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Striking Chords for Diversity, April 8, 2009
Ronnie’s Ribs and Redemption, May 13, 2009
A panel of judges from the University of Missouri School of Journalism considered submissions from North American MPA publications published between July 2006 and June 2007. Cesca Janece Waterfield was awarded First Place for a Profile with “Family Recipe for Life.”
From Kitchen Table to TV Screen
Charlene Warner Coleman Has a Family Recipe For Life
To enter the home that Charlene Warner Coleman shares with her husband Ed is to come into the comfort created by a principled hospitality. The savory bouquet of home cooking wafts through the house, and the warmth is palpable. This is a family who values art, music, community and each other. Charlene has filled many roles since her childhood spent living just north of Richmond, and she has earned numerous successes as a television producer, author, editor, publisher, television personality and more. Among national magazines that have profiled her are Essence, Billboard and Black Enterprise. Her work with her television program, “Tropical Beat,” has helped to launch careers of some of the biggest names in reggae, Caribbean, and African music and culture, while a generation of children grew up with her magazine, Popcorn.
But in her diverse career and life, there has always been a common thread interlacing her efforts: virtually all of Charlene’s projects were inspired by or include contributions from her family. Around the Dinner Table Not surprisingly, she is very active, and the day we meet, the house is bustling. She has been home only minutes, explaining, “We just took the dog to the vet.” Midas, a golden retriever, lumbers over to greet his guests as Charlene takes phone calls. Family and friends are expected the following day for a holiday dinner and many of them call to confirm plans.
When Charlene is able to quiet the phone, she pours coffee and jokes, “I guess I can claim [I’m] over 50.” She pulls forth her latest in a lifetime of accomplishments, “Mothers to Daughters Cookbook.” “We usually have Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter dinner right here,” she says, rapping lightly on the table that seats eight.
But last year, when she and Ed, soon to celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary, traveled to New York to visit Ed’s family over the holidays, Charlene’s daughter, Thandi Njeri Warner, missed her family’s heirloom recipes and cooking. Charlene laughs, “My 32-year old daughter pitched a you-know-what. Now Thandi can cook, mind you. But [my mother] said, ‘Why don’t you ask your mom to write down her recipes for you?’”
Thandi, who owns a day salon in the Washington, D.C. area, wasted no time. She and Charlene soon compiled the 48-page volume that includes “Aunt Aretha’s Caviar Pie,” “Curry Chicken” and the confidently named, “Guaranteed to Make You Feel Better Chicken Soup.”
Anyone who spends a day with the Coleman family knows that music is integral to their lives. So to commemorate the completion of the book, Charlene recounts, “Ed and I wrote a wonderful song.” She begins to sing it in an expressive soprano. The cookbook includes its lyrics. Three generations of women grace the interior cover: Charlene, Thandi and Charlene’s mother, Carolease Ballou Wallace. Charlene’s conversational commentary accompanies recipes and historic photographs. The book documents the celebrations and life of a Richmond family and of African Americans in a time of segregation. Thandi has already been asked to sign copies by representatives of Oprah Winfrey and Maya Angelou. Many Family Projects
But “Mothers to Daughters Cookbook” is not the only project to spring from family collaboration. Charlene and her team have officially re-launched the children’s magazine Popcorn. Initially appearing in 1979, Popcorn was inspired by Charlene’s two children, Tarik, 37, and Thandi. Finding her children restless with existing magazines, Charlene suggested that they create their own. “I always said if I could entertain my kids, I could entertain anyone’s.”
But from its beginning, Popcorn has used entertainment as a tool to teach. “It entertains while it stretches your imagination,” Charlene emphasizes. Her son Dia, 25, was born during Popcorn’s run. The magazine delighted and educated kids for 10 years before Charlene’s children and ambition had grown. Recently, encouraged by adults who grew up with the magazine, and driven by her research into children’s media, Charlene decided to bring Popcorn back.
“It’s eclectic. There’s my energy there, I think,” she adds. “It fills a vacuum of creativity. Children have so many different things. They’re bombarded with so much media. It’s harder now to get their attention.” To attract and maintain their attention, Popcorn relies on the vigor of imagination. The colorful pages come alive with do-it-yourself projects and snappy, kid-appropriate commentary on health, technology and more. Lucille O’Neal, Shaquille’s mother and a friend of Charlene’s, contributes to Popcorn. Charlene says, “Popcorn will always encourage children not to follow the crowd. We talk up to children, not down to them.”
The magazine that started as a family project involves three generations of Charlene’s creative family. Thandi writes “Miss Butter’s Fashions,” while Charlene’s mother, a retired registered nurse, writes about body image. “I’m ecstatic,” Charlene beams.
