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A series commemorating Black History Month – North Omaha stories Part IV

February 22, 2018 Leave a comment

Commemorating Black History Month
Links to North Omaha stories from 1998 through 2018.
Articles on social justice, civil rights, race, history, faith, family, community, business, politics. education, art, music, theater, film, culture, et cetera
 
A weekly four-part series
Final week: Part IV –  Soul food and soul sports
 
 
https://leoadambiga.com/2012/04/10/one–peach–of-a-pitcher–peaches…
 
 
Categories: African-American, African-American Culture, Omaha, Omaha Black Sports Legends, Out to Win: The Roots of Greatness (a series), Soul Food, Sports, Writing Tags: , , , ,

Baseball and Soul Food at Omaha Rockets Kanteen

June 23, 2017 2 comments

Baseball and Soul Food at Omaha Rockets Kanteen

Story by Leo Adam Biga

Photography by Sarah Lemke

Originally published in Omaha Magazine (http://omahamagazine.com/articles/baseball-and-soul-food/_)

 

When baseball still ruled as the national pastime, Omaha showcased the game’s still prevalent but loosening black-white divide. In 1947, the year Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier, the barnstorming Omaha Rockets began to play. In an era when entire leagues and teams were drawn along racial lines, the all-black Rockets faced both segregated and integrated foes. A few Rockets went on to make history or gain fame. Most faded into obscurity.

Although the Rockets were not formally in the Negro National League, an association of teams made famous by Satchel Paige and Buck O’Neil, the Rockets were an independent semi-pro farm club of the league’s famous Kansas City Monarchs.

The Omaha team even trained with the Monarchs. Three former K.C. players— Horatius Saunders, Mack Massingale, and James “Cool Papa” Bell—variously managed the club.

Donald Curry pays homage to this black baseball history at his Omaha Rockets Kanteen. The soul food eatery inside the Lake Point Building (at 24th and Lake streets) is packed with memorabilia relating to black ballplayers and teams. Dedicated menu items include Octavius Cato’s Jerked Turkey Taco, the Willie Mays Soul Wrap, and Birmingham Black Baron Sweet Potato Pie.

Curry’s Southern Pitch soul food truck features the same concept.

The Omaha native operated similar-themed food businesses in Chicago, where he befriended ex-Negro Leaguers. One, Alvin Spearman, informed him of the Rockets. Curry knew Omaha was a stomping ground for the Monarchs. Learning that the city fielded a black team, which enjoyed close currency with the Monarchs, sweetened the pot and provided his current establishment’s name.

Curry says he’s created “a living memorial” to black owners, managers, and players in admiration of “their fortitude” pursuing professional baseball careers despite lacking the talent or opportunity to play higher-level organized ball. He likes the lessons imparted.

“They didn’t cry or complain about the situation,” he says. “Everyone goes through things, and everyone is denied certain things in life. But if you keep your head up and push forward, you can overcome those obstacles and succeed in what you set your mind to. They created their own leagues and styles of ball. Some of them became pretty well-off for that time.”

The vast majority of black ballplayers, just like their white counterparts, never played for a paycheck, but for love of the game. Whether competing for semi-pro, town or company baseball teams, or fast-pitch softball teams, they lived out their diamond dreams. 

Curry hopes to add Rockets’ materials to “the treasure trove” of signed photographs and other lore displayed at Kanteen. He may name some dishes after Rockets. Curry’s collection includes personal scrapbooks of Pittsburgh Crawfords legend Jimmie Crutchfield.

The team’s owner, Will Calhoun, launched the Rockets after he got the “baseball bug.” He rented out flats at 25th and Lake, which he generously called a hotel. Touring black athletes, denied by other establishments, stayed there. The Tyler, Texas, native and World War II veteran got into the game just as minor and major league strictures lifted and the Negro Leagues declined. Calhoun pressed on anyway, boasting, “I’ve got a little money. I know why so many of these teams failed. They tried to get by on a shoestring and didn’t have anything to offer the public.” He promised to “add a little more show to my Rockets.”

The Omaha World-Herald termed the Rockets his “noble experiment.”

The team made Legion Field in Council Bluffs its home park and barnstormed across Nebraska and into Iowa, South Dakota, Kansas, and Colorado via its own bus. The club even went into Canada and the Pacific Northwest. Its opponents included town teams and other touring teams, such as House of David.

At least one Rocket, Kenny Morris, claimed local ties. The former standout Boys Town athlete played outfield and third base for the Rockets. Mickey Stubblefield, William McCrary, and Eugene Collins all spent time with the Rockets between moves up and down organized baseball. Stubblefield, a journeyman pitcher, became the first black in the Kitty League and among the first blacks in the Nebraska Independent League. He ended his career in McCook, Nebraska, where he raised a family of 10. He later moved to Atlanta, Georgia. In 2011 he returned as Grand Marshal of McCook’s “Heritage Days” festivities.

Dick “Night Train” Lane was a multi-sport star in his native Austin, Texas. He then moved north to live with his mother in Council Bluffs, where a baseball scout signed him to play for the Rockets. He played one year of football at Scottsbluff Junior College in Nebraska. After entering the U.S. Army and excelling on military teams, he signed with the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams and went on to a Hall of Fame career.

Teams like the Rockets faded as baseball popularity waned and televised sports cut into attendance. Ever the promoter, Calhoun paired his Rockets with the Minneapolis Clowns in 1950 to try and boost crowds.

The Rockets soon disbanded but Curry celebrates them within larger black athletics history. His Kanteen is now home to Nebraska Black Sports Hall of Fame displays.

His food, culled from family recipes, celebrates African-American cuisine—collard greens, cornbread dressing, red beans and rice, mac and cheese, candied yams—only prepared healthier. Smoked turkey, for example, replaces ham hocks. Olive oil replaces butter.

Curry takes seriously the Kanteen creed: “Enjoy the food, digest the history.”

“We might as well be a museum serving food,” he says.

Visit omaharocketskanteen.com for more information.

This article appears in the July/August issue of Omaha Magazine.

