Hey my little file! Welcome to my side of the internet. If this is your first time here-welcome, and welcome back to everyone else. I’m Kai Moriah a chef, food writer and artist and this is Gombo.
Gombo is a food and culture newsletter dedicated to talking about black foodways, black culture, and black stories. It was birthed from my pursuit to define and understand what blackness for myself looks like as a black chef with aspirations in food and media.
What can you expect? Expect to get a front row seat to my journey, a lot of talk about race, identity, and belonging and of course all things black (and BIPOC) food. I really don’t have any limitations about what or how this space should look, my only goal for this work is to do what feels right, however that looks.
-xo Kai Moriah
Sticky Note To Self:
To Do Lists, Brain Dumps and Other Things I Wrote to Myself
I’ve been stuck in a cycle of allowing myself to dream in a realm where limiting beliefs and imposter syndrome have been defeated by the highest, best version of myself that I often dream from. That version of myself lives in eternal bliss smitten across her lips ruminating on the dream-like reality that is constantly, and consistently envisioning without parameters, with the seared, embedded belief that I cannot fail, like warm tar glazed over by the July sun in Texas plains. And that high carries me until fear, irrational, comes crawling into the bed at night, disrupting the comfort in rest— resting in knowing that all things are yet still possible. Yes, fear destroys the embryo of hope, too immature to fight back, to defend its thesis. And they exist at war, an ongoing war so old that no one is sure who is winning, unsure how much territory has been gained–or has it been lost?
I’ve started and stopped so many projects, I’ve imagined so many alternate versions of my success story. The paths that I could take to actualizing my purpose, to living intentionally, and not being poor. I have sat down in a manic moment of creative courage and charted my “sure-fire”, “guaranteed” course to financial freedom and personal satisfaction. Each time, convinced that this, this time- it was my time, the time. This time I was committed to doing the damned thing, no matter what. Because this time I’m so serious about putting myself first. Excuses had no home here, only to wake up in the morning and overnight fear had convinced me that I had bitten off more than I could chew, but with some more self-help books, with some more heartfelt conversations with my confidant, that I would come up with a plan, a plan that would be manageable. And of course, the cycle repeated, and has repeated itself from as old as time. I never get done what I said I was going to get done- not the weight, not the business, not that content, not the book club, not the private dinners, not a damn thing that I lay awake most nights fantasizing about, edging, at the thought of what it must feel like to be committed enough to see something grow, materialize.
Since the enlightening rage of culinary school, I have been consumed with the idea of understanding why I am so passionate about food, why I daydream about being in media, why even when I run from it, I return home to some form of food. When I allow myself to daydream without embarrassment for my girlish ideas of fulfillment I dream of being the role model that a young black girl who never felt like she was enough needed. When I allow my rebellious, righteous side to speak up for the voiceless I dream about having uncomfortable conversations about race, identity, and belonging demanding to be heard.
Even sharing this, speaking about this publicly, I still feel small. I feel like I have drawn mountains too high for me to even realistically tackle. Who isn’t sure if I am scared of succeeding or if I just don’t believe I’m worthy of allowing myself to shine without blinders, without modifications, without worry of being too bright and making others feel small.
But maybe just for today, I lean into the discomfort, I allow my fingers to stroke over the keys until I have soothed my anxiety that is brewing in my chest seeping out into my throat like heartburn from the belly of a woman with child weeks from laboring. Maybe I continue to write, and resume in between breaks of angry outbursts as my five year old tips me over into audible overstimulation, drowning out my own thoughts that I can barely hear to begin with.
So-I finally drafted that newsletter, I finally began to put it on paper, and start somewhere.
What To Expect This Week:
An Exclusive Sneak Peek of Things You Can Expect to See This Week
A Black Thesis: Candied Yams and Other Black Things They Forgot to Teach Me
Read my prelude to what I’ve begun to call my culinary thesis. I’ve had a hard time being comfortable with calling myself a chef, because I believe that the mark of a true chef is knowing what their “culinary voice” is. Your culinary voice is essentially what you have to say when you’re cooking, and for the chef it’s being able to tell people who you are through your food. This requires knowing who you are, including your heritage, your culture. As Michael Twitty says in The Cooking Gene, the plate is your flag. I have an even harder time owning this title as Black chef. I’m black as noted by my indication of African American, African Descent when unnecessarily asked to identify myself racially. But racial indication doesn’t translate to the plate. The plate requires you to know culturally, to have a sense of identity and understanding of the regions from which your loins were sown. My sense of identity seemed to be lost somewhere in the sea, generically, on the brutal slave passage of unnamed black people across the Atlantic. The only sense of identity I previously held was as a woman born and raised in Michigan, who’s skin tone required watching my tone, and always being acceptable for the white gaze. “Do not be confident, and you will survive”. But I want to live.
So I have set out on my own passage. Fixated between the narrow joints of the floor boards that violently transported my ancestors to a destiny of being forgotten over time. I am mailing myself back to them, seeking answers, a pilgrimage to my mecca. I have to know who I am as a black woman, not nearly satisfied with black being enough. What does black even mean? Coming of age takes on a new meaning for me now, needing to understand what black means to me.
Read Coming of Age, as I begin to articulate for the first time this journey I am now on, barreling towards a career in the hospitality industry.
