You’ve seen Rockmond Dunbar all over the place over the years, and for good reason. He’s good looking and a very talented actor. But did we mention that he’s good looking? The guy known for playing Kenny Chadway on Soul Food, C-Note on Prison Break, and most recently, as Sheriff Eli Roosevelt on Sons of Anarchy (there are way too many good-looking guys on that show!) has come a long way in Hollywood, and is now a much-respected director too. He should be proud, but, he should also be really proud at the opportunity to be our Evening Eye Candy. He did earn it though! Check out what he’s working with in our slideshow.

Boris Frederic Cecil Tay-Natey Ofuatey-Kodjoe has been a hottie since his early modeling days, back when he was gyrating in TLC videos (“Red Light Special”) and showing up to look good for Faith Evans “(“Never Let Go”). But since then, he’s proven himself to be more than a pretty face. Kodjoe has established himself as a pretty good actor, a businessman and even a funny man thanks to his time on The Real Husbands of Hollywood. If that’s not enough, he’s also a great dad. Say what you want about Kodjoe’s personality (after seeing him in person and reading about past Twitter comments, yeah, he can be a bit…stank), but no one can deny that this guy is one delicious looking brother, and we’re talking delicious in one of his suits, or bare-chested and shiny. Click on through and you’ll see what we mean!

via Twitter

Restaurants are big business in this country. Most people enjoy at least a couple of meals per week in one, in addition to the fast food restaurants we visit and the high-end restaurants that host our big holiday celebrations and events. According to the  National Restaurant Association, the restaurant industry generates an average $1.8 billion on a typical day. And yet, despite all of that , many restaurants fail. Just take a look at Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares for a sampling of the restaurants that don’t make it.

So if you can make a restaurant work, it’s quite an accomplishment. And if you can make it work while raising a family, that an even bigger success.

Joanna Davis is a woman who took her passion for preparing mouth-watering dishes, combined it with her business knowledge, and co-founded the Shrimp Shack Grill with her husband, Max. Located less than half a mile north of I-170 in St. Louis, MO, the Shrimp Shack Grill specializes in all things shrimp and seafood,  incorporating some of your favorite foods: okra, collard greens, yams, and potato fries into the mix. These are fresh meals designed to remind them of their grandmothers’ cooking. Hungry yet?

“I am from a big family and Max and I have a big family,” Davis shares at the Shrimp Shack Grill’s official website. She continues, “But it is the memories around the kitchen or in our restaurant that are my most precious.” It’s these memories that Joanna shares with her customers.

While time management and project juggling is challenging for all entrepreneurs, Joanna’s case is a little special. In addition to tracking and managing a budget and staff, Joanna is also mother to nine children. And besides her restaurant business, she also sells her own line of seasonings called “Jo Jo Seasonings.” Flavors include Garlic Parmesan and Rib Rub.

Shutterstock

Over the past few years The Pink Tea Cup has had some location issues, which have now transformed into financial issues. The Manhattan restaurant whose menu includes fish and grits, fried catfish, and chicken and waffles, has filed for bankruptcy. The popular hot spot has moved several times and when its final location did not have a liquor license for over six months, it put a dent into their financial performance.

The restaurant’s attorney David Bondi stated, “They got deep into debt because they were unable to serve alcohol.” And now according to Crain’s the eatery is filing for bankruptcy.

According to the filing, The Pink Tea Cup has between $50,000 and $100,000 in assets and between $100,000 and $500,000 in liabilities. And with only about $80,000 of that owed to the landlord, it’s looking like management was borrowing just to cover operational expenses.

A bankruptcy filing doesn’t mean the doors are shutting for good. The Pink Tea Cup has recently gotten a liquor license and has been doing much better financially ever since. Hopefully with its celebrity visits and pretty good reviews on Yelp this little New York gem will make a full recovery.

FayesVision/WENN

If you don’t hear them, don’t worry: I’m sure you saw the “look at the ring” picture.

