French connections: In his four years as the United States minister to France, Thomas Jefferson came to love all things French, especially the cuisine—and the sophisticated culinary palate he developed is still serving us today. In The Art of French Brasserie Cooking at Monticello, the newly appointed Chef David Bastide teaches us about the fine dining of Jefferson’s time, and its influence on American cuisine.
Friday 3/12, $35, 6pm. Registration required. monticello.org.
Thomas Jefferson never wrote about the food at Monticello.
His kitchens were stocked with ingredients from around the world—cinnamon from Asia, lemons from the Caribbean, brandies and fine cheeses from Richmond. But in his writing, Jefferson didn’t remark on the fine food that his enslaved chefs prepared for his table. He simply expected its consistent excellence.
More than 200 years later, food historian Leni Sorensen is working in the Monticello kitchen to make sure viewers of her livestream cooking series know, unlike Jefferson, not to take the efforts of those cooks for granted.
“It’s exhausting,” Sorensen says. “You’re in the smoke, constantly in the smoke. Your clothes smell of smoke, and your hair smells of smoke. You burn the hell out of yourself. And all the pans are heavy, except the copper pots on the stew stove. And you’re bending over all the time. So on a lot of levels, while it’s charming to do, I’m really glad I don’t have to do it.”
Sorensen’s cooking demo and Q&A session is part of a series of videos, broadcast live on YouTube and Facebook and available on the Monticello website (monticello.org), that seek to connect guests with the history of the Monticello estate even as the grounds themselves limit visitors.
As Sorensen peels, spices, and prepares an apple compote like the kind Jefferson would have eaten, she uses skills that were once a source of pride for Monticello’s enslaved workers—as well as, at times, a path to freedom. Cooking gave many workers what they needed to move after emancipation, settling into kitchens across the United States to carve out a new life for themselves.
“It was often done under terrible duress and hideous kinds of racism…but they had this skill that they could do that brought in money for their children’s education, to buy a piece of property, to act within their Black community…,” Sorensen says. “It’s quite a marvelous story, that level of independence that being able to cook [gave them].”
Teaching at Monticello is one of many jobs Sorensen has picked up due to COVID curtailing much of her regular work. She’s now selling bulk orders of homemade tamales, a business she first ran in Los Angeles in the ’70s. And in her free time, she plans and executes elaborately themed, socially distanced dinner parties at her Charlottesville home.
At the most recent dinner, her two guests arrived on their way back from a day at Monticello. Even in the time of the pandemic, people are finding a way to connect with Virginia’s past through the estate. And Sorensen anticipates that with potential future cooking livestreams, historic venues like Monticello and Montpelier can continue to create connections between past and present.
“I’m often trying to draw analogies so that we don’t see the enslaved community…as somehow being necessarily different,” Sorensen says. “We all have these incredible commonalities. Often, it’s wonderful to see places where people have bridged those gaps and eliminated those gaps.”
After years of struggling with disordered eating and food sensitivities, Renee Byrd rediscovered her love of food and cooking. Now she shares recipes—and a bit of life-changing magic—on Will Frolic for Food, the blog she started in 2013.
In a way, Byrd, 29, is the Marie Kondo of food. While she advocates a better, simpler way to eat—plant-based, mostly sugar-free, low on dairy, almost vegan—she doesn’t suggest that her way is the right way. It’s just what works for her, and she invites her blog visitors and 47,600 Instagram followers to find their own joy in food.
Byrd is more than just an avid foodie. She’s a member of the ethereal folk band Larkspur, a poet, and yoga instructor. But where Byrd really shines is with her food photography and styling. Byrd’s atmospheric images and recipes have been featured in Self and Seventeen magazines, and on the Williams-Sonoma website.
Byrd revels in the Charlottesville food scene. She’s an enthusiastic consumer of produce from City Market, where she can also be found at Frolic, the small-batch chocolate and coffee-roasting business that her husband, Logan Byrd, runs out of their backyard commercial kitchen.
We caught up with Byrd recently to find out more about her and her work. Prepare to be inspired.
I started the blog as a way to practice writing and photography, but at the same time I was also developing recipes, so my husband encouraged me to share them. We were eating interesting, creative, delicious things, but I would just make something once and not write down the recipe. I was just like, it’s what inspired me at the time. He was just trying to get me to share with other people. And I got really into it.
Yeah, that is part of it. I had some disordered eating problems when I was young, and I had to heal my relationship with food. Getting into cooking and learning how to cook nourishing, plant-based food was part of my healing. But I wanted to make food that tastes really good, instead of trying to nourish my body based on some set of rules I observed in our culture, like, “you should eat salad.”
I don’t really use diet labels. When I was 21 I did go vegan for a while. I had already stopped eating dairy because I was allergic to it, and after I went vegan I felt so much better. But I eventually developed some food intolerances, which I attribute to eating a lot of processed vegan food. So I started incorporating a little bit of fish, some goat dairy, and eggs into my diet, and I started to feel better again. Food is definitely part of my self-nurturing and -nourishing process. And it’s closely related to my mental-health journey—gaining a sense of fulfillment and of making conscious choices.
