The Legacy of Edna Lewis

Felicity Cloake is the award-winning author of the Guardian’s long-running 'How to Make the Perfect' column and nine books, including three foodie travelogues, the Sunday Times bestseller One More Croissant for the Road, Fortnum & Mason Food Book of the Year Red Sauce Brown Sauce, and the latest, Peach Street to Lobster Lane, a cycle ride across the USA in the run-up to the 2024 election, and a love letter to its richly complicated cuisine. Her first novel, The Underdog will be published by Fourth Estate in May 2026.

Freeman is the executive producer and host of the critically acclaimed and Emmy award winning PBS documentary Finding Edna Lewis, a film that explores the legacy of the famed chef. She is also the host and creator of Setting the Table, a multi-award winning podcast exploring Black foodways and culinary history. Deb has also been honored by Slow Food USA and is a Black Women in Food honoree. She has appeared on Chef Carla’s Hall’s show, Finding Flavor, on HBO/Max, as well as The Key Ingredient on PBS. Her written work includes contributions to Eater, Condé Nast Traveler, Food52, Modern Farmer, The Local Palate, Plate Magazine, Epicurious, Garden and Gun, Pit Magazine, Gravy, and Gastro Obscura, and she has provided cultural commentary for BBC Radio.

Rising to fame in the 1980s with Neneh Cherry in their band Rip Rig and Panic, she moved into television and radio in the 1990s. In 2006 she presented The Truth About Food for the BBC and in 2007 she and Neneh Cherry hosted BBC2 cooking series, Neneh and Andi Dish It Up. Since then, Andi has been a regular on our screens, from shows such as Great British Menu and book programmes on Sky Arts to the two-part film The Caribbean with Andi and Miquita (2021), where she and her daughter embarked on a life changing journey to the islands of their heritage, Antigua & Barbuda, and then Barbados. Always in the kitchen and running restaurants alongside her media career, in 2023 Andi published her cookbook, The Pepperpot Diaries: Stories From My Caribbean Table.

At age 12 she lived with her mother and Miss Lewis in New York City and typed the manuscript for Lewis’s seminal cookbook, A Taste of Country Cooking. Nina holds a BA in Latin American Studies from the University of Virginia and spent nearly 25 years with the National Conference of State Legislatures’ Child Welfare Project as a Program Director and Senior Fellow. She now consults on child welfare policy, is a certified Master Gardener in Colorado and serves on the Board of Trustees of the Edna Lewis Foundation.

Through workshops, participatory meals, research, and writing, she designs embodied experiences grounded in her philosophy of Intentional Nourishment: the practice of using food and shared ritual to cultivate dignity, pleasure, and meaningful connection. Inspired by her Black American, Jamaican, and British heritage, her culinary focus centres deeply considered plant forward soul food through a distinctly London lens. She also hosts and produces The Intentional Nourishment Podcast, which expands this work through dialogue with other chefs, artists and thinkers.