A Lovely Childhood
Charlene’s own Richmond childhood clarifies her vision for a charming and stimulating magazine for children. “I had a lovely childhood, really nice,” she says, smiling. The only child of Charles and Carolease Wallace, Charlene says, “I would say I grew up upper-middle class.” Her mother, now 89, graduated high school at age 15 and wanted to enter nursing school. Unable to attend Medical College of Virginia because of her race, she entered St. Philip School of Nursing, which was for the education of black nurses. In the 1960s, Carolease retired with a Master’s of Public Health from her position as an assistant professor in the School of Nursing at MCV, the very school that would not admit her decades earlier.
Charlene completed graduate work in economic and social development, and attended the University of the West Indies in Jamaica where she lived for 10 years in the 1970s. While in Jamaica, she worked as market research manager for Colgate Palmolive and Nestlé.
Serendipity at Work
Later, her work with Popcorn reinforced her lifelong passion for the Bahamas in a curious way. She approached a major airline to buy an ad in the young magazine, saying today, “It took me a year and a half to sell them that ad.” Won over by Charlene’s persistence, an executive finally agreed to buy an ad, and to pay for photographing a cover, asking Charlene what location she preferred. Charlene remembers, “I was thinking NASA, the space station, because I could see the kids there and my son had been there once in Texas and it would make a nice cover.” The executive misheard her. “She thought I said ‘Nassau,’ Bahamas, and said, ‘I can make those arrangements.’”
The “mistake” resulted in a colorful cover shot on the shores of the Bahamas, and another alliance with the people and nation with whom Charlene already felt strongly connected. The charisma and warmth that nurtures Charlene’s personal friendships has served her professionally, as well. At one point, she ran a writing contest in Popcorn for children in the Bahamas, “What I Like Best About My Country.” Working with the Bahamian director general of tourism, Charlene awarded winners a free trip to the United States. She developed a friendship with the director general, who later asked her what she did in her spare time. “I told him that I frequently appeared as a guest on the shows of friends. You know, I talk a lot. I fill up time,” she says. He asked her create a show for him. “I said I’d never done it before, but why not?” Over a handshake, she had a deal. She called it “Children of the Bahamas.”
“I flew over there four times. That was my introduction to television production.” From there she went on to produce travelogues. Charlene’s passion for Caribbean culture was unswerving. After stopping publication of Popcorn in 1989, she began “Tropical Beat,” a television show aired out of Richmond and that celebrates reggae and world beat music with meaningful reporting on artists and musicians. The show airs internationally today, and in February will air domestically. “Tropical Beat” is a family affair, with Ed as a producer, Thandi hosting and styling hair, and Dia handling many camera duties. Tarik is also a camera operator in the Washington, D.C. area. Traveling Twosome Somewhere along the way, she found love. “Ed and I met on the way to Africa, on the way to Benin, West Africa. He always tells everybody he picked me up at JFK airport,” she laughs. “But we have mutual friends, and [that day] we just talked and talked. After five years, we got married.” The Bahamas Office of Tourism offered to throw a lush soiree for the couple who has worked independently and together promoting Caribbean culture. Black Entertainment Television (BET) aired their wedding six times. One benefit of working for years as media professionals: “We had eight professional cameramen shooting the wedding.”
As Ed walks through the dining room and later sits to talk, the pair often finishes each other’s sentences, demonstrating a match of interests and intellects. Charlene reflects on the day she met Ed and says, “It was nice to talk to somebody around the same age with the same interests. Since then we realized that we’ve been on the same plane at the same time.”
More to Accomplish
With so much accomplished, many people might consider retirement. But Charlene is not one to rest on laurels and she looks forward to much. She will make “Mothers to Daughters” a series of books, including “Mothers to Daughters Wisdom,” produce a series of “Tropical Beat” children’s books, and more. “And I want Popcorn games, Popcorn characters. We have a Popcorn TV show coming up,” she promises. There are plans for a Website within six months. Celebrations sparkle within her marriage as well. By special invitation of the Minister of Tourism, Charlene and Ed will renew their vows next year in their beloved Bahamas. As she reflects on a life of achievement and looks to her future, Charlene says, “Life is good. You can achieve anything as long as it’s fun. I believe you have to take things seriously while at the same time enjoying what you’re doing. As long as it’s fun and it’s good, it can be uplifting, and you can surmount any obstacles. I always say we are more alike than different. No matter where I travel in the world, we are all alike.”
Striking Chords for Diversity
At the corner of Broad and Meadow Streets in Richmond, passersby can often smell spices roasting at C.F. Sauer’s Company. But even at Emilio’s, a Spanish restaurant and live music venue across the street, there’s always something cooking. On Friday nights, it reaches multi-faceted excellence, when Doc Branch and the Keynotes open the stage to musicians from every corner of the Richmond area. It’s a musical stew that Emilio’s has served for almost 25 years. Doc Branch has been here from its beginning.
