Hardcover - Cook Book /American/Southern States. Amazon's Best Cookbooks of 2018  Publishers Weekly Best Books of 2018 Food52 Favorite Cookbooks of 2018The Atlantic Best Cookbooks of 2018 Grub Street (New York Magazine) Best Cookbooks of 2018 James Beard Award-nominated Chef Todd Richards shares his personal culinary exploration of soul food. Black American chefs and cooks are often typecast as the experts of only one cuisine—soul food, but Todd Richards' food is anything but stereotypical. Taste his Hot-Chicken-Style Country-Fried Lamb Steak or Blueberry-Sweet Tea-Brined Chicken Thighs as evidence. While his dishes are rooted in family and the American cuisine known as soul food, he doesn't let his heritage restrain him. The message of Soul is that cooks can honor tradition yet be liberated to explore.