Michelle White, the chef-owner of Next Step Soul Food Cafe on Washington Street in Codman Square, joined the Community Servings “Learning Kitchen Live” series on Facebook live last Thursday afternoon to teach an online audience how to prepare one of their exclusive dishes: fried shrimp and turnip.
The online cooking class series is a recent initiative initiated by Community Servings, a Jamaica Plain-based non-profit organization that serves nutritionally personalized meals and provides nutritional education to thousands of people each year in Massachusetts who cannot shop or cook for themselves or their families due to critical illnesses.
White, who grew up in Jamaica Plain, explained while cooking how she learned about the secrets of soul food when visiting her family in South Carolina in the summer as a child, where her grandmother recruited her to help with the cooking.
“I remember seeing my grandmother in the garden pulling out cabbage and turnips, and when we arrived, we went straight there to help her. I loved; that’s where my culinary sense came from, ”she said.
Years later, in 2017, after retiring from decades of daycare work and wanting to try something new, the opportunity to open a restaurant in Codman Square fell into White’s lap. She said she saw the chance to open a soul food restaurant with her mother in Boston, where there are only a few of those restaurants, as a venture that would satisfy her love of cooking and please her neighbors.
“All these people came up to me saying, ‘We need you, we need spiritual food in this community.’ And the fact that it was really homemade food. We brought home all the pots and pans from the restaurant, which we had used to cook for the whole family, for the restaurant. It was natural for me, ”said White.
Despite the Next Step being temporarily closed for on-site meals by the pandemic, White continued to make food for his family, friends and neighbors, attending events and making custom dishes to take and others to his church and charity.
“I love to feed people,” said White. “Feeding people is my language of love.”
Chef White’s Learning Kitchen Live video is available for viewing on Facebook’s Community Servings page.