It all started when…

I read an article featuring Sapelo Island’s very own Griot and Historian Cornelia Bailey. She talked about her upbringing on the Island, the self sufficiency and deep rooted legacy of her community, and how she could trace her ancestry back to Sierra Leone West Africa through the crops in her Garden. This form of remembrance through agriculture spoke to me, and I soon started Revival Taste Collective my very own journal recording the history and traditions still exuding from my home in Apex North Carolina. Not much later I hit Sapelo where I stayed in Ms. Bailey’s family home, while visiting the Island and this felt like my home in so many ways. Her communities connection to the land, their history, and the food resonated with me in a way that shook my existence and soon made me question my decision to continue living in New York. I transitioned from my work in fashion to feed my insatiable curiosity about the foodways of the African Diaspora, landing a job with James Beard awarded Chef JJ Johnson as his creative director, he put me on to a grain of rice that would change my perspective of “soul food” forever. My last year in New York was spent on the line in a Gastro-pub, in and out Chefs Club for Chef JJ’s residency that was taking off and a few other food adventures…my trip to Charleston South Carolina where I met Chef BJ Dennis put everything into clear perspective. Seeing him with his community helped me make a hard decision between returning home to North Carolina and taking a new culinary director opportunity I was offered in New York.

I CHOSE HOME.