Martin Luther King Day Menu
I’ve been making Soul Food on Martin Luther King’s birthday ever since it became an official holiday. A friend gave me an old beat-up paperback book around that time, Princess Pamela’s Soul Food Cookbook, which has become one of the most prized cookbooks in my collection (at this writing over 3,000 cookbooks). The book was published in 1969 by The New American Library, but has been out of print for many years. It is a difficult book to find, but absolutely worth searching eBay or Amazon.com for. The book not only has great recipes, but also interesting sayings from the author, Princess Pamela Strobel, who ran a Soul Food restaurant called The Little Kitchen in Manhattan. Although extensive research has turned up nothing on Princess Pamela in recent years, her cookbook has inspired many of the Soul Food recipes I serve on Afro-American holidays and some that I use in my catering business. The following is the 2007 menu served at my Martin Luther King dinner party.
Southern Fried Chicken Breasts with Princess Pamela’s Sauce Beautiful
Smothered Pork Chops with Sweet Potatoes and Onions
Sonna Hancock’s Kentucky Greens with Salt Pork
Creamy Baked Macaroni and Cheese
Bill Hancock’s Fresh Blackberry Cobbler
Vanilla Ice Cream