NYBALF returns to Harlem, September 18–20. Free Festival Registration is open →
Ozoz Sokoh
Food writer • Educator
Ozoz Sokoh is a food explorer and educator who has gone from a career in geology to one in gastronomy. She is the author of Chop Chop: Cooking the Food of Nigeria (2025) which documents Nigeria’s rich culinary - national and regional - history, and its impact on global cuisines.
Recognised as one of the Best Cookbooks of 2025 by The New York Times, The LA Times, National Post, and as a Toronto Star bestseller, Chop Chop is the first Nigerian cookbook to win a James Beard Book Award. Chop Chop also won the 2026 Nautilus Gold Award for Food, Cooking, and Healthy Eating, and is shortlisted for the 2026 Taste Canada Awards.
Ozoz has spoken at TEDx and Culinary Institute of America conferences. Her work has been featured in Brittle Paper, Serious Eats, Smithsonian Magazine, Gastro Obscura, CNN African Voices, Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown, Food52 and more.
Events featuring
this guest
Sunday Sept. 20 2026 • 1:00 PM | Harlem Stage Gatehouse
Come Chop: Food, Memory, and the Art of Gathering
Ozoz Sokoh · Ashanté Reese
“Come chop” is a familiar Nigerian invitation: come and eat, come sit, come share in what is on the table. Positioned as the festival’s Sunday lunch gathering, this layered literary and sensory session brings Nigerian food explorer and writer Ozoz Sokoh together with scholar and writer Ashanté Reese for a conversation on Black food, memory, geography, nourishment, care, and the politics of gathering. The session is being developed to move between reading, conversation, image, and taste, with short films and a focused Eat the Books element under consideration.