Categories: African-American Culture, Baseball, Don Curry, Food, Negro Leagues Baseball, North Omaha, Omaha Rockets Kanteen, Soul Food, Sports, Writing Tags: , , , , , , ,

Pot Liquor Love: Soul food eatery Omaha Rockets Kanteen conjures Negro Leagues past and pot liquor love menu

November 17, 2016 2 comments

Don Curry banks on his “healthy” version of soul food catching on at his niche Omaha Rockets Kanteen and Southern Pitch food truck. His niche concept is wed to a Negro Leagues baseball passion that permeates his brick and mortar and mobile eateries.  Follow my Pot Liquor Love food blogging at leoadambiga.com and on Facebook at My Inside Stories. And since food and movies are such a good pair, remember to follow my Hot Movie Takes on the same two social media platforms.

©by Leo Adam Biga

Appearing in November 2016 issue of The Reader

Pot Liquor Love:

Good Memories and Good Eats

Soul food eatery conjures Negro Leagues past and pot liquor love menu

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Omaha Rockets Kanteen in the Lake Point Center at 24th and Lake is a “healthy” soul food eatery with a Negro Leagues Baseball theme and a community empowerment thrust.

The baked, not fried, turkey legs, wings, greens, stuffing, candied yams, smothered chicken and oxtail stew prepared from family recipes come in a wrap option. All of it’s served amidst a casual, memorabilia-filled, stadium-inspired space. Signed photos and paintings depict Negro Leaguers and other black baseball players Kanteen co-owner Don Curry befriended in many cases.

The joint, whose tagline is “Enjoy the food, digest the history,” is named after a barnstorming semi-pro, independent all-black town team, the Omaha Rockets. The club fed players to the Negro American League and played exhibitions against clubs like the Kansas City Monarchs.

Since opening in July, Kanteen’s been championed by city officials and community leaders as a catalyst for more development in this historical African-American business corridor that’s seen better days. Plans call for the area to recapture its arts-entertainment and small business district past.

Curry’s been through the revival thing. His now defunct Negro League Cafe was heralded as a spark for the Brownsville section of Chicago. That restaurant enjoyed a five-year run before he reached an impasse with his landlord and couldn’t find an affordable new space to lease. He took that brick and mortar on wheels with his Southern Pitch food truck. Two fruitful years came to a halt when city officials cracked down on illegal operators and enacted strict rules that stifled legit operations like his own.

The entrepreneur. who did part of his growing up in North Omaha, was twice ready to try his soul food-baseball concept here but each time could not drum up enough support. Finally, he and co-owner Marcus Johnson, an Omaha firefighter and fellow entrepreneur, got it done.

Curry’s justifiably proud of the concept behind his place.

“It’s damn near, I’ve been told, brilliant,” he said. “My target market’s three-fold: history buffs, sports fans and foodies.”

He said even legendary Omaha restaurateur Willy Thiesen has praised his “niche” idea.

Curry harbored his Negro Leagues-themed restaurant fancy several years before launching it in 2004. His interest in the Negro Leagues started while attending Virginia State University. It went to a new level in Chicago, where he worked in the financial industry. During a Negro Leagues tribute night at Comiskey Park he marveled at the rainbow spectrum of fans queuing up for autographs from ex-players.

Inspiration hit.

“If these people are willing to stand in this long line to get their autographs, I thought, why wouldn’t they patronize a restaurant with the same theme.”

Curry saw a moneymaking vehicle for celebrating a rich chapter of African-American history.

“After I got the vision, I had to make sure i was well-versed in the history. I immersed myself in reading and seeing anything I could. I mean, it was the look in their faces in the photographs. They didn’t bitch about nothing. They said, ‘If you’re not going to let us play this game with you, we’re going to learn the game, master it, and compete straight up.’ ”

He said “the economics” struck him as well.

“The Negro Leagues World Series outsold the Major Leagues World Series, and we’re talking about nobody but black folks going to watch baseball. They would dress up to the nines. That alone compels me, especially after befriending a lot of Negro Leaguers and hearing their stories. They told me it beat the hell out of sharecropping. They’d be gone weeks on end but would come home with a pocketful of money and not be in debt.”

Teams often couldn’t find hotels or restaurants to serve them and so stayed at black boarding houses or private black homes where soul food was the going cuisine and pot liquor the savory brew. Kanteen pays homage to it all.

A chance encounter with Negro Leagues legend Buck O’Neil, who loved the idea for the eatery, emboldened Curry, but he was too busy climbing the corporate ladder to take the plunge.

Still, he said, “it kept gnawing at me.”

He said once he opened his Chi-Town cafe it took off as a stop” for ex-sports stars like the late “Mr, Cub,” Ernie Banks.

He’s banking his Omaha Kanteen becomes a destination, too.

“Baseball is a reflection of American society and I believe I have something that brings people together and embraces a piece of our culture people find wonderful. I look at it as being a true melting pot because some of everyone is coming in here.”

He will expand evening hours once he adds live jazz acts and liquor sales. He’s bullish on the area’s potential.

“There’s oil in North Omaha and I’m drilling for it. Why not be the first? It seems like speculation but I know it’s about to happen.”

He knows the area needs more of a critical mass of attractions to stimulate big commerce.

“It’s going to take a lot more people willing to come here and do it. It’s going to take all the vacant lots to be in filled with establishments from Lake to Hamilton.”

He wants his business – he’s already looking to expand in the metro and in Kansas City – to be a beacon of hope and a source of employment for more inner city residents.

“My mantra is to pick people up.”

Avenue Scholars youth will learn the culinary trade there as interns. He wants to give young people positive options that counteract the miseries he saw claim too many friends.

Look for his Southern Pitch food truck to hit the streets this fall.

Visit www.omaharocketskanteen.com.

Categories: African-American, African-American Culture, Don Curry, Food, Negro Leagues Baseball, North Omaha, Omaha, Omaha Rockets Kanteen, Pot Liquor Love, Restaurants, Soul Food, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Pot Liquor Love

August 23, 2016 Leave a comment

 

 

Pot Liquor Love 

Not long after Pam and I began getting to know each other, we discovered several things in common, and some of what we found we both have a real passion for has to do with food. Having been in a previous long-standing relationship with an African-American woman, I already knew that the food I grew up eating and the food that many African-Americans grow up eating share many similarities. This, despite the fact that I am of Polish and Italian ancestry, two cuisines you wouldn’t ordinarily or immediately associate with soul food. But much of the food my late parents grew up eating and that they then weaned my two older brothers and I on is what could be called peasant cooking, which is essentially what soul food entails. The peasant connotation simply refers to the fact that people of little means, whether Polish or Italian or Black, historically make do with whatever is at hand. including what they eat. The humble rooted people on both my dad’s Polish side and on my mother’s Italian side certainly made do with what they raised and tended on the land and with what scraps of meat they could afford to purchase. The same with Blacks, whose soul food tradition derives from what was available from the sweat of their own brow working the land and what they could scratch together to buy.

