Featured image: Soul Food bake sale flier
Soul Food Paris believes that kindness, community, and art are food for the soul. This Paris-based nonprofit’s mission is “to expose young migrants and refugees (young Soul Food members) to art and culture in an effort to construct safe, creative spaces conducive to the type of inspiration required to sustain them.”
WIF is pleased to support this organization because of our mutual interest in the visual, performing, and culinary arts. Soul Food contributed artworks to Phase II of our 2021 COVID-19 PAGES: The Influence & Inspiration of Women art exhibition. It has established a professional development program for which one of the pillars is culinary arts.
On July 31, 2022, Pastry Chef Janaé Bianca Lynch partnered with Soul Food to present a fundraising bake sale at the La Régulière bookstore in Paris’ 18th arrondissement (district).
Chef Janaé’s delectable wares
Homemade lime pound cake, pineapple pound cake, banana (plantain) bread, orange muffins with hibiscus frosting, and peanut butter cookies were all the rage, and people crowded around the serving area to purchase their goodies.
Eager bake sale customers
I first met Janaé Lynch in November 2019, when she contacted me about her intent to create guided tours on the African-American experience in Paris. We met again in April 2021, when I provided her with a copy of my soul food cookbook entitled Food for the Soul: A Texas Expatriate Nurtures Her Culinary Roots in Paris. (There is no relationship between the name of the cookbook and the name of the nonprofit organization.)
Presenting Food for the Soul to Janaé Bianca Lynch
I was finally able to meet Soul Food co-founders Kryssandra Heslop and François Le Louarn in person at the bake sale, after having made their acquaintance virtually during the first year of the pandemic. They were outside the bookstore, encouraging passersby to leave their mark before or after visiting the bookstore by writing or drawing something on the window.
Soul Food co-founders Kryssandra Heslop and François Le Louarn
I happily obliged!
WIF’s answer to the question “What feeds your soul?”
For more information about Soul Food, visit https://www.soulfoodparis.com
For more information about Janaé Bianca Lynch, visit https://www.linkedin.com/in/janaé-bianca-lynch-81328558/
