Patience is a form of power

My paternal great-grandmother, Catherine Burton, made fried green tomatoes at her house on 39th and Oakland in South Minneapolis. That is the house where I spent my adolescent summers, just a few blocks from where my shared kitchen sits today. She and my Great Aunt Katie would watch in delight as I ate as many as I could because they were SO GOOD. I would eat so many, and the only thing that would stop me was my tummy getting upset from too much grease. I don’t remember the upset; I remember the flavor and their delight, and my aunt Katie continuing to ask if I wanted more. Eventually, they got wise to me and cut me off before I went too far. That is love.

Those green tomatoes were sliced thin, fried crispy and served with hot sauce, and likely the best thing I could remember ever eating up to that point. Every time I make them now, I am chasing that flavor. I am chasing that memory. Now I am the one in delight, chasing that look of satisfaction on the faces of my loved ones and patrons.

That is what the pot does. It holds the vibration long after the food is gone.

Before I knew it, I had set out to carry forward my great-grandmother’s fried green tomatoes. To cook what my body remembered. And now I am known for my own fried green tomatoes. That is how legacy works. It does not announce itself. It waits for you to catch up to it.

What I write here has been saturated with that potlikker at the bottom of the pot. The inheritance hiding in plain sight. I keep asking myself (and you) to look more closely at what we have been taught to discard. This month, I want to talk about something else I had left at the bottom of my pot. My own voice.

The Black feminist scholar Alexis Pauline Gumbs writes: “It is dangerous to be discovered.” I have been sitting in silence with those words. And this Juneteenth, I let myself be found.

Carleton College asked me to curate the meal and recipes for their annual alumni reunion, which fell on June 19, recognized as Juneteenth. Not only did they ask me to plan the menu, but they also asked me to give the keynote. I showed up with my singing bowls, my spoken word, and a PowerPoint bearing the story of my people.

The night before, and all the way up until I arrived, I listened to Billie Holiday sing “Strange Fruit” on repeat. Over and over and over. Not as background music. As grounding. As preparation. That song requires patience. You cannot rush Billie. You can get lost in the beautiful melody of her sultry voice and might not catch what she is exclaiming. But if you attune to her cadence and linger on how she draws out each verse, you cannot deny her message.

They tried to rush her, to censor her. They tried to stop her from singing that song. She refused. When you listen to that short song, you cannot skip ahead; you have to stay in every single word and feel the depths of every syllable. I opened my keynote address to Carleton by playing that song with the lyrics on the screen. The room had no choice but to sit in it with me. No rushing. No filling the silence. Just Billie and the weight of her words.

From there, I wrapped the room in the vibration of my voice and my singing bowls. What happened after that is hard to describe… maybe surreal. Fully present in my body, yet somehow also watching myself from somewhere outside it. Whatever nerves I anticipated were fleeting; I could not be anything but there. Present.

I let the bowls carry what words could not. I played the water, the breaking, the cookhouse fire, and the prayer at the bottom of the pot. I played what my ancestors carried across centuries and what they left in the soil. And then I told them the truth about Juneteenth. That our people were not freed on that day. They were finally told of freedom denied through delay. I heard people crying. I felt the room the way you feel a pot when it is finally at the right flavor meld. You do not have to look. You just know.

Afterward, people lined up to talk to me, to thank me. They kept stopping me throughout lunch, and that is when it hit me: that performance was one of the most powerful things I have ever done.

I have stood and spoken in front of crowds before. I have cooked for hundreds, even thousands of people. I know how to feed a room. But feeding a room and moving a room are two different things. And I did not fully know that until Carleton.

I have been doing some deep writing recently at a much-needed retreat on the St. Croix River. Women climate justice writers sitting with the land and asking hard questions. One of them stopped me cold: to bear witness to who you are, what do you have to knock off your shoulder?

I wrote for a long time. People pleasing. Self-consciousness. The fear of taking up space without earning it first. Commitments made out of obligation rather than purpose. The weight of carrying healing for everyone else while quietly neglecting my own. Denial of my true self. The weight. Period.

When prompted to write a six-word bio, I wrote this: I’m healing, make room for it. I am a healer who needs healing, and I am done pretending otherwise.

At Soul of the Southside’s Juneteenth festival, I did not cook a single dish. Four local Black chefs led from under my tent. They fed the crowd with their own ancestral stories, their own hands, their own medicine. I stepped back, received them, and watched them be received. That too is a kind of cooking. It requires the same love and a kind of ego death.