Thus, the Polish and Italian cuisine I grew up eating, just like the Black soul food cuisine I was introduced to years later, features lots of greens, beans, potatoes, pastas (think spaghetti and macaroni and cheese), grains (barley, rice, grits) and lower end cut, slow cooked meats, including pig’s feet, cheek, hocks,  butt, ribs, oxtails, smoked turkey wings and legs and beef liver, although some of those formerly low cut low priced meats have since become pricey gourmet items. There are pan-fried and deep-fried connections, too, between my roots and Pam’s, such as chicken livers and gizzards. and, of course, chicken.

My mom and dad split the cooking. Their go-to dishes included: smothered pork chops (his), bean soup with hocks (his and hers), oxtail soup (his), braised oxtails (hers), oven-baked chicken (his), beef stew (his), Italian stew (hers), pig’s feet (his), greens (hers),

Pam has expressed surprise over and over again when, upon talking fondly about various dishes her family enjoyed eating, I come right back with, “Yeah, we ate that, too.” She is fairly amazed even now that I have consumed more than my share of ham hocks, for example, and that I still cook with them today. We didn’t have collards, but we did have mustard and assorted other greens. My mom grew up eating dandelions and she’d once in a while incorporate them into our greens as well.

The whole idea behind this mode of cooking and eating is to stretch things in order to feed several hungry mouths without straining the budget. That means lots of soups, stews, casseroles, bakes and concoctions where you throw in everything on hand to make what Pam’s family used to call “stuff.” Every ethnic group has it own variation of this everything but the kitchen sink dish that is more about expediency than it is culinary style. But Pam and I both agree that there’s never a good enough excuse for making something that lacks flavor. We are both big on bold, robust flavors achieved through liberal seasoning and cooking methodology. When it comes to meat, and she and I are both classic carnivores, we prefer slow baking, roasting methods that produce copious amounts of natural pan drippings that we spoon right over the serving portions or that can be the base for rich, delicious gravies and sauces. You might say we are connoisseurs of pan drippings because we appreciate the layered, complex, concentrated flavors they contain.

The resulting “pot liquor” is produced whether cooking beef, pork or poultry, but you have to have cuts that are bone-in and contain some fat, too. Fat and bone, that’s where the real flavor resides, and all the seasoning and veggies you add only help enhance the flavor. Yes, pot liquor is the really deep, fat and marrow released and rendered goodness that gets deposited in those puddles, streaks and bits. We never serve a meat dish without  some of the pot liquor over it. I love that term because it’s so apt to what the essence of pan drippings are. Rendered fat and bone is where it’s at and when enough of it is released and it gets to coagulating and browning to where those alternately gooey and crusty bits collect at the bottom and edges of the roasting pan, it distills right there in the oven or even on top of the stove into a heady, briny brew that really is best described as pot liquor.

Pam knows by now that one of my favorite food things to do is to take a hunk of bread and sop up the smear of congealed pot liquor left on the pan. Oh, my, that is a burst of flavor that rivals the best bites I’ve ever eaten, Not even a 4 or 5 star restaurant can duplicate that taste.

There are other pot liquors not exclusive to meat dishes, such as the brew created by cooking collards with ham hocks. Pam makes some righteous greens with hocks or smoked turkey lumps whose pot liquor is enough to get intoxicated on when sopping it up with corn bread or pouring it over most anything.

With the holidays coming up I am already salivating at the thought of Pam’s roasted turkey – she makes the moistest turkey I’ve ever eaten – and its pot liquor bounty that pairs well with the greens, the stuffing, the candied yams and everything else for that matter.

Sure, there’s more to life than food, but at the moment I can’t think what that might be. Cooking a meal for someone is as true an expression of love as I can think of. It is the epitome of sharing something precious and of delighting in someone else’s pleasure or satisfaction. Pam and I regularly take turns cooking for each other. Her home cooked meals bring me right back to my childhood and early adult years eating at home with mom and dad. She likes my cooking, too. It also takes her back. By now we both know what we like and what we don’t. Our tastes, with a few notable exceptions, are remarkably alike.

On our recent trips down South we experienced a few dishes with good to the last drop pot liquor love. Read those at–

https://leoadambiga.com/?s=southern+fried

Not sure whose turn it is in our couple cooking rotation. It doesn’t much matter though you see because whoever has the duty will be putting out big flavors. That’s what you get when you cook with love – flavor. The one cardinal sin we can’t abide is bland food. That and skimping on the pot liquor. When we sit down to dinner, it’s not so much “pass the salt” as it is “give me some more of that pot liquor, honey.”

I don’t mean to imply the lip smacking magic of our Pot Liquor Love is what keeps us together, but it sure helps.

Categories: Cooking, Culinary/Cuisine, Culture, Food, Leo Adam Biga, Omaha, Pamela Jo Berry, Pot Liquor Love, Soul Food, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Charles Hall’s Fair Deal Cafe

May 11, 2016 7 comments

For years Omaha’s most famous purveyor of soul food was the Fair Deal Cafe. Its proprietor, the late Charles Hall, served up some righteous fare at his North 24th Street place that was also known as Omaha’s Black City Hall for being a popular spot where community leaders and concerned citizens gathered to discuss civil rights and politics. Mr. Hall and the Fair Deal are gone and sadly the building has been razed. But at least a new development on the site will be taking part of the name as a homage to the history made there and the good times had there. On my blog you can find another story I did that used the Fair Deal as the backdrop for an examination of what makes soul food, soul food. I gathered together some old school black folks to share their wisdom and passion about this cuisine. I called that piece, A Soul Food Summit.

