Most days, Jasmine Norton’s mother accompanies her in the kitchen at The Urban Oyster, the nation’s only Black woman-owned oyster bar that sits in a beautiful brick-and-mortar space on W. 36th Street.
While Norton says it was her father who instilled her love of oysters, which are served raw, fried, and chargrilled at her Hampden restaurant, her prime cooking influences were the women in her family. It was Norton’s aunt and godmother who taught her how to make nostalgic dishes like corn pudding, butter beans and rice, and mac and cheese. Her mother raised her on hearty home-cooked meals like pepper steak. Norton smiles when she talks about her grandmother’s fried fish cakes, always served with love on New Year’s Day.
“These family traditions and these women who still, to this day, nourish me, I owe everything to them,” she says.
On Tuesday, March 17, at The Urban Oyster, Norton — along with chef Catina Smith of Our Time Kitchen in Old Goucher and sommelier Shayna Wells of Pour Pairings, a wine pairing subscription box and education service — will pay homage to the women and traditions who helped shape her with “The Matriarch Dinner,” an intimate and elevated five-course meal with wine pairings.
The collaborative meal has been a long time in the making, Norton says.
“We’ve been trying to do this dinner for about six to eight months. But I feel like it’s more fitting, and more celebratory anyway, for Women’s History Month, to be doing it [now],” Norton says of the event, which will seat roughly 40 guests and feature artful spins on classic soul food dishes. Inspired by her mother and grandmother, pepper steak with dirty rice is on the menu, as are codfish cakes with oyster velouté sauce.
Smith, an advocate for Black women and women of color in the food business, brings her own set of family traditions and flavors to the menu, also drawing inspiration from her matriarchs. Next year, she’ll open Cherry Street, a homestyle Americana diner in Central Baltimore.
“I’m definitely inspired for the diner from my mom because she made traditional, hardcore Americana food,” Smith says. “We weren’t eating anything outside the box. It was meatloaf, spaghetti, steak and french fries, burgers, mac and cheese and collard greens.”
“I’m definitely inspired for the diner from my mom because she made traditional, hardcore Americana food,” Smith says. “We weren’t eating anything outside the box. It was meatloaf, spaghetti, steak and french fries, burgers, mac and cheese and collard greens.”
Smith and Norton plan to take the home cooking up a notch, and will be serving courses such as collard green risotto topped with crispy turkey skin pieces.
“I grew up watching my mom cook and clean collard greens all the time. She would be in charge of bringing the collard greens to Christmas and Thanksgiving, so it’s like me being inspired by my mom and kind of putting my little spin on it while paying homage to her,” Smith says.
Smith and Norton, who first met in 2016 through a local chef meetup, will also be serving a take on braised cabbage — their version will include chana, coconut curry sauce, and cucumber chutney — and poundcake. Though still inspired by the poundcake that their grandmothers made growing up, their take on the dessert will include caviar and lemon creme fraiche.
Wells, meanwhile, is eager to pair each eclectic offering — especially the sweet and salty poundcake — with the perfect glass of wine.
“I could not have asked for a better way to celebrate this month,” Wells said.
“The women in my family didn’t really drink like that,” she says. “I’m in a league of my own, but they’ve always inspired me to be strong and to go after whatever it is that I want. I’ve been lucky enough to be supported by so many women in my life.”
As they think of the matriarchs in their own families, Wells asks next week’s dinner guests to “savor the moment.”
“Don’t be in a rush to scarf down the food. Actually taste the food. Taste the wine. See how it feels in your mouth and enjoy it.”
Shayna Wells
“Don’t be in a rush to scarf down the food. Actually taste the food. Taste the wine. See how it feels in your mouth and enjoy it,” she urges.
Smith, who hopes that this event will lead to many more collaborations between women chefs in Baltimore, wants guests to leave with feelings of nostalgia.
“I hope people think, ‘Wow. This made me think about my mom or my grandma,’ or just like a feeling of home, like a warm blanket. I love when people take the first bite and do a little shoulder dance. That’s what I’m hoping to see.”
Norton feels the same way, taking pride in such a timely opportunity to honor those who cared for her by feeding others.
“I’m hoping that people feel the love and the family dynamic that we’re going to be offering to them because these are things that we have experienced in sacred spaces with our families,” she says.