Life-Affirming Recipes via Azikiwe Mohammed
Just in time for the holiday season, we’re sharing six life-affirming recipes via Azikiwe Mohammed sure to carry you into the new year.
Elaborate instructions for personal or cultural fare; glossy images of meticulously plated meals; and an introduction that pleads various kitchen essentials. These are the contents that populate the pages of a standard kitchen cookbook. While these recipes nourish the body through food, Azikiwe Mohammed’s Lunch with Leroy at Home Vol. 1, made in conjunction with his exhibition Leroy's Luncheon, envisions a cookbook as more than a manual for satiated appetites.
Featuring intimate memories of rest, humorous anecdotes on sauce, techniques in sculpting, and accessible recipes for pigeon peas and ramen, Mohammed’s companion text is a collection of crowd-sourced guidelines for Black livelihood that offers a solution to any need, challenge, or desire one might have.
In the excerpts below, no one entry is alike. There is, however, one crucial ingredient that appears throughout: a determined commitment to sustaining community through acts of service and care.
Learn more about Mohammed’s practice in Studio Visit: Greetings from New Davonhaime, Azikiwe Mohammed, written by Assistant Curator Jayson Overby Jr., from our Fall/Winter 2024 Studio issue and featured now in Studio online.