Angela Davis, also known as The Kitchenista, is an American chef, food blogger, recipe developer, and cookbook author. She created her blog The Kitchenista Diaries in 2012, and her work has appeared in outlets including Huffington Post, Hour Detroit, Food 52, and the Washington Post.[2][3][4][5]
Angela Davis | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1981 (age 42–43)[1] |
| Nationality | American |
| Other names | The Kitchenista |
| Occupation(s) | Chef, food blogger |
| Years active | 2012–present |
| Known for | The Kitchenista Diaries (blog) |
| Website | kitchenistadiaries |
Career
editA self-taught chef, Davis began learning to cook in her twenties.[6] She started the food blog The Kitchenista Diaries in 2012 while working as an accountant. In 2013, she was laid off, and decided to focus on her blog full-time.[1] She also began working as a private chef, catering, and hosting live cooking events.[2][1] Her first major catering event was a concert for The Roots.[2] In 2019 she also began developing recipes for restaurants.[7][8]
Davis uses social media sites, particularly Twitter, to help build her audience, and has credited such platforms with providing her referrals for offline opportunities.[2][9] She uses the Twitter hashtag #KitchenistaSundays to encourage followers to share their homecooked meals, and began a Washington, D.C. family-style dinner event series with the same name.[2] Lauren Masur wrote in The Kitchn in 2019 that Davis was "one of the funniest food personalities on Twitter".[7]
Davis has worked with companies such as Aveeno, Royal Caribbean, and KitchenAid.[10][9][3] She has published multiple digital cookbooks, which accounted for over 50 percent of her income as of 2019.[10]
In 2012, Davis won "Best Food Blog" in the Black Weblog Awards.[11][12] In 2013, Davis was one of two winners in the Food category of the 5th Shorty Awards.[13]
Influences
editDavis's earliest models for cooking were her parents and her grandmothers, one who cooked soul food and the other who cooked Cape Verdean cuisine.[12] She has spoken about the importance of preserving Black heritage through cooking traditional dishes.[14] Two of her signatures dishes, her biscuits and her macaroni and cheese, are rooted in her upbringing in the South.[15][7]
She has noted the underrepresentation of Black food bloggers, and has advocated for educational institutions to create more pathways to culinary careers.[12] She names Carla Hall and G. Garvin as two of her chef inspirations.[12]
Personal life
editDavis moved around frequently during her childhood because her father was in the military.[citation needed] She lived in Florida and Virginia in her adulthood.[7] She is of African American and Cape Verdean descent.[12] Davis has a son and a daughter.[7] As of 2019, she resided in Detroit.[7]
References
edit- ^ a b c Penn, Charli (March 29, 2016). "Started With a Recipe, Now She's Here: Food Blogger 'The Kitchenista' Shares Her Story". Essence. Retrieved December 25, 2020.
- ^ a b c d e Johnson, Kandia (November 26, 2017). "Former Accountant Turned Self Taught Chef Talks Tips For Creating Your Own Lane". Black Enterprise. Retrieved December 25, 2020.
- ^ a b Green, Lyndsay (August 7, 2020). "Meet the Black Culinarians Powering the Detroit Food Scene". Hour Detroit. Retrieved December 25, 2020.
- ^ Temple, Meiko (February 6, 2018). "From Cobbler to Mofongo: A Recipe for Every Day of Black History Month". Food52. Retrieved December 25, 2020.
- ^ Davis, Angela (August 27, 2018). "How to send your child to school with a tasty lunch without turning your routine upside down". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved December 25, 2020.
- ^ "How Angela Davis Turned a Cooking Hobby Into a Career". Great Jones. 2019. Retrieved July 19, 2021.
- ^ a b c d e f Masur, Lauren (October 3, 2019). "A Week of Dinners from Angela Davis, the Social Media Queen Behind The Kitchenista Diaries". The Kitchn. Retrieved December 25, 2020.
- ^ Levy, Lauren; Bender, Jonathan (May 7, 2021). "The best grilling charcoal and charcoal tools". NBC News. Retrieved July 19, 2021.
- ^ a b Jones, Feminista (2019). Reclaiming our space: how Black feminists are changing the world from the tweets to the streets. Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press. ISBN 978-0-8070-5537-3. OCLC 1035440566.
- ^ a b Kelly, Cara (February 12, 2019). "Fyre Festival to fashion week, how do Instagram influencers make so much money?". USA Today. Retrieved December 25, 2020.
- ^ "2012 Black Weblog Awards". Black Weblog Awards. Archived from the original on March 6, 2013. Retrieved July 19, 2021.
- ^ a b c d e Davis, Angela. "The Kitchenista: Blogger Angela Davis" (Interview). PBS. Retrieved December 25, 2020.
- ^ "The Shorty Awards". Shorty Awards. Archived from the original on June 9, 2016. Retrieved July 19, 2021.
- ^ Staes, Mary (October 22, 2018). "The Kitchenista and how a Gene's po-boy changed her life". Very Local New Orleans. Retrieved December 25, 2020.
- ^ Bashir, Imani (November 5, 2019). "The Cultural Differences That Define Macaroni And Cheese". HuffPost. Retrieved December 25, 2020.