Leni Sorensen in her kitchen at Indigo House (Photo by Sera Petras Photography)
On a recent Sunday afternoon, we visited culinary historian and chef Leni Sorensen in the aftermath of one of her Indigo House dinners in Crozet, last night’s pot likker still on the stove. She heated it up for us to taste: an umami bomb she had served with cornbread, butter and sorghum. For the next five short hours, we talked over strong coffee and sweet potato pie (Virginia chef and cookbook author Edna Lewis’ recipe) about food, life, music, politics and everything in between.
With over 50 years of cooking and preserving under her apron, Sorensen always has something — often profane — to say. If you’ve spent any time reading about Virginia food, you’ve probably heard of her, but if you haven’t, she’s appeared in Netflix’s “High on the Hog,” Richmond-based Deb Freeman’s James Beard Award-nominated documentary “Finding Edna Lewis” and this New York Times feature. In the 1960s, you might have seen her on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” singing in the folk band The Womenfolk.
Nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains about 90 miles northwest of Richmond and just beyond cell service, Sorensen’s home, Indigo House, was built by her late husband. There, she hosts a rotating repertoire of historical dinners and classes, including some this June and July. “On my rural farmstead,” she writes on her website, “my shelves of cookery and history books, my gardens, the barn, the pantry, and my kitchen serve as my research base for understanding and sharing how food and the people who grow, prepare, preserve, and service it play such a vital role in our culture.”
Sorensen’s fridge, stocked with homemade vinegars, pickles, soups and other provisions (Photo by Anne McCrery)
Through classes on canning, bread-making and other traditional skills, Sorensen empowers home cooks by keeping old practices alive, and this summer she is inviting guests to join her. “Many folks today do not have a grandmother to turn to for cooking or gardening advice,” she laments, but “it’s been my amazing good fortune to have more than 50 years of experience cooking and preserving food for my family and friends. So I’m that grandma!”
She also tells us most influencers online “have never milked a f---ing cow.”
Sorensen stresses the empowerment that comes with those skills but adds, “I don’t think the world is going to end, and if it does I’ll deal with that when it happens.” She is also trying to convince us to squeeze an extra freezer into our tiny Museum District apartment (we’re considering it).
Sorensen is finishing her own book — part cookbook, part memoir — tentatively titled “Every Damn Day” because “the one thing you have to do every day is eat.” The book explores her life and “this lovely activity of feeding people.”
Everyone should have at least “one part of your life that’s rich and fulfilling,” Sorensen says, “even if it’s just rice and f---ing beans.”
At her dinners, guests gather around Sorensen’s table to taste the past. With each course, a stack of note-filled books piled in front of her, Sorensen traces the history behind every dish, drawing from cookbooks that range from Mary Randolph’s “The Virginia House-wife” (1824) to Edna Lewis’ seminal “The Taste of Country Cooking” (1976), the latter celebrating 50 years in 2026.
“While I’m talking history at dinner, I’m talking, too, about the way we live now,” she tells us.
Indigo House History Dinners can make for an edible excursion.
- “The Global Dining Table: A Dish of Curry” explores the international context of Mary Randolph’s kitchen while highlighting the creativity of the enslaved cooks who shaped the cuisine. The menu features tomato soup, escovitch of salmon with pickled sweet peppers, curry chicken “after the East Indian manner,” rice, sauteed honey carrots and raspberry cream for dessert. Next event: June 13
- “A Sunday Dinner on a Saturday Night” draws inspiration from the tradition of Sunday supper in Black communities and meals cooked for civil rights workers in the South. Sorensen invites guests to “come share iconic dishes that fueled the body and soul in turbulent times,” including pot likker soup, pickled okra, cornbread, chicken fricassee with gravy, macaroni and cheese, collard greens, and, finally, Edna Lewis’ sweet potato pie with whipped cream. Next event: July 11
- “3 Centuries of Southern Women Chefs,” featured in “Finding Edna Lewis,” includes tomato soup; salad with Mary Randolph’s tarragon dressing, a favorite of Thomas Jefferson; Malinda Russell’s fricasseed catfish; pork with Carolina Gold rice and seasonal vegetables; and Edna Lewis’ bread pudding with fresh whipped cream. We attended last summer and still think about it. Date TBA
More dinner dates will be added this fall. Tickets are also available for a dairy and bread-making class on Sunday, June 7. Sorensen is a big fan of homemade bread and has been baking her family’s bread recipes for over 40 years.
