Flavor Blasted: Kick It Up A Nacho.

The last time I saw you was right before lockdown, and you said something that stuck with me—that maybe you were ahead of your time with your rice cafe.How are you feeling now that rice is just spilling out everywhere?.

I just think it's ironic that rice in general, and rice in the African American food space is having its moment now.And it's like, "What?".When I think of you, I think of you as the first person I really seriously heard talking about rice, and it was in the name of your cafe.

What is it that drew you to rice and made you a rice evangelist?.I have to give credit to my sister Alethia (Leigh) for the concept, because I got a chance to buy the equipment in an already fit-out space in Germantown, but it was very small.

We were trying to think of a limited concept to go into that space.

I was talking to another friend who's in the industry and she traveled for work.a. word in food writing has come to be shunned in recent years, not the least because the very idea of authenticity is a moving target.

How does one authentically make a Mexican-American product that was reputedly popularized in America?More importantly, the glorification of authenticity is usually linked to the diminished perception of a chef's skill and creativity, instead reducing them to be the culinary ambassador for a whole culture..

Moreover, chefs from certain cultural backgrounds get far more pressured to be authentic, while others simply don't.(When was the last time someone asked if René Redzepi's fare was authentic?)