owned and subsequently freed by Thomas Jefferson. An elder brother of Sally Hemings (Jefferson’s mistress) and half sibling of Jefferson’s wife, Martha, Hemings was chosen to accompany Jefferson to Paris during his time as Minister of France. It was there he was professionally trained in the art of French cooking, apprenticing to pastry chefs and perfecting other culinary specialties. Hemings served his dishes to the European aristocrats and statesmen the Jefferson invited to dinner while developing his signature style of half-Virginia, half-French cuisine, including a dish he would refer to as "macaroni pie". It would evolve into what we know as macaroni and cheese. In 1801, Jefferson reportedly offered Hemings a position at the White House, which Hemings declined. Instead, Edith Fossett, a slave-cook from Monticello was sent to President Jefferson’s White House. She taught Hemings’ halfVirginian half-French fusion cooking style to Jefferson’s white French chef and from there it spread to kitchens worldwide! Aside from his Europeanstyle macaroni and cheese, Hemings is credited with introducing crème brulée, meringues and French-style whipped cream, ice cream and French fries to America. James Hemings’ Mac & Cheese Ingredients:

Butter, for greasing dish 16 ounces, large elbow macaroni 3 cups, milk 2 tsp, all-purpose flour ½ tsp, salt ¼ tsp, fresh ground black pepper 2 cups, freshly shredded parmesan cheese 2 cups, grated mozzarella cheese 2 cups, Romano cheese 2 tbsp, butter

• Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Butter a 13 X 9 inch baking dish and set aside. • In a large pot of boiling water, cook the noodles until tender (8-10 minutes). Drain pot; do not rinse. • In a large bowl, which in the milk, flour, salt until blended. • Stir in 1 1/2 cups of the three cheeses. Add the noodles and butter and toss to coat. • Transfer to the baking dish. Sprinkle the remaining parmesan, mozzarella, and Romano cheese over the noodle mixture. • Bake until the cheese turns light brown (12-14 min).

• Let stand before serving.

Directions:

SavingGrace

It’s been 30 years since Phylicia Rashad was propelled to stardom as beloved matriarch and feminist, Clair Huxtable in the long-running NBC hit sitcom, The Cosby Show. For her near decade long run in the role, she was dubbed at the 2010 NAACP Image Awards as “the Mother of the Black Community”.

Ironically enough, the now 73-year old actress is as busy and in-demand as ever. Over the last two years, she’s had recurring roles in two TV series–the award-winning

“This Is Us” and OWN’s David Makes Man–starred in “Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey; voiced a role in Disney Pixar’s Academy Award-nominated film,

Soul; and guested on Grey’s Anatomy and Station 19.

She’ll reprise her role as Mary Creed in Creed III with

Michael B. Jordan, which is currently filming and last month she opened on Broadway to rave reviews in the stage production of Skeleton Crew directed by Ruben

Santiago-Hudson.

Last year, she was named Dean of Howard University’s College of Fine Arts.

“I can think of no one individual better suited to take on this role than Ms. Phylicia Rashad,” said Howard’s president, Dr. Wayne A.I. Frederick. “Given Ms.

Rashad’s reputation as well as her capabilities and impressive lists of accomplishments, she will undoubtedly empower the college to transcend even our incredibly high expectations. Under her leadership, Howard will continue to inspire and cultivate the artists, and leaders who will shape our niche and national cultures for generations to come.”

“It is a privilege to serve in this capacity and to work with the Howard University administration, faculty and students in reestablishing the College of

Fine Arts,” said Rashad, who has also served as a guest lecturer at a number of different colleges and universities including

Vassar College, and Juilliard.

She’s come a long way since the

Cosby Show debuted in 1984 and shot to the top of the

Neilsen ratings, but she wouldn’t take anything for her journey. “When you look back on the work you’ve been a part of and see you’ve b e e n privi leged to work in a way that has meant so much to so many people, you realize what a gift that is,” says Rash d.