 

Charles Hall’s Fair Deal Cafe

©by Leo Adam Biga

Originally appeared in the New Horizons and The Reader

 

As landmarks go, the Fair Deal Cafe doesn’t look like much. The drab exterior is distressed by age and weather. Inside, it is a plain throwback to classic diners with its formica-topped tables, tile floor, glass-encased dessert counter and tin-stamped ceiling. Like the decor, the prices seem left over from another era, with most meals costing well under $6. What it lacks in ambience, it makes up for in the quality of its food, which has been praised in newspapers from Denver to Chicago.

Owner and chef Charles Hall has made The Fair Deal the main course in Omaha for authentic soul food since the early 1950s, dishing-up delicious down home fare with a liberal dose of Southern seasoning and Midwest hospitality. Known near and far, the Fair Deal has seen some high old times in its day.

Located at 2118 No. 24th Street, the cafe is where Hall met his second wife, Audentria (Dennie), his partner at home and in business for 40 years. She died in 1997. The couple shared kitchen duties (“She bringing up breakfast and me bringing up dinner,” is how Hall puts it.) until she fell ill in 1996. These days, without his beloved wife around “looking over my shoulder and telling me what to do,” the place seems awfully empty to Hall. “It’s nothing like it used to be,” he said. In its prime, it was open dawn to midnight six days a week, and celebrities (from Bill Cosby to Ella Fitzgerald to Jesse Jackson) often passed through. When still open Sundays, it was THE meeting place for the after-church crowd. Today, it is only open for lunch and breakfast.

The place, virtually unchanged since it opened sometime in the 1940s (nobody is exactly sure when), is one of those hole-in-the-wall joints steeped in history and character. During the Civil Rights struggle it was commonly referred to as “the black city hall” for the melting pot of activists, politicos and dignitaries gathered there to hash-out issues over steaming plates of food. While not quite the bustling crossroads or nerve center it once was, a faithful crowd of blue and white collar diners still enjoy good eats and robust conversation there.

Fair Deal Cafe

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Running the place is more of “a chore” now for Hall, whose step-grandson Troy helps out. After years of talking about selling the place, Hall is finally preparing to turn it over to new blood, although he expects to stay on awhile to break-in the new, as of now unannounced, owners. “I’m so happy,” he said. “I’ve been trying so hard and so long to sell it. I’m going to help the new owners ease into it as much as I can and teach them what I have been doing, because I want them to make it.” What will Hall do with all his new spare time? “I don’t know, but I look forward to sitting on my butt for a few months.” After years of rising at 4:30 a.m. to get a head-start on preparing grits, rice and potatoes for the cafe’s popular breakfast offerings, he can finally sleep past dawn.

The 80-year-old Hall is justifiably proud of the legacy he will leave behind. The secret to his and the cafe’s success, he said, is really no secret at all — just “hard work.” No short-cuts are taken in preparing its genuine comfort food, whose made-from-scratch favorites include greens, beans, black-eyed peas, corn bread, chops, chitlins, sirloin tips, ham-hocks, pig’s feet, ox tails and candied sweet potatoes.

In the cafe’s halcyon days, Charles and Dennie did it all together, with nary a cross word uttered between them. What was their magic? “I can’t put my finger on it except to say it was very evident we were in love,” he said. “We worked together over 40 years and we never argued. We were partners and friends and mates and lovers.” There was a time when the cafe was one of countless black-owned businesses in the district. “North 24th Street had every type of business anybody would need. Every block was jammed,” Hall recalls. After the civil unrest of the late ‘60s, many entrepreneurs pulled up stakes. But the Halls remained. “I had a going business, and just to close the doors and watch it crumble to dust didn’t seem like a reasonable idea. My wife and I managed to eke out a living. We never did get rich, but we stayed and fought the battle.” They also gave back to the community, hiring many young people as wait staff and lending money for their college studies.

Besides his service in the U.S. Army during World War II, when he was an officer in the Medical Administrative Corps assigned to China, India, Burma, Japan and the Philippines, Hall has remained a home body. Born in Horatio, Arkansas in 1920, he moved with his family to Omaha at age 4 and grew up just blocks from the cafe. “Almost all my life I have lived within a four or mile radius of this area. I didn’t plan it that way. But, in retrospect, it just felt right. It’s home,” he said. After working as a butcher, he got a job at the cafe, little knowing the owners would move away six months later to leave him with the place to run. He fell in love with both Dennie and the joint, and the rest is history. “I guess it was meant to be.”

 

Categories: African-American, African-American Culture, Charles Hall, Culinary/Cuisine, Fair Deal Cafe, Food, North Omaha, Omaha, Soul Food, Uncategorized, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Big Mama, Bigger Heart: Serving Up Soul Food and Second Chances

October 17, 2014 1 comment

Patricia Givens Barron of Omaha has branded herself and her business under the Big Mama’s name and it’s working out well for her and her family.  Their soul food restaurant has been featured on the Food Network and other cable food shows, she’s been written up about a number of times, and the success has spawned a satellite sandwich shop.  She’s made her place a real community gathering spot, even hosting a monthly community forum called the Hungry Club.  In line with her heart for her African American community and its disproportionate numbers in and out of prison, she’smade a point of  hiring returning citizens when they leave prison.  It’s a personal mission for her because two of her daughers served time and she saw how much they struggled to find a second chance.  I wrote this proifile of Patricia for Omaha Magazine (http://omahamagazine.com/). You can find an earlier profile I wrote about her on this blog.

 

 

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Big Mama, Bigger Heart

Serving Up Soul Food and Second Chances

October 1, 2014
©by 
©Photography by Keith Binder
Originally published in (http://omahamagazine.com/)

 

Patricia Givens Barron, the woman behind Big Mama’s Kitchen in North Omaha, is known for her soul food. And for giving folks who’ve run afoul of the law a second chance.

Her desire to give individuals reentering society a break is not some vague, do-gooder’s impulse; rather, it’s a deeply felt advocacy and activist calling borne of personal experience and heartache.

The North Omaha native grew up the daughter of popular band leader Basie Givens. After a four-year U.S. Navy hitch, then decades in the telecommunications industry, Barron, who did catering on the side, opened her restaurant in 2007. Her interest in giving a helping hand began long before—when two of her daughters went to prison.

“It was such a shock,” Big Mama says, “because they had been raised in a Christian home with a mother and a father.”

Even after serving time and turning their lives around, her daughters struggled finding societal acceptance.

