People’s postures shifted and their eyes widened every time a dish by Aniyah Brown hit the table.
Perhaps it was the plump shrimp bathed in warm tones of coconut curry sauce. Or maybe it was the roasted chickpeas nestled against butternut squash and peppers in a satisfying sauce. Then again, it could have been the twice-fried chicken, accented with chopped mango and green sprigs.
Each entree was bright and bold, making you feel as though you’d found gold at the end of the rainbow.
But in reality, it was Aniyah’s vision of what a supper club dinner should be: a treasure you didn’t know you needed but one you were lucky you found.
Alabama chef and TV personality Martie Duncan has some pretty dedicated friends and followers.
Three and a half hours before kick off of the Nov. 30, 2024 Iron Bowl, which is the biggest SEC football showdown in Alabama, several of Martie’s fans lined up inside of a historic store in downtown Huntsville, AL to get her newly-released cookbook, “The Alabama 100: Best Recipes, Restaurants & Road Trips.” The book highlights noteworthy dishes and restaurants from across the state.
Martie Duncan took time to select just the right images to go on the cover of her new cookbook. Everything from fried chicken and gumbo to orange rolls and brioche can be found in her book, which is available via various retailers across Alabama. (Image provided by Martie Duncan.)
In her fifth cookbook, Martie shares recipes for the Pimento Cheese Tomato Pie from Helen in Birmingham; Lucy Buffett’s Famous Seafood Gumbo from LuLu’s in Gulf Shores; and Crab Cakes from the 360 Grille at the Marriott Shoals Hotel, just to name a few. She also gives cooking tips.
“I love the simplicity of all the recipes that Martie features. And when I see her on TV, everything that she cooks is easy to follow,” said Misty Robinson of Hazel Green. Misty and her family drove to Huntsville on a bone-chilling Saturday morning to get the book, which features 100 recipes and 253 restaurants, coffee shops, bakeries, bars and a few dives.
And Charity McLin drove in from Athens, AL to pick up a book for her mother and one for herself. Like Misty, she has other books written by Martie, and she said she is drawn to the books to try recipes for the foods she loves.
“She writes great books and the recipes are always easy to follow,” Charity said. “I can’t wait to get home and look through it.”
A Food Network Star finalist and award-winning cookbook author, Martie drove more than 5,000 miles across Alabama, worked with 3,972 images shot for the book and tried 1,012 dishes to produce content for the 239-page book. And if people don’t want to cook, they can just use the book as a reference on where to go to try some the most delicious food in Alabama.
“This book is more of a travel guide and incorporates so many more restaurants than I’ve ever been able to do in any book ,” said Martie. “Even though we focus on 12 main cities, there are other towns and cities mentioned in the book.”
Birmingham’s Martie Duncan will have several book signings in December 2024. (Photo provided by Martie Duncan)
Kenya Pickens graduated from culinary school in 2007 with dreams of dishing out delicious dinners.
But after working at a country club for only a few months, she lost her job. Devastated, she thumbed through the Yellow Pages, calling businesses and asking, “Are you hiring?”
More than a week later, those calls led to two job offers: being a server at a steakhouse and working at a bakery. She took both. Although Kenya had not studied baking, she settled in to learn a new skill.
Eventually, she became so good at baking, that she stepped out on faith and left the bakery in 2008 to sell her own desserts. She made five cakes a week and sold slices at barber shops, beauty shops and a discount meat market. In 2015, she started selling at Birmingham-area farmers markets while she still worked full-time jobs in various industries. Her days were long and her weekends were longer. But she knew that one day, her dedication would pay off.
Kenya Pickens opened Velvet Kake bakery in 2021 in Clay, AL, selling cakes, cookies and more. She’s grown her following to include fans of traditional and vegan desserts. (Photo Source: Kenya Pickens)
On Dec. 1, 2021, she moved into her own storefront, Velvet Kake, in Clay, Ala. and became a full-time baker. (She got the name because she sells so many red velvet cakes. Her mother, Evelyn Sherard, works in the bakery with her.)
