Tanya Holland's California Soul: Recipes From A Culinary Journey West

Details

Through more than 80 seasonally inspired recipes, Tanya Holland's California Soul showcases modern soul food from the acclaimed chef of Brown Sugar Kitchen and host of Tanya's Kitchen Table. Tanya’s inventive cuisine—rooted in a Black Southern cultural repertoire with a twenty-first-century sensibility using local, sustainable, chef-driven, seasonal ingredients—is showcased in recipes for every season, such as Collard Green Tabbouleh, Zucchini–Scallion Waffles with Toasted Pecan Romesco, Grilled Shrimp and Corn with Avocado White BBQ Sauce, Fried Chicken Paillards with Arugula and Pea Shoots Salad, Rhubarb Upside-Down Cake, and Honey Lavender Chess Pie. 

The recipes—influenced by the historical migration of African American families, including Tanya’s own—reveal the key ingredients, techniques, and traditions that African Americans brought with them as they left the South for California, creating a beloved version of soul food. Beyond recipes, Tanya spotlights fifteen contemporary Black Californian foodmakers—farmers, coffee roasters, and other talented artisans—whose work help defines California soul food, with stunning portraiture and stories. Filtered through the rich history of African American migration that brought her own family from the Deep South to the West Coast, Tanya's recipes are as comforting and delicious as they are steeped in history.

Editors’ Note

Tanya Holland is the host of Tanya's Kitchen Table on the Oprah Winfrey Network and the podcast Tanya's Table. She is the author of Brown Sugar Kitchen and New Soul Cooking, was the host and soul food expert on the television series Melting Pot, and competed on the fifteenth season of Top Chef. She is the executive chef of Town Fare. She holds a Grande Diplôme from La Varenne Ecole de Cuisine, and has served as the president of the San Francisco chapter of Les Dames d'Escoffier.