“They finished college. One became a counselor and the other one a nurse, only you could not get a license if you were a felon. I watched them go through the process. It took them a couple years to get their record expunged. The thing I went through with my daughters gave me an awareness” about a problem in our community. “How many other people went wayward, and it will be held against them the rest of their lives so that they can’t get a job or can’t get into a certain profession? I decided whenever I opened my restaurant, I’m going to hire felons and give people a second chance.”

Barron knows first-hand the power of second chances. She experienced two failed marriages, including one involving abuse, before finding the love of her life. It was on an operating table that she underwent a pivotal spiritual experience. She was called to serve a larger purpose.

Through her church she became active in Crossroads Connection, a ministry outreach to inmates. She believes the barriers ex-offenders face are the root of many inner city ills. She and then-State Senator Brenda Council tried getting a bill passed banning the felony box on applications. The attempt failed, but Barron’s still doing her part.

“We’re promised the pursuit of happiness in this country,” she says. “One should be able to pursue their happiness even if they are a felon. I feel like I’ve lived a pretty decent life, and so now it’s time for me to give back and to help other people pursue that happiness. If it’s by offering jobs, by giving second chances, that’s what I’m going to do because I feel like that’s my purpose.”

One of the first people she helped was her granddaughter, Diondria Harrison, who was incarcerated several years ago. After her release Barron took her on. Today Harrison is the lead cook at Big Mama’s.

Right from the start Barron, whose place has been featured on The Food Network, made it known she cut ex-cons a break. She hosted job fairs for ex-offenders that attracted hundreds.

“When I opened my restaurant most of my help was on work release,” she adds. “They worked for me during the day and went back to jail at night.”

Her open hiring policy led her to partner with others on reentry employment efforts and to offer internships to at-risk youth.

People regularly show up looking for their second chance. A woman who served 14 years in military prison for killing her abusive husband heard about Big Mama’s and had her parole officer inquire about a job when she got out. Eager to learn the culinary trade, the woman didn’t wait for a reply. The day she arrived there was no job available, so  she eagerly shadowed kitchen staff before being hired as a waitress. Today, she’s working another job and nearing completion of her culinary degree at Metropolitan Community College.

“I understood where she was coming from,” Barron says. “Through all that she’s been through, she’s really kept it together. She loves to cook. Loves to bake. And that’s what I’m about, so she just fit in perfectly. She’s doing very well on her own now.”

Cornell Austin didn’t know about Barron’s big heart for felons when he appeared seeking a job after his release from prison. He’d caught her on television and, with years of food service experience behind him, he figured Big Mama’s would be a good place to start over—if its owner would get past his criminal background. She did.

“I had tried at a lot of places,” Austin says, “but I had that felony hanging over my head. When I interviewed with her I was apprehensive to tell the truth about my background, but I decided to put everything on the table. I told her what happened. She accepted it. And she didn’t judge me. She gave me a shot at a new beginning. She helped me change to be the man I am today. She gave me another chance to believe in myself—that I can make mistakes, but I can also achieve things in life as well.”

Austin now cooks at the Doubletree Hilton and still helps Big Mama on occasion. He’s only months from getting his culinary degree at Metro. He hopes to one day open his own catering business.

Barron’s happy for Austin. “Everything is going great for him. I am so proud of him. I’m glad to be a part of his life to help him get on track. He’s another black man that got on track, so I feel good about that.”

Not every ex-offender works out, she says.

“We’ve been burned by people who stole from us, lied to us, but that’s on them. I don’t let that stop me or discourage me. Most people really want to change their lives. They just need to be given a chance.

Barron, who estimates she’s employed some 200 ex-offenders, says offering folks a fresh start “makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something and that my purpose here is being fulfilled.”

Cornell Austin and countless others would agree.

 

Categories: African-American Culture, African-American Empowerment Network, Big Mama's Kitchen & Catering, Food, North Omaha, Omaha, Patricia Givens Barron, Writing Tags: , , , , ,

Chef Mike Does a Rebirth at the Community Cafe

June 22, 2011 6 comments

Mike Whitner is one of several small business owners fighting the good fight by trying to inject some new commerce into the economically depressed northeast Omaha community. His Chef’s Mike Community Cafe is the type of going concern the district desperately needs but is woefully lacking. As with anybody, he has a story. Specifically, there’s a story behind how and why he became a chef and located his business in the heart of an area with great, though as yet unrealized promise, a situation that’s defined the area since its decline in the 1960s and ’70s. My story for The Reader (www.thereader.com) appeared shortly after Chef Mike opened his place. The good news is he’s still in business and the area is targeted for massive redevelopment. The bad news is that much of that development is still some years away. But every little anchor and magnet business like his can make a difference, especially if there becomes a critical mass of them.

 

Chef Mike Does a Rebirth at the Community Cafe

©by Leo Adam Biga

Originally published in The Reader (www.threader.com)

 

“I’m doing a rebirth,” said Mike Whitner, a.k.a. Chef Mike, as he pointed to the colorful sidewalk/window signs outside his Community Cafe in the Family Housing Advisory Services building at 24th and Lake in north Omaha. “I’m taking what I learned from my roots and putting it in like a nouvelle style kind of soul food. I keep it traditional, but I add the new wave in it, like using a lot of smoked turkey in my greens (instead of ham hocks), where it’s going to be healthy for you.”

A solid block of a man who brightens his white chef’s smock with Pollock splattered pants and jaunty berets, Whitner grew up in a rough section of far northeast Omaha’s “Flatlands.” He ran with a gang. He learned to defend himself. As the youngest of seven siblings he spent a lot of time watching his mother cook. He paid close attention. He’ll tell you the secret to soul food is made-from-scratch cooking whose deeply imbued flavors build in stages, over time.

“It’s a process,” he said. One that can’t be rushed. No shortcuts please.

Another “mentor” is Charles Hall, owner/head cook of the now defunct Fair Deal Cafe on North 24th Street. Whitner’s smothered pork steak is a homage to Hall’s classic smothered pork chop.

“I slow cook it like he used to,” Whitner said. “I cook it in its juices with peppers and onions. When you do it right, it just melts in your mouth, baby.”

