Hallelujah! The Welcome Table: A Lifetime of Memories With Recipes

 

Shirley J.              Adult Non-Fiction                Maya Angelou's life and Culinary Extravaganzas

Hallelujah!  The Welcome Table: A Lifetime of Memories With Recipes by Maya Angelou  240 pages

A wonderful blend of the essence that is Maya Angelou and the cookery that would put Julia Child on her toes.   From the rich stories of Maya Angelou's growing up at her grandmother's in Stamps, Arkansas to her days in St. Louis, her European tour and her 30 year teaching career at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.   She shares the joys, the celebrity and the recipes that she amazes and astounds her lucky guests with.    One of the great story tellers of this century, Maya Angelou shares openly and honestly the life she has lived and all the many paths it has taken her on.   In this book, she shares how many of those paths led to working as a creole cook when she was 17 (and had no idea what creole cooking was so she asked a friend from Louisiana who taught her what vegetables and spices to add to all of the dishes to give them creole flare so she could earn $75 a week!) to preparing many of her soul food recipes taught her by her grandmother and mother as well as the many haute cuisine recipes she picked up along the way in her many travels around the world.   Being in her company alone would have been a treasure, but, for her to cook for you?  Untold blessings!   What a great book!   I recommend this book to all who love Maya Angelou, and to all who want to know her.   I think Middle Schoolers would enjoy this on up to Senior adults.