From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy

Camilla Wynne’s new book Jam Bake: Inspired Recipes for Creating and Baking With Preserves can make anyone believe they can make jam—even me, a person classically impatient with all matters of preservation. But it also goes a step further by helping you figure out what to do with those jars of jam, thanks to Wynne’s training and experience in pastry. From nostalgic whipped shortbread cookies with a thumbprint of jam to mango cream pie, it can change how one approaches fruit in the kitchen.

We talked about how fruit has changed since our grandparents’ time, how she found a style for teaching preservation, and what makes people afraid of jam. Listen above, or read below.

Alicia: Hi, Camilla. Thank you so much for being here. 

Camilla: Thank you for having me. 

Alicia: Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? 

Camilla: I love this question. I feel very lucky. Well, I don't know if I feel—

I grew up in Edmonton, Alberta. So in the prairies, in Canada. I left when I was 18. I don't know, as a teenager, if I felt so lucky. But I feel very lucky about what I got to eat. So I had a set of grandparents in the country, two hours north, who gardened, on the farm that my mom grew up on. And so I got to eat a lot of homemade, homegrown food. And then my grandparents in the city had emigrated from Europe. And so, they grew totally different varieties of stuff in their garden and made totally different homemade foods. And they were both delicious. And there was this huge variety.

And then at home, which I think is unusual for a kid in the ’80s, is my dad was the cook.

And I complained a lot looking back on it during the period—they were separated for seven years—that my mom only made like five things. But retrospectively she was a working mom going to university and she made my five favorite things, actually. So it's great. 

But my dad was a super creative cook. He never followed recipes and he shopped all over the city, Asian grocery stores mostly. And he was a truck driver, so he’d go to the Italian store and the Mediterranean bakery and stuff. And they'd always be giving him things. I always try to give delivery drivers something now actually for that reason.

Alicia: [Laughs.] Wait, what were your five favorite things that your mom named? 

Camilla: Lipton’s Chicken Noodle Soup.Ichiban ramen. Cheese tortellini with butter. Well, I guess this doesn't count as making ‘em. Little Caesars pizza.

Alicia: I've actually never had Little Caesars, but people tell me it's good. [Laughs.]

But that's interesting. I used to eat, make cheese tortellini and put nothing on it. It was one of those—the only things I would make for me and my brother during the summer, when both my parents were at work, I would just boil the cheese tortellini. And we’d just eat it plain, which is, I don’t know. I haven't thought about how kind of odd that is. [Laughter.] 

Camilla: I mean, whatever. I ate raw noodles and stuff. [Laughter.] With a stick of butter.

Alicia: Right. [Laughs.] 

Well, the first thing I did after reading the introduction to your book, Jam Bake, was look up your old band. And it's always interesting, because so many people in food have these very interesting backstories to before food. First off, it takes a while sometimes for people to get to food. Either you're really in it from when you're a teenager or a kid, or there's always these signposts along the way that food is your thing. But you don't listen until a little bit later. 

But you write about touring with the band and everything you ate. And I wanted to hear a little bit more about how that part of your life influenced your coming to food eventually. 

Camilla: Well actually, for me, it was a break in my food life. Well, I moved to Montreal to go to university and then dropped out to go to pastry school. In pastry school, I joined a band and then started working at fancy restaurants and had to quit for the first time because you can't leave for two weeks when you’re a pastry assistant. That's fully impossible. On a two-week tour of the States, I remember.

But I'm so lucky that the owner, pastry chef, co-owner pastry chef that was one of my mentors, he would always hire me back. Very lucky. But then they kicked me out, and then I joined the one that had some more success.

And I think it was sort of a no-brainer for me to leave on tour and leave the culinary world for like five years, just because I felt I would never get that opportunity again. It's pretty amazing to be able to make records and tour around the world and stuff. 

But at the same time, I came back and all my friends had opened their own shops or become pastry chefs. And I was like, ‘Oh, my band broke up. And now I'm coming back, and I'm gonna be your assistant.’ I'm glad I did it. But yeah, it was an interlude, I guess, you could say.

Alicia: Well, what was it specifically? Because you're a master preserver. What was it about that that was a specific attraction to you. 

Camilla: It had to do with both pastry and being a touring musician, actually, I think. Because in pastry, so much of what we make is so ephemeral. We had to bake off new financier every day and stuff like that. And they had a one-day shelf life. So when I kind of discovered—when I realized that I could start making my own preserves, I was like, ‘Whoa, it's so satisfying to make something that I'm going to be able to enjoy six months from now.’ That seemed kind of magical to me. 

And also the same thing when I was on tour: I was so infrequently home. And I have so many fruits and vegetables that I'm obsessed with that it felt really important that I be able to hoard the ones that I really cared about during those times when I was home. 

Alicia: Can you tell me about the process of becoming a master preserver? What is that like?

Camilla: So, it sounds a lot fancier then it is. It's a really cool program that I wish existed in Canada, and it doesn't. And it's funny, I often get billed as one of Canada's only master preservers, but that's just because that's not a Canadian program. My frustration with, as originally a self-taught preserver, was always wanting to know more and why, and how does this work? And I'm not allowed to change anything. Well, why? And no book seemed to explain it. And so, I really wanted to know more. 

And so, I looked all over for the program. But a lot of them happen every second weekend or something, so it's not viable to travel for that. They only accept people from residents of the county, stuff like that. But finally, I found one in New York state that was like a three- or four-day intensive, so I just booked a hotel and went down there. 

And, for me, I'm really glad I did it. It was the two most charming women who taught it. And I did learn a lot, but it's about teaching people to be home preserving teachers, essentially. And for me, I already started my business. And I just really even wanted to do more. I wanted to know everything. So after that, I got some more education that really helped. That really wrapped it all up, and I felt pretty cool after that.

Alicia: How did you kind of develop the style that came to be the book, where you are making jam but you're not just putting the jam on a sandwich on toast? How did you come to your style? 

Camilla: Well, the concept for the book, for Jam Bake, is twofold.

So I ran an independent, a little preserving company for—in Montreal—for seven years or so. And spent a lot of time behind tables at craft fairs and farmers’ markets and stuff with people literally asking me what to do with it, beyond just put it on toast. And the answer was always obvious to me as a pastry chef. 

But also, I think because of producing so much jam, at a certain point you sort of divorce yourself from the edibility of your products. I don't know if this happens to everyone. But I remember working really late one night and just being starving, so hungry and not ever cluing in that I was processing a case of apples and that it’s really reasonable for me to eat one of those. You just have such a different relationship to your food at that point. It still remains actually very rare that I do eat jam on toast at all. I do bake with it a lot, so I was-

Alicia: That makes sense. 

