Our thanks to Rose for sharing her personal baking story! It took decades before I could actually hear the calling from what I consider to be the sacred dessert of Black culture: the sweet potato pie. I grew up in rural Jackson, Tennessee, raised by my paternal grandmother and great-grandmother. Those precious women would whip up sweet potato pies all the time, usually to give away to members of our community: a family in mourning, someone who had given birth, or newlyweds. As a result, I was a late bloomer when it came to baking pies.
My first calling from the sweet potato pie came when I moved to Denver to get married after college. I called my grandmother who I call Mama in Tennessee and asked her for the recipe. What recipe? Sadly, Baby made the biggest mess as Mama recited those soulful ingredients along with her heart-ingrained measurements.
It would take several tosses in the garbage before I finally got a pie worthy for human consumption. I kept making sweet potato pies — even selling my award-winning dessert at farmers' markets — but it would be several more decades before the calling kicked into full gear. This time it was young Michael Brown. I sat in front of my television feeling the pain as though I was right there in the thick of the summer sweat, blood, and tears.
I cried out to God to please just stop this hatred. Within the next few days, I packed about 30 sweet potato pies in the trunk of my car and drove from my home in Minnesota to Ferguson with my son, Adam.
By the time we arrived in Ferguson, the first round of protests had stopped. The town was dead silent as people waited for an indictment. I approached her, and after talking for a bit, I asked if she would like a pie. Stunned and in disbelief, she accepted. What happened next rendered me speechless.
