Cooking from the Spirit

Let me tell you, anytime you can get a icon like Tamatha Brown to come to your store and sign all these books to be shipped out all across this nation, it is a good week type Oftha Brown is one of the major social media influencer of today. She just four years ago was driving an Uber car and now she's a mega star, a social media influencer. So many people love her. She travels around the nation to speak.

She also has two books that is out because the new one comes out this week, Cooking from the Spirit, which is the name of this episode. Her first was Feeding the Soul because of My Business, and that was a New York Times bestseller. But her new book, Cooking from the Spirit, she signed hundreds of copies at Malik Books kicking off her book tour, and I had the pleasure of speaking with her while she was doing the

signing the books for my podcast, Belief's Bookshell. Also, when we've finished the book signing, she interview Millie and I'm gonna bring you that interview, so our interview type of the Brown, Top of the Brown interview Milik, and I'm featuring both of those interviews on this on this episode forty three. Also also a continuation of the Barbershop Talks Part three, It's gonna take place on this episode. So hey, stay tuned. Enjoyed this episode Cooking from the Spirit. We're

on I Heart Radio, whatever podcast or listen to. But I'm on my forty three episode and I'm featuring Top of the Brown. Who's that Milik Books signing books, Cooking from the Spirit. What was your inspiration for writing this wonderful, beautiful book. My inspiration was really to share my recipe but in book form so people could get like a piece of meat, and to also help people understand that you don't have to have an actual recipe like with measurements,

in order to cook. You can you can cook from your spirit, just like my mama did, like my granny did, My aunties and if you trust yourself in the kitchen, you can have fun. But also that you can also do it with plants, right, you don't necessarily have to have animal products to eat whale. Yeah, so a little important to be good, okay, okay, Yeah. So it's a

lot of traditional favorites. You know, I'm from the South, so it's a lot of fun Southern favorites, like you know, cabbage and sausage and mac and cheese and all that good stuff. But just the plant bays, beating way and so everything substitutable, everything you know, and and and just judging you know, from the cover of this book with all the beautiful colors, you know, and that's what vegetables, fruits and beans, and we eat the rainbow, right, eat

your colors. So it's life, you're eating life. Color does that's right? Color looks like life. It doesn't look like death. Yeah, absolutely, And and and I guess you were devote now vegan, I am five changed your life five years. It changed my life. I was seek for about a year and a half. The doctors could figue out what was wrong with me. I had some form of autoimmune disordered that they couldn't pinpoint. But my body was attacking itself. I had a headache every day for a year and seven

months in the back of my head, and uh. I took every you know, blood test Mr Rid. They could not figure it out. I took all the drugs they gave me and nothing worse. If anything, it probably made me worse. I was like a guinea ped You had to go to God's green listen. I did a thirty day vegan challenge. In the first ten days, my headache disappeared, and I was like, Okay, I'm onto something. And I

never went back and I have never felt better. Yeah, And that's so wonderful, beauties, because you're sure and with the world, and so many people have become more healthier as a result of you sharing your story. And how does that touch you to know that now God has using you as a beacon to help others. You know, It's such a blessing to be used, you know, I'm so grateful. I take the responsibility. I feel like it

is part of my purpose. You know. In the beginning, when I first you know, went vegan, it was about me. To me, I thought that's what it was about, saving my life. But then God said no, it was about helping other people, and so he just used me. He had to take me to a place in order for me to only trust him with the journey, but to be able to bless other people in that. I'm just so great for that. I never try to force my life on anybody. I simply just share. Yeah, I share

with humor, Yeah, I share with love. But I inform without judgment. And so it helps people say, you know what, I think I want to try about that girl, that girl over there cook, you know, instead of them feeling like I'm trying to force them to go vegan. I would never do that, but people are more inclined to try it when you share it with love. And so I'm grateful I was turned on to you by my white april. Yeah. You know, yeah, you got to come check yourself right here. All I had to hear a

well how you start? Hello? Are you all right? Y'all? All right? That's right, you know, we gotta check on people. Yeah, that's that's always how, you know, in the South, anytime somebody walk in the house, that's the first thing they say. You know, how y'all doing, y'all? All right? You know, that's just how we walked in the house, how my granddad walked in the house, my mom and my dad. It like, that's just the thing. Your first thought is, you know, you speak first of all, say hello, how

y'all doing, y'all? All right y? Yeah, these generations they don't even speak, right, So I don't say nothing. What I always bring it to them. I said to you, even if you don't speak to me, I'm gonna speak to you, and I'm gonna make sure that you feel seen. Yeah, yeah, that's it. Yeah, we've had challenges with our own children coming in the house not saying speaking, Well, why don't you don't speak to me? I'm here first. Absolutely, you must walk in and saying hello. Yeah. You know, years