No, it's funny, because when I was—I used to do farmers’ markets and stuff with vegan cake and cookies. People would always be like, ‘How do you not eat all of the cookies?’ It's because I made them. And so I'm looking at them-

Camilla: It’s like eating money.

Alicia: You really have that relationship to it where you really see it as a product and not like a food. Yeah, so it's an interesting thing that happens. 

Camilla: It’s kind of a shame. 

Alicia: It is a shame. I mean, I still don't really eat things that I bake. I've been eating the shortbreads that I made out of your book this week, actually, though, because I've been dying for a snack every couple of hours. So that's good. And people love them. 

Preserving is a complicated kind of science. And people think of it as complicated. And your book is very, very approachable. How did you develop your style of teaching when the conversation has to begin with botulism, but I guess that's how all food safety starts is about botulism. But how have you made this process approachable? How did you kind of get into your own style of teaching?

Camilla: Well, for the most part, I made it up as I went. To date, I've never really been to a cooking class aside from pastry school. I really do intend to go see more of what people actually do, ’cause I kind of made it up.

I was really lucky. When I started out, I had a college teacher volunteering, assisting me to learn to preserve. And so she sat in on a lesson one night and gave me pages of super helpful notes, getting people to introduce themselves, easy stuff that hadn't occurred to me. 

I mean, this is going to be a decade of teaching preserving now. And I think, I mean, it depends. My classes definitely are for everyone—or the way my writing, either, certainly. I am really curious. And I want to know exactly how preserving works so that I know what’s safe. That's what I always wanted to know and could never find the answers to. So I want to give that to people. 

But some people show up just wanting to make some—a jar of jam with their friends. There's so many different styles of cooking classes out there. And I realize that mine are heavy on the science and heavy on the info, that I try to balance that by being heavy on the jokes. And I just think it's so interesting. 

And the whole goal also is, for me, if I can be creative, that's the most important thing in my life, I think. And so I want to give that gift to people, because so often canning is—preserving generally—is seen as something really formulaic. And otherwise, it's dangerous. But if you understand the science behind it, then you can change things and know that it's safe. That's the gift I want to give to people, is to be able to judiciously use some creativity when they're making preserves. I mean, my other big goal is to lower barriers to access. 

But the other thing I really just want to communicate about my teaching style, that the idea there is I just—I know a lot of people are intimidated by canning and I think that's such a shame because for me it's such a deep pleasure. The process of it, the knowing I have a cupboard full of jars, the connection to my ancestors. And so is this thing that really connects people, I think, to their foodways, and to their—and just seasonality, certainly, and sometimes to their histories. 

I try as much as possible to make it as easy as possible to make it as adaptable as possible time wise, ways to break it up, ways to fit it into your life, because I know everyone's overworked now. Ways to get by with the most minimal equipment. Hopefully, none. So, lower economic barriers. All of that stuff I think is so important. And I try. It takes practice is the thing, like anything else. And you're never gonna—maybe you are good at the first time. But it's something that’s simply improved by repetition, and so people should stick with it. So I just want to encourage people as much as possible. That's my teaching philosophy. 

Alicia: Right. Well, it's a good one. 

Yeah, I definitely need to get into it. And I always have these intentions of getting into it. I have every Sandor Katz book so that I could learn how to make pickles. And I'm excited about your book, having it so I can make jams with different fruits that obviously—here, the fruit is so hyper seasonal. Very short windows for things like guava and passion fruit. It would make so much sense for me to preserve them. 

And I wanted to ask you about the things people are afraid of, in preserving and making jam. I mean, this might be a technical question, but what are the things that people are afraid of? Why are they afraid of them? How likely is it that things are going to go wrong, actually?

Camilla: I mean, certainly, people come to class definitely being afraid of botulism, because that's the big, scary, fatal one. I have had people attend the class who have given themselves botulism, and their friends. So it's not impossible. 

But it's very close to impossible when we're talking about jam. He made water-bath canned pesto, which is a low acid food that should not be water-bath canned. Yeah, I’d be surprised if any of his friends ever have his preserves again. But good for him for coming back to a class. 

That's the thing. That's why I think it's such a shame that actually the North American way that we're taught to can jam at home is to do the whole boiling water bath thing, because it's so unnecessary. And I think it prevents a lot of people from doing it. 

Botulism is almost completely a moot point. There's a few fruits I talk about that you can't use, but otherwise, the main thing worth dealing with is the possibility of is mold. Of course, if your jars are improperly sealed or sterilized, which we know is gross, of course. And if you scrape it off it is not gone, either. That's a good thing to know. I call it informed consent in the book, so whether or not you're going to eat it.

But at the same time, the toxicity of it, unless you have an allergy at home, you can just scrape it off, and probably you'll be fine. So there's hardly anything that can go wrong that's catastrophic.

Alicia: I wanted to ask, in the book, you mentioned some things in passing about how our grandparent’s tomatoes were more acidic, North American expectations around jam texture and how your recipes are different to that. So I wanted to ask about your kind of food philosophy, so to speak. What is your approach to sourcing ingredients, and how do you decide what to eat?

Camilla: I mean, I think I was shaped a lot working in fine dining. I'm really lucky that I got to work—I think I say it in the introduction of the book—but I went to work at a vegetable-focused restaurant for my pastry school in 2002. And I got told that that was a fad. And it was like, I shouldn't go there. And not only is that pastry chef now probably the most well known in the—in Quebec, but obviously, we all know that vegetable focus dining is here to stay. Let's hope. 

There was such a focus around seasonality. We changed the menu so much. So that really shaped me as a young cook. I mean, it is what it is, I won't touch a strawberry that's imported that's out of season. Why would I eat that when strawberry season is for enjoying strawberries? I don't need access to all things at all times. 

Definitely, that was a real challenge running a preserving business with very little capital. So a lot of the time, I ended up having to resort to frozen fruits sometimes and stuff like that just to keep up with demand and be able to make enough just to stay afloat. So in that way, when I'm teaching, certainly, I don't ever—I want to encourage people to use whatever they can use and is accessible to them. I think that's important. But for me, it's really important to, as much as possible, be working—I mean, in a perfect world—with farmers and stuff like that, with seasonal ingredients.

And using also as much of the food as possible. I mean, I think I learned that working in a—I don't remember there being a conversation around food waste when I was a cook in the early 2000s. But it was just you had to do it, because the margins are so thin that we had to use as much as we possibly could. So the strawberries that were getting sad got steamed and turned into juice, and now into the Champagne cocktail or whatever. We didn't throw anything away as much as possible. So that really got ingrained in me as well. I make jelly and I save the fruit pulp, and I put it in my kombucha and as much as possible.

Alicia: What is it like to support local food in Canada? I talk, I think, so much about it in a U.S. context, but what is the relationship to agriculture there?

Camilla: I mean, definitely, we have shorter seasons, certainly, than the majority of America. That can be challenging in some senses. At a certain point, what you have that’s local is overwintered root vegetables and apples and stuff like that. 

