State Fare
At the home of Austin author Angela Shelf Medearis, the Christmas gifts have barely been put away when yet another celebration begins: the African American holiday of Kwanzaa.
Created in 1966 to honor harvest-feast traditions, Kwanzaa lasts seven days and brings families and friends together for a dinner on December 31. Medearis’ chicken-and-vegetable couscous—one of nearly 150 easy recipes in the new, paperback edition of her popular cookbook, Ideas for Entertaining From the African-American Kitchen—brims with savory aromas and flavors. “The spices are West African,” she says, “though it has some northern ingredients too—and the best thing is that it looks great on a buffet table.”
Try this recipe for West African Couscous from Ideas for Entertaining From the African-American Kitchen.
From Ideas for Entertaining From the African-American Kitchen, by Angela Shelf Medearis. Copyright © by Angela Shelf Medearis 1997. Published by Dutton Plume, a division of Penguin Putnam, Inc.
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