After dating for just under a year, actor Rockmond Dunbar and his girlfriend, actress Maya Gilbert, are engaged to be married. The 42 year old actor popped the question while the two were in Montego Bay, Jamaica on Decmeber 30th.

The happy couple were spotted Saturday on the red carpet for the 44th NAACP Image Awards Nominee’s Luncheon. They got a tad bit PG-13 when they gave each other a kiss which ended in a bit of a tongue exercise.

The ring is a 5 carat cushion cut fancy yellow diamond set in 18k gold accompanied with 21 cushion cut diamonds to complete the 5 carat band. All in all, its a 10 carat total weight engagement ring. Well, alright then!

Known for his role as Kenny on Soul Food,” Dunbar has been gushing all over his Facebook page since he announced that “she aid yes.” They’ve also entered a contest to win a celebrity designer wedding at the Empire State Building in New York City and a honeymoon to Anguilla.

Not much is known about Gilbert but she’s mostly known for her role in Zane’s The Sex Chronicles. She can also be seen on the upcoming GMC series, For Richer or Poorer, which also stars Dunbar.

This will be Rockmond’s second marriage. He was married to Ivy Holmes from 2003-2006. He has no children.

I bet it has something to do with that man pictured above.

According to Variety, tensions are riding high on the set of OWN’s highly successful Welcome to Sweetie Pie’s.  While the audience is accustomed to seeing the star of the show, Robbie Montgomery, fuss with her son (and restaurant manager), Tim (that’s the man pictured above), and the rest of the family on a regular basis, they never see what’s happening behind the scenes.

The report says that in October, Tim, the restaurant staff and the production team for Pilgrim Studios allegedly got into a very heated argument.  While the details are sketchy, this apparently hasn’t been the first time the sides have been at war.  The network sent co-president Erik Logan to the set of the show with security in an attempt to diffuse the situation. Variety reports that OWN believes all the anger from Tim stems from his many stresses as a manager, a father and soon-t0-be husband. So basically, he has the same problems as everyone else but he just chooses to lash out? Oh okay.  As someone who’s seen the show and watched Tim lose his cool on everyone, including his mother, for no reason at all, it comes as no surprise they’re having so many issues.  Whether or not they decide to air this on Sweetie Pie’s has not yet been determined.

The arguing is coming from all directions. The family is in such disarray that OWN actually offered them therapy from Iyanla Vanzant whose had a breakout show on OWN, Iyanla, Fix My Life. OWN reps did confirm that cameras filmed the sessions but it is ultimately up to the family if they want any of it to hit the airwaves.

Poor Miss Robbie.  She’s got one of the few successful shows on OWN and it is being jeopardized by what is likely some foolishness.  If her son is indeed a big part of the problem, she needs to make some tough decisions about her son and how he fits into her businesses.

In the ’90′s when it came to black films, you were most likely to see portrayals of gang violence, drug use or some other type of hood classic. (Nothing wrong with that.) But then there came Soul Food. There was drama and the movie was certainly entertaining; but all of it came together in the end, because they were family. Anybody who watched this movie could relate to at least one aspect of this family dynamic. We all remember the scandalous drama, we argued whether a “push” was too much and who could forget Teri, (Vanessa L Williams) pulling that knife on her husband and cousin?! You remember all of that but do you know these behind the scenes secrets?

honeygerman.com

In the world of entertainment, relationships just seem to go downhill left and right.  Some end with very clear reasoning and some we’re left pondering…why?!  Of course, no one owes the public any explanation but on this day, I declare that we need to know why the couples on the next pages couldn’t make it last!

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Relationships on television shows and in movies can be like a gift and a curse. Sometimes they can be so outlandish that you’re glad it’s not real. But then there are the times that you see a couple with issues you’ve seen in your own relationships and you instantly love them.  These are some of our favorite onscreen couples in television and movies. Who is your favorite?

