Kanika Moore Puts the Soul in Chicken Soup
By Stratton Lawrence
“I remember grits being served with everything,” says singer Kanika Moore about growing up around North Charleston’s Accabee neighborhood. That was no problem for the budding performer—she’d barter her sausage for more grits from her sister. “It was a bunch of starch and no meat for me,” laughs Moore.
In her adult life, Moore seeks out trending new restaurants as she travels the country with her band, Doom Flamingo, and as the featured singer with funk band TAUK. She enjoys poke and acai bowls when she’s in Kauai, singing with Grateful Dead drummer Billy Kreutzmann. But back home in Charleston on Sunday afternoons, she’s loading up a plate with rice, chicken, stewed tomatoes, and grits after church lets out at North Charleston’s Reformed House of God. Her great-grandfather preached there when she was a child, and Sundays became a full day of worship and communal eating.
Shared meals are still the norm. When Kanika cooks for her daughter and sons, it’s often a one-pot gumbo that she carries to her mom’s or sister’s house to share.
“Somebody’s always making a big dish and taking it over,” says Moore. “I get sort of tired of Thanksgiving because we’re already doing that all year round.”
Moore leans on her family for both food and childcare when she’s on tour. After a “Mahalo Dead” gig in Kauai with Kreutzmann last November, she traveled to Spain with a gospel choir, before returning home in time to host a two-night New Year’s Eve celebration with Doom Flamingo at the Charleston Pour House.
When she’s home, Moore’s sons often request Mom’s Chicken and Mushroom Soup. “It’s a meal you make for friends because it lasts awhile,” she explains. The dish starts with chicken roasted in the oven and carrots and mushrooms browned in a pan (“I like to cook my mushrooms all the way down,” she adds). Sometimes veggies get roasted in the chicken and added before it all comes together in a pot of hearty broth. Moore presses rice into a mug and pours the soup over it for an easy-to-eat meal.
“It changes a little each year as I figure out what works best,” says Moore. “I just put my favorite things in there, so it always has some kind of mushrooms, because I like them on everything.”
Moore’s been known to bring a pot of the hearty crowd-pleaser to Doom Flamingo band practice. “It’s something that people eat and say, ‘Man, this is really good. My body needed this,” says Moore.
On tour, it’s difficult to eat healthy day-to-day. Moore says her bandmates are often on a quest to find the “messiest, trashiest burrito” in each city, while she brings a small cooler with fresh juice and healthy snacks.
“I have to leave a few hours between when I eat and perform, and I have to be careful not to upset my stomach,” says Moore. That said, when late-night munchies kick in after a gig, she’s not afraid to crush a hot dog. “Street meat, all weekend,” she laughs.
In Charleston, Moore’s go-to favorite restaurants are 167 Raw (“I love oysters, and places that change their menus,” she says) and Bar George—“For the chicken and the donuts and the oysters, and that’s where my friends are.”
And at home—or after church—Moore never turns down a plate of rice and gravy, green beans, chicken, and grits.
“I was raised on Gullah cuisine and seafood,” says Moore. “The church still has the same feeling it did when I was growing up. After the service, somebody’s cooking out back, and everyone’s welcome.”