biography

Are you ready for a taste of spring?

Open this scrumptious new picture book about award-winning chef, Edna Lewis, and you’ll be delighted and nourished by the bounty within.

Bring Me Some Apples and I’ll Make You a Pie, the first children’s book by artist, food writer, and art director, Robbin Gourley, lovingly chronicles a year of Lewis’ childhood on a farm in Freetown, Virginia. Lewis (1916-2006), a proponent of regional, fresh-from-the-field, pure ingredients, was well ahead of her time as a pioneer in the natural foods movement, and one of the few female (let alone African American) chefs in the culinary industry. She was largely responsible for bringing southern cuisine to the attention of the culinary world.

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Go ahead. Reach out and grab one.

Then munch to your heart’s content, because February is National Snack Food Month!

Potato chips are America’s favorite snack food — to the tune of over $6 billion worth consumed every year. But for all the chips we’ve inhaled in our lifetimes, how many of us know who invented them?

GEORGE CRUM AND THE SARATOGA CHIP by Gaylia Taylor,
pictures by Frank Morrison (Lee and Low, 2006),
Picture Book for ages 5+, 32 pp.

Enter, the perfect picture book biography, George Crum and the Saratoga Chip, by Gaylia Taylor, illustrated by Frank Morrison (Lee and Low, 2006). Like the perfect chip with just the right snap and crunch, this story, about a biracial chef who inadvertently invents these crispy rascals back in 1853, is both satisfying and inspiring.

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