As a kid Whitner earned extra money making sandwiches/dinners and hawking them to working men on the north side. Before becoming a chef though, he had some living to do. He played college and semi-pro football, bounced at clubs, provided personal security to clients and collected for others. Once, a guy pulled a gun and shot him. A bullet grazed his head. He still managed to break the shooter’s wrist down, wrest the gun away and beat him with it.

Incidents like these convinced him “it was time to grow up and get away from all that and stop taking care of other people’s business. My mother slept better.”

He got a taste of the restaurant game working at Boston Sea Party and L and N Seafood Grill. A move to Denver in the early 1990s launched him on his career. He learned the trade at the famed Wynkoop Brewing Company, which sponsored his training in the Chefs de Cuisine Association. Working chef’s license in hand, he helped Wynkoop become an anchor of the Mile High City’s trendy LoDo district.

Back home by the mid ‘90s, he entered the Omaha catering scene. He was on the team that opened Rick’s Boatyard Cafe. A parting of the ways found him catering again, this time out of trucks doing a tidy trade on the streets. When the spot he’s in now came open, he went after it.

“One of the promises I made when I became a chef,” he said, “was to bring everything I learned back to the Flatlands. I wanted to be here.”

His fusion of soul with gourmet adds new twists to old favs: sauteed baby bay shrimp with collard greens; roast beef with a demi-glace or mirepoix-based sauce; and jalapeno cheddar corn bread. Every day he does theme dishes — from blackened beef or fish to pasta to tacos to soul food staples to whole catfish filets. He has his signature Black Angus dogs, reubens, gyros and Philly steak and cheese. Some items, like his sweet potatoes, are from his own garden. He buys from local growers.

Open weekdays for breakfast, when you can get grits and biscuits, and lunch, most meals there run well under $6. The one day he’s open late, Fridays, he offers a prime rib or salmon dinner for $13, with live jazz by Hopie Bronson. The cafe’s “transformed” then into an intimate club with low lights, linen table cloths, votive candles. There’s free parking in an adjacent lighted lot.

For Whitner, who still has his own catering biz, his place is a symbol of what he sees as North 24th’s rebirth.

“This area was rich in jazz and blues. In those days businesses were booming. Everybody was coming down here enjoying 24th Street. That’s what I want again,” he said.

It’s why his menu is a melange of old and new.

“I want to represent where I come from,” he said of his soul food roots. But, he added, “you gotta mix it up. It’s an area that’s been heavy with soul food places. You can’t eat soul food every day. It’s not good for you. You gotta give this area food it’s never had before…that’s different. Folks love being able to have that kind of cuisine down here.”

Business isn’t as brisk as he’d like, but he’s set on staying to help spark a renaissance.

“Eventually this area is going to be the educational, arts, music district” of north Omaha, he said. “That’s where’s it’s going. You can feel it. When you get the jazz and blues down here you can feel it coming. It’s coming for sure.”

The Community Cafe, 2401 Lake St., is open Monday through Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Breakfast from 7:30 to 11 a.m. and lunch then on. Friday dinners with live jazz from 7 to 11 p.m. For details and take out orders, call 964-2037.

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Pot Liquor Love: Big Mama’s Keeps It Real, A Soul Food Sanctuary in Omaha

June 11, 2011 4 comments

Thanks to the Tyler Perry franchise of popular movies and plays and the character Madea he plays and to the Martin Lawrence series of films, the term Big Mama has come into the mainstream lexicon. This is no doubt part of the appeal behind a soul food eatery and catering operation in Omaha, Big Mama’s, that has enjoyed breakout success since I profiled its namesake owner, Patricia Barron, soon after her place opened. The breakfast and lunch crowds there are steady, the catering orders high, and in the past few years she’s seen her business featured in a slew of newspapers and magazines, then by the Food Network’s Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, and more recently by another national cable food show. But I think what people really respond to is the story of her preserving her family’s heritage and recipes through her cooking. The deep current of passion that she and her daughters, who help run the place, have for family and community and tradition is expressed in all the framed pictures hanging there, so many that it’s practically a retrospective of African-American Omaha history. Those pictures, combined with the homey arts and crafts touches adorning the former cafeteria she converted into Big Mama’s, create a warm atmosphere that complements the down home meals she serves. All that, plus the fact that she pined to open her own restaurant for decades while raising her family and working in the corporate world, makes hers one of those magnificent obsession stories fulfilled that I love telling.

Follow my Pot Liquor Love food blogging at leoadambiga.com and on Facebook at My Inside Stories. And since food and movies are such a good pair, remember to follow my Hot Movie Takes on the same two social media platforms.

 

 

Image result for patricia barron omaha

 

Pot Liquor Love:

Big Mama’s Keeps It Real, A Soul Food Sanctuary in Omaha: As Seen on ‘Diners, Drive-ins and Dives’

©by Leo Adam Biga

Originally published in The Reader

 

In some African American families tradition demands the matriarch be called Big Mama. That’s true with Patricia Barron’s family. The 60-something Omahan never cared for the “countrified” term, which her late maternal grandmother Lillie Johnson earned. But when Barron’s grandkids began calling her that sobriquet it became, she said, “the name that was stuck on me.”

Barron proudly carries on the name in her soul food place, Big Mama’s Kitchen & Catering. Located on the Turning Point youth services campus at 45th and Bedford, former site of the Nebraska School for the Deaf, Big Mama’s opened Dec. 10 serving breakfast and lunch. Barron, along with daughters Delena and Gladys and friend, “adopted daughter and chief cook” Valerie, are prepping for a Jan. 15 grand opening, when dinner service should be up and running, too.

For some 30 years Barron operated a catering business from her home. Last August she began a popular soul food dinner at her church, North Side Christian Center. An eatery was a long-held dream. More than once she put her dream on hold to climb the corporate ladder and raise her kids. Stymied in her search for a small business loan and a facility, she stayed the course. That’s typical of Barron and her husband, Earnest Wallace. When the couple and their five daughters moved into their Benson home they endured eggings and racial slurs. They didn’t budge. Now, with the help of volunteers whose work, she said, “has warmed my heart,” she’s converted a kitchen/cafeteria into Big Mama’s. Leopard-pattern oil cloths and flower-filled vases adorn the tables. Earth tone decor warms what could otherwise be a cold space. A display case features her signature desserts.

