Cookbook Club

Adrienne Cheatham Cooks Up Her Sunday Best

By: Hannah Lee Leidy

In an excerpt from her debut cookbook Sunday Best, chef Adrienne Cheatham taps family memories to honor the best of Southern cooking.

In the Black community, you typically have a set of clothes that are reserved for church. Your nicest dress, your socks with the fold-over lace on them, a pair of conservative heels. It’s a practice that extends all the way back to the days of slavery. There were laws preventing Black people from congregating in groups of more than two or three. The only time they were really allowed to gather was at the plantation church house on Sundays. So they’d shine up their shoes, dust off their pants, and wear the best of what they had. And this continued through—and in many places, well after—segregation.

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Date Published: 04.18.22
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About The Author

Hannah Lee Leidy

Hannah Lee Leidy is a food writer and editor based in the Carolinas. She is currently the digital content editor for Our State magazine, a position she came into following her time at The Local Palate. Her contributions have appeared in Condé Nast Traveler, Bon Appétit, Epicurious, Culture, and Eater. She’s spent time working in restaurants in both front and back of house positions, doing everything from burning gateaux to expediting to shaking a Manhattan (don’t worry, this only happened once). An avid curd nerd, her favorite beat is reporting on boutique cheese makers; she’ll sniff out every creamery near and far whenever traveling. When not parenting a Bernese mountain pup named Ava, you’ll find her running or working on her lamination technique.

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