Atlanta-based expert in travel, food, books and lifestyle topics. Interviews, profiles, guides, lists, reported pieces and stories of all types.
Cooking as Coping: How to Grapple With Grief During the Holiday Season
When loved ones pass on, how does our relationship to foods they loved and cooked change?
How Two Friends Turned the History of the ‘Green Book’ Into a Podcast
Most Black travelers in America know the Green Book, a travel guide published from 1937 to 1966, by name and by heart.
How Phyllis Johnson Is Championing a Way Forward for the Coffee Industry
Phyllis Johnson, owner of specialty coffee company BD Imports since 1999, has a long memory when it comes to drinking coffee and relishing its aroma wafting up from a mug.
50 States, 50 Cuisines: The Food Worth Traveling For in Every State
Korean food in Atlanta and Nigerian food in Chicago.
Remembering Atlanta’s Bygone Black-Owned Restaurants
A family photograph — one with me cheesing harder than I ever have, wearing a frilly, powder blue dress and surrounded by my sisters and my parents — is the only tangible memory I have of the time I dined at the bygone Sylvia’s Restaurant in Atlanta.
Tiny Adventures from Atlanta
Spending time outdoors doesn’t have to be predictable — sure, Georgia has a number of stunning hikes and waterfalls, but some of the state’s star attractions fall outside your typical day trip adventure.
The way we ate: four memorable travel meals
During these quiet, still days of hunkering down at home versus traveling, fumbling through my pantry is like taking an adventure through the past.
Two Exes Wasted My Time. So I Sent Them Invoices.
Days after my 32nd birthday, I sat hunched over my computer typing feverishly into oblivion as the sky darkened outside.
We’re in a New Age of Black Grief
My first reactions when the realities of the pandemic set in mid March was not to flounder or panic.
How Tour Guides Across the South Are Addressing Confederate Monuments
For many travelers, beginning to understand a new place hinges on how they gather information, whether visiting museums, talking to locals, or taking a walking tour to quickly take in all the must-see sights.
This Juneteenth Is Different
Summers in the South — where I was born and raised — are fond recollections of mine.
Savannah’s Black Maestros of Meat
My legs and feet shivered with cold. I had underestimated how frigid a winter morning in Savannah could be.
A Long Way From Home, Making Dreams (And Hot Banana Ice Cream) A Reality
The wide, bright smile and kind eyes of Mamadou Savané, owner of Sav’s Grill in Lexington, Kentucky, are the first things most customers walking into his restaurant see.
How African American Soldiers Shaped the First National Parks
Spending time in nature has always felt like a freedom—one I couldn’t fully quantify.
Tracing Cognac's historical connection to Black culture in America
My earliest memories of Cognac—save for watching adults on my mother’s side of the family clink glasses filled with Hennessy on the rocks—include dancing in glee to Busta Rhymes’ “Pass the Courvoisier” as a child.