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Feature
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Tampa Native Valerie Wilson Reed Competing For Prestigious Taste Awards
BY MONIQUE STAMPS Sentinel Staff Writer
Valerie ‘Val’ Wilson Reed grew up in Tampa. She was four, when her parents moved she and her brother here. She and her brother, the Honorable Charles ‘Chuck’ Wilson, U. S. Ap- peals Court Judge, are the children of the late Atty. Charles Wilson and Mrs. Evelyn Jones Wilson, a re- tired realtor. They attended local catholic schools includ- ing St. Peter Claver Elemen- tary School.
Well-known to family, friends and fellow foodies, Reed is now up for 3 presti- gious Taste Awards for her se- ries Valcooks Kitchen.
The TASTE AWARDS are the highest awards for cre- ators, producers, hosts, and directors of Lifestyle Pro- grams, Series, Shows & Cin- ema.
Often called “The Oscars of Food, Fashion and Lifestyle Media,” they are the premier broadcast awards show cele- brating the year’s best achievements in Food, Fash- ion, Health, Travel, and Lifestyle programs on Televi- sion, in Film, in Online and Streaming Video, on Radio
and in Podcasts, and Photog- raphy.
After graduating from Academy of the Holy Names, she attended Marquette Uni- versity and has been active in alumni affairs for over 20 years. She has recruited a new student to Marquette for the past 20 years and still gets positive and inspirational feedback to this day. She does it because she loves it. She feels strongly about giving back to her university and making it better for the stu- dents coming after.
Post graduation, Reed worked for the Pabst Brewing Company in marketing and sales. She was transferred to New York City which included Harlem, Staten Island and Queens. She also had a short career stint at Hershey’s Chocolate. She was then re- cruited by G. Heileman Brew- ery in Lacrosse, Wisconsin. She moved to Columbus, Ohio and was the first Black woman to be a national accounts manager for any major brew- ery. On one of her visits home, she ran into her old high school boyfriend, Reginald Reed. A year later, they mar- ried and moved to Chicago, where Reginald was a part- ner at KPMG Accounting firm.
VALERIE ‘VAL’ WILSON REED
a week and she is the sole em- ployee. She creates, shops, prepares, films, edits, and produces each video. Because her videos are under two min- utes, Reed must capture the spirit and the mechanics of the recipe. The videos are ex- tremely successful, attesting to the appeal of a short infor- mational recipe that people can do without a lot of fuss. To find Valcooks Kitchen, go to https://www.americanlega- cynetwork.tv/.
Reed has already pub- lished one book, “That’s Plum Bodacious!” The phrase comes from her childhood dinners where her late father, Atty. Charles Wilson, would “speak of it!” and the family would respond “ummm!, that’s plum boda- cious!” Reed follows the fam- ily tradition and says it at the end of every video. Most of her recipes are family recipes so she pays homage to them in every video.
Reed’s next big project is publishing two books this year. One will be a cookbook called Valcooks Kitchen and will be published in time for Thanksgiving. The second is a book titled, Black Marquette: In Their Own Works, Over- coming Obstacles and Achiev- ing Success, which will discuss the experiences of Black students at Marquette.
However, the present most exciting event for Reed right now is that she is up for three Viewer’s Choice Awards from the prestigious TASTE AWARDS.
Supporters can vote for Valerie Wilson Reed at www.tasterio.com and scroll down for Reed’s categories. Voting for each category is not re- quired to cast your vote. Any fan can vote, but only once. Voting ends on March 12th.
Val retired from her market- ing career to take care of her husband and daughter, Fran- cesca.
In 2008, she started Val- cooks, LLC where she made designer hostess aprons. At the Chicago Merchandise Mart, the aprons were se- lected from thousands of en- tries to be a part of the exhibit. She then moved her aprons to the Home Shopping Network (HSN), where they were wildly successful. Reed says, “it was a great experience and one of the highlights of my burgeoning career.” Unfortu- nately, there was a conflict of interest when her husband’s company began auditing HSN.
Not one to sit around and cry over her disappointment, she began to think about ways
to continue pursuing her pas- sion. She loved both cooking and entertaining, so she started experimenting with recipes. A few years ago, Reed posted a banana pud- ding recipe to Facebook. The post was immensely popular and was seen by Rodney J. Reynolds, who is the founder of American Legacy Magazine and later of Ameri- can Legacy Network. The American Legacy Network is a streaming service for Blacks that focuses on culture and history.
Reynolds asked Reed to create a one-to-two-minute video of her banana pudding recipe. Once she did, he im- mediately asked for more. In the past few years, she has created close to 90 videos. Reed posts about two recipes
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