But, I mean, I think it varies all over the country. And I'm new to this, relatively new, to the city I live in. In the city I'm in, there's so many farmers’ markets. There's farmers’ markets every day, probably in multiple places. So you have so much access to buying directly from farmers, which I think is really important. There are cool businesses that have come up. There's one I'm really obsessed with where you can order stuff. They liaise directly with farmers and then pick, I think, and deliver straight to you. Different organizations like that.

I mean, it's so hard—at least in the circles I'm in—I think it's quite possible to be, certainly in the summer, to be buying all local basically. 

Alicia: Right. That's awesome. [Laughs.]

Wait, where are you living right now? 

Camilla: I live in Toronto. 

Alicia: Oh, cool. I haven’t been there.

Camilla: Oh, well, I don't know how it is as a visitor. I really like living her. I mean, it's one of the most expensive cities in Canada, unfortunately. That's very challenging, but living here—I spent a lot of my life in Montreal, where there's a real culture of preserving food and transforming food. And I lived right by the market where they sell all the bushels of things. And in summary, you just buy huge quantities, and everyone's doing it. 

And here, it's a lot of people in condos and all the farmers’ market sell just pints of things. That's the biggest amount you can get, has been confounding me since I moved here. So I just got a tip off on a more old-school market that does the real granny stuff that I'm very looking forward to visiting on Saturday.

Alicia: Nice.

Well, for you is cooking a political act?

Camilla: I think, yes. I mean, in as much as everything, I think, in a sense that we do is so undergirded by all of these systems. And there's so much potential in the path of where our food is grown, and all the ways it comes to our kitchens and our tables for abuse and injustice and—

So, yes, I think, certainly it's political. I try to make good choices. We just all have such different access, whether it's financially or mobility, or all these different things to be able to make the most ideal choices, right? 

But yeah, definitely, I think it is. And just in a broader sense, I suppose it's not exactly political. But what I think drew me to cooking, besides loving to eat, obviously, is just the spirit of generosity that I think—well, hospitality generally has. And I think, I mean, I think we really saw it in the pandemic so much with—there's so many pastry chefs raising money and stuff like that. Because I think that is the, this-

I mean, there's so many things obviously wrong with the industry. Obviously, hospitality as being a pure expression of generosity is not the reality, as is so often the case. But I do think that that is where a lot of people are coming from, at the heart of it, hopefully. [Laughs.]

I do think cooking is political. I struggle a lot with whether what I'm doing is explicitly political enough. So many of the people around me, my partner and my friends, have these very concrete jobs where they're obviously helping people, like harm reduction workers and nurses and midwives and doctors and stuff, that I get insecure sometimes that what I do is indulgent and unnecessary, and all these things.

I really think that's not true. I mean, I think people need delicious, beautiful things in their lives. But also, like I said, I try to bring the spirit of really wanting to bring people in and be able to—I mean, obviously, because I'm a business also, that complicates matters, of course. But you know, if anyone ever wrote to me and said they wanted to take a class and they didn't have enough money, I mean, I’d tell them, ‘Of course.’

But yeah, it's hard. It's hard. I try, and as much as I can by donating portions of sales from classes and stuff to things and trying to engage politically through my work as much as I can. But I guess it never feels like enough, because everything's just so messy. [Laughs.]

And then, just politically, I mean, it's the end of Pride Month, right? Which I think should, maybe isn't always anymore, but is a political thing. And I'm queer. And I think visibility is so important, and representation. And I didn't know, any hardly queer cookbook authors, I think, when I was a younger cook. And so there's also this struggle to balance—

I am not someone that people easily identify as being queer. And I think I struggle with that a bit, and wanting to represent my community, but also not—it never came up much in my book because it’s about jam making. It only came up as much, I think, as it's just a natural part of me.

So yes, that is also complicated. [Laughter.]

Alicia: Well, thank you. Thank you so much again for taking the time. 

Camilla: Oh, thank you. I’m just such a big fan of you. It's a real pleasure to—I feel very excited. Thank you so much.

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I got dressed up to talk to Mariana Velásquez for this interview. From experiencing the elegance of her cookbook, Colombiana: A Rediscovery of Recipes and Rituals from the Soul of Colombia alone, I knew I had to wear a nice dress. Then I browsed her apron collection, Limonarium, and saw ever more style expressed. But there’s also substance, in the exploration of the regional foods of her native Colombia, the recipes for foods she grew up with and adapted to her life in New York City, and the styling, which is drowning in light and dripping in color. Listen above, or read below.

Alicia: Hi, Mariana. Thank you so much for being here. 

Mariana: Hi, Alicia. It's a pleasure being here today. 

Alicia: Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate?

Mariana: I grew up in Bogotá, which is the capital of Colombia. And it's a city perched up 9,000 feet up in the Andes. And it was a pretty urban life growing up. 

However, I had the gift of going out to the country on the weekends and over holidays to my grandparent’s little farm in the flatlands near Venezuela. And we grew up eating arepas, which are these great delicious corn cakes. Pan de yucas, which are also baked—you got flour and cheese biscuits. And lots of fruit, lots of tropical fruit. I feel like my childhood was all about smoothies and juices and desserts, and kind of going outside and picking mangoes for the—from the trees.

Alicia: And you write that you never wanted—your mother never wanted you to be a cook. But at 18 you were working at Sierra Mar in Big Sur. So what was it in your upbringing that led you to that at such a young age, too?

Mariana: Yeah, I mean, I realized pretty early on at about 12 or 14, 13, 14, that food had so much power. And in my family, the table has always been the center of it all. And so, I wanted to do something that really had a beginning, a middle and an end. That satisfaction that you get from cooking that it's pretty instant. You prepare a beautiful meal, and you see it. And the satisfaction from people enjoying it happens, and it's right there. 

And so I wanted to do something that I was good at. And I started to feel a lot of pleasure from the process of cooking. So I sort of ventured into the world and against my parent’s opinion back then, and started cooking in restaurants and exploring that life in the kitchen.

Alicia: And what did you enjoy about it? What kept you there?

Mariana: I love the process, the meticulousness, the—that exercise of finding ingredients and turning them into something. Making that scene, the beautiful plating, the ritual of the wine service. I love the dynamics, especially in the kitchen. And in restaurants. I really enjoyed seeing how people would come to these fine dining restaurants to really have an experience. And we would orchestrate all of that from the kitchen and the floor. And I loved it. I loved the rhythm. I love the discipline. 

Yeah, and kind of it was also in line.

Alicia: And in that kitchen that you write about working in when you were 18, you had a moment where you're cooking potatoes and eggs in the same pot like your grandmother did. And you were nervous that it wouldn't be okay, that the chef would see it and be like, ‘This isn't how you do this.’ But the chef was accepting of it. 