“It started by accident,” he says. “I was playing with this group. It wasn’t a jam session. The original band leader decided to go back home. The club owner asked me if I would take over. It was very scary because I really didn’t know what to do. But I told him that I had a mission: to spread love and bring people together. He said, ‘You’re crazy. I’ll give you one night.’
One night has lasted approximately 25 years.” From the original three piece band, the jam frequently included 20 musicians with instrumentation of all types. “What’s amazing is that after we started it, the jam session took a life of its own,” Doc remembers. “All of the local musicians started coming in on Friday nights.” He says supporting members of the Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Wynton Marsalis, Auturo Sandoval and Ray Charles Bands have all stopped in.
Musicians who take the stage are accompanied by the house band, the Keynotes. Today’s lineup features Doc on baritone saxophone; William Saul on bass; Gerrard Johnson on drums; Rahim Amin on guitar; Woody Thompson on piano; Terry Brooks on Congas, Calvin Farmer on alto and tenor saxophones; Scott Hagin on vibraphone; Bill Bethel on trombone and Rolando Jordan on trumpet, with vocalists Lady E, Gloria Glasgow, and Reginald Charity.
“We accommodate everybody,” Doc says. “We do blues, Latin, even some country.” Friday nights remain a cross-section of Richmond’s population, and seem suffused with a spirit Doc says dropped in on day one. “We were one of the first to have integration of the musicians,” he says with pride. “In fact, we called it the United Nations, because we had people of every ethnic group way back when it wasn’t very popular, when you didn’t see that.”
Along the way, Doc says Emilio’s has served as a venue for rap during that art form’s earliest days. “Long before rap became popular, we had people who used to do poems and rap and do lyrics,” he recalls. “This was unheard of. We were doing that in the late 70s. As I look back on it, we were way ahead of our time in many different areas.” Emilio’s has been a training ground for musicians who went on to play with, for example, Miles Davis and Terence Blanchard. It’s also created local celebrities, like vocalist Lady E, who’s been a well-known performer at Emilio’s for almost 17 years. “It’s a mixture of flavor there,” she says. “I’m doing blues with a touch of jazz. You have some more artists there doing their thing. There’s a mixture, so that you’re able to meet your audience. I like Friday nights because it offers that to the audience. Naturally, building this tradition has relied on many people. “The Richmond Jazz Society has helped us a lot,” Doc says. “They’ve helped me personally and helped the club a lot and everything here in Richmond. They really don’t get the credit that they should.”
Still, no one could deny that band leader Branch deserves plenty of credit. Born in Chesterfield to mother Jessie Jones Branch and father Percy, Ralph, as he was known then, went to Carver High School. Although his family sang in church, neither his parents nor his two brothers were musicians. But he grew up listening to Charlie Parker and Lester Young, and embraced the saxophone. In 1957, he graduated from Virginia State University with a music degree. He makes clear that what many take for a nickname today, is in fact, an abbreviated academic title: “I have a Ph.D. in Nutritional Science and Medicine,” he says. “That ‘Doc’ is real.” Doc places Emilio’s in a larger context of Richmond history. “When entertainers like Bill Cosby and James Brown and Nat King Cole came to town, all of them hung out on 2nd Street. We used to call it the Deuce. It was segregation at that time. Duke Ellington, Count Basie, all of them used to hang out. Richmond has so much history. Emilio’s is really the mecca, I would say, because regardless of where all of the musicians play, all of them still come here.”
Chad Stambaugh has been co-owner of Emilio’s for six years.
“Friday nights are fantastic,” he says. “People that come usually continue to come. For the longest time, I wondered why [Doc] didn’t eat or drink while he was here. He fasts every Friday. It’s part of his spiritual thing. He’s amazing.”
Doc frames his spiritual philosophy simply: “I believe in love. That’s the whole idea. My goal was to try and bring everybody together under one roof. My feeling is if you’re happy, you’re not going to have a problem with [other] people. Even now with the economic times bad, we still have a packed house.” So if a jam session can unite a community and inspire good music, why aren’t more venues doing it? “I’ll tell you the reason people don’t do jam sessions,” Doc offers. “[Musicians] have got to have the patience of Job. You’ve got to take the ego hat off. You’ve got to believe in sharing. Fourth, you’ve got to believe in total unadulterated love for your fellow man.”
For the audience, the payoff is grand: “They see the core band, but before the night is over, they may see 15 or 20 musicians rotate all night long.” Looking to the future, Doc maintains his original goal, made 25 years ago. “To keep it going, that’s the main objective, and I would like to see all of the people of the arts come together.”