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by Charing Ball

Normally I frown upon that kind of dismissal of my passionate soliloquy.  But even the historical plight of the natives has to take a backseat to macroni and cheese and collard greens.  And that folks is probably the number one reason why we celebrate Thanksgiving: we love food. But not just any food but comfort foods like soul food.  How can anyone resist the delicious plates of ribs, candied sweet potatoes or yams, collard greens, fried chicken, baked macaroni and cheese, fried okra, oxtails, rice and beans, potato salad, chitterlings and pigs feet, hush puppies, black eyed peas, warm cornbread and grandma’s famous sweet potato pie?  Are you hungry yet?

These soulful meals have become the backbone of the black cuisine. So much so that nutritionists have decided to create a special modified version of the standard food pyramid, called the Soul Food Pyramid, so that it is tailored to the African American diet. For many of us in the black community, soul food speaks to the sordid history we have in this country, but in some instances, acts as a connection we as American Blacks have with the African Diaspora. Foods such as yams, okra and greens can be traced back as early as 4000 BC on the African continent. However, even with all of its historical significance, the Soul food meal has not escaped the scrutiny of health and medical professionals, who blame it for the downfall of the health of the black community.

“Soul Food is a modern day slave diet,” that’s what your cousin Raheem, a recent convert to veganism will tell you.  “Keep eating that fried food and grease and see how long you live,” he says, while side-eying your plate at the family dinner. Raheem has a valid reason to be concerned: black folks are outpacing other groups in the rate of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and some cancers. But is it fair to blame Soul Food for the all the health ills of our community?

In order for the “it’s the Soul Food” meme to work, we would have to establish first that this is what we eat every single day of our lives. And we know this is not true as the time and energy needed to make a complete Soul Food meal makes it impractical for everyday consumption, which is why it is looked upon as a traditional celebratory meal or occasional meal reserved for big family functions like holidays, reunions and repasses.  For instance, back in the day, the preparation for our soul food inspired holiday dinners would begin at least two days in advance, when my granny, grandmother, mother and I would sit around in the kitchen tearing the collards from the steams, peeling potatoes and snapping peas.  Nothing we prepared and eventually ate during our family meals came from a can or a bag, with exception of the collards, which would be hauled into the house in a trash bags, picked fresh from a local farm.

However our daily diets outside of family dinners where completely different.  Granny and grandma weren’t around and my mothers, who spent most of her waking hours rushing from one job to the next, didn’t always have the time to prepare meals, let alone meals with a bit of soul in it. In essence, our appetite for sweet potato, potato salad and fried chicken were often soothed with Cheetos, Tastykakes, KFC, Burger King, Pepsi and a bunch of other quick and easy dessert foods, which had become so prevalent in the community.

In fact, study after study has shown a direct correlation between one’s poor health and the distance to the nearest fresh-veggie purveyor. Likewise, the cost of fresh ingredients like fruits and vegetables, which is five times as much as processed franken-foods, has made eating healthy a luxury in many poor communities. Matter of fact, I was in the supermarket the other day and gasped when I saw them selling three lemons for $1.99. I could get a 48 ounce bottle of preservatives-laced lemon juice for half the price. Whether we like to admit it or not, those little discrepancies in prices add up. And as such, the overreliance on fast foods to fill daily dinner plates as well as the lack of access to healthier foods has made the average person  more vulnerable to food-related death and disease than grandma’s made-from-scratch ham-hocks and black eyed peas ever could.

A few years back, The Root ran a story about instant soul food and how mass production and distribution has basically diminished the quality of some of the black community’s most beloved comfort foods with things like salt, processed oils, taste enhancers and chemicals to prolong shelf life along with all the advertising costs. Add all these details in with the overall lifestyle shift from intensive physical labor to more sedentary existences and you can certainly see what is truly at the heart of our health crisis.

In the long run, getting back to our family-style Soul Food dinners may do more to ensure a healthier, well rounded diet than all the diet food and tricks in the world.  Not only are we forced to sit down, eat and converse together as a family unit but also forced to prepare and cook meals from scratch – without the fillers and added taste enhancers. There is a reason why Aunt Carol’s brought-from-the-supermarket apple pie never gets touched.

Charing Ball is the author of the blog People, Places & Things.

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