I Won a James Beard Award & Now I Can't Stop Thinking About Tabitha Brown.
Navigating my (new) world as a JBF Award Winner.
I’ve wanted to write something about this entire James Beard process—from being nominated, to winning, and the aftermath surrounding it—for weeks now. There was but one issue: I didn’t know what to say. I still don’t know what to say. So when asked about how it feels to win, I give the same response: “It feels like I’m trying to drink water out of a firehose.”
While true, this response doesn’t fully encapsulate everything. Because to be honest, I have so many feelings that it’s hard for me to put them into words. Even now as I type this, it feels like I’m trying to contain a tornado of emotion within the confines of a shoe box. At various times of the day, I find that I am either talking to myself in an excited way—just thinking about all the opportunities that winning will provide—or making myself anxious by focusing on big “WHAT IF” type questions:
“WHAT IF I mess this all up?”
“WHAT IF I’m the only person to ever win a James Beard Award and not be able to leverage that honor into a livelihood?”
“WHAT IF this is a fifteen-minutes-of-fame thing and not the beginning of a new life?”
The internal back-and-forth is enough to make me want to hide in a dark hole for hours at a time. That’s not taking into account the anguish outside expectations from both people I barely know and the people who have been around before I even knew what a James Beard Award was.
Speaking of “outside expectations”, since I’ve won, some people have assumed that I have a foolproof plan on how to monetize the work of Black Food Fridays (SPOILER ALERT: I don’t). Do I have ideas? Most certainly! And my team is helping me take these ideas from the kitchen table to the real world. But there’s no guarantee that any of them will work and, to be real, that’s what terrifies me. The best way I can describe it is that I feels like I’ve ran 25.9 miles of a marathon, I can see the finish line, but I just don’t exactly know how to get there. Entrepreneurial success feels both closer and further away than its ever been.
In the last few weeks I’ve been told:
I should have my own consumer packaged goods brand(s);
Brands should be begging me for partnership opportunities;
I should have television show;
I need to focus on creating a YouTube channel;
I should be hosting multi-course dinners all over the world.
And you know what? All of that sounds good to me! The most interesting thing that’s been said, though? More than few people have declare me to be the next Tabitha Brown! This includes my mother as well as the CEO for the non-profit I work for (to be fair, Sherrie has been saying that way before this James Beard thing happened, so much props to her for believing since day one).
My thoughts on that? On the surface her life appears to be amazing and certainly something worth striving for. I appreciate the fact that she seems to have successfully navigated the waters that I find myself wading in a this moment. Tabitha can be seen at all the dope cultural events, her wardrobe is fly as fuck, and she’s written books that have been received with arms wide open by her over 10 million plus social media followers. I’d be here all day trying to list out all of her accomplishments, many of which of probably influenced all of the prophecies that have been placed on my life since my name was called that fateful Saturday night in Chicago.
But the most inspiring part of it all is that she’s been able to accomplish all of this without having to dial down her Southern charm or cutting off her afro. She seems to have been able to reach all of her goals without having to change who she is. Above EVERYTHING, that’s the thing I want. Wherever this award takes me or whatever doors it opens, I do not want to loose what makes me, me. For what is it to gain the world and lose yourself in the process?
PS - If any of y’all know Tabitha and can make the connection between us, please do ya ting! I really would like to speak to her about how she was able to survive these social media rapids. 😮💨
ON THE HORIZON.
BLACK PLANT TALK.
Not to be all doom and gloom, some good stuff has definitely come from all of this James Beard hullabaloo. For one, I’ll be joining my homie, Colah, for an Instagram Live chat on July 1st at 6 PM EST. She has an ongoing IG LIVE series called “What’s Plants Got To Do With ____”, where she chats with experts from industries that have NOTHING to do with plants and finds a way to fit them into the equation anyway.
ACROSS THE POND.
I also had my first overseas podcast interview. It was with the lovely ladies—Harleigh & Malaika—of the UK-based Sonder & Salt. It was a bonus interview where we discussed Juneteenth and a bunch of other food stuff as well. One of my favorite interviews ever! You can check it out on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Amazon Music.
HAVE YOU SEEN MY JAMES BEARD ACCEPTANCE SPEECH YET?!
The last part of my acceptance speech, where I address those who have trespassed against me (LOL), went kinda viral amongst those who follow James Beard things. But I occurred to me that many of you may not have seen any of the speech. So here’s the full segment: from announcing the nominees, to my name being called, to my speech. (If, for whatever reason, the video doesn’t start where I wanted, just fast forward to the 1:21:15 mark)
SHOUT OUT TO DEB!
My homie in food, Deb Freeman, is dropping a digital series with Virginia Public Media on July 19th. It’s about Edna Lewis, the Virginia-born pioneer in the study and discussion of Southern food. The series is called “Finding Edna Lewis” and is produced by Field Studio, in partnership with Style Weekly. I, for one, can’t wait to see it! Here’s the trailer (via Deb’s Instagram account):
TEDTALK, BUT MAKE IT BLACK & ABOUT FOOD!
Over the next few weeks, subscribers of the paid variety will be getting some inside looks at a new project I’m so close to announcing to the public. It’s a trial run of a real-world event I want to take on the road and, if this year of “test” goes well, it may very well lead me to that life I envision for myself. And if that includes becoming good friends with the aforementioned Mrs. Brown, then so be it. If you’ve been looking for a reason to upgrade your support, this would be the time to do so!
If you see any typos, go tell a rock.
— Love, KJ
Congratulations!!!🎉🎈
This was good KJ! Was wondering how you were processing it all. Congrats again!…and we gonna manifest a Tabitha Brown meeting!