Edna’s Table, A Benefit Dinner Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of The Taste of Country Cooking
The Edna Lewis Foundation, in collaboration with the BEM Cultural Foundation, invites you to commemorate the legacy of Miss Lewis.
Chaired by award-winning chef Mashama Bailey, the Edna Lewis Foundation (ELF) honors and extends the legacy of Miss Lewis through programming and scholarships that support the next generation of Black foodway stewards in culinary arts, agriculture, food studies, and storytelling.
This dinner kicks off the BEM Cultural Foundation’s Edna Lewis Festival and the ELF’s Taste of Country Cooking: 50th in 50 States, a nationwide community-building and fundraising effort that celebrates Miss Lewis's enduring influence on American cuisine and supports the next generation of chefs, farmers, and storytellers.
Using The Taste of Country Cooking as their guide, chefs Mashama Bailey, Leah Branch, Adrienne Cheatham, and Sohui Kim will present innovative courses that draw on their ties to the documented food traditions of Miss Lewis, with storytelling from the evening’s emcee, Deb Freeman.
Tickets
The Benefit Dinner ticket price of $500 includes a copy of The Taste of Country Cooking: 50th Anniversary Edition, courtesy of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
More About the Book
With the publication of The Taste of Country Cooking in 1976, Edna Lewis proclaimed the food of the American South one of the world’s great cuisines. From the field greens and salads of spring; pan-fried chicken and crushed peaches in summer; preserves and sweet potatoes for fall; and hearty soups and stews during the cold winter months, Miss Lewis (as she was almost universally known) extolled the virtues of the good food of her childhood, spent in a Virginia farming community founded by her grandfather and his friends after Emancipation.
A celebration of eating locally—decades before “farm to table” became common parlance—the book showcases the joys of cooking with the seasons.
More About the Chefs
Mashama Bailey is the award-winning executive chef and co-founder of Grey Spaces, the hospitality group behind restaurants such as the critically acclaimed The Grey in Savannah, Georgia, and L'Arrêt in Paris, France. Bailey also serves as the Chairwoman for the Edna Lewis Foundation.
A 2026 James Beard Award Semifinalist for Best Chef: Mid Atlantic, Chef Leah Branch demonstrates her passion for Southern cuisine and commitment to regional foodways at The Roosevelt in Richmond, VA.
Adrienne Cheatham is a chef, television personality, and the James Beard Award-nominated author of Sunday Best. She held prestigious positions such as executive sous chef at Le Bernardin and executive chef at Red Rooster Harlem before competing on and finishing in second place on Top Chef season 15.
Sohui Kim is the Chef and Partner at Gage & Tollner. The classically-trained chef, restaurateur, and celebrated cookbook author honed her culinary career working under a number of lauded chefs, including Dan Barber, Michael Anthony, Peter Hoffman, and Anita Lo. Gage & Tollner marks the third and largest (and last, she swears this time) endeavor in Sohui’s collection of beloved Brooklyn eateries.
More About the Partners
Gage & Tollner is a storied oyster and chop house for the 21st century that upholds the timeless tradition of serving top-quality ingredients, simply yet perfectly prepared. Edna Lewis served as the chef at Gage & Tollner from 1988 to 1992. In 1988, restaurateur Peter Aschkenasy bought the historic Brooklyn restaurant from the Dewey family and hired the 72-year-old Lewis, renowned for Southern cooking. She transformed its century-old seafood-focused menu by introducing dishes like Charleston she-crab soup, spoon bread, rhubarb pie, and elevated versions of classics such as crumbed clam bellies with creamed asparagus.
The Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group is a leader in commercial and literary publishing and home to some of the most iconic authors in the world, including Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison and Prize-winner Yaa Gyasi. Their imprint, Knopf Cooks, publishes voice-driven, upmarket yet accessible cookbooks that lend a distinct perspective to a cuisine or culture.
More About BEM
BEM Cultural Foundation (BCF) is the sibling nonprofit to BEM | books & more, a bookstore and culinary hub dedicated to global Black foodways and storytelling.
Established in 2025, BCF creates programs and experiences that deepen the public’s knowledge of Black culinary and literary traditions across the diaspora. BCF prioritizes communal gatherings, creating space to celebrate and explore Black food through literature while serving as a home for readers, writers, cooks, and eaters passionate about Black cultures in all their diversity.