About Kackie.

Growing up, my mom worked hard to provide for us — which meant my siblings and I spent a lot of time with my aunt in Hatchechubbee, Alabama. What I didn't know back then was that those days would shape everything about who I am. Not just in the kitchen. In my soul.

My aunt wasn't just a cook. She was completely self-sufficient. She had her own garden out back where she grew fresh corn, collard greens, and peas. She had her own chicken coop — and I used to go outside and gather the eggs myself. Those eggs tasted like nothing you can find in a grocery store today. There was a richness to them, a freshness, something real that you simply cannot replicate. Everything that came out of her kitchen started from something she grew, raised, or tended to with her own hands.

She cooked every meal — breakfast, lunch, and dinner — on a wood-burning stove. Not gas. Not electric. She would go outside, chop the wood herself, bring it back in, and get to cooking. And the food that came off that stove tasted like nothing you can find anywhere in the world today. Maybe it was the wood. Maybe it was the love she put into it. Maybe it was just her. But every single bite fed something deep inside you.

One of my favorite memories is her salmon croquette patties — cooked right on top of that stove — served alongside her homemade biscuits made completely from scratch. She would sift the flour by hand, work in the lard, and turn it into something absolutely perfect every single time.

That combination — salmon croquettes and homemade biscuits — was a meal that could make your soul smile.

I watched her make those biscuits with my own eyes. And I am still chasing that recipe to this day. That's how good she was.

She'd turn everything from her garden into a full Southern spread that could make you forget every trouble you had. Collard greens. Black-eyed peas. Homemade cornbread fresh out of a cast iron skillet. Meals that didn't just fill your stomach — they filled your soul.

That wood-burning stove wasn't just a stove. It was history.

It was the same kind of stove our ancestors cooked on generations before us — Black women who fed their families with whatever they could grow from the ground and whatever they could make with their own hands. Collard greens, peas, cornbread, fresh eggs from the yard, croquette patties sizzling on the stovetop — these aren't just soul food dishes. They are survival food. Foods that carried our people through the hardest seasons imaginable, cooked with dignity and love even in the most painful of circumstances.

My aunt learned from somebody. That somebody learned from somebody. And that chain of knowledge — those recipes, those techniques, those hands working flour and lard into something miraculous — goes all the way back to ancestors who refused to let their culture, their flavor, and their love die.

And somehow, through a kitchen in Hatchechubbee, Alabama, it made its way to me.

Every dish I make carries that with it. Every time I season a pot, roll out dough, or fire up a stove — I feel her. I feel them. I am not just cooking food. I am keeping something alive that was never meant to be forgotten.

The recipes in Soul Food Reimagined are the real ones. Rooted in that Alabama garden, that wood-burning stove, that cast iron skillet. Kackie didn't water them down or strip them of their soul. She kept them exactly as they should be — and then partnered with AI technology and a visionary team to build a first-of-its-kind experience around them.

So that this tradition doesn't just survive. It reaches — into kitchens everywhere, carried by technology that honors every hand that cooked before it.

I'm still working on perfecting my aunt's biscuits. And I won't stop until I get there. Because some things are worth honoring for a lifetime.