That anecdote that you tell brings up that difference that we think about between chefs and cooks, whether that's really real. And so how, from your experience, both working in home cooking and focusing on dinner parties and that sort of thing versus working in a restaurant kitchen, how do you see the difference, if there is one, between the chef and the cook?

Mariana: I mean, the chef has a lot of structure, and lots of rules. And there's thermometers and timers going off. And things have to be this way, because you need to have the repetition and the consistency.

And I feel that it also comes from a sense of pride in doing your craft in a very precise way. Of course, I cannot speak for all chefs, but in most professional kitchens, it's really about that structure. And a cook, which I consider myself much more a cook than a chef, especially because I don't run a kitchen. There's instinct that goes into play. 

And the other day, on my last trip to Colombia, I went on a road trip going from Cartagena to Barranca, a city that’s on the coast. And we stopped for breakfast to have these deep-fried arepa with egg. And this woman on a side, on the side of the road in her little stand, was frying oil in this big vat over hot coals. The oil was at the exact temperatures you needed for the arepa to be perfectly crispy. There's no temperature gauge; there's no thermometer. It's just she knows, as soon as she drops that tiny piece of dough to test the oil, that the bubbles are right. And so, I feel that that's the difference. 

Alicia: Well, what made you make that leap from working in professional kitchens toward food styling?

Mariana: After working at Prune in New York, and beginning to explore the magazine world, I worked at the recipe testing kitchen of Saveur Magazine. Later, I worked at Eating Well. And I found it really good, just a position of cooking research, culinary history, photography, art, that really fascinated me, was all the things I loved into one profession that I didn't even know existed. I sort of found out about food styling being a full-time job from someone who mentioned it. And it was a perfect combination of all the things I love.

Alicia: And how did you develop your style as a food stylist?

Mariana: So how did I develop myself as a food stylist there? It was a little broken there.

Alicia: How did you develop your style and your approach, and where do your influences in that realm come from?

Mariana: So I mean, I first assisted for at least three and a half years. I assisted different stylists in New York who taught me so much. And I learned the craft, and I learned how to find the great ingredients. I learned the—that set etiquette that you need to understand to be able to perform on set and know who's who and what's what, and what things are appropriate. And that research of amazing ingredients and make a photo, what do you want it to be.

And so over the years, I started to develop my personal style that I think sort of grew organically. I really have an obsession with botanicals, with things that are very organic and imperfect but have this beauty, this innate beauty to them. And it's all about the details. So I mean, all of the textures of fruits and vegetables, the veins, the colors, and really taking that and potentializing it for the images.

Alicia: And you've worked on so many other cookbooks. What was the process like for creating your own versus working on other people's books?

Mariana: I mean, usually, when I've done work as a stylist for other people's books, the process where I take it from is really the recipes are ready, they're developed, they're tested, and they give me the manuscript and then we do the photoshoot. I come into the process when it's pretty far along, right? 

And so, for me, that part is about really communicating with the author and understanding where those recipes come from, and what they mean to them and how to really present them faithfully to what they envision. And then for my own book, I had to sit down and start to develop it from the start. What are the chapters going to be? What is this book going to tell? What's going to be the story, and how am I going to choose those recipes? And so it was a pretty personal exploration of going back in time and looking at those recipes that I grew up with, or foods that through my years of culinary research have left a mark.

Alicia: And it's a very organic and social approach in which you kind of feel that there are people at the table in all of the images. There's not this sense of, it's happening divorced from the actual act of eating. The act of eating is present in the book. And, even the way you describe making breakfast, it's kind of an event to put on your kimono, I remember reading.

And so, what inspired you to make the book so social, to bring in the playlists and the menus and that sort of thing? Just focus on the actual experience of being at a table?

Mariana: Well, because for me, it's all about the ritual. If it was just for nourishment, we could eat granola bars and call it a day, right? We don't really, really need to serve a table and gather. So, our needs are really all about that. 

And for the book and in Colombia, food, it happens with many people. And recipes usually make large batches and there's family lunches and people get together to eat for lunch, for dinner. There's all these events where we come together as a community. So I wanted the book to feel that way, and to really represent that ritual, that ceremony. 

Alicia: And where did you actually test the book, because you're using so many ingredients that are so specific to Latin America? Were you testing it in Brooklyn? 

Mariana: Yeah, so I was developing all the recipes in Brooklyn, tested all the recipes here, had different collaborators help me with the testing to make sure that in different cities in the U.S., you were able to find these ingredients. I had to make some substitutions. There were recipes that I was like, ‘Instead of a substitution, I'm just going to replace the recipe because it just won't be the real thing.’ 

But I want this book to be approachable and the recipes to be familiar. And Colombian cooking is pretty humble. Nothing is out of the ordinary. It's fresh cheeses, it’s plantains, it's mangoes, it's lots of onions and garlic and scallions and hot chilies. And so, I also selected the recipes that I felt could be prepared, far from the tropics, essentially.

Alicia: Right. [Laughs.] 

And in such a diverse cuisine as Colombia, you really showed regionality. What was the inspiration behind doing that? And also, how did you choose the—which regions, which recipes, that sort of thing.

Mariana: So I chose recipes that really have a story for me, either recipes from growing up and foods I ate at my grandparent’s homes, or recipes that I discovered on my trips of research and that have a little anecdote behind them. I want every recipe to have a meaning and to have a backstory. 

And so the way I organized it, I sort of thought about the book through times of days. So in the morning, the midday feast, which is when most of Colombian traditional recipes happen, like the big lunches are usually red bean soup, they are ajiaco, which are served midday. 

And then the different moments like the bits and bites of el algo, that afternoon little thing that you eat, and then kind of weeknight meals, which I use as a chapter called Columbian-ish, which I—Colombian ingredients with my own interpretation and that kind of New York influence, which I've been here for 23 years and some of my cooking definitely reflects the food and the style that I've learned here. 

Alicia: Right, right. 

[Laughs.] I had a noise.

Mariana: I'm sorry.

Alicia: No, it's ok. 

Colombia is very close to where I'm living in Puerto Rico. But people think about very specific ingredients from this region and not—don't really understand the diversity that's available in all these very different climates. I think in Puerto Rico, there are like seven microclimates where different things are—can grow. And I know Colombia has a similar environment.

Was it important for you to represent the diversity of what Colombian cuisine is versus what someone from the States might have in their head, which might be just arepa, which might—that might be the only idea? What was your approach to the diversity of Colombian cuisine and making it translatable to a book for everybody?

Mariana: So the way I did that was through the menus of the chapter called “A La Mesa,” in which I took five different regions of Colombia and described everything about them. So for instance, there's this one menu called “Medellín’s Only Season,” which really celebrates that coffee region, the Andes, the beautiful anthuriums, the way people set the table, the furniture, the music. 

