Hallelujah! The Welcome Table - Tapa blanda

A tour-de-force collaboration of two of Angelou's major passions-writing and cooking (Ebony)

Seductively written and couched in the peachy cadences of the southern states. You're right there at the table... smelling the pork chops sizzling as your lips drip with butter (Daily Telegraph)

The real joy here is when Angelou returns to the Southern cooking of her childhood and delivers up the secrets of such delights...crackling corn bread... and a caramel cake rich enough to make you swoon (Metro)

Beautifully evocative (Evening Herald)

Throughout Maya Angelou's life food has played a pivotal role at important moments. In HALLELUJAH! THE WELCOME TABLE she narrates some of these tales and then gives us recipes for the food that helped shape her memories. There was the time she cooked a cassoulet for M.F.K. Fisher on the very day she moved into her new house in California. Or how her mother made a delicious maple cake for her when she was expelled from school for not being able to speak. Then there's a story about how once Decca (Jessica) Mitford made a delicious chicken - and the recipe is for 'Chicken Drunkard Style'. The recipes cover fried meat pies, caramel cake, Minnisota wild rice, chicken livers and many more. Maya Angelou's kitchen is a social centre, she cooks while she entertains and is renowned for what she serves.