The one thing I did make was a mocktail. And the crowd that gathered would not move. Standing. Leaning in. Asking what fire cider does for the gut, how you make beet kvass, and how the potlikker got into the glass. They came to see me. Not my food. Me with nothing but libations. I am still learning how to let that be enough.

My maternal grandmother died in her 40s. The era I am in now. I sit with that. She did not get to know what I know. That healing can be loud. That herbalism and natural wellness are not something to be ashamed of. That the drink in your hand can be medicine and the medicine can be a celebration, and the celebration can be an act of resistance, all at the same time.

Water carries everything we pour into it. Our ancestors knew that. The pot knew that. The broth at the bottom of that pot knew that. We are water. And we get to choose what we hold and what we release.

Juneteenth is about finding out you were free after those holding power already knew. I think about that delay in my own life constantly. I said I wanted to be a writer when I was ten years old. I have been writing ever since. But I am only now claiming it out loud.

I am a writer. I am a social justice thought leader. I contemplate the pot, and the land, and the body as one living system. I always have. I am still forming the words for it.

My parents demonstrated what community service and dedication look like. Catherine Burton taught me what flavor really tastes like. My aunt Katie taught me what delight looks like. Billie Holiday taught me not to rush, to wade in the moment. Patience is a form of power. So is letting yourself be discovered.

So make yourself a plate this month. Fry some green tomatoes, in moderation, and pour yourself something healing. Invite someone over. Let them be delighted by what you make, and you be delighted in their receiving of your gift.

And ask yourself what you have been carrying that is keeping you from being found.

Fried Green Tomato Formula – Serves 4 to 6

This is a formula. You follow the structure, but you make it yours.

The Tomato: Firm green tomatoes or tomatillos, sliced into quarter-inch rounds.

The Seasoning: Season both sides generously with this blend: one teaspoon each of salt, garlic powder, and onion powder. Half a teaspoon black pepper. One teaspoon Cajun seasoning or build your own with smoked paprika, cayenne, dried thyme, and a pinch of oregano.

The Dredge: Set up three shallow dishes. Dish one: flour seasoned with garlic powder, onion powder, salt, and pepper. Dish two: your liquid of choice — pot likker broth is my favorite, but buttermilk or plant milk works too. Dish three: equal parts panko breadcrumbs and cornmeal with salt to taste.

The Method: Preheat oil to 350 degrees. Dredge your seasoned slices through the flour, then the liquid, then the breadcrumb mixture. Fry a few pieces at a time for two to three minutes until golden brown. Drain on paper towels. Serve hot with hot sauce.

The Sauce: Hot sauce of your choice. Or vegan ranch: blend two garlic cloves, one tablespoon lemon juice, two teaspoons Dijon mustard, and one can of chickpeas with their liquid until smooth. Drizzle in half a cup of oil while blending. Add rice milk, onion powder, garlic powder, and minced parsley. Season with salt, pepper, and cayenne.

My version: classic green tomatoes, panko and cornmeal crunch, fried at 350 until golden. Served with vegan ranch and hot sauce. But yours does not have to look like mine.

Potlikker Mocktails ancestral foodways · living ferments · zero proof

These are the three drinks I made at Soul of the Southside for Juneteenth 2026. Each one is medicine. Each one is a celebration. Pick your path.

No. 01 — Rose Garden kombucha · light · refreshing · floral 4 parts soda water, 1 part kombucha, 1/2 part hibiscus tea, a splash of rose water, maple syrup to taste

No. 02 — Fire Cider Shrub bright · spicy · tart · sweet 4 tablespoons fire cider, 2 tablespoons lemon or lime juice, 4 tablespoons hibiscus tea, 2 tablespoons maple syrup to taste, fill with soda water

No. 03 — Potlikker Revival savory · earthy · fermented · grounding 1/2 part kvass, 1 part potlikker, 1 part flavored water kefir, 4 parts soda water, a splash of ginger juice, fresh herbs to garnish, herb-salted rim

To make your potlikker: Simmer onion, garlic, ginger, bay leaf, thyme, peppercorns, and a small piece of kombu or dried mushroom in water. Let it reduce slightly and strain well. Make a batch and keep it in the fridge all week. It is the foundation of everything.

These drinks do not slow you down. They lift you up. That is the whole point.

What have you been carrying that is keeping you from being discovered? Write to Lachelle at chelleskitchenllc@gmail.com or visit www.healthyrootsinstitute.com.

Lachelle Cunningham is the founder of Healthy Roots Institute, owner of City Food Studio, and executive director of Frogtown Farm. She is a Bush Fellow, a practicing herbalist, an environmental justice writer, and a chef who believes the pot, the land, and the body are one conversation.