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I’m holding a Lady Chef Stampede! For the rest of the year, and maybe beyond, I’ll be posting about the dozens of women who changed the history of food. Whether they’re chefs, restauranteurs, or writers, these are the women on whose shoulders we’re all standing.

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Edna Lewis

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The granddaughter of slaves, Edna Lewis was born on April 13, 1916 in Virginia. She left home at 16, after her father died, and wound up in New York City where she ironed in an industrial laundry, worked for the Daily Worker, and campaigned for FDR. In 1948, she and antiques dealer, John Nicholson, opened her restaurant, Café Nicholson on 323 East 58th Street (right between First and Second Avenue). It was filled with people like Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal, Marlene Dietrich, and Richard Avedon. She cooked there until the late 1950′s, and then in the 1960′s she broke her leg so badly she had to stop cooking professionally for a time. Since then, her cookbooks, chefing stints at Gage and Tollner in Brooklyn, her classes, and guest cooking jobs across the country have made her famous and influential.

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Judith Jones, who edited Julia Child at Knopf, encouraged Lewis to write cookbooks and she wrote four, the first two of which, The Edna Lewis Cookbook and The Taste of Country Cooking, got rave reviews and were extremely influential. Edna Lewis died in her sleep on February 13, 2006, but between being born in Virginia, and passing away in Georgia, she changed cooking in New York City and across the country, and she earned Southern cuisine a hell of a lot of respect.

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(A review and potted history of Cafe Nicholson from the New York Times)

(Edna Lewis on Wikipedia)

(A long  bio of Edna Lewis)

(A short documentary on Edna Lewis)

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