It used to be easy to define soul food—black cuisine with a Southern flair. Simmered collard greens with ham hocks or smoked turkey legs immediately spring to mind, steaming on a plate next to fried chicken and macaroni and cheese. But a new generation of chefs is changing what soul food means and Bryant Terry,…

Thanks to Iyanla Vanzant, many black women spent the late 1990s talking about houses. Not physical ones, but houses as metaphors. In her book about love and relationships, In the Meantime (1998), Iyanla Vanzant began her trademark sister-girl explanation of romantic relationships like this: “We all start out in the basement of life. This is…

Something about the widespread media coverage of David Carr’s new memoir, The Night of the Gun, is bothersome. It is noteworthy that The New York Times columnist attempts to correct an unfortunate trend of exaggerated or fictitious redemptive memoirs like James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces (2003). Carr did well to take a reporter’s approach…