Our Story
My name is Jackie, and I was raised as a Black American in a country where our culture is rich enough to stand on its own, and yet we were never fully welcomed inside it. We grew up with food, music, language, and community born of brilliance and survival, but we were shaped within a nation determined to deny the value of what we created. Still, we held on. We cooked. We gathered. We built culture anyway.
In December, my family and I moved to the Netherlands. We chose this country intentionally for its cultural diversity, its openness to immigrants, and because it is one of the few nations that has publicly acknowledged and apologized for its role in the transatlantic slave trade. That honesty matters. That willingness to face history matters. It told us this was a place where my culture could be shared with respect, not erased.
From the moment we arrived, my dream was clear: to build a Black‑American food trailer that could introduce the Dutch community to the flavors, stories, and traditions that raised me. Not the stereotypes. Not the watered‑down versions. The real thing. The food that held us together. The food that tells the truth about who we are.
Our trailer is community‑based because Black American culture is community‑based. Every dish carries a memory. Every recipe carries history. Every plate is an invitation to learn something real about Black American life through taste, texture, and story.
My husband, Bill, and I have been together for seventeen years. I am the mind behind the menu; the keeper of the recipes, the history, the cultural knowledge. He is the chef who brings those recipes to life. After nearly two decades together, he cooks with the soul he inherited from living beside me, loving me, and learning the culture that shaped me. What we serve is Black American food, created with intention, respect, and truth.
We do this for our two daughters, too, so they grow up knowing that their culture is something to be proud of, something to share, something that deserves space in the world.
This trailer is our way of bringing Black American culture to the Netherlands; one plate, one story, one conversation at a time.