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Zealous Living: The Personal Food & Cooking Journal of Visual Artist Zeal Harris

Dance Battle: Beat Yo Feet Kings VS Memphis Jookin

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I love dance battles!  I especially love that the crews have girl dancers.

 

 

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Hello,

I’m Zeal Harris

I’m a visual artist, culinary artist, world traveling explorer, and professor. I’m driven to share African American culture its depths and connections to the African diaspora. I’m based in Los Angeles. I was raised in Phoebus + Hampton, Virginia have also lived in Washington, D.C and Miami.

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“Happy Hour,” a painting by Zeal Harris (the owner of this blog). Painting features Zeal’s grandmother in her restaurant at the stove multitasking while serving customers. Zeal is the little girl in pink with the purse pointing to crabs that are getting out of the crates while people are eating cooked crabs, Tidewater, VA style out of cardboard beer holders covered with newspaper. The restaurant was called Langley Cut Rate and it used to be in Phoebus where the Hampton University Bookstore now is.
I love the concept of this cookbook. So fresh! It inspires me and makes me jealous!
Provocative photo by Deana Lawson entitled Nation (2017). The device on the young man’s mouth to the right of the photograph is bringing attention to the horrifying history of how George Washington’s teeth…the teeth in his dentures, came from people who were enslaved.
Gluten free, diary free, and soy free mac and cheese. I used about 4 kinds of plant based cheese plus lots of tumeric, garlic, onion powder, and paprika. This does have eggs… cashew milk is a great sub for cow milk.
Painting of a picnic, by Kerry James Marshall, entitled, “Past Times”
African Diaspora fusion cooking with a Cameroonian friend. This brings Cuban, Cameroonian and Black American influences together.
Visual Artist Hugh Hayden’s Art Installation makes a statement about the aesthetics of Black cooking and Jazz.
Painting by Kerry James Marshall, “Club Couple”
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Southern VA soul food yak crossed with Vietnamese pho noodle soup sensibilities.
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Another version of Southern VA 757 soul food yak crossed with Vietnamese pho noodle soup sensibilities. My grandma used to sell yak out of her restaurant in Phoebus.
Toni Tipton Martin book The Jemima Code reviews the first 200 years of Black American cookbooks with excellent essays in between.
Painting by Zeal Harris, entitled, Saturday Morning Ironing Begins. This is an autobiographical painting about the artist. Her mother is cooking potatoes at the stove. She is eating bacon and eggs with her little sister at the table. Ms. Ellen, a neighbor, has been paid by the artist’s mother to help out with the ironing which is happening in the kitchen on a hot day in Phoebus (Hampton) Virginia.
Hot Water Cornbread Black Food Festival in South LA circa December 2023. I was a bit disappointed that so much of the food was fried and full of dairy, gluten, and soy. I really liked this guys shirts…”product of my enlightenment).
Hot Water Cornbread Black Food Festival in South LA circa December 2023. I was a bit disappointed that so much of the food was fried and full of dairy, gluten, and soy. It was a fun event but the entrance fee was $30. (I happened to get in free) but I would have been very angry if I had to pay 30$ and then spend another minimum $25 dollars for a meal. Unless I get in free, I would not go again.
Visual artist Hugh Hayden’s art installation of caste iron pans are like a shrine to the African ancestors of Black Americans, and therefore a shrine to AMERICAN cuisine itself. I also see this as an homage to African American blacksmiths who made the cookware.
Shrimp, Sweet Potato and Citrus Ceviche with Blue Corn Chips
African Proverbs About Food
Black Women are the most educated demographic in the United States. This image here from the 1990s photographic series, Kitchen Table by Carrie Mae Weems.
This is a picture of the first time and I got a pot of gumbo to come out like I wanted and phew it was work even though I started with a Mee Maws frozen gumbo brick! I think this pic is from about 2018. I think it was also gluten and dairy free.
African Proverbs About Food
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Homegrown gluten free Japanese eggplant fried with sunflower oil and dusted with Trader Joes rice crumbs. I grew the eggplant during the height of the covid pandemic.
African Proverbs About Food
I copied this dish from a restaurant that used to be in Dupont Circle in Washington DC many years ago. It’s Japanese style grilled salmon over rice, topped with savory green onions, japanese roasted seaweed, and toasted sesame seeds and spice mix. This can be made soy free.
African Proverbs About Food
Impromptu Gluten Free Chicken Soup Made From Rotisserie Chicken. Id do prefer more celery but didn’t have much or any that day.
Shrimp, chicken and various grilled veggies I made with my then boyfriend’s participation.
Gluten, Dairy, Soy Free Spicy Gingersnaps. I adapted a couple of recipes to make these.
African Proverbs About Food
Roasted beets. Got this idea from having them at Fresh Ethiopian Restaurant on Centinela at Beach.
Visual Artist Hugh Hayden’s early American colonial chairs are signifiers of the complicated history of Black people having to cook for white people.
African Proverbs About Food
This is Chocolate Kahlua Cake I made that was an adaptation of a recipe that I neglected to try for about 10 years!
Key lime pie with fresh raspberries. Crust from scratch.
African Proverbs About Food
Simple Wok Sauteed Kale
Jambalaya Vs Jollof war meme made .Zeal Harris