Angela Shelf-Medearis, Kitchen Diva and Author

The Kitchen Diva: Celebrated Author Has the Ingredients for Success

Published in the November 2006 issue of Austin Monthly magazine

"As a writer, I get to meet a lot of interesting people, from the president and first lady all the way down. My favorite person was a janitor," reveals Angela Shelf Medearis. "I arrived at this elementary school cafeteria where I was supposed to do a reading just after lunch and there were unknown food substances covering the floor and tables. The janitor said, 'Don't you worry. I'm going to have this all cleaned up.' Half an hour later that cafeteria was immaculate, and the janitor leaned back with pride and pleasure on his face. That was the biggest lesson I have ever learned. It doesn't matter what you do in life just as long as you love it."

In 1997 Texas Monthly listed the prolific children's book author as a member of the The Texas 20, along with Michael Dell, Renée Zellweger, and former Lieutenant Governor Bill Hobby. The day before the presidential inauguration ceremonies in 2000, Medearis was one of 13 authors invited to Washington D.C. for a Salute to American Authors. She was also profiled on Lifetime Network's Real Women. If you make the pilgrimage to the Treasures of the Southwestern Writers Collection exhibit at Texas State University, you will find Medearis' books on display through Dec. 15, along with Willie Nelson's songbooks and drafts of Bill Broyles' screenplays for Cast Away. And yet, in spite of her success as an acclaimed children's book and cookbook author, Medearis plans to change careers and become the first woman to produce and host an African-American cooking show on national TV.

Wearing a pressed turquoise linen dress, Medearis does not look old enough to be a grandmother. Her skin is smooth over high cheekbones. Her graceful fingers brush the banister as she climbs upstairs, past the African carvings outside her office. She says, "I had gotten fired from my job as a legal secretary and decided to become a writer," she says, "My daughter loved to read and I wanted her to open up a children's book and see an African-American girl being the queen, or princess, and having all those experiences. When I was a child, I never saw a positive image of myself on television or in books—not anywhere. For African-Americans, that makes you feel as if there is something wrong with you. So, I decided I was going to write children's books."

Even after friends in the publishing industry told her that nobody was going to take a chance on books with African-American characters, Medearis continued writing. Four-hundred rejections later, in 1990, as she drove down Highway 290, she saw a sign that said 'State House Press.' She gathered up her manuscripts and took them inside. Within a few days a woman named Debbie Brothers called and offered to publish Picking Peas for a Penny, but the first run was only 500 hardback and 500 paperback copies. "My husband and I drove all over Texas." Says Medearis, "Schools would pay us $100 a visit, and we would sell up to 200 books. After that, Picking Peas for a Penny went to press ten times and we sold those 10,000 copies on our own."

State House Press was so small that Medearis had to find a bigger publisher. After more submissions and more rejections, Scholastic added Picking Peas for a Penny to the Blue Ribbon Book Club. Medearis says, "I filled a void in their market. They weren't selling to African-Americans. White parents didn't mind either because if it's a great story and children are laughing when they read it, who cares what color the characters are? And, the teachers were dying to get these books."

Medearis made a point of printing numerous titles at all major publishing houses: Macmillan/McGraw Hill, Rigby, Harper Collins, Harcourt, and others. She says, "I have fifteen hundred rejection letters and every last one of those hurt," she discloses. "But, I kept going because if you don't, whether you are a person in a wheelchair, or a woman trying to accomplish something that hasn't been done before, if you give up, it's that much more difficult for the next person behind you to accomplish the same goal." Ultimately, several of her 80 children's books picked up Violet Crown citations, and the first ever Teddy Children's Book Award, conferred by Laura Bush in 1996. Dancing with the Indians even appeared on the PBS show Reading Rainbow.

After kid lit, Medearis started publishing cookbooks. She says, "In 1993 or 1994, when my mom was retiring and going on Social Security, she was stunned at how small her check was and said, 'I'll think I'll make that raisin pecan pie and sell it, to make some extra money.' And then my sister Sandra said, what you need to do is write a cookbook.'" Working with her mother, Medearis started exploring cuisines from Africa to the Caribbean, South America and North America, and found that wherever Africans were enslaved, they put their own stamp on cooking. "Publishers weren't ready for the book," Says Madearis, "because they weren't used to thinking about African-American culinary history." After piles of rejections, Medearis published four cookbooks: The Ethnic Vegetarian (Rodale, 2004), Ideas for Entertaining from the African-American Kitchen (Dutton, 1997), The Kwanzaa Celebration (Dutton, 1995), and The African-American Kitchen: Cooking from Our Heritage (Dutton, 1994).

After eighteen years of success as an author, Medearis went looking for new challenges. "Producing television shows gives me the same sort of thrill that I get from putting together a children's book in that you take a complex topic and make it simple and entertaining in a short space of time." She explains, "I can still write children's books, but because I'm starting a new career in television, it's like I'm starting out all over again. First of all, women don't own production companies. Second of all, black women don't own production companies. But, I have a grandchild who can cook and loves theater. If I give up trying to break into television, it might take her a lifetime of hard work to open those doors."

About fifteen years ago, Medearis came up with the Kitchen Diva, as a hook to promote her books. "Actually, the Diva's been standing around wearing her feather boa for years," she says, "but the book tours put her in the public eye." As the Kitchen Diva, Medearis has her own radio show on KAZI (88.7 FM), and served as a judge in the 2006 Pillsbury Bake-Off.

This year, she beat Iron Chef Bobby Flay with her own version of Jamaican jerk chicken on The Food Network's Throwdown! Medaris says, "I had no clue that Bobby Flay was coming," she admits. "They filmed me for about three or four days. The premise of the program was 'What is your culinary claim to fame?' and I didn't know it was a set-up. Robert was a little stunned because he's used to dishing it out but he's not used to taking it. And, honey the Diva can dish."

With a screen presence that is as charming as it is sassy, the Diva is vying for her own network cooking show. She plans to teach people to eat locally grown produce and bring their children into the kitchen to help with the cooking. "It sounds like an odd thing," she says, "but I want to help people overcome their fear of failure and embarrassment. Many people don't cook because they are afraid to burn up the kitchen." Along with serving up simple recipes, Medearis plans to proffer up advice. "I want people to overcome the obstacles that are holding them back, whether it's trying a new recipe or getting a new job." In all her feathered glory, Angela Shelf Medearis says, "I just wanna dish up a little divatude."