Date of publication: April 8, 2009
Ribs and Redemption at Ronnie’s
Written by Cesca Janece Waterfield. Photographed by Thomas Roberts.
From a small trailer in a parking lot at 25th and Main Streets in Richmond, Ronnie Logan serves some of the tastiest ribs, smoked chicken wings, pork barbeque and beef brisket you may have ever eaten. They’re so good the Varina resident will be featured in a Food Network show airing in June.
But before reaching today’s success, Ronnie overcame debt and job loss. He says he wants his food to make everyone feel at home, regardless of their past or current challenges, and he hopes his personal story gives others hope. “I consider myself a regular guy,” he says. “There’s ain’t nothing special about me, and stuff I’ve been through, stuff I’ve faced, I believe other people go through.”
Born in Varina, Ronnie insisted on living with his grandmother as a small boy because his father’s military career required frequent moves. His dad Harold was a gifted cook, and for awhile owned a pretzel cart and sub shop in Philadelphia. When Ronnie’s grandmother became ill, his parents moved back to Varina. Ronnie often joined his father at a grill the man had specially made. After marrying Julia and starting his own family, Ronnie kept on cooking. From catering Boy Scout banquets to hosting cookouts with the Little League team he coached, Ronnie makes clear, “I always barbequed and I always cooked.”
As the Logans raised their sons, Ron and Darryl, Ronnie says he remembered some advice he’d once heard: “If you go someplace that’s not becoming for your kids, it probably isn’t good for you either. They used to go everywhere I went. If you saw me, you saw two other heads in the truck.”
But the family wasn’t immune to financial difficulty.
A lifelong member of Antioch Baptist Church on New Market Rd., Ronnie says, “I’m a Christian man. Over the years, when me and the wife started, we didn’t have anything. I got in a lot of debt. I used to sit up and worry on it. What I did was I started studying Biblical principles on debt. We didn’t get in it overnight, so we weren’t going to get out of it overnight. But we believed that God could deliver us and we followed his principles. It’s not easy, but you can get through some stuff with faith, and if you work hard.”
He was employed as a facilities manager for a large company, but successive buyouts of the company were making him nervous. He came to a decision: “From that day on, I started a little lawn care service. Then I started a little janitorial service. You’ve always got to have something. God gave me the responsibility to take care of my family. He didn’t give [a job] that responsibility.”
He still cooked every chance he got. When his son took some ribs to work, a co-worker ordered for a party of 95 people. “All I had was a little backyard grill,” Ronnie remembers. “I couldn’t do but five slabs at a time. I stayed up all night and cooked all of it.” Then in 2007, after 29 years, Ronnie lost his job when the company closed its doors for good. After 31 years with her employer, his wife was laid off when her company closed not long after. For two years, he’d been eyeing a professional grade smoker. Within a week of his lay-off, he ordered it. “I said I’m going for it. I’m going to swing as hard as I can,” he recalls thinking. Ronnie’s Ribs, Wings & Other Things was born. He enrolled in a business course offered by the city. “One of the things they say is you’ve got to find that niche. I believe our niche is that little trailer down there in that empty parking lot. What surprised me so much now, is how everybody’s coming back to help me – all my friends and my sons.”
Ronnie enjoys working with Darryl and Ron, who are now 27 and 31. Ronnie’s Ribs is open Thursday through Sunday and his cooking can draw a crowd. A recent customer was Delilah Winder, Richmond native, chef and cookbook author who was tapped by Oprah Winfrey for having the nation’s best macaroni and cheese. When producers of “The Best Thing I Ever Ate” put the question to Delilah, she hailed Ronnie’s ribs and his fate for the show was sealed.
“This whole thing, you can see God in it,” Ronnie says. “Who in the world ever heard of that after being in business after one year?” He’s not shy about sharing his premiere ingredient: “L-O-V-E. I think your attitude conveys into the food. And we love people, the whole group that works with me. I’ve got a beautiful bunch of guys and girls that work with me.”
“Anybody who comes here, I don’t care what you’ve done or what you’re doing, you’re a person to me,” Ronnie says. “I’m not foolish. I can discern if you don’t mean me any good, [and] I don’t deal with you. But I’m not going to hate you. Everybody who comes here, I want them to feel at home and comfortable. They can come and meet friends and talk and socialize.”
To others who might be struggling, Ronnie emphasizes, “You aren’t the only one going through this. The word of God says seek wise counsel. You’ve just got to get with some folks who’ve been through some stuff and they can help you. I believe there’s more good folk out here than bad. You’re not out here by yourself.”
Date of publication: May 13, 2009
