About Bon Appégeechee

 

 

Watching fried chicken being perfectly prepared to a golden brown moist crispiness mesmerizes me.  Though I don’t have it as often as I use to, actually eating perfectly prepared fried chicken moves me.  

I love Food.  I love reading about food. I love shopping for food. It pleases me to no end to cook.  Food.

I often laugh for all of the culinary capers I find myself buried in from our kitchen.

In our home we make at least five (5) quarts of stock each week to cook with, just for the fun of it. Over Holidays, it turns into more like twenty (20) quarts of stock.  My first thoughts of the day include “what are we having for dinner?”  I will often mix a cake by hand, rather than by mixer, and most times prefer to chop vegetables manually than by Cuisinart.  I feel rooted in and am very tactile with the Food that I create and eat.

I am more than just Southern.  I am Gullah - A Country Geechee Girl from the Sea Islands of South Carolina now living in Brooklyn, NYC, NY. I have a heart and mind for International cultures, food, and languages.

I am the Daughter Descendant of a true, culturally rich, complex, and powerful community that dates back to the late 1500s with the transporting of African Slaves to the Southern Atlantic coastline.  Being raised on Sol Legare (“Le Gree”, if you’re local) Road, James Island, South Carolina USA was the best place in the world for me, for me to be wrapped in Family and Food!  Gullah tradition was a way of life against the backdrop of the Atlantic Ocean.  It was a Blessed childhood. 

I’ve been in the kitchen all my life.  Abundant through my earliest childhood memories are visuals of a stove (real, make shift, or imaginary) and food being prepared on it.  One of my favorite memories takes me outside, tagging along underfoot of my Grandmama, “cooking” with mini pots and pans in our front yard. Which later I discovered was really the back yard, because the front of the house faced a marshland fed by the Atlantic Ocean, but I digress.  Rocks were tossed into the miniature vessels to represent “neck bones,” sprinkles of sand added to the rocks created my braising “pot-likker” gravy.  The leaves of fig and peach trees were pulled, torn, and added to my simmering pots as “collard greens”, or a mix of different kinds of leaves were a reimagined “soup bunch”.  

I had a flare for the imagination and food, even then. 

My love of cooking comes from my Grandmama and Mother. 

Everyth-i-n-g about my Grandmother was Food; from the way that she spoke, the way that she cooked, to the way that she Loved and carried herself in between.  She fed your stomach, mind and Spirit with the very best of Everything Everlasting.  Our chickens diligently delivered what seemed like perfect brown eggs for baking.  Those hens lined up to be fried or brown stewed by MJW.  

My Mother, cut from the same finely embroidered cloth, is Severe in the kitchen!  Girlfriend holds Court over a pot! Okra soup, Conch stew, or Shrimp Salad, My Mother has it smothered, covered, and diced.  Dinner was prepared in our household every day.  You never asked, “Ma, what’s for dinner?” You simply knew that it was coming, and that it was going to be great.  Sunday meals were such a ritual, that they were prepared on Saturdays.  I paid close attention, always eager to be her taste tester.  I am probably her most willing sous chef during the holidays.  I learned how to wield a knife to chop perfectly diced vegetable for stuffings, salads, and soups.  You feel Loved, Nourished all over after one of my Mother’s meals. 

These ideals are what I want to covey in my Presence through Food.

The Legacy of Good Eating runs thoroughly through my family.  We won’t even start on the abilities of my Aunts and Cousins.   Everyone has a specialty, and owns their cooking lane.   I absorb it all.

Being reared in such a rich community, with a richer culinary tradition, leads my interests to be wrapped in my love of languages, music, History, travel, and my constant Cravings for the use of flavors around me to satisfy the tastes and reminiscences of my Loved Ones’ kitchens.

My story has led me to Bon Appégeechee, a place where I write and share my memories, the recipes and ingredients that exhilarate me, and all things that influence where I come from, where I am, and where I’m going through Food. 

Join me on this passage of historic and culinary discovery as we cook our way through the boundless journey of life, family, flavors, love and learning. 
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xo, Bon Appégeechee

Feel free to Say Hello

Always interested in great culinary conversations, If you have any suggestions, books to recommend, questions, or dishes you would like to see developed on Bon Appégeechee, feel free to email me at bonappegeechee@gmail.com

Keeping It Real Disclosure Regarding Photography and Copyright:

© Copyright 2014, Bon Appégeechee. All rights reserved.

All materials, content and forms contained on this website are the intellectual property of Deittra Wilder and ©Bon Appégeechee, unless otherwise noted. Believe me when I say that ALL inspirations will be noted. I ask, please do not copy, reproduce, distribute, or display any content on this site without the expressed written permission of Deittra Wilder. ©Bon Appégeechee is a labor of love for me. Come-on, send me an email, we’ll discuss. We can talk about Food. Don't steal.

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