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Haitian Celebrity Chef Manouschka Guerrier Talks Haiti, Culture & Thanksgiving on Food & Wine

Here are some excerpts from the Food & Wine feature:

Haitian-American Chef Manouschka Guerrier is a private chef whoʼs cooked for Drake, Ariana Grande, Missy Elliott, Caitlyn Jenner, Aaron Rodgers and Brett Favre, so sheʼs used to extravagant celebrations with beautiful food.

Guerrier grew up in a big Haitian family that migrated from Brooklyn to Cincinnati to Miami. Her grandmother Olga cooked every day, there were always a lot of people eating together, and dinner felt like a celebration.

Guerrierʼs mother Jacqueline and father, Emile, moved to America in the early 1970s because their families were fleeing the oppression and bloodshed of dictator François “Papa Doc” Duvalierʼs regime.

For Spanksgiving, Guerrier likes to serve a bacon-weaved turkey, sheʼll make griot with pikliz, and rice and beans. There will be her take on macaroni au gratin, she might turn crémas, and she might reimagine pain patate, a sweet-potato bread, as a crème brûlée.

Her companyʼs is called Single Serving. She’s not married but has always been surrounded by love.

“I got that sense of empowerment from my grandmother. Itʼs all because of the strength and resilience of this woman. Whenever people think about Haiti, they only think of the bad stuff, poverty, the earthquake, the hurricane, the fact we had two dictators back to back. But weʼre really resilient people, and I donʼt think thereʼs any better way to share your story and your culture than through food.”

Guerrier cooks Haitian food for her clients, and something about the smells and sizzles and flavors will make Kanye West want to hang out in the kitchen. On the day Guerrier cooked for Selena Gomezʼs 18th birthday, Gomezʼs grandfather stood by the grill and talked to the chef about what she was preparing.

Read the full article on Food & Wine

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