Barron’s right where she’s supposed to be. “I think I was born to do this. I love to cook. I can be ever so tired but once I get in the kitchen it’s like a rush of energy and I’m ready to go,” she said. “Now it’s time for me to do my second career — what I really wanted to do.”

Aptly, she’s found a home for Big Mama’s on a campus filled with ministries that inspire hope. “We like it here,” she said, “and we’re just pleased to be a part of all that’s going on.” In its own way she sees Big Mama’s as a ministry that rekindles a time when North O was one big clique and families came together over dinner.

“I want to bring people back to the table,” she said.

Anymore, authentic soul food’s hard to find here. She reconnects some folks to their roots and introduces others to the cuisine for the first time. As she likes to explain, soul food’s been handed down through the generations. It’s tradition.

“In our neighborhood we used to hear the term ‘eating high off the hog,’ and that derived,” she said, “from when the master got the best cuts and the slaves were left with scraps. We took those scraps and made delicacies out of them. Made entire meals out of them. That’s really what it is.”

Soul food’s slow-cooked goodness is also a byproduct of slave times. “You worked in the fields 10-12 hours and you had to come home to something to eat, and so your food had to be slow-cooked all day long,” she said. Fresh, savory ingredients cooked for hours at low temps make for succulent eats.

More than the Big Mama name, Barron carries on “Miss Lillie’s” way with soul food. Sundays Lillie put out a spread fit for a wedding banquet. After church the whole family gathered to indulge at her 34th and Bedford home in an area called Plum Nelly. With your chicken, ribs, catfish or gumbo — on holidays there was a choice of entrees — you got greens, chitlins, rice, beans, mac and cheese, cornbread, biscuits and desserts like sweet potato cheesecake and fried pies filled with prune or apricot. All made from scratch, memory and love on a wood-burning stove.

As a girl Barron spent summers with Big Mama, under whose apron a young Patricia learned to cook, propped up on a wooden soda pop case. Later, Barron took it upon herself to preserve grandma’s best dishes. Derived in part from oral history and observation, these dishes form the core of Barron’s menu at Big Mama’s.

 

 

(Photo by Hilary Stohs-Krause, NET News)

 

With your breakfast staples — omelets, casseroles, french toast, pancakes, bacon and eggs — you can get grits or biscuits. Lunch is skimpy on soul food for now with its catfish sandwich, fried shrimp, trio of burgers — including an Afro burger — pizza bread and taco salad. Sides range from greens to cornbread to sweet potato pudding. For dessert there’s pound cake, sweet potato cheesecake, tea cakes and fried pies. Try the sweet raspberry ice tea. Prices are a bit high but not bad.

Big Mama’s enormous, varied catering menu offers hundreds of dishes, half of which are traditional soul food, the other half home-cooked favorites, with some gourmet thrown in. There’s ribs, roasts, chops, oven fried chicken and greens made every which way. A shopping cart is soon coming to her web site — bigmamaskitchen.com.

But will enough folks wend their way to her digs on the institutional, fenced-in grounds? Situated in an old, red-brick structure, Big Mama’s is in Building A at 3223 No. 45th Street. Banners and signs direct you there. Nothing fancy or chic — just real. Clean, too. Barron and crew make you feel welcome with their warm smiles and greetings. Don’t be surprised if Big Mama herself sidles right up beside you.

Open for breakfast and lunch, Monday-Saturday, 7 a.m.-3 p.m. Call 455-6262.

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A Soul Food Summit

May 31, 2010 4 comments

Black-eyed peas with ham hock and pepper vinegar

Image via Wikipedia

The following story reminds me I’m getting older because some of the people quoted in it are gone now and the soul food cafe it’s set in is no more.  I wrote the piece a few years into my coverage of Omaha‘s African American community.  I had been introduced to the Fair Deal Cafe a few years before and because I loved soul food I decided to convene an informal “Soul Food Summit” there with the joint’s owner and head cook, Charles Hall, and a few of his cronies. Two men who become valuable sources and favorite profile subjects of mine, Preston Love Sr. and Billy Melton, joined us, along with their mutual friend, Mae Williams.  All were well-established figures on Omaha’s north side.  The idea was to talk about what makes soul food soul food over lunch at the Fair Deal. Nothing earth-shaking came out of the experience, but I really like the piece for trying to get at an authentic slice of culture. Another reminder of  the decade that’s passed since this “Soul Food Summit” is that the newspaper the story originally appeared in, the Omaha Weekly, is no longer around.

A Soul Food Summit

©by Leo Adam Biga

Originally published in the Omaha Weekly, a now defunct alternative newspaper

If you want to know the heart and soul of Black Omaha, then head to the Fair Deal Cafe at 2118 No. 24th Street. There, in a nondescript building that is a throwback to the past, the cultural traditions of a proud people are celebrated and the ties of a rich community renewed. And it all revolves around food.

Standing like a-tried-but-true testament to old times, the Fair Deal serves the most authentic soul food in town. Calorie counters beware venturing to this mecca of soul, as no short-cuts are taken in preparing its genuine high fat, comfort food. A typical meal includes a plate of tender greens, beans or black-eyed peas swimming-in savory meat juices. Moist corn bread muffins melt in your mouth. Chops, chitlins and sirloin tips are browned in their own fat and slow-cooked to succulent perfection. Braised ham-hocks, pig’s feet and ox tails fall apart in delectable morsels. Thick gravies ooze pan dripping goodness. Candied sweet potatoes have that light, yet gooey made-from-scratch texture. From stew and chili to eggs and grits, it features well-seasoned food with an accent on big, bold flavor.

Like the decor, the prices seem left over from another era, with most meals costing well under $6. Just don’t expect a menu at lunchtime. You see, the owner and chef the past 47 years, Charles Hall, only opens for lunch and breakfast these days and he caters to so many regulars that he offers a small rotating selection of entrees and sides that old customers know as well as the waitresses. The place, which is virtually unchanged since it opened sometime in the 1940s (nobody is exactly sure when), is one of those hole-in-the-wall eateries steeped in history and character. During the Civil Rights struggle it was commonly referred to as “the Black City Hall” for the melting pot of activists, politicos and dignitaries gathered there to hash-out issues over steaming plates of food. While not quite the bustling crossroads or nerve center it once was, a recent visit found a faithful crowd of blue and white collar diners whose table side and counter top discussions ran the gamut from blues legend Johnny Otis to Omaha police officer Jerad Kruse.

