Vertamae Cooks
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Gullah Vegetable Paella
Three-Onion Salsa
As a National Public Radio Correspondent Grosvenor contributes regular features on African-American creativity and community to NPR news magazines. From 1988 until 1995 she hosted NPR's award-winning documentary series "Horizons", for which she had long been producing stories. Her documentary "Never Enough Too Soon," about South Carolina's Daufuskie Island. earned her a Robert F. Kennedy, and an Ohio State Award. She had a featured role in "Daughters of the Dust".
Seasonings, her radio specials on holiday cuisines, was named Best Radio Food Series by the James Beard Awards in 1996. She has also been honored by the National Association of Black Journalists and by the DuPont-Columbia Awards, among many others.
Grosvenor learned to cook in the South Carolina low country, where the people and the language are interchangeably called Geechee or Gullah. Indeed she drew on this background when she served as consultant and writer for National Geographic's Gullah documentary. Her career has consistently circled back to an exploration of how food carries culture through different venues, acquiring new flavors and traditions along the way.
Grosvenor has been a Contributing Editor to Essence and Elan Magazines and has written for the New York Times, The Village Voice, The Washington Post, Redbook, and Ebony. She was a space goddess with Sun Ra Solar Arkestra. She has performed her "food folk opera" Nyam (Gullah for "eat") in numerous locales around the country.
Grosvernor is the host of the Public Television Series "The Americas' Family Kitchen with Vertamae Grosvenor".
She is the Narrator and one of the principal writers of the National Public
Radio documentary series
"Will The Circle Be
Unbroken?", which details a personal history of the civil rights
movement in five Southern communities and the music of those times. This
groundbreaking National Public Radio series is produced by the Atlanta based
Southern Regional Council and is destined to become one of the classic
documentaries of our times.
You can hear one her latest stories in the NPR
"End of Life
Series" .
Vertamae has recently completed an acting role in a new movie to be released
in 1998. The movie "Beloved" is based on a novel by Tony
Morrison, starring Oprah Winfrey and Danny Glover, and directed by Jonathan
Demme. Vertamae also served as the culinary consultant on the Movie.
Vertamae just completed narration on the movie documentary "The language
We Cry In". This documentary is about a song which connects the Mende
culture with the Gulla culture of the Georgia Sea Islands & South
Carolina. It will be released in 1998.
Grosvenor lives in Washington, D.C., where she enjoys the city's rich mix of cultures and cuisines, and the presence and love of several grandchildren.
"Vertamae Cooks" is another best seller. This latest book by this best selling author is a companion to the Public Television series "The Americas' Family Kitchen". Grosvenor displays the pleasures of Afro-Atlantic cooking. Here as in the Television series she shows how African tastes and traditions have influenced the various cuisines of America, acquiring new flavors and ingredients along the way in Central America, South America, and the Caribbean.
You'll find more than one hundred mouth-watering, down-home recipes, spiced with Vertamae's anecdotes, humor, and historical insights all displayed in beautifully colored arrangements. Just viewing the wonderful pictures in this book will tintilate your taste buds. The recipes range from the surprising to the happily familar, from zesty Bahain shrimp creole to the simple pleasures of sweet potato pie. And everything from Hoppin' John to Sunshine Soup to Low Country Red Rice has a story. So pull up a chair and make yourself at home in Vertamae's warm and flavorful kitchen.
This is more than a cookbook. From its two page foreword by Ed Bradley of CBS News, and its tribute to the Oscar Brown family and other notable African Americans, to its storytelling, this book is truly a collector's item.