Cuisine Noir Magazine. Feb 2021. Keisha Rucker spent her entire life in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. This is where she went to school at Kenwood Academy and DePaul University, developed her entrepreneurial skills, and now serves her community. After studying cosmetology and working in hair, fashion, commercial real estate and customer service, Rucker […]

Cuisine Noir. November 2020 For retired marine Achilles Murray, the recent lockdown has been a blessing. “People are cooking more at home. They are tired of ordering takeout. That’s where my reputable and delicious barbecue sauces come handy,” says Murray. Murray and his wife started J&T’s Gourmet Sauces from their home kitchen while stationed in Japan. […]

Cuisine Noir Magazine. September 2020. Professional chef, author of the cookbook “My Modern Caribbean Kitchen” and a 2008 Olympian boxer representing the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI), Julius Jackson, knows a little about resiliency. Growing up on the islands, Jackson has witnessed several devastations caused by extreme weather, economic downturn and now a pandemic. However, he has […]

Cuisine Noir Magazine. September 2020. Chef Nik, better known as “Nik the Chic Chef “or “Foodie with a Cause,” has merged her passion for food and life.  Over the years, she has gained national recognition for her amazing culinary art skills having prepared cuisine for celebrities such as Jess Hilarious, Supa Cent, Angie Stone, Vivica Fox, Tisha […]

Cuisine Noir Magazine. June 2020. New York City-based Chef Jumoke Jackson is a self-proclaimed “Bishop of Biscuits.” This private chef, caterer and speaker recently authored a cookbook called “Soulfull Biscuits: How to master the art of biscuits” that includes 50 ways to make biscuits, as well as jams and compound butter recipes. Among his other accomplishments, Jackson […]

Atlanta Magazine. Feb 2020. At age 13, Kalsang Lama was already a skilled enough cook to prepare dinner for her family when they returned home from work each night. She grew up in a Tibetan settlement in Mussoorie, a popular hill station in northern India. Her parents were refugees who had fled religious persecution in Tibet, walking […]

Cuisine Noir Magazine. Nov 2019. Maria Bradford is changing the way diners perceive African cuisine. She pairs her African-inspired modern savory street food snacks with English cakes and scones and caters them to a tea party in London. She mixes hibiscus with strawberries picked at her neighborhood farm in Kent and sells the “Passionately Bissap” […]

For Creative Loafing Atlanta. April 2018. Chef Lotfi Chabaane spends each day at a retirement community called Parc at Duluth. At 60, he’s the place’s de facto spring chicken, telling stories, dancing, and cooking for the seniors who live there. What he’s cooking are Tunisian, Indian, French, Malaysian, and German dishes, but his patrons often […]

For Chowhound. February 2018.  An American girl travels to Italy, meets a charming Italian man, gets married, and together they live happily ever after. It sounds like a cliché love story, right? Well, it happened in January 2009 when Meredith Hall, a resident of Atlanta, met Luigi D’Arienzo (who goes by Gigi) during a milonga […]

For Chowhound. January 2018.  Khaled and Ruwaida had a deep-rooted life back in Damascus, Syria. They owned two apartments and a few electronic shops. Khaled worked, while Ruwaida took care of their two kids. But political unrest forced them to leave their home country and walk across to Jordan, where they lived as refugees for four […]

For Cuisine Noir Magazine. January 2018.  I arrived in Dar es Salaam with Grace Odogbili, a Nigerian-American chef and caterer from Brooklyn. Having worked with New York’s top restaurants and caterers, Odogbili started her own business, Dining With Grace, in 2010 to offer people a chance to savor regional cuisines of the African diaspora. She teaches nutritional […]

For Creative Loafing Atlanta, December 2016.  Amara is easy to spot, thanks to its electric blue and white sign. A Persian rug welcomes diners into the spacious, modern-industrial interior with pendant lights dangling from a high vaulted ceiling. A glass-backed bar with yellow chairs is central to the space, where one can watch people stopping […]