And so with these menus, my intent was to transport the reader to the scene so that they could re-create those Colombian moments. And in each one of those moments, I highlight the regions by—I left some regions out, only because I didn't have a personal experience in those places. So I included the ones that really felt like home to me. And hopefully in a future book, I can explore other moments and other regions, but these were the ones that were closest to my heart.

Alicia: Women are present in such a significant way. You decided to give the book an explicitly feminine title. And so I wanted to ask about the role of women and the role of the feminine in your experience of food, and why you decided to express it so—in such an explicit way, with your first book.

Mariana: So I wanted to really celebrate Colombian women who are the backbone of our cuisine. They're the carriers of our traditions. In a country that has been through so much conflict, the fact that we're still making sancocho and we're still maintaining some of those essential recipes, I feel that it's thanks to these women who run the households and maintain those flavors alive. 

And then here in the U.S., as a Colombian immigrant, seeing other women who in New York work in food and carry those flavors even away from home was really—it was essential to me. My mentors growing up, in Colombia and here in the U.S., were mostly women. And so, yeah, I wanted to pay tribute to them.

Alicia: Of course.

Well, for you is cooking a political act? 

Mariana: Absolutely. I feel that with cooking, you make community. You bring people together to share each other's values, to share the table. It’s also the way you choose ingredients and where you buy them and who you support in that app. It depends on when you're—wherever your ingredients come from really, for sustainment. 

Alicia: Well, thank you so much again for taking the time. 

Mariana: Of course. Thank you for having me, Alicia.

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Amber Mayfield really knows how to work: She has started her own event hosting company, called To-Be-Hosted, as well as an annual magazine about Black food and drink called While Entertaining. The self-published magazine is printed on thick, beautiful paper and packed with essays, recipes, playlists, and ideas for hosting that come from some of the coolest folks working in food and drink right now—some that are huge, and others that Mayfield wants to see get more attention.

Because I love independent publishers, I wanted to talk to her about how she got into this business, what her vision is for a vaccinated world, and her vision for the next issue of the magazine. Listen above, or read below

Alicia: Hi, Amber. Thank you so much for coming on today. 

Amber: Yes, thank you for having me.

Alicia: Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate?

Amber: Yes. 

So I grew up in Rockland County, New York, in a small town called Nanuet. And I come from a very athletic family. So I was always an athlete growing up, so I ate pretty clean and balanced meals. I mean, most of my more exciting and vivid food memories come from holidays and gatherings and just country ham and mac and cheese and candied yams and cookouts with ribs and grilled sausages. So those are the things that stick out. They’re a little bit more exciting, that occasion type of eating.

Alicia: And now you live in New York?

Amber: Yes. 

Now I am in New York City. Which was always my goal growing up, was to be in the city and have that more what I thought was glamorous and exciting, and what I now know is just hustle and bustle and regular.

Alicia: Well, what made you interested in food and begin publishing While Entertaining magazine and launching To-Be-Hosted?

Amber: I mean, so many things. 

Growing up, I always loved parties and holidays and gatherings because I think I was always excited to see family and friends and even more excited about—that's when the more interesting food and flavorful food was going to come out, was through these events. I loved eating and dancing and laughing. And as I got older, I was like, ‘Ok, well, what does that mean as a career? I don't really know.’

Did you ever watch 30 Rock back in the day? 

Alicia: Of course, yeah. 

Amber: Ok, so you recall Kenneth the page? 

Alicia: Uh-huh. 

Amber: So I was a page. That was my post-college job, ’cause I was like, ‘This is perfect. I can literally bounce around the company and figure out what it is that I want to do.’ And it was an exciting industry. And while I was there, I was always mesmerized by the parties and productions. But what would irritate me as much as I loved that environment was there were the same caterers and the same vendors that were getting all of this big business. So that's when I decided I was going to start my own event company. 

Yeah, it was a natural affinity for liking events, and then wanting to kind of problem solve and having an event company that was food focus, and would actually hire Black vendors and hospitality businesses. 

So I started To-Be-Hosted in 2017. It was kind of a side hustle of throwing dinner parties. And before long, I had all of these interesting clients to work with Nestle and Equinox and Netflix. And I started planning their dinners and hiring Black chefs and Black sommeliers and Black-owned businesses to produce them and really saw that vision come to life. 

And then I started the magazine in 2019, because I was like, ‘Ok, how can I take this energy and scale it a little bit bigger?’ Because dinner parties are small, I was only reaching 20 or so people at a time. So I came up with this concept for a magazine that would help other people throw their own dinner parties, but also tell these stories on a bigger scale than what I could add in-person events. 

So that's the shortest version of the story.

Alicia: [Laughs.] Did you have training in food or in publishing that lead, that also kind of—or are you self-trained in all this?

Amber: Yeah. 

So I mean, in college, I studied communications and PR. So that's what kind of led me into NBC Universal, and that page program was kind of—I don't know, TV, grad school and content grad school, if you will. 

But no, other than that, I kind of just always worked in these industries in the media industry. I worked in hospitality. I was an executive assistant for a celebrity chef, for lack of a better term. So just kind of being around and loving these things, I've just been figuring it out as I go. [Laughs.]

Alicia: Well, and you do have a very specific knack and niche, especially in food publishing, because you're not really focusing on restaurants to go to. You're specifically focused on the home and on hosting. Why did you want to focus on that, and how do you continue to find inspiration and creativity in the home and the format of the dinner party?

Amber: Right. When I was looking at the media landscape, I was like, ‘Wow. Everything really is about restaurant chefs, television chefs.’ And often that kind of created an environment of exclusion for Black chefs and Black beverage producers because we aren't always necessarily only in those roles. So I was like, ‘If I actually want to tell Black stories and cover the breadth and depth of Black food experiences and food ways, I can't be a magazine that champions the restaurant story.’ I think there's a place for that. But for me, I was like, ‘Ok, I've got to go a little bit broader if I want to be able to tell the stories that I want to tell.’

And everybody eats at home every day. We kind of have the random Tuesday night dinner, the dinner experience, and we all want to cook and we all want to host people. So I was like, ‘This is a way that I can tell more personal stories and meet people where they are.’ And I mean, when I started the magazine in 2019, I didn't know how much at home we would be doing in 2020. But I knew that enough people, their first affinity for food and their connection to food and people was at home. So, it just felt like a natural direction for me.

Alicia: And how have you been eating in the pandemic, and how has—how have things maybe changed for you?

Amber: I definitely eat and cook at home more. I think, pre-pandemic, in working in events and doing productions, I was always out and about doing meetings. So I was always stopping at the bodega or the deli or doing work. I was always such a solo diner with my computer in the corner that I had made friends with the restaurant staff, so they were cool with me being in the back working and eating for several hours. 

