A Bowl of Soul

As I continued to work away, I remembered my own mother who nourished me back to health with her home-cooked meals, a story I’ve told in Edible Madison before. I thought about how powerful and transformative food can be. Healthy food, cooked from the heart, can change a person’s entire health outcome. But even then, it didn’t click that I could start cooking for my birth clients until one of them asked me to, knowing how delicious my greens were.

So I did. I went into my kitchen and started cooking the collards I had just harvested from my garden. I marinated a whole chicken and baked it until the skin was crispy and golden, its juices pooling beautifully at the bottom of the pan. I chopped a variety of veggies with care and precision and buttered and seasoned them the way my mom did. The smell of cornbread filled the air, and red raspberry date tea simmered gently on the stove. I packaged each item carefully, placed a handwritten note inside, and delivered the meal.

The mother’s response made everything click. She told me how much she needed something like this, how it helped her, how she would’ve just eaten Culver’s if it weren’t for me. And I thought to myself: Mothers in America really don’t have the postpartum care they need.

Postpartum is one of the most vulnerable moments in a person’s life. Your body is raw from birth and constantly being drawn from to keep a little life alive. You are physically and emotionally stretched, often navigating it all in isolation. It became so clear to me in that moment that I was shocked I hadn’t thought of it sooner.

Soon I started offering meals to other mothers I knew, even friends who weren’t postpartum but just needed the extra love. I did all of this from my home, out of my small apartment kitchen, with my own money and resources, all while working full-time. Many times, the work stopped and started again. Sometimes meals were simpler than others to accommodate my tight personal budget. But I never gave up on my dream of doing this work in a more sustainable way.

I dreamed of a program that would streamline postpartum nutrition support for low-income Black mothers in Madison. The ones who, in Dane County, are at the greatest risk of infant and maternal death, birth complications, and lack of access to adequate healthcare. That vision is finally coming to pass with my program: A Bowl of Soul, Madison’s first postpartum prepared meal program.

REAP Food Group, my partner in this work, has helped carry this dream into reality. They are providing everything I need to make this program happen. With their support, we’ve created something rooted in justice, tenderness and nourishment. This isn’t just about food, it’s about equity. It’s about ensuring that mothers who are most often forgotten are seen, cared for and loved through the meals they receive.

Something I’ve learned from cooking for mothers is that, oftentimes, they just want to be held. They do so much. Nursing, healing, rocking, rising in the middle of the night, and so much of it requires their own body to get the work done. They nourish everyone else and then feed themselves from the scraps left over. At the time of birth, everyone is excited to meet the baby, and all the care and attention turns toward the child. The mother slowly fades into the background.

But as a doula, my heart has always been for the mother and birthing person. I believe they deserve to be cared for with the same focus, tenderness and reverence that they offer their newborn. Cooking is my way of doing that. Of saying, “You matter, too.” Of helping them feel held, even if just for a moment, with a warm meal and a loving note.

The impact of this work stretches far beyond a single household. When a mother is fed and cared for, the ripple is immediate and lasting. Her energy is steadier. Her healing is supported. Her mental and emotional reserves deepen. Her family is nourished by extension, and her community begins to shift because she isn’t doing it all alone.

The beauty of A Bowl of Soul is that it doesn’t just meet a physical need. It reaffirms something deeply spiritual and emotional: that postpartum people deserve to be cared for, even when they aren’t asking. It gives them a reason to slow down. It interrupts the grind of surviving with something tender, generous and whole. It is, in many ways, a spiritual practice. Nourishment as care work, nourishment as advocacy, nourishment as remembrance.

I’ve always believed that food is one of the most sacred love languages. Through the hands, something from the land is transformed into comfort, memory and healing. Every meal we cook in this program carries not only nutrients, but intention. The spices and specially selected ingredients sourced from local BIPOC farmers, the handwritten notes filled with words straight from my heart. All of it says: “We see you. We honor you. You are not invisible.”

And when we look at the systemic disparities facing Black mothers—higher maternal mortality rates, higher stress, lower access to care—postpartum nutrition becomes a radical intervention. Not because it solves everything, but because it reminds us what a system rooted in care could actually look like. One where support is proactive, not reactive. Where meals are a right, not a privilege. Where healing is a communal effort, not a private struggle.

A Bowl of Soul is more than a program. It’s a declaration. A response to the crisis of maternal neglect in this country. A creative, soul-centered solution rooted in tradition and cultural knowing. We aren’t reinventing the wheel, we’re doing what Black women have always done. We’re feeding each other. We’re showing up. We’re carrying one another through.

I believe that when we invest in the well-being of Black mothers, when we make room for their needs, their rest, their healing, we build a society where everyone thrives. And it starts with a bowl. A warm, intentional one, filled with food cooked not just with skill...but with soul.