It’s probably indecorous to put wagers on religious events, so there’s no cash attached to this prediction. But I’m betting that our Spirited Brunch author-in-residence this year asks at least twice as many questions as he fields.
Adrian Miller and I recently tried to figure out how long we’ve known each other. My ballpark guess is 20 years. What I know for sure is we recently had to reassure an audience at the Levine Museum of the New South that our on-stage teasing reflected a very long friendship, rooted in a shared curiosity about U.S. history, culinary culture, and the ways both play out in our everyday lives.
If you’re familiar with Adrian’s books, including Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time and Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue, you’ve probably picked up on his inquisitiveness. It also pervades his social media feeds, where he’s forever conducting polls (sometimes on The Food Section’s behalf) to determine when followers first encountered turkey ribs, or how much sugar they put in their tea.
Still, it’s most fun to see the approach at work in person, as I had the chance to do at the Levine. Our pre-panel conversation turned to pimento cheese, and why it’s utterly absent from Black homes and restaurants, even though mayonnaise and Cheddar are common in both. We didn’t immediately hit on a satisfactory answer, so Adrian started quizzing strangers on whether they grew up with the spread. By the time the program started, he hadn’t cracked the conundrum, but he’d made several new friends.
Now you too can witness Adrian’s on-the-ground scholarship. As our author-in-residence, he’ll be mixing and mingling at our reception for paying TFS subscribers. He’ll also be following the Spirited Brunch route, visiting with as many of the 22 participating congregations as he can manage.
He’d probably have done as much even if he wasn’t traveling with a title. In addition to being a food historian, Adrian has long been active in faith communities. He’s now executive director of the Colorado Council of Churches, making him the first African American, and first layperson, to hold that position.
Adrian’s resume also includes a three-year stint as special assistant to President Bill Clinton through the White House Initiative for One America, the first freestanding office in the White House to address issues of racial, religious, and ethnic reconciliation. A lawyer by training, he later served as senior policy analyst for Colorado Governor Bill Ritter Jr.
Come to the subscribers’ reception on Sunday, and you can ask him all about it. He might have some questions for you too.
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