So, that of course had to change. [Laughs.] I had to do so much more cooking and meetings and virtual coffees than ever before. I really love food, and I find my creativity in trying new recipes and was briefly baking bread with everybody. [Laughs.]

But yeah, I think I'm still kind of trying to find those places where I can either grab takeout or be inspired by one of these chefs and make their recipe at home. So not too much different. Perhaps a little better on the wallet. [Laughter.]

Alicia: Well, yeah.

And in this second edition of While Entertaining, you—which was published during the pandemic—you focus specifically on what you call reflections and recipes. And it kind of just acts as a cookbook and kind of a capsule of how inwardly focused we were at a certain point in time. What inspired you to gather these specific folks together to make this collection, and how did you decide on that approach?

Amber: Yes.

I mean, this approach is the approach that I'll probably keep for all issues of While Entertaining magazine, giving people stories and putting them next to recipes and pairing tips and playlists and all of that, because I really want to start making food stories an experience that lives with us in real life. So I think that format will be the same. 

But in tackling this topic, at first I was kind of like, ‘Well, this is awkward, because I'm starting a magazine that's about entertaining and inviting people over to eat with you. And the CDC said we could not invite people over to eat.’ [Laughs.] So that was my first moment of like, ‘Ooh, this is about to get interesting.’

But then second, as I just was living in the pandemic and canceling all of my events and eating Thai, I was kind of really curious about how everybody else was experiencing this and how they were slipping into new routines and what they were thinking about or writing about or coping. So that kind of inspired the whole reflections part of the theme, was ‘I want to eavesdrop on what other people are thinking about and doing and how they're getting through this, because I know that I've got this new routine. And I've been reflecting on work styles and what it means to rest.’

So I just started asking people in food and drink like, ‘What are you eating right now? What are you thinking about? What are you writing about? What do you want to talk about?’ And that's kind of how I guess the issue. And it was so interesting to see the, just the vastness of that, right? We've got some chefs like Kalisa Marie Martin, [who] was writing about figuring out what her identity was when she wasn't a chef. 

And I thought that was something that everybody could kind of relate to. How often do we explain ourselves by our work, but when you strip that back, what is it that I like to do and who am I? What is my identity? It became this really normal and almost not food related, but kind of food-related conversations that were so interesting. So I just kind of kept leaning into that with everybody else that I talked to, and that's how we got here.

Alicia: And there are big names in here like Chris Scott and Mavis J. Sanders, Lani Halliday. Who else? Hawa Hassan. How have you made all these connections, and how did you decide to include these folks specifically?

Amber: Yes. 

So that's a really good question because we're a new magazine and a small magazine and a self-funded magazine. So approaching people at first sight was like, ‘Oooh, this is scary. They're not going to take me seriously.’

But then I kind of just leaned into the fact that I'm a human, and I'm passionate about something. And I want to share this, these stories in particular. So I just told people the vision for the project, and why I thought it was important to see if they would be willing to do it. And I was always looking for people who had a strong point of view about something and who would be open, or who would be really ready to rally behind this sort of publication existing and taking up space. 

So that's how I found people. 

And then, yeah, it was all about being friendly with people. I would just email them and ask them, like, ‘Do you want to talk? Here's what I'm doing.’ I would slide in their DMs if they posted something that I also related to or wanted to talk about. I would set up virtual coffees to learn what they like and what they might be interested in saying that they don't necessarily get to say in other publications or are approached about being in other publications, ’cause I think we've got the heavy-hitters, but then we also have people that have never been mentioned in the media but still do great work and still have an opinion. 

So it's just been a lot of talking to the people. There's nothing really else to do in quarantine but talk to people. So that's kind of how I've approached it.

Alicia: Right.

And you bring in the playlist with the QR codes. You have all these cocktail recipes. You have a lot of quotes in here. I love the illustrations that you have of everyone who's included.

How are you coming into this? I know you're working with Vonnie Williams. How are you making all these creative decisions for the magazine, and what does it mean to be self-funded to you? [Laughter.]

Amber: This is a great question. 

So making creative decisions for the magazine is—it's interesting, because I've always kind of started—I started To-Be-Hosted and While Entertaining as a solo-preneur, as the world would call it. But I've always had these incredible friends and these incredible industry friends, for lack of a better word and community that was around me that if I was like, ‘Here's my idea. I put it on a post-it on my wall, and I want to tell you about it,’ they will be awfully honest with me about what's gonna fly and what's not gonna fly. 

So leaning into the people around me, both who share the same vision as me and also other people who are like, ‘I really don't get it. I don't think this is smart.’ Or ‘What do you mean, you're only doing dinner parties? And what do you mean, you're only covering Black people?’ Having that balance of voices that contradict yours to kind of weigh in has been really helpful to me, just in terms of coming up with this creative vision and also not really looking to the left or the right. 

I'm aware of other magazines and other food media coverage and their approaches to it. But following my own vision and breaking my own rules, I kind of stick to that, right? We're a yearly magazine. The whole magazine has one theme or question or pros. We're kind of, again, including the pairing tips and the playlist and all the things that maybe not everybody is doing all the time. And I'm like, ‘This is just what we're going to do and who we're going to be.’ And if people think that we're a magazine, and people think that we're food media or not food media, or smart or not smart, this is where we're kind of sitting. [Laughs.]

And again, just leaning into all the voices. I remember chatting with Vonnie, and I'm being like, ‘Ok, so this is how I want to organize it. Do you hate this?’ And her feeling comfortable to tell me whether or not she hated it. I've been really lucky to have people that want to be honest with me and want to work with me and just see me figure this thing out.

Alicia: Right.

And in the landscape of food media, it is interesting and wonderful to see the success of Whetstone Magazine owned by Stephen Satterfield and the launch of for the culture by Klancy Miller. And where do you see While Entertaining and also-

Well, you know what? I’m gonna ask you that question, then I'll ask you what I have in my head next. But where do you see While Entertaining in the indie publishing landscape? Or do you? Do you feel a part of a wave of new magazines?

Amber: Yes. 

I certainly feel a part of it. And I love chatting with Stephen Satterfield for Whetstone. He was somebody from the beginning that has always taken my calls. And he answered my emails on how to do this thing from a business perspective, how to do this thing. And even Kerry Diamond from Cherry Bomb also has welcomed me into this indie magazine landscape. It's been exciting and new. 

And I definitely feel While Entertaining fits in, I think about our perspective is food and entertaining specifically, and then also looking at home and personal stories. So I think we've kind of created a lane that's very specific to us, but also fits in this larger indie magazine landscape and Black-owned publishing landscape. Again, we're only a yearly magazine. And we print on very heavy paper. Everything is independently shot and really leans into the beauty of it all. 