 

 

However much times or issues change, the main bill of fare at the Fair Deal remains the same. Indeed, for cafe veterans like Mae Williams, the vittles there remind her of the grub she grew up with on her family’s farm in Muskogee, Oklahoma. “This restaurant right here cooks soul food like I remember it. Identical,” she said. According to regulars like Williams, Preston Love and Billy Melton, all of whom have been eating there for decades, the Fair Deal is the last of the once numerous north Omaha restaurants featuring this food of love. For them, it provides a satisfying connection to a fondly remembered past. “Soul food to me is a warm feeling,” Williams said. “When I smell greens or beans or hocks cooking, it takes me back to my roots. It takes me back to a warm childhood feeling.” Yes, this just may be the original comfort food.

For soul food devotees, it all boils down to flavor. Lots and lots of flavor. It is a Southern-derived flavor that blacks migrating to the north brought with them in the early part of the last century. Hall, whose parents hailed from Arkansas, has strived hard replicating the exact taste he recalls sampling in his mother’s cooking. “My mother was an excellent cook. Down through the years I have tried to get the taste and the flavor that my mother had, and I have found it some,” he said. “I use the stock from smoked meat (ham hocks, etc.) for seasoning greens and beans. I add salt, pepper and garlic powder. I slow cook those greens and beans in that broth, simmering them for hours. That’s one of the primary methods to get that soul food flavor we remember from down south. That’s the essence of it.”

Scholars agree the south is the birthplace of soul food and that its originators were slaves who made discarded hog parts, including organs and entrails, the base of this indigenous style of cooking. Slaves found endlessly creative ways of infusing these fatty but tasty scraps with sharp seasonings and then combining the meat with more nutritious ingredients derived from African culture (rice, beans, yams).

For Mae Williams, soul food is “a survival food” devised by a people desperate to feed their large, hard-working families. She admires the ingenuity of ancestors who, from the refuse of others, concocted a hearty and versatile cuisine that has endured for centuries. She said making delicious meals out of cheap staples is how poor black families got by during hard times. Hall said the low cost food has allowed generations of homemakers to stretch slim budgets. “My mother could take a little and make a big meal out of it.” Ironically, he said, once scorned items like chitlins have acquired delicacy status and now command steep prices. Billy Melton added, “It’s not just for making do with. It’s good food. Why do you think we still eat it?”

Today, the food itself has become a repository for old values and traditions harkening back to when families ate together at the same table. Sitting down to a soul food feast means enjoying a slice of black heritage too quickly passing-by.

“It’s our culture. We are conscious of this,” said Preston Love Sr., an Omaha musician and author (A Thousand Honey Creeks Later). The 79-year-old Love decries the scant interest young blacks pay to birthrights like jazz and soul food. “So many young blacks have been Americanized and Anglicized that they don’t know anything about their roots. They’re missing everything. That’s our heritage.” That’s why, he said, “it’s essential” to have the Fair Deal around to keep these traditions alive.

He said a soul food repast there is like a reunion of “brothers and sisters under the skin.” For Love, soul food is a direct expression of the zestful black experience. “I think the term ‘soul’ was first applied to us as a people to describe the feeling of our expressions and attitudes and language. It means a lot of heart and a depth of feeling. It refers to the pathos in our expression, musically and colloquially. It was probably first applied to black musicians, denoting they had a lot of soul. Later, it became applied to food with lots of flavor and a particular type of flavor identified with blacks. One of the key things in it is pork.” Like so much of southern cuisine, he said, pork fat “rules” here, too.

In keeping with soul food’s peasant roots, the 80-year-old Hall eschews printed recipes and precise measurements in preparing his signature dishes. From day to day he may add a dash more of this and that or try some new variation depending on his whim or a sudden burst of inspiration. That way, his product is constant without ever being exactly the same.

 

 

 

 

According to Love, that genius for spontaneity is a hallmark of blacks in any number of creative endeavors — from music and dancing to cooking. In the case of soul food, he said, necessity became the mother of invention for blacks forced to make a banquet from the meager stores and resources allotted them. “The limitations we lived under gave birth to these embellishments and improvisations. That’s what we did. We were masters of embellishment. Our cooks improvised by adding a little something — maybe some red pepper here or some garlic there — to get that flavor we craved.”

“You want to know the secret of soul food?” Billy Melton, 78, asked a visitor. “It’s slow cooked,” said the retired railroad man and brother-in-law of Hall. “Don’t rush soul food. This is the most important thing about it.” Indeed, everyone at the Fair Deal concurs it is the combination of piquant ingredients and their slow cooking over low heat that gives the food its deep, distinctive tang. Williams said the deeply imbued flavors arise in part from liberally seasoning dishes with aromatics at the beginning of the cooking process rather than waiting till the end. Further enhancing the flavor is the omnipresent pork fat. Adds Williams, “Anytime there’s fat in food, it’s going to taste good.”

As nutrition advisor supervisor for the Douglas/Sarpy County Extension Cooperative Service’s Expanded Food and Nutrition Education unit, Williams and her staff of nutritionists work with many low income black residents to devise healthier versions of classic soul food dishes. Because many blacks suffer from high cholesterol and hypertension, her focus has been on cutting fat, calories and sodium in staple foods like sweet potato pie and collard greens. In pie fillings, she substitutes skim for whole milk and margarine for butter and in pie crusts replaces lard with vegetable oil. With greens, she uses de-fatted meat broth and limits the number of ham hocks per serving. She said the program has won over many seniors.

“We’ve gotten a lot of people to change eating habits. We don’t try to take these foods away from them, because black Americans want that taste. Instead, we show new ways to cook that cut out the fat. It’s never going to taste as good though.”

Hall has made some health conscious concessions over the years by reducing the fat content in his dishes. Old customers like Preston Love wouldn’t want him to go too far, however. “You’re going to get fat anyway, so why not enjoy it? Get all the flavor you can. Flavor to the end.” Amen.

The Fair Deal Cafe is open for breakfast and lunch Tuesdays through Fridays and for breakfast only on Saturdays. Call 342-9368 for details.

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