later they come back, I'm sorry. You know, after you get a little understanding a little bit, go out into the world and see that it ain't as kind as your parents are home. Hello, the love of right, it was better out there. But you realize, Lord, I was really being loved it. I might need to go back home and say I appreciate that. I tell my dad that I was. I dare to thank you so much. Did I love you so much? Ye? Yes, absolutely, that I did not understand why my parents growing up was

hard on me. I used to say, man, you're committing child to do. Then I got older and got a few kids. I said, hold, daddy, I want to apologize. I see love you was giving me, trying to keep me alive. And say, when I thought you was trying to kill man, you was trying to get trying to keep me alive. Absolute curb. You know his knowledge wilsdom and under last phase is understanding, and it might take years. You might never get understanding, but sometimes we need to

listen and learn. You know, we gotta get burned a little bit to grow. This is true. So I went out in the world. I got some kids, bingo oh oh, y'all hard hit it. Daddies. I always say, you keep living and if God bless you to be able to have kids, one day you understand. And I used, like, I ain't never gonna be like you did me too strict did. Now I've been hearing myself like Lord, I saund just like my daddy, he was right, keep right. I had to keep growing and keep keep living and

get my own kids to understand. And so I definitely get it. Now we get it. Now that's for maturity and growth. If you live long enough and you blessed long enough, you will learn. This world gonna teach you something. If you ain't learned nothing else, experience is the best teacher. Don't what they say, don't do? Is I do do as I say? What's that saying? Okay, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know. Now I walk the walk, not do the talk with tape of the tab of the you know.

Thank you for sharing with us, you know and my audience. She had Malik's bookshelf being at Malik book signing Cooking from the Spirit. You can go out and buy your copy today. Malik bookstot coming is our Tobal force being over me everywhere. But we got signed copies. Talk to us about that, dude. I'm signing them right now and listen. So you can hold them online and get them side, or you can come into the store and get them signed. But only why they last, so don't be ain't in

a round. These are great Christmas gifts, Birthday gifts and just a gift for yourself because you deserve it and that's your business. Okay, Hello, hello, thank you, thank you, thank you. Hello there, So listen, I am at my leak books here in Cover City at the West Film Hall A K eight to Fox, he was more, okay, because I was signing my book here Cooking from the Spirit. But I want to introduce y'all to my League and his amazing wife, April. Y'all come over here real quickly.

That's a right there, right, So really I want y'all to hear from a League on why he created the book store. Okay, So look, whole time you told me and I was like, wait a minute, you gotta stay there again. I want the world to know about this. Thank you tied with the I had a degree, but I didn't have a knowledge of self. And that's what was my motivation. While I wanted to open the League books because books bring a world of opportunity. Books think about you, think about what can you do in this

world with our book? Well, books can elevate you, evolve you, make you whatever you want. To open relief books because I want to make a difference in the community, and I wanted to see change in ourselves. We had a lot of mental health issue and I think is at the root of it's just noted yourself. And I really believe books can make it different. So he had Belief books. We've got two thousand square foot of beautiful, excellent black

authors and others. Now that we are diverse here, so we have a lot of books from a lot of different people, but our main focus is black people, black authors. It's just an extension of our community. Here. You're find books of all types from we believe children or one of our future. So that's why we invest in a lot of books or children all the way to young adult because they need to you know, I just did it like an event the other day, and the title of that event was called I've read to see Me.

The first thing you look at and picture is yourself, and you want to see yourself and the reflection of yourself, and that's what melief books will give you. How long his Belief Books been arranged, We've been serving the community since nineteen ninety, nineteen ninety, that is amazing. And we choose books we can shut ourselves book after us. So we use books to make a difference in the change in our community and in ourselves. And that's where it starts.

You can't have community yourself first, that's right, that's everything you started at home first. With you. You want to see change, you can do it. You first got to change. That's right, good y'all, y'all feel the energy through the phone, lady, that's what you feel when you walk into the bookstore. Okay, it it is absolutely beautiful. You just feel the energy when you come in. But you see so many faces.