The seasoned thespian–and the first black woman to win a Tony for best actress for her portrayal in “A Raisin in the Sun” on Broadway– has since added directing to her body of talents, with a growing list of credits that includes Joe Turner’s Come and Gone and ‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” at the Mark Taper Forum. Rash d admits that directing hadn’t been on her radar until she was approached by August Wilson’s widow, Constanza Romero to direct a Seattle Repertory Theatre production of “Gem of the Ocean,” marking her 2007 directorial debut. “It was quite a learning process,” says Rash d, who began her career on the stage playing a munchkin on “The Wiz” and as an understudy for Sheryl Lee Ralph in the Broadway production of “Dreamgirls”. “I enjoy working with actors,” Rash d says of directing. “There’s so much that goes into the creation of theatre which most audience members may not know, –designers and creative directors all the behind-thescenes people, and I enjoy working with all those people.” Growing up in Texas, Rash d realized at eleven years old that she wanted to be an actress after taking the stage as the mistress of ceremonies at a citywide music festival while still in elementary school. “I didn’t read the script because we had rehearsed it so much I knew it by heart. And when the presentation was over and mothers came to collect their children, I heard a few of them say, ‘There she is. There’s the little girl who spoke so beautifully. Isn’t she beautiful?’ Well, that meant a lot to me because beautiful was the one thing I wanted to be, and thought I wasn’t and would never be. “That’s it! I thought, ‘When I grow up I’ll be an actress so I can be beautiful all the time.’ “What I didn’t understand and wouldn’t understand for a number of years was that beauty had nothing to do with how I looked. It was communication from the heart.” What came natural, however, was her love of the arts. Rash d’s childhood home was a place where creativity and the arts was fiercely supported and encouraged by her mother Vivian Ayers, a Pulitzer-prize nominated poet, and Rash d’s constant inspiration. “Growing up with a mother like that had its implications,” says Rash d. “One of those implications was that we were not allowed to sit in front of television for interminable amounts of time. She always created distractions for us.” Rash d recalls constantly being engaged in various artistic disciplines, including studying three instruments. There was nothing Rash d’s mother wouldn’t do when it came to encouraging her children to strive for more, once moving with her children to Mexico for a break from the southern Jim Crow traditions, which is why to this day Rash d and her sister, famed choreographer and Emmy-Award winning actress Debbie Allen, are fluent in Spanish. The Houston native–who says there’s a little of her mother in every role she plays–went on to study theatre at Howard University, her orthodontist father’s alma mater. But it was the opportunity to study at the Negro Ensemble Company in New York the summer after her sophomore year that really changed her life. “This was a year after an instructor at Howard, a well-meaning Irish woman, misplaced and mistaken, said to the class that we should consider another occupation because there was no place for the Negro in the theatre.’ “But when I went to New York after my sophomore year and spent those sixty days at the Negro Ensemble Company, that was all I needed. I wanted to be like the actors I was seeing. They were great, and all of them different…all of them masterful.” The fateful trip almost didn’t happen as Rash d’s father was reluctant to send his daughter to New York by herself. “But my mother said to me, ‘I’ve been saving this money and I didn’t know why I was saving it. Now I know why. You are going.’ She had saved exactly what was needed for me to have a ticket and to spend sixty days there,” Rash d recalls. “These are the things that help shape and form a human being–that kind of unfailing support you need in those formative years.”

The discipline she learned in those formative years laid the foundation for a stellar reputation on the Broadway stage from Melvin Van Peeble’s Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death and Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof opposite James Earl Jones and her Tony award-winning role in Raisin in the Sun. “I was grateful of course,” she reports of the history-making moment. “But when I was informed of that, my initial response was ‘What happened?’ Great actresses have preceded me. Nobody was ever nominated before?” In 2008, she resumed her award-winning role in a television adaptation of “A Raisin in the Sun,” which earned her the 2009 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special.

Rashad’s love of acting and respect for the craft has been passed down to her daughter, Condola, who costars on the Showtime series, Billions. The divorced mother of two says grace itself is her saving grace and remains humble despite it all. “I don’t think of myself as an icon,” Rashad reflects. “I’m a woman who has had children, who’s fried a lot of chicken, who’s walked the dog and fed the cat. I think of myself as an artist who continues to develop.” L.A. Focus /February 2022 26

Phylicia Rashad