A TASTE OF THE NORTHSIDE
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Appetite for Change’s upcoming cookbook is a biography of the group as much as a collection of recipes.
BY STACY BROOKS
Stacy Brooks / Heavy Table
North Minneapolis-based Appetite for Change (AFC) is a nonprofit social enterprise that seemingly does it all. LaTasha Powell, Michelle Horovitz, and Princess Titus founded the organization in 2011, with a mission to use food to build health, wealth, and social change in the Twin Cities. AFC focuses on making the local food system more equitable, and for several years, they operated Breaking Bread Cafe and AFC Catering. Current projects include the Youth Training and Opportunities Program and the Community Cooks program, which offers free cooking workshops for community members, especially youth and new and expecting mothers. There’s also a meal box program providing local produce and recipes free of charge, and an urban agriculture program utilizing regenerative, sustainable, and organic gardening techniques.
The organization has also produced an upcoming cookbook. Appetite for Change: Soulful Recipes from a North Minneapolis Kitchen, written in collaboration with lauded local cookbook author Beth Dooley, is currently available for pre-order, with a publication date of July 9, 2024. In addition to Dooley and AFC founders Horovitz, Powell, and Titus, co-authors include Chef Lachelle Cunningham (formerly of Breaking Bread Cafe), AFC leader Darryl Lindsey, and AFC board member Harvey Rupert.
Appetite for Change is as much a biography of an organization as it is a cookbook. Each section of the book opens with a full-page portrait of one of the authors and a personal essay about what brought them to gardening, cooking, and social justice work. The recipes come from a wide range of sources: Breaking Bread Cafe, AFC’s Roots for the Home Team concession stand at Target Field, Community Cooks workshops, the authors’ family recipes, staple dishes from the African-American community, and recipe contests hosted by AFC.
I think AFC does great work (full disclosure: I profiled the organization for another publication back in 2021). However, I was initially a bit baffled by this cookbook. There didn’t seem to be a discernible throughline, and the recipes felt like a hodgepodge—some veggie-forward, others vegan, some soul food, lots of adaptations of Breaking Bread Cafe recipes.
A few of the chapter titles are confusing—I thought “Community Feasts” would feature big-batch recipes, but most of the recipes serve 4-6. The “Small Plates” chapter seems to be a catchall with everything from fried green tomatoes to burgers. When I review a cookbook, I like to try out recipes that encapsulate the cookbook’s mission statement and vision. After going through the whole cookbook twice in search of some organizing thread, I gave up and selected a couple of recipes more or less at random, starting with the Red Beans and Rice (Vegan Style), which somewhat confusingly is in the “Bold Vegetables” chapter.
Stacy Brooks / Heavy Table
This is a straightforward, budget-friendly recipe, and since it’s mostly hands-off, it’s pretty weeknight-friendly as long as you can get things going two hours before you want to eat. Basically, you saute some onion and garlic, add hot sauce, paprika, bay leaves, broth, and pre-soaked kidney beans, and then simmer for 90 minutes, adding liquid smoke at the end and serving the beans with rice.
The flavors are solid (I know liquid smoke is a divisive ingredient, but I think it adds some nice depth here) but the genius step is pureeing a cup of the beans and broth in a blender and then stirring them back into the pot. It gives you a silky texture that makes a fairly simple dish taste far more luxurious than you think it possibly could.
As I sat at the dinner table eating my red beans and rice, the vision behind this cookbook finally snapped into focus—it’s a community cookbook with a very high production value. You know those spiral-bound cookbooks that churches put together, where everyone contributes a recipe or two? Those don’t have a central organizing principle either, but they probably have some killer recipes for chocolate chip cookies and chicken casserole. Appetite for Change isn’t only a community cookbook in the sense that there’s information about North Minneapolis in the chapter intros and recipe headnotes. It’s a community cookbook because it highlights a bunch of different perspectives and approaches to food, with the benefit of professional recipe writing and food photography.
As an avid baker, I was excited to try the Harvey’s Tea Cakes recipe next. The recipe headnote by AFC board member Harvey Rupert provides some helpful historical context—the tea cakes’ sturdy texture meant that Black families could bring them along with picnic lunches when traveling, since roadside restaurants refused to Black people. Although their popularity has waned in favor of peach cobbler and banana pudding, in previous decades the tea cake was a staple at community gatherings, family events, and Civil Rights marches. Rupert’s version is an update to the classic recipe he enjoyed as child, with the addition of lemon zest and nutmeg for a richer flavor.
As with the Red Beans and Rice recipe, the Harvey’s Tea Cakes recipe is easy to follow. My only modification was rolling out half of the dough at a time instead of the whole batch, since I have limited counter space.
The finished tea cakes are wonderful. The texture is somewhat unique—they’re chewy, a little dense, but very tender. They keep well (at least a week, tightly covered at room temperature) and as the headnote promises, are sturdy enough to be a good lunchbox cookie. The flavor combination of nutmeg and lemon zest is lovely, and my partner has already asked me when I’m baking another batch.
This recipe—and the cookbook as a whole—is a keeper.
Stacy Brooks / Heavy Table
Harvey’s Tea Cakes
Makes about 2 dozen tea cakes
½ cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon lemon zest
¼ cup sour cream
¼ cup evaporated milk
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
4 cups all-purpose flour or cake flour, plus more for rolling out the dough
4 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
Granulated sugar for garnish
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease two cookie sheets or line with parchment paper.
In a medium-sized bowl, beat together the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg, lemon zest, sour cream, evaporated milk, and vanilla.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the remaining dry ingredients and stir into the wet ingredients to make a soft dough. Refrigerate the dough for about 20 minutes.
On a lightly floured surface, with a floured rolling pin, roll the dough out to ¼-inch thickness. Using a biscuit cutter or round cookie cutter, cut the tea cakes and place them on the baking sheet about 1 inch apart. Sprinkle with the granulated sugar.
Bake until light brown, about 5 to 8 minutes, watching that they don’t burn. Remove and, using a spatula, transfer the tea cakes to a wire rack to cool.
Harvey’s Tea Cakes recipe by Harvey Rupert from Appetite for Change: Soulful Recipes from a North Minneapolis Kitchen by Appetite for Change. Published by the University of Minnesota Press. Copyright 2024 by Appetite for Change, Inc. Used by permission.