At the time, publishing a food story without recipes was virtually unheard of. “I was gone for three days and when I came back, I had a story about my Mormon neighbors that did not include any recipes,” she recalls. Her boss, the legendary Ruth Reichl, told her “to go out into the streets of LA” and not come back until she knew what she wanted to do. She felt somewhat limited and wanted to go deeper. In the ’80s, right after college, Tipton-Martin was hired by the Los Angeles Times as a part-time nutrition writer. She soon discovered she was more interested in the stories behind the recipes. When the food editor left, she was tasked with editing the recipes. As a journalism major at the University of Southern California, Tipton-Martin got a part-time job at a small weekly newspaper. Her mom was a vegetarian who made sure her family nourished their bodies with the bounty of California produce. “We just went to school with them and hung out,” she said in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She grew up in an affluent Los Angeles neighborhood, trick-or-treating at the home of Ray Charles (he handed out McDonald’s cheeseburgers) and well acquainted with entertainment-industry giants such as Berry Gordy. Often, the recipes represent the way Tipton-Martin likes to cook and entertain at home. Sweet Potato-Mango Cake and Southern Pecan Pie Laced with Whiskey. Senegalese-style Braised Lamb Shanks With Peanut Sauce and Pork Chops with Rich Caper-Lemon Sauce.

Spanish Cornbread and Nigerian Black-Eyed Pea Fritters. To make her case, she posits 125 recipes, ranging from the fancy to the everyday: Champagne Cocktails and Sorrel (Hibiscus) Tea from Jamaica. With this erudite volume, Tipton-Martin sets out to demonstrate, via recipes, how blacks have long embraced “classic techniques, formal training, global flavors, and local ingredients” - attributes she believes would have catapulted them to celebrity in today’s world.

Jubilee cookbook table of contents