Years ago, Salimatu Amabebe almost left the food world entirely. After working as a line cook in kitchens, they weren’t sure they could find a space that allowed them to live a healthy, fulfilled life. “It took me a while to understand that [cooking] was something I wanted to do as a career path, because I worked under people who were deeply unkind to me in a personal sense,” they say.
Amabebe, 29, realized that if they made their own space, things could be different. These would be spaces where everyone is treated with respect spaces filled with Black chefs and Black customers, honoring Black artists. That was the starting point for Black Feast, a dinner series they launched in Portland, Oregon, in 2016, where the poetry, books, or music of a Black artist set the tone and inspired the dishes for the evenings, which also take place in California’s Bay Area and in New York City.