Archives February 2023

Razia Sabour, the winner of HBO’s Great Soul Food cook-off season one, has a mission as a chef to preserve her heritage through food.

“I’m African American, which means I’m of African descent,” Sabour said. “What we added to the American food culture was based on the resources we were given and crops and things we brought over here. So there are specific dishes that became staples in African American cooking and the American food culture.”

She believes the American food culture was created through her ancestors and their traditions in different parts of Africa, specifically West Africa, which they then merged with the resources they had at the time.  

“So those staples were, I guess, pridefully called Soul Food,” Sabour said. “In an era where it was about black pride.”

Keedra Keeley, chef and mentoree of Sabour, relates to her desire to preserve her heritage. She also cooks Soul Food and think it’s important to protect it from the negative connotations she’s found often come with it.  

Sabour has mentored many young chefs. Another was Caisey Blump, who spoke highly of how Sabour showed her how to maneuver in different venues depending on clientele. Blump loves Sabour’s Soul Food.

“If you come from the culinary world, it’s so many different versions of chefs,” Blump said. “It could be chefs that know techniques but have no soul. It’s not just the flavor, the soul enhances the flavor but you have to care about the food.”

What Sabour has developed over time, as a business owner and as an individual, is using her cooking to showcase who she is as a person.

“I want to feed people from my roots, from who I am. Soul Food, over the years, hasn’t been highlighted as a cuisine of popularity, respect, or anything good.” Sabour said. “So I, along this journey of business ownership, and just becoming, period, wanting to be myself, I just made it a point to showcase soul food, to cook soul food, beautifully and tell the stories of who I am, who my people are, who my ancestors are, that history, black history, African American History, and tell it through food, through my medium.”

Before her career as a chef, Sabour was a social worker for nine years as the clinical director of adolescent treatment homes. However, she wanted to be more present after she had her first daughter.

“Because I would drop her off early in the morning and pick her up late at night from my parents’ house,” Sabour said. “And so I was really seeking something to do that, you know, just allowed me to be an active mom.”

According to Sabour, the universe sent her visions of herself in a chef coat. She spoke about them with her mother, who encouraged Sabour to follow her gut. That’s when she started the process of becoming a chef. Her first thought was to get a food truck, as they were popular in Washington D.C, where she lived before moving to Atlanta in 2003. It wasn’t meant to be, though, because after she finished the licensing, she got a call from Tyler Perry’s Studios, telling her the chef for the following day fell through. She immediately rushed to the restaurant depot to get supplies.

“I had to go through such a process to get onto the lot for Tyler Perry Studios, so I was just thinking, ‘I can’t show up with disposable cookware; I have to show up looking official,'” Sabour said.

Initially, it was only supposed to be for one day. But after they finished eating, the manager asked her to return for five more weeks – lunch and dinner – which led her to a 12-week job at Week-TV  

“So I became a production caterer, just kind of being prepared,” Sabour said. “Or not being prepared because I didn’t know what I was doing at all. I looked like I did, and I did what I knew to do: cook. I cooked from my soul, from my heart.”

She has since branched out into being mostly a private chef. By 2024, Sabour plans to stop catering completely. Sabour wants to open a market of her own with a lunch counter. It will have all her artisan products in it. She also has plans to get her products into grocery stores.

“It’s so much,” Sabour said. “Even coming up with the formulas to create the product via to make a self-stable product.”

There’s a chemistry behind it. Sabour explained how she had to develop the math formulas for different products. Vinegar, for example, is in her collard greens, and she had to create the precise recipe to make it taste right while also being marketable.

“So, yeah, it’s a process, but I’m in it because that’s one of the vison I had 11 years ago. It was a Mack truck driving down the interstate with my name on it, so I want to have that,” Sabour said.

A thought of an Atlanta restaurant begins to form. The doors open to an inviting space with walls a lovely shade of lavender. A warm, lightly sweet bread-like smell mixes with the vibrant scent of fresh fruit while people enjoy a delicious mid-morning brunch. The sign on the wall reads “Heaven Sent.”

Soon, that dream will be a reality for Asia Garner. Currently, she works as a personal chef and caterer. Where she cooks the food in her kitchen and takes it to whatever location needs it; her favorite thing about being a chef is seeing people’s reactions when they taste her food.

Born and raised in Ohio, she moved to Altana 6 years ago.

“I have family here, so I always spent summers here,” Garner said. “I knew this was where I wanted to be when I grew up.”

