Angela Davis (chef)

A self-taught chef, Davis started the food blog The Kitchenista Diaries in 2012 while working as an accountant. In 2013, she was laid off from her job as an accountant and decided to focus on her blog full-time.[1] Pregnant with her second child and motivated to provide for her family, she began working as a private chef, catering, and hosting live cooking events.[2][1] Davis used social media sites like Twitter to further build an audience and credits such platforms with providing her referrals for offline opportunities.[2][6] She uses the hashtag #KitchenistaSundays as a way for followers to share their homecooked meals.[2] Her platform grew to the point where emcee Black Thought, one of her followers, hired her to cater a concert for The Roots.[2]

Davis has worked with companies such as Aveeno, Royal Caribbean, and KitchenAid.[7][6][3] She has published multiple digital cookbooks, which accounted for over 50 percent of her income as of 2019.[7]

Davis's earliest models for cooking were her parents and her grandmothers, one who cooked soul food and the other who cooked Cape Verdean cuisine.[8] She has spoken about the importance of preserving Black heritage through cooking traditional dishes.[9] Two of her signatures dishes, her biscuits and her macaroni and cheese, are rooted in her upbringing in the South.[10][11]

She has noted the under representation of Black food bloggers and advocates for the education system to create pathways for culinary careers.[8][12] She names Carla Hall and G. Garvin as two of her chef inspirations.[8]

Davis moved around frequently during her childhood because her father was in the military.[12] She lived in Florida and Virginia in her adulthood.[11] She is of African American and Cape Verdean descent.[8]

Davis has a son (b. 2004) and a daughter (b. 2014).[11] She resides in Detroit.[11]

• Official website