My vision is to be in the collector's category. This is something that's super functional. And you can cook from it, and you can read and relate and can spark conversation. But also, this is something that you want to have each one, because it kind of commemorates where Black food and drink people were in this moment of time for each year and kind of holding on to that. 

Alicia: And that's what I love about the magazine too, because it's going deeper and getting broader because of its specificity. You're bringing in so many people who might be not necessarily ignored by mainstream food media, but not get this kind of space and this kind of depth of spread.

And so, how do you see mainstream food media? Do you read it? Do you see it as good? Do you see it changing for the better? What is your perspective?

Amber: I definitely read it, because I love—I do love talking about food. So I do read other publications. 

And when I think about some of the mainstream media and the bigger food media, I wish we could challenge them even more than we have in the past year in terms of the different voices and the different stories that they tell. From a business perspective, I also respect your decision to not do so or not change your perspective or fields of voice. So in that case, I'd love to see them create more championing of the indie magazines and the more niche perspective media that is arising because of their lack of coverage for the stories that we want to cover. 

I think there's a need for all of this, right? We're always going to want to read a couple articles before we go try a new restaurant or understand why this person's concept for this location is different than that location. I think there's a place for all of it. But I think what I think about While Entertaining and what I want to do as an indie magazine, I think about making food-related art more so than just pumping out a lot of different stories or pumping out a lot of different recipes. We have the luxury of being able to slow down and not answer to any advertisers or any clicks and really do things that we're passionate about.

Alicia: And now that the world is opening up a bit, we're being told vaccinated people can gather at home. What are you envisioning for the next issue with this new new world and new ways? [Laughter.]

Amber: I envision so many things. 

I mean, first of all, I'm super excited for post-vax parties and dinner parties and to have that come back and have more people feel comfortable about doing shared plates. [Laughs.] So I'm really excited about that. 

I hope that people who have the magazine and who have gone through and read the stories are now starting to envision how this recipe lives on their table and who they want to cook it for and who they want to invite over to talk about different things. So I'm excited for people to start having that experience. 

I mean, I've already started thinking about the 2022 issue. We start working on it in the next month or two. I bounce between themes. I mentioned that I come from a very athletic family. And one thing that I recall hearing my dad say is this is a rebuilding year, in a reference to a basketball team that just lost a really big player. 

I'm like, ‘What is there about a rebuilding year? How are we rebuilding our businesses and rebuilding our families because a lot of people lost loved ones and, and just rebuilding our world and rebuilding our social calendar?’ Something like that feels really interesting to me. I also feel I'm on the fence. I could run away from the pandemic and pretend it didn't happen and do editorial and filing entirely based on something else. 

So I think that's the nice thing about the magazine is, I can just keep a running list of themes and find the right moment for that theme and then find the right people that want to talk about that theme.

Alicia: And what are your plans for To-Be-Hosted? Is it coming back in full force? Are you already making plans for new events?

Amber: Yes, we are already making plans for new events. We have a few books for this summer and the fall. And I'm really just trying to expand that brand. We’ll still focus on dinner parties. But I'd love to focus on more like video content, and storytelling in the experience world. 

I mean, this is a whole separate tangent. But I'd also like To-Be-Hosted to have a venue where we can be hosting our dinners and also recording content, because I think there's something to the necessity of safe spaces for Black creators and Black culinary talents have a space where they can go where the venue coordinator isn't going to change rules and change energy when they see that the whole staff is Black, right? I really want to build safe spaces around To-Be-Hosted. So I think venue is next on my mind.

Alicia: That's amazing. And I love that plan. I just think it's a brilliant idea. And it's a brilliant expansion of that concept. 

And I am a little jealous because I do love planning events. [Laughs.] I know how hard it is, like deeply, deeply difficult and exhausting. But also so fun. 

Amber: So fun and rewarding.

Alicia: Yeah, it’s really rewarding. And I mean, I get to plan my wedding, but that’s about it. [Laughs.] 

Well, for you, is cooking a political act? 

Amber: Yes.

I hesitate, because I am not a chef. I understand why a lot of chefs and food people have, feel that cooking is very politically charged. And historically, there's many reasons why it should be. But I'm hesitant to answer that question, because I don't feel I'm a chef or a professional cook that I can really do that question justice. 

Where my mind also kind of went when you said that into my specific niche of hosting and entertaining. For me, that is very political, because we exist in this kind of space where if Black people are talking about entertaining and hosting and cooking and doing kind things to people when they're in their home, you kind of lean toward these mammy vibes, right? And if you're thinking about for lack of a better term, the ‘domestic goddess’ of it all, those are all white women, or Martha Stewart–adjacent women. And I don't really fit that. 

So when I'm talking about entertaining and doing a magazine about entertaining and having a company about entertaining and having Black people lead those things? And those Black people not subscribing to either the stereotypes that America has put upon us, or the stereotypes that social media gives their energy too. But just being Black, being Black or brown, being a person of color, and being really empowered about cooking and entertaining and not feeling you're subscribing to anything problematic. But I work, I cook, I clean and I do these things because I want to and I want to make people feel good. 

And I want people to come over and have fun, not just to be the person that's serving them something. That, for me, is very political. And I take that part of my work very seriously about not subscribing to these really problematic views of perfection that comes with a domestic goddess, or problematic views of servitude that comes with being American. That's where the politics kind of hit for me.

Alicia: Well, thank you so much again for taking the time today.

Amber: Yes, thank you for having me. I loved this chat. And I love what you're doing with your platform. So I'm excited to be part of it.

Alicia: Thank you.

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I’ve been following the chef and writer Taffy Elrod on Twitter for years, and right now she’s having a moment. From teaching virtual classes while the restaurant she owns in the Hudson Valley with her husband has been closed to working with Rancho Gordo on a bean recipe booklet, she’s been making the most of a weird moment for a chef accustomed to working with the public.

We discussed her mostly vegetarian upbringing, studying at the Natural Gourmet Institute, and the thin line between hospitality and hostility. Listen above, read below.

Alicia: Hi, Taffy. Thank you so much for coming on today.

Taffy: Hi, Alicia. Thank you for having me.

Alicia: Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate?

Taffy: Yeah, sure. 

I grew up in southeastern Michigan, in Ann Arbor. My folks were from the Detroit area. And what I ate is [laughs]—mainly, the main story of what I ate is that I grew up in that healthy, whole food hippie home. [Laughs.] Whole food, meaning the foods, not the store, because that didn't exist in our area yet. 

So I grew up eating a lot of brown food. Brown rice and millet. And gosh, lots and lots of beans and tofu. And then sort of these re-engineered foods that—my grandmother was the head of the household and the vegetarian. So, she would make things like stuffed cabbage without the meat, and all kinds of things like that. And then, that was our mainstay. 

