3 of Season 1 - Beyond the Restaurant Door : BEM - Books & more #blackCulinary #cookbooks #cooking
BEM | Books & more : Danielle and Gabrielle Davenport - Co-Owners interview.
The video features an interview with the co-founders of Bem Books and More, Danielle and Gabrielle Davenport. They discuss their bookstore that focuses on the intersection of Black culture, literature, and food. The sisters talk about their background in acting and music production, and how they transitioned into opening a bookstore. They discuss their journey, including pop-ups and a Kickstarter campaign. They also highlight their upcoming events around Juneteenth, their focus on children's books, and their expansion into a physical brick-and-mortar location with a cafe, wine bar, teaching kitchen, and more. The interview touches on their mission to promote Black-authored books and explore diverse food cultures within the African diaspora. They also mention future plans, such as hosting cooking classes, pop-ups, and collaborating with authors in the Black food community. The interview ends with a mention of an upcoming book about black-owned dairy farms in Louisiana. Overall, the conversation emphasizes the importance of community, storytelling, and the cultural significance of food in Black communities.
Established by two sisters in January 2021 as an online bookstore, They are proud to serve as a home for readers, writers, cooks, and eaters passionate about Black cultures in all their diversity. Taking an expansive approach to the nexus of food, literature, and culture, BEM celebrates Black food by bringing works of fiction, nonfiction and poetry for readers of all ages into conversation with cookbooks and culinary studies to explore how what feeds us defines us. You should check them out online using their website -
https://www.bembrooklyn.com/ On Instagram/ @BEMBrooklyn
Online Black Cookbook /Popup - soon to be brick and mortar in Brooklyn. If you care are black food than supporting this business is a great place to start.
Sat Nov 22 2025 22:06:04 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)
Danielle Davenport and her sister Gabrielle Davenport are co-founders of BEM | books & more, a Brooklyn-based, globally oriented bookstore at the intersection of food and Blackness.
Established online in January 2021 and operating since in a series of long-term pop-ups and through events, BEM is proud to serve as a home for readers, writers, cooks, and eaters passionate about Black cultures in all their diversity. Taking an expansive approach to the nexus of food, literature, and culture, BEM celebrates Black food by bringing works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and drama where food appears into conversation with cookbooks and culinary studies in an exploration of how what feeds us defines us. BEM, a mission-driven for-profit company, is currently fundraising in anticipation of a brick & mortar opening in the coming months. Shop BEM online at bembrooklyn.com and on Instagram @bembrooklyn.
Danielle is also an actor and writer who has recurred most recently on Peacock's The Calling. Prior film and TV credits include Blue Bloods (CBS), The Blacklist (NBC), Power (Starz), Sneaky Pete (Amazon), Netflix’s Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Master of None, HBO’s High Maintenance and Boardwalk Empire, The Breaks (VH1) and others. Danielle has worked at theaters including The Public Theater, Playwrights Horizons, Lincoln Center Theater, Theater for a New Audience, New York Theater Workshop, The Civilians, Clubbed Thumb, INTAR, New York Stage and Film, MCC, The Lark, Playwrights’ Realm and others, with favorite performance credits including An Octoroon (Theater for a New Audience/Soho Rep), Men on Boats (Playwrights Horizons/Clubbed Thumb), Neighbors (The Public Theater), Adoration of the Old Woman (INTAR) and Be the Death of Me (The Civilians).
Current and recent writing projects include a television pilot set in the world of reproductive justice and developed during New York Stage and Film’s Filmmakers’ Workshop and a co-authored article on microaggressions in simulated legal practice published in the Villanova Law Review.
Fluent in Spanish, French and Portuguese, she is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, a Mellon fellow, an Experiential Learning Lab fellow at the NYU School of Law, and graduated summa cum laude from Barnard College with a B.A. in Theater (Honors) and Comparative Literature and Society with a focus on the African diaspora in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Alongside her creative pursuits, she’s accumulated experience as a communications consultant; a freelance tutor, editor, and translator; and in a number of NYC restaurants.