What’s Roux–On Rotation This Week:
Repeats, recommendations, and hell nah rejections–things I’ve been simmering on this week.
Landscapes: A Community of Writers
Cody Cook-Parrott launched a writing group this week. Cook-Parrot is a “for us, by us” kind of community-based creative practitioner that the creative world needs. The influencer dominated creative industry needs more creatives that believe in community-based, mutual aid, radical hospitality that we so desperately need. I believe that previous generations were right in choosing to adopt love-based forms of activism and rebellion.
Cook-Parrot facilitates a writing group, Landscapes, for all genres. In this current human context where kindness, equity, and positive associations with belonging not rooted in systemic racism, seems to also be in a recession, they have created a haven for the artist starving for a home, a tribe, a place to identify an inclusive community. Cody has made space for the writer in question, the creative still struggling with labels, the rebel, the queer, the BIPOC, the professional, with reduced barriers to access.
Generations of social workers that live on the inside of me scream, we cheer for these community-based, mutual aid expressions of love. “No one is turned away for lack of funds.” As a black woman, who already struggles with feelings of belonging without the knee jerk reaction to play small and downplay the desire to show up in this world as a writer, this is refreshing. A community created with someone like me in mind- a table that I didn’t have to beg for consideration. A table where corrupt and unbalanced systems have already been weighed morally and ethically.
If you are a writer, an unsure writer, a yet to be identified writer, consider Cody Cook-Parrot’s, Landscape: a writing group for all genres. Read for more details.
New Matcha: A Recommendation
Wild | Coffee + Bar + Dispensary, Houston Texas
As a non-stimulant medicated person with ADHD, I still need stimulants. I go back and forth with my self debating the health implication of chronic, long-term use of energy drinks and workout supplements as an alternate form of prescribed stimulants, but my ace boon coon, my old lady is matcha. An iced matcha latte, is enough focus and fuel to help me ride the afternoon burnout. I recently checked out Wild, a coffee, bar, dispensary concept in Houston Heights, a neighborhood in Houston Texas is serving you however you want it. From an espresso pour over ice, to a smooth pour from the tap, virgin or infused things are bound to get Wild. In Houston, there’s a tendency to spend the budget on the vibe, instead of investing in a product that’s viral worthy. However, Wild seems to have both. This concept’s conception certainly must have taken some time, as they seemed to considered and anticipated your every need–the mark of genuine, thoughtful hospitality. Gourmet munchies, comfortable seating, alcohol, and caffeine, Wild is a perfect host for all your guilty pleasures. Give them a visit at their Heights location, 2121 N Shepherd Drive or at their Montrose location, 1609 Westheimer Rd and take a look at their wild menu, visit www.wildconcepts.com
Tell Tradarious to Come To The Phone: Trader Joe’s Owes Me Money
Because why did I risk a hurricane for this tangerine juice! Picture it, Sicily 1922–because imagine my surprise when I go visit my good cousin Tradarious Allante Williams, also known by his corporate name, Trader Joe, thinking that my five year old has added a bottle of orange juice to our cart only to get home and take a crispy sip, of what is obviously not orange juice. Baby. When I tell you that what was dancing on my taste buds, had me in an instant flavor chokehold. I stood there in front of the fridge defying all black law, allowing all the cool air to escape. I was stunned. My face, fully scrunched in a uniform stank face, quickly examined the bottle to identify what I was actually tasting. Tangerine juice. Never in my life, had I ever considered extracting the smooth, luscious citrus juice from the flesh of a tangerine. I then searched the catalog of my memories, trying to recall that last time I had a tangerine, if ever. My emotions quickly turned to stale disgust, at my discovery, that all this time I could have been having tangerine juice. Needless to say, that accidental bottle did not last twenty four hours, and like a feign, I demanded to my husband that we needed to go back to Trader Joes the very next day, in the wake of the destruction that Hurricane Beryl had caused not even 24 hours prior to that. And so we headed out, delusionally, feign-ishly, into the chaotic Houston streets. Amongst scattered tree limbs, flooded streets, and powerless buildings, there stood Trader Joe–lit up like the city on the hill. There is a God.
Do with this information what you will, but when you decide to try this for yourself, because you will try it, please just try to take it easy and pace yourself, I can’t let ya’ll sell out my newest hyper fixation.
Ya Heard? News & Announcements:
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An Announcement: Black Cookbook Club & Syllabus
So, I did a thing! Well, I’m doing a thing!
Black Cookbook Club is coming soon to a place near you! As a part of the work I’m doing, I read a lot of cookbooks and other books related to black food and foodways, and I’ll be sharing that work with you all in two ways—keep reading.
Black Cookbook Club
Calling all foodies! Sign up now to join cookbook club where we’ll be reading our way and eating our way through the African diaspora. Goodbye to boring, basic book clubs and welcome in cookbook club, an safe space for BIPOC foodies and allies to read, cook, and converse our way through the diaspora with other like-minded people!
The Syllabus
I’m a proud nerd, an chaotic individual and in true fashion I went over the top and created a collaborative syllabus to go along with my research and studies, and also give you an opportunity to join me or follow along. The syllabus is meant to create a collaborative conversation about black foodways. If you are interested in black food, black thought leadership, black culture, and community this may be for you!
Be sure to sign up (its free) to this newsletter so you will be the first to get the details about both these opportunities!