Walker
In celebration of Margaret Walker’s 105th birthday, Jackson State University’s Margaret Walker Center, in partnership with Footprint Farms, will present a 30-minute virtual cooking demonstration on Tuesday, July 7, at 6 p.m.
The event features Walker’s recipe for maple nut cake and will be livestreamed from Footprint Farms via Jackson State University’s Facebook page.
Williams
Chef Enrika Williams of Fauna Foodworks, C. Liegh McInnis, author and JSU professor, and Dr. Cindy Elliot, founder of Footprint Farms, will discuss Walker’s life and contributions while preparing her famous maple nut cake. Lance Wheeler, education and public relations manager of the MWC, will moderate.
“While the coronavirus pandemic will prevent us from gathering for our annual Jubilee Picnic, we wanted to celebrate our founder’s birthday and show that Margaret Walker was more than a literary genius,” said Wheeler. “Renowned for her recipes, she famously hosted friends like Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, Myrlie Evers, and a long list of others for food and fellowship.”
Elliot
Elliot established Footprint Farms, LLC (2010) in Jackson, Mississippi. Originally a New York investment banker and CEO of Delta Enterprises in the Mississippi Delta, Elliot dedicates her time and efforts to ensure that her farm is economical and environmentally friendly as well as an educational tool for novice farmers.
Williams is a Mississippi born and raised chef-owner of Fauna Foodworks. Fauna Foodworks was formally a dining concept in Cultivation Food Hall in Jackson. It has since been refocused as an abstract, re-imagined culinary food lab that produces thoughtful, ingredient-driven, chic bohemian cuisine.
Fauna Foodworks was birthed through Williams’s unique experience of working with some of her greatest inspirations and mentors and living in different parts of the country, meeting countless people and ideas. Fauna Foodworks is not only creatively sensitive but socially, radically vested, and expressive in changing the conversations and expanding the culinary landscape through catering, dinner series, popups, curated menus/foodstuffs and ideas.
McInnis
McInnis is a poet, short story writer, instructor of English at Jackson State University, and the former publisher and editor of Black Magnolias Literary Journal. He has authored eight books, including four collections of poetry, one collection of short fiction (Scripts: Sketches and Tales of Urban Mississippi), one work of literary criticism (The Lyrics of Prince: A Literary Look at a Creative, Musical Poet, Philosopher, and Storyteller), and one co-authored work, Brother Hollis: The Sankofa of a Movement Man, which discusses the life of a legendary Mississippi Civil Rights icon. McInnis has also been invited to colleges and libraries all over the country to read his poetry and fiction and lecture on various topics, such as creative writing and various aspects of African American literature, music and history.
If you are looking to try Walker’s maple nut cake at home, you can see her handwritten recipe and even explore her journals for other examples of her lifelong love for good food at: https://margaretwalker.jsums.edu
For more information, contact the Margaret Walker Center at 601-979-3935 or email mwa@jsums.edu.