During the pandemic, cooking is where she turned whenever she wanted to do something fun. Then, one evening, when a friend was visiting, Garner saw her looking at social media sights of people selling their food.

“And I was like, ‘Do you think I can do it?'” Garner recalled fondly. “She said, ‘Uh, yeah, I’ve been telling you that!'”

With her encouragement, Garner decided to follow her dreams and pursue a culinary career. Her sister, Althea “Pinkie” Forest, wholeheartedly supported her decision.

“She has that entrepreneurial spirit,” Forest said. “And she’s always been able to cook, ever since she was little.”

Cooking was something Garner held close to her heart. She said her “job” during the holidays was the cake when she was little. So it was a proud day for her when she moved up the macaroni and cheese. Back then, her mother was the cook in the family. Although, they aren’t the only two who share that passion.

Her son is in culinary school, and her brother roped her into partnering in his bar-and-grill, Dreamz, in Ohio in October 2022. Garner opened the kitchen while he did the bar. She flies out frequently to cook specialty dishes – a week or two out of every month.

“It’s kind of challenging,” Garner said. “Being here, running it.”

However, she doesn’t let that slow her down. Between that, her catering, and looking for a location to open Heaven Sent, Garner keeps a full schedule.

According to Forest, being the youngest of the family didn’t stop her from being a born leader and “go-getter.”

“You know what?” Forest said. “We’re having a Paint and Sip Saturday, and we’re making sure she’s gonna come because we know it’s going to run right when she’s there.”

Although Forest is in Ohio now, as soon as Heaven Sent opens, she said she’d run the office.

“With both of them, I make sure I’m right there,” Forest said. “We’re going to be there to assist as much as I can, my mom as well. We’re a family that kind of works with each other. We all try to do our part to help.”

There are many challenges to opening a restaurant. Garner found one of which was writing down all her recipes so everyone could follow them.

“It’s challenging for it to be the same every time because I just know what to do,” Garner said.

But, Kenisha Oliver, long-time best friend and assistant chef on a few catering runs, praised Garner.

“I’ll be like, ‘Girl listen, look how they are,'” Oliver said.

While being a chef might have challenges, Garner always gets raving reviews on her cooking. Oliver said they always approached her afterward, wanting to know who cooked the food so they could book Garner for future events.

Heaven Sent is coming in 2023, and Asia Garner will take Atlanta by storm.

The price of food has been increasing all over the United States.

Energy and Economics

According to Thomas Garr, an economics professor at Kennesaw State University, energy prices are one of the big things causing the food increases. Oil-related products are used to power tractors to operate and harvest food. Then the truck transporting it to wherever it needs to go also needs fuel. That, in turn, means the price they must sell the food to the end customer will be higher.

“There’s a lot of chatter that gas prices have come down,” Garr said. “They’re still massively higher than they were two years ago. We’re not refining as much energy; we’re not producing as much oil.”

The second thing driving commodity prices is the conflict in Ukraine. They are one of the leading world exporters of grains and vegetable oils. Even though shipments haven’t yet been affected, Garr expressed concern that commodity prices will rise in anticipation.

Fertilizer is also something produced in Ukraine. The World Bank reported that fertilizer prices in 2022 rose nearly 30%.

Food Manufacturing Plant

The price of meat products has gone up and down, according to Michael Karakos, with Country Ranch Foods. They mainly sell to distributors: Cisco, US Foods, Kroger, Ingles, and various restaurants. They’ve been affected by the turkey increasing due to the avian flu viruses. However, chicken prices have gone back down.

“The biggest issue with inflation, to me, is labor and fuel costs,” Karakos said.

When fuel went up, companies started using more corn to make gasoline. Cows, chickens, pigs, and anything that eats corn went up with it. When Country Ranch food increased their prices, Karakos said they experienced a lot of backlashes with their customers.

“I had a conversation with a customer yesterday that we make turkey for, and he was like, he might have to cut back on how their menu cycle runs and reduce the turkey because he loses money on every meal that has turkey,” Karakos said.

Restaurants

Randy Elias, the owner of Moe’s and Aloha in Acworth, was almost put out of business when he couldn’t raise his prices fast enough in 2022 to keep up with the demand for increased commodities. In the last 18 months, chicken has doubled, and cheese tripled. So while he is “finally” back to pre-covid numbers, it has been just surviving for him for the last several years.

“Our main complaint now is that prices have gone up, but portions have stayed the same, which is the reality of our world today,” Elias said.