Vegetables & Sides

I grew up eating vegetables cooked Southern style, which, more often than not, meant they were cooked for hours and seasoned with pork. Then I went to France and discovered vegetables prepared with a bit of bite left in them and seasoned with things like fresh herbs and olive oil. It was a revelation. At Brown Sugar Kitchen, I take the vegetables I grew up eating—black-eyed peas, sweet potatoes, and collard greens—and prepare them using techniques I learned abroad. These days I sauté my collard greens in olive oil and season them with red onion and garlic instead of fatback, and roast green beans instead of boiling them. Writing for Citysearch, Bryan Miller, a former New York Times restaurant critic, said that I cook like your grandmother, if your “grandmother has a diploma from a Paris cooking school.” I like to think he was talking about my vegetables.