Hey, it's Ampire's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. Okay, I'm guilty of sometimes being a wet

blanket when it comes to holidays. Catch me at the right time and I'll be sardonically dunking on our

inclination to turn meaningful, sometimes somber events into, you know, opportunities for

doorbuster sales, grilling meat, and crushing beers.

Not that there's anything inherently wrong with those things.

It's just I get a little queasy when they get tied to holidays like Juneteenth.

But food writer Nicole A. Taylor takes that argument head on.

She's got a cookbook out called Watermelon and Redbirds,

a cookbook for Juneteenth and

black celebrations. And she talked to here and now Scott Tong about it. They taped their

conversation just after the shooting at the top supermarket in Buffalo. And Taylor makes his

point that people can do two things at once, you know, hold space force sorrow and sadness,

but also joy and levity.

And there's a long history of black people having to do just that.

In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.

Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors on our new show, sources and methods.

NPR reporters on the ground bring

you stories of real people helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.

Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

In this month, we observe June 10th. On June 19, 1865, two years after Lincoln signed the

Emancipation Proclamation, enslaved persons were declared free in Texas, and that effectively

ended slavery across the country. Celebrations began a year later, in June of 1866,

...