Today, Kenya sells about 30 cakes a week.
“I should have given up a long time ago, but I kept going because I had something to prove,” said Kenya, 38.
Curly Contessa wrapping paper was created by Birmingham graphic artist Kristin Farmer. It features watercolor images of five women with natural hair. Farmer created the images. (Photo credit: Special)
By Chanda Temple
Birmingham graphic designer and watercolor artist Kristin Farmer has launched a holiday wrapping paper line that embraces girls with curls.
Known as Curly Contessa, the wrapping paper features five watercolor images of African-American women with natural hair. Farmer, who’s natural, painted the women. She included herself in one of the images.
Farmer rolled out the wrapping paper this month. And already, consumer interest has been rolling in for her.
Martell and Melody S. Holt of Holt and Holt Entrepreneurship in Huntsville, Ala. (Photo by: Chanda Temple)
By Chanda Temple
How good are you at what you do? Are you so good that if a consumer approached one of your competitors, the competition would send them your way because they knew you were the best?
It may seem like a far-fetched concept but there’s nothing wrong in wanting this for your business. It only helps you grow, according to Melody S. Holt of Holt and Holt Entrepreneurship, which she runs with her husband, Martell, in Huntsville, Ala.
Such advice is what she shared this weekend as one of the speakers at the Sixth Annual Hair and Health Expo in Birmingham. She opened up her speech with “Are you hungry for success?” Turns out people were. Here are six nuggets she served piping hot …
Burgers, bundt cakes and broken pieces are a good combo for a birthday.
By Chanda Temple
For the last few years, I’ve treated my birthday like any other day.
No fanfare. No cake. No song and dance.
While friends offered to take me out, I dismissed the invites, saying, “Thank you. You are so sweet, but I’m working on my birthday.” It wasn’t that I dreaded getting older, it was just that I looked at my birthday as another day. No biggie.
This year, I took a different approach. I saw my birthday as the big deal it was. I welcomed it with open arms. That move has been the best decision I’ve made so far in 2017.
Years ago, I had this friend unable to parallel park. She would drive around on downtown streets until she found a place that did not require her to parallel park.
Do you know how time consuming that was? She would pass up good parking space after parking space because those spaces were sandwiched between two cars. Crazy, right? Well, not to her. She figured that eventually her luck would turn and she would find the perfect spot.
But who has time to wait on luck? If you want to make things happen, you have to make things happen.
You have goals. But sometimes, life gets in the way and you take your eyes off your goals. That’s OK. You are human. But don’t get stayed on stuck too long. Snap out of the distraction and keep striving. You have work to do.
By Chanda Temple
Every year, you promise yourself you will do better.
You”ll lose weight. You’ll save money. You’ll improve your career.
While making all those promises, you should add another goal to your list: Avoid negative thoughts.
Whenever you feel yourself wanting to complain or think less of yourself, flip the switch and think better of yourself. Negative thoughts tend to weigh you down. They love to feed off misery. You don’t need that, especially in a new year.
Commit to being a better person and leaving all of the negativity behind you. When you feel yourself wanting to complain, think of something good to say. When you feel down, remember a good quote that inspires you. When someone gets on your last nerve or says something that is bound to send you down Negativity Lane, take a deep breath, go for a walk and escape the bad vibes. Such a move may not remove all of what you are feeling, but it will force you reflect on how things can be better.
As women, we feel the need to have everything perfect. And if it’s not perfect, we won’t proceed. That even comes down to our blogs. If our websites are not perfect, if our photos are not perfect, if our products are not perfect, yada, yada, yada, we won’t launch it. We’ll keep it close to the vest and wait until it’s perfect before we share it with others.
Well, stop trying to make everything so dang perfect. “Sometimes, good is good enough,” a woman said on a blogging webinar I tuned in to tonight. ‘’The most important thing is to act.”
