I love this sandwich for the way the melted mozzarella oozes over the warm vegetables, and you get a good crunch of the bread when you take your first bite. If you don’t have a panini press and you’re using a grill pan, make sure you use a spatula to press down on the sandwich heavily and often throughout the process.

This soup is one my sisters and I all remember as a favorite when we were growing up. The simple ingredients combine to create great flavor. Our mother says she used cream from an elderly aunt who got it from nearby Hutterite farmers, so heavy it had to be spooned out of the jar!

For as long as I can remember, my grandmother always had a pot of grits on the back of her stove. Sometimes they were fresh, ready to be paired with scrambled eggs and a piece of sausage. Other times, they were from a previous day with the weird film that formed a tint over the now clumpy and dry cornmeal. I’ve never known a day without grits while I was living with her, especially for breakfast and lunch.

It is a known fact that proper grits need only milk, salt, and a pat of butter. The late Edna Lewis said, “People should really leave grits alone,” but I see good grits as a beautiful creamy vehicle that, if handled responsibly, can result in some tempting combinations. The roasted sweet potato adds a sweet and earthy element to these grits and only ups the creamy, custardy mouthfeel.

I would definitely eat these grits with shrimp smothered in a bacon gravy, fried catfish, or mushrooms simmered in a red curry. You can also enjoy them as our ancestors intended, with just a simple pat of butter.

If you visit any South American country, or any of the islands in the Caribbean that were colonized by Spain, you’ll be able to enjoy the ultimate custardy dessert. Flan, a silky mixture of eggs, sugar, and milk, gets baked in a bain-marie, or water bath, until it sets and picks up the flavours from the caramel underneath it. When I was growing up in Santo Domingo, every celebration, birthday, and Sunday lunch would end with a delicious flan.

This flan is made with creamy coconut milk, which makes the custard velvety smooth while adding a rich tropical flavour. Having just a few ingredients, it’s also incredibly easy to make. Serve this super-delicate dessert at your next weekend lunch and be transported straight to the Caribbean!

These well-seasoned greens are similar to collards, which are popular in the American South with their fragrant potlikker and are a reminder of the undeniably deep threads that tie together African and African American cooking. Sukuma wiki means “to stretch the week”—in other words, using these greens, which are affordable and readily available, can help stretch any meal a bit further. Greens are a staple in Kenyan cooking and in most East African cooking in general. Serve this dish with rice for a traditional, healthy, and completely vegan meal.

Pimento cheese is one of those foods that everyone associates with the South. The South isn’t the only place where people thought of putting pimiento peppers and cheese together. But the South is the only place where the dish became so legendary. The first time I ever tried it was when I was in elementary school. The cafeteria served us a pimento cheese sandwich alongside a bowl of tomato soup. The tomato soup I didn’t like—I gave that away. The pimento cheese sandwich, though, was something else: It was new. It was different. I wasn’t sure if I liked it or not. But I kept eating it, nibbling off of it a little at a time. So many of my chef friends make it, and I’ve had so many good versions, that it’s really grown on me. My favorite way to eat it is, of course, on pork skins—or layered onto a BLT for a BLTPC.

The Krewe of Zulu was always my favorite Mardi Gras Day parade in New Orleans. And snagging a hand-painted coconut was the ultimate prize. The Zulu Social Aid & Pleasure Club, the largest predominantly Black Carnival organization, commissioned a signature king cake from my neighborhood bakery in Baton Rouge, Ambrosia Bakery. Ambrosia’s Zulu King Cake is filled with cream cheese, chocolate, and coconut—all the best parts of the Zulu parade! This chocolate, cream cheese, and coconut babka is inspired by that king cake, and this delectable blend of ingredients is irresistible!

My mother made fantastic, tall buttermilk biscuits with flaky layers and airy pockets. Just like Mom knows, the keys to making perfect biscuits are ice-cold butter and milk and not overworking the dough. That cold butter creates steam in a hot oven that bakes into flaky layers made to capture jam, gravy, and good ole maple syrup. Yaasss!