Like when I walk in, I was like, I see me anywhere, even though I saw me for real because my book was in here, but I really see me. But I just want to share with you'll just a little bit because it's a beautiful store. Make sure y'all come out and support it. All right, go bless you. I hope you've been enjoying this Bobby Shop Talk episodes I've been featuring every week with this is part three, So enjoy Part three Bobby Shop Talks. Now, if a man should up here until a woman, what he ain't

gonna do for her. I'm not gonna do that for I'm not gonna do that. I'm not gonna do that for you other man. Do you think that that's a woman. Do you think of that woman will respect him and say, oh you know, I'm still gonna let you marry me. She's gonna look, he say, hell no, this man tell me what he ain't gonna do. But we're supposed to be cool with that when they tell it to us as men, I ain't doing this for you. I'm not doing that for you. I ain't doing it. I ain't

doing that, but we be like, oh, very cool. And at the same time, we're supposed to give all life for them, We're supposed to protect them, give all life for now and all this. So if I'm gonna get my life for you like you are me to sacrifice my life when danger comes around for your honor and your glory, which I don't mind as a man doing that because that's my duty as a man to protect my family. But god damn, you're telling me you ain't gonna cook, you ain't gonna do this, you ain't gonna

do that, or I don't do that. I can hell, can can we even get Can can you even pray with a brother? You want me to, You want me to give my life for you, but you can't even pray with the brother. Come on, sisters, y'all try to get that together. Why do you think that, uh, these the men that just telling you about they're having these difficulties and wife's respecting them. Why what's the reason why

these women and I respecting the men? I don't know, but I think the only thing I can think of, brothers, just the time that we're living in and what is being promoted through the media, through music, through TV. You know, it's all. You know. You even hear these songs about these women, how they don't need a man and not God mine. I don't need is I do? And I'm independent? And this is not that. And in reality, God has never made a woman to be independent and not I'm

not even for that a woman saying she's independent. I'm for a woman saying that she want to go out here and make something to herself and do something significent. But at the same time, how can you be dependent when God created you or made you from the rib of a man so so so so so the rib they look a look at the word of that's a possessive pronoun of, like like the house of Malik or the car of this person, of this possessive pronoun So

God made you from the rib of man. Didn't that mean you are that man's body part that God made you from? Now, how can the body part be independent from the body. It's impossible, or society made women think that they don't need a man and they are independent from man. At to say another word, you can take a body part out of the body and think that body you're gonna survive on his own. But do you think that's just taking out of context? One of the the woman is saying, I don't need a man. Is that

just or you know, I have my own independence. Do you think that's just taking out of context. I don't think that's taking on contact because I don't heard it. You may talk, I don't have too many times in the shot with one said I don't man. I said I need a man for some sex. But far but far like trying to a man or woman saying yeah, I don't mind having a good man in my life and a good man in my life who're gonna lead,

teach and guide me. They don't want that no more because those standards that God will on here and the guy that woman by and leave that one body is not the standard that people believe in. Today. Everything is totally opposite, you know, everything is totally oppos today. So you try to talk about God is nothing that brothers. You might well forget it because the women don't respect that God talk no more. Unfortunately they respect the money talk. All they wanted the bag, the bag. They want the

high earning man, but they don't want the high value man. Well, hey, as you can see, um, we have some very strong opinions and thoughts here at the Bobby Shop talk and UM, I had to get it on record. I thought this would be refreshing. It is organic, it's not scripted. They speaking you know, from the heart too, strong black men right here, um, and I think this made great, great conversation. Um, we have to find a way to bridge the gap

in the division between man and women. And these are some of the you know, ideas and opinions that these strong men include myself, which make it three h field is a major issue in our communities that they're gonna have to cut that TV set off and do that because you can't get wise watching food wishness. You can't get wise in and tell us listening to foolishness. You can't be a peaceful person watching women act like animals and think that's how you're gonna you're gonna behave. You

are what you eat. So you feed yourself that garbage, that's what you're gonna end up acting out from yourself. Concert here's the thing. They can say the same thing about so many men watching that garbage. They are acting acting like he's gotta go back to God in order.

The man got to take his position that God put upon him, and the woman had to recognize the position that God put on man and take her place that God put on hurt and they're not place that the white man told them to live by, which is this boss bitch attitude. So you're saying that the division between black men and black women is really systemic racism, teachings that cause the vision with like the Willie Lynch letter, which said divide them on their differences and so that

they won't be united. So you're saying that this is white. This is just a residue of the white supremacy that stemmed from the years, in the decades and centuries of slavery and miseducation. All all they did was just all they did was just elevating and growing the row from slavery. That's audio, because the more we the more we got away from slavery, how many years we are from slavers in eighteen sixty five? Do you think we would get better? But if you look at it, we're getting work and

work and we're killing each other. At what point do we take responsibility for our own actions? You enjoy Part three of Barbershop Talks now Next week, we're gonna have a fresh new episode of barber Shop Talks Part four coming to your live next week. Thanks for listening to me Leek's Bookshow, where topics on the Sholf, our books, culture and communities. Be sure to subscrip right and leave me a review. Check out my Instagram at Malik Books. See you next time,