It’s about finding joy in food and continuing to make it really delicious even if you do have sensitivities. It reminds me of the phrase “rare diseases are not rare.” Likewise, food sensitivities are not rare. A lot of people are not even conscious of dietary parameters that could rid them of suffering or being deeply fatigued. So, for me, frolicking is about reclaiming the joy in food.
I try to create a sense of aliveness and vibrancy in something that’s still and immobile. I try to cultivate in the images a sense of quiet and space, which are things I appreciate in life and in food. When I’m photographing I have to gain a sense of slowness and stillness, because it’s just me and a plate of something that can’t talk to me. It helps me appreciate the beauty in something as simple and ephemeral as food. It’s here and then it’s gone. But it also can provide a lot of beauty. A bowl of curry is beautiful because it’s delicious, but it reaches another level when it has edible flowers and a swirl of cream on top.
Strawberries! I’m like itching for them right now. And, gosh, some of my favorite edible flowers come out in spring—cherry blossoms, apple blossoms, violets. And we have an asparagus patch—it’s like magic every spring. We get a lot!
Well, you should see my list of recipes I have yet to post—it’s like hundreds. I’m also a musician and a poet, and I do portrait photography and even weddings. I’m also a yoga teacher. It’s great! I love it!
One of my core missions is to serve people well—to give them things that are practical and provide a sense of simple joy and connection to somebody similar to them. I think that can reduce suffering for people. That is my ultimate goal: to reduce suffering in the world, no big deal [laughs]. Maybe it’s through food, or conversation, or a beautiful photo. A lot of people who follow my work feel connected to me. They are sensitive souls, and I’m somebody who gets them.
Yes, I do. On two levels: emotional and physical. Eating something that reminds you of what your mother made when you were growing up, or of a beautiful experience in your life, can be incredibly healing. Once in a blue moon I’ll go to Sub Rosa Bakery in Richmond. They have these incredible pastries, not something I typically eat. There’s refined sugar and wheat and dairy. But it feeds my soul. If I feel a bit bloated the next day, who cares? Food can heal people physically, too. I used to have IBS [irritable bowel syndrome], and I’ve completely healed my gut through healthy eating.
It does. It’s sort of a hobby, studying herbalism and including different herbs and roots and mushrooms that are beneficial in my diet. I post a lot of recipes that incorporate herbalism—hopefully, in a very low key, non-intimidating way.
I try to write the blog the way that I talk to people. When it comes to food, I’m sort of irreverent. I’m totally into all of this hippie woo-woo stuff. But I also take it with a grain of salt. I’m very wary of the cult mindset that can develop around things like herbalism and healthy food. So, the way that I speak on the blog is meant to be very inviting and friendly and relaxed. I want people to feel that they’re just hanging out with me.
Although food sensitivities make eating at home more practical for Byrd, she’s found plenty of local places that accommodate special dietary needs in delicious ways. “We have an insane amount of good food in this town,” she says. Here’s where she gets it. —JMM
Roots Natural Kitchen: “I go there a couple of times a week for The Southern Bowl.”
Juice Laundry: “I love their raw juices and green juices, cold brew latte, and Coco Verde with a ton of ginger!”
Moon Maiden’s Delights: “Their Best Day Bar is amazing, with a gluten-free oat base and seasonal flavors like mango or strawberry-cardamom.”
Citizen Burger Bar: “My husband likes their grass-fed beef. I get the beet burger and sweet potato fries.”
Bluegrass Creamery: “I love their vegan coconut ice cream, and their housemade gluten-free waffle cones are the best I’ve ever had. You can find their food truck at the IX Art Park in the warmer months.”
The Pie Chest: “Good coffee and dairy-free lattes. Their chai and matcha is the best in town!”
By Renee Byrd (adapted from The Kitchen McCabe)
Soft, honey-sweetened “sugar” cookies meet tangy-sweet strawberry jam. These cookies come together in just about 15 minutes, plus they’re pretty dang healthy to boot! Free of gluten, grain, refined sugar, and dairy, but absolutely delicious—like, “Wow, this is healthy?” delicious.
Prep: 5 minutes. Bake: 8-10 minutes per sheet. Makes: 18 cookies
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2 1/4 cups blanched almond flour
3/4 cup tapioca flour
¼ tsp. salt, plus more for topping
½ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/3 cup honey
1 Tbsp. cashew butter
1 Tbsp. coconut oil
1 egg
Strawberry jam for filling
1. In a large bowl combine almond flour, tapioca flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. In a separate small bowl, combine vanilla, honey, cashew butter, coconut oil, and egg. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients, and stir to combine.
2. Scoop out rounded tablespoons of dough and roll them into balls. On a large baking sheet lined with parchment paper, place balls about an inch apart.
3. Using your thumb, create an indentation in the top of each, and fill with 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of jam. Bake 8-10 minutes, until the bottoms are deeply golden and the tops are lightly golden.
4. Cool 5-10 minutes before eating. Add more jam as desired.