sisterfriends | blackgirls | foodworkers
tellin’ lies + bumpin’ shoulders in the kitchen
Shivon Pearl Love (l) and Khaliah D. Pitts. Photograph by Gabrielle Clark, 2019.
Our Kitchen
Though raised in different decades, with varied experiences, we share a love for food, culture, Black people and one another. We both have clear and poignant memories of being in the kitchen, and whether we were being shoo’d away from pots or elbow deep in flour, it is those memories that have shaped us as women, as educators and have become significant parts of our being. In the kitchens of our mothers, grandmothers and aunties, we found sacred and safe space. When we share this space, whether it be with our families, our students, or just as two sister-friends, we carry with us the presence of our ancestors. It is with their stories, their laughter, their tears and their legacies that we season our pots.
And we invite them back into our kitchens, time and time again.
In many ways, ours is an age of cultural disconnect, yet there is an increasing yearning to draw closer and to the people and things that help us remember who we are and where we came from. But we are brought back every time we sit at the kitchen table, preparing meals, sipping tea, pulling recipes and anecdotes from books and poems, calling forth the past; bringing it lovingly into the present. We reclaim a little more of ourselves every time we come together. On one such occasion, Shivon shared a desire to bring our experiences in the kitchen to young women through cooking and writing. In turn, Khaliah revealed her longtime dream of documenting her experiences as a Black woman through poetry and recipes. Shivon was delighted to be able to reach across the table to pass on one of her favorite books, Vibration Cooking: or, the Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl by Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor. In those pages we found familiarity, validation, comfort and freedom.
This project is important to us because we want to share that feeling with the young women in our community. If women are truly the water of revolution, then we have found our purpose in inviting the next generation of aunties and mothers into our kitchen. Utilizing stories told through and over food, we seek to take a small step in reestablishing a connection to our culture, one another, and all our mothers before us. We seek to celebrate our Black womanhood and eat well while doing it.
In search of freedom, we find ourselves in our mothers' kitchens.
In search of our mothers' kitchens, we find our own.
Love + Black Eyed Peas,
Khaliah and Shivon
Shivon
Pearl Love
Shivon is a mama of two, educator and kitchen poet. She is interested in gathering, preserving and sharing the stories of Black women, particularly focused on their relationships with one another through food.
As a Philadelphia based cultural worker, Shivon produces thoughtful and engaging programming, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s first Culinary Residency. She has been awarded fellowships from A Blade of Grass, The Alliance of Artist Communities, grants from the Bartol Foundation, the Awesome Foundation, the Leeway Foundation and has been a resident at SPACE at Ryder Farm.
Shivon is in the research phase for a forthcoming children's book on Black heritage and food.
Photograph by Khaliah D. Pitts, 2016.
Khaliah D. Pitts, mph
Born and raised in Philadelphia, Khaliah D. Pitts (KDP) is a writer, culinary griot and curator. She considers herself a cultural memory-worker, documenting stories of the African diaspora. Although her primary medium is writing, she explores storytelling through short films, playwriting, curating events and spaces honoring cultural legacies, and, most often, cooking, eating, and sharing food.
Khaliah is the Co-founder and Director of Our Mothers’ Kitchens (A Blade of Grass Fellowship for Social Engaged Art, 2018; Leeway Art & Change Grant, 2016) and Co-founder / Creative Director of Griot Girls. She is a recipient of the 2020 Leeway Foundation TransformationAward and a current Activist-Curator fellow for PACSCL’s Chronicling Resistance.
Learn more at www.khaliahdpitts.com.
Photograph by Gabrielle Clark, 2021.
“She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order.”