And then there were a few other things. My dad, his family's from down South. My dad's African American, his family's from down South. So sometimes with him, then my brother and I would eat completely different foods, because we would suddenly be having, gosh, be at McDonald's or having pizza or something. But for the most part, it was that sort of healthy hippie dippie, earthy, Earth mama food.

Alicia: What made your grandmother be vegetarian?

Taffy: I mean, she was way ahead of her time. She would probably be an amazing influencer if she were here right now.

She did it for two reasons. One, being ethical. She loved animals and didn't—she grew up on a farm and didn't like hurting animals. 

And two, she just had health problems in her mid-30s. She was a typical, sort of—not typical, but she was living, I should say, a typical sort of suburban working class life and—in Detroit. And she had health problems. And that through her research, she came up with this solution to her health problems of changing her diet, changing her lifestyle. She cut out all alcohol. She stopped smoking cigarettes. She cut out white sugar, she cut out white flour. She became vegetarian. 

And I mean, of course, there was a movement at that time that she was a part of. She worked in this—a food co-op in Detroit. Things like that. But that was her journey. It was about health and about—she loved everyone and everything, and couldn't stand to hurt anything. She didn't like to bring cut flowers in the house, a habit that I have continued. She didn't like to cut a tree for Christmas. She had like a little potted fir tree. 

Alicia: Wow. [Laughs.] 

Taffy: [Laughs.] Yeah.

Alicia: You write in your bio that you grew up in a family of artists and cooks. But I wanted to ask, what drew you into working in food yourself?

Taffy: It was kind of a long, slow road, I always was just deeply intrigued by food and cooking. And obviously, it was a big part of my family. But I didn't necessarily see it as my career goal. I think because it was so deeply ingrained in our family, that it just was there as this sort of backdrop. 

But as I got older, and I was doing—I was working retail and just couldn't figure out what to do with myself. And by older, I mean like my early 20s. I realized that what I spent all my free time on was food—and my love of food and collecting cookbooks and trying new recipes and trying to learn things. And that it really was my one great love, my one true love.

Alicia: Right.

And how have you expressed it in your life? What have been the ways in which you've worked in food and expressed this love?

Taffy: Well, first of all, when I was in school, I wouldn't—I was paying my way through community college, when—back in Michigan when I was young. And like everything I did in school, if we had a paper to write or project, I would always—it would be about food. 

So, I had to give a presentation in my French class. And I came up with a pie that I could make in like 10 minutes in class. And that was the beginning of my food demonstration career. I was like, ‘My French is terrible, but if I make a pie they won't care. Nobody will care.’ 

And I found this French cooking magazine and just pieced it, figured out how to give this presentation even though I couldn't speak French. My professor was like, ‘How did you do this?’ I basically just stole it out of this magazine. But the pie was this other pie, so I mashed it together and I made a pie. So that the end of my 10 minute presentation, there was a pie for the class to eat: this no-bake pie. 

So I was always doing things like that. No matter what I had to do, I would just figure out—food would be the way that I would do it. So at some point, it just sort of became—I would be taking a writing class, and everything I was writing was about food. 

My professor was like, ‘Maybe, I don't know. I'm gonna throw this out here: Maybe you're interested in food or something.’ I just kind of eventually realized like, ‘Oh, right. This is what I should just be doing.’ Then I made the decision to get into culinary school and pursue it that way, because I thought I needed to get out of my little pond and do—go somewhere bigger to pursue my career dreams.

Alicia: Where do you go to culinary school?

Taffy: I went to the Natural Gourmet Institute for Food and Health in New York City in Chelsea. Yeah. [Laughs.] At the time, I was still very much ensconced in that lifestyle of the vegetarian, veganism, whole foods. And I was wondering like, ‘Well, where in the world am I going to go to cooking school? What am I going to do about this?’ And then I found out about them. And they have since been absorbed by ICE, by the Institute of Culinary Education. That ICE. Not any other ICE. 

But at the time, I mean, it was really interesting to be there. It was a great experience. I made great friends. And I loved it. And I moved to New York City to do that. It was a big deal. It wasn't easy for me to do. But it made my life, my career, a little bit maybe more difficult to get a good foot into the culinary scene in New York. Because, of course, to most people it was like, ‘I'm sorry, where did you go to school?’ [Laughs.] But for me, it was the right thing for me to do at the time. And it was a great experience.

Alicia: Well, where did you end up getting your feet into the culinary scene then? 

Taffy: So of course, I had already done some work back home. My mom had a cake decorating business. My dad worked in restaurants, and my grandmother worked in a bakery. And I had done some work already with them growing up. When I realized I wanted to start cooking, I had started segueing into food. So I had done some food work growing up in Ann Arbor.

And then when I left school in New York, I had two part-time jobs. I worked in a little—another grad had opened up this little sort of lunch café place in Chelsea. And then I got a job working on a nutrition study at Teachers College at Columbia University. It involved macrobiotics, so that was how I ended up there. 

So I was doing those two things. And then I’ve done so many different, so much different work. A little bit of restaurant work. But again, it didn't always click between my background. And at the time, 20 years ago, being a woman of color in the restaurant industry, it didn't, wasn't amazing for me. It didn't really click great in the back of the house. 

So I kind of just kept on this funny path of different—doing these different things. So a lot of health and nutrition, private cooking, and so on and so forth, and demos and things like that. A lot of teaching. Gosh, have cooked in so many different places. [Laughs.]

Alicia: Well, I mean, it's funny, because I was going to ask you wha—how you have such a varied kind of portfolio in terms of different diets and different dietary restrictions, which I now very much understand. [Laughs.] Which is that you went to the Natural Gourmet Institute, you grew up with a vegetarian kind of background. It's interesting that that is something that has both held you back seemingly, but also been a way forward for you.

Taffy: Yeah, definitely. Absolutely. 

At one point in time, it was so unknown, so fringe in American culture. Now, it's become so much more accepted or popular, whatever you want to call it. And I always appreciated that I had that knowledge and that I had the understanding of it, because you can always—the other information and, is always there. And knowing how to make something taste delicious with butter was not really that hard to do. [Laughs.] It tastes good. We make stuff taste good.

When you know  how to approach food from a different angle, whatever it may be, and you know how to work with a minimum of ingredients or you know how to work with ingredients that might be outside of the ‘standard,’ that always, in my opinion, improves your cooking within the standard, because you have more tools to work with or this wider knowledge. And so, I was never undone by walking into a kitchen and finding out that there was nothing in there. [Laughs.] There was no equipment, or there was no—there's nothing good in here to cook. 

So, I worked in a place where I made gluten-free vegan soups five days a week, and—from pretty basic ingredients. So you can give me a couple turnips or a bag of lentils or whatever like, ‘I'm gonna make you some soup.’ You know what I mean? And that is obviously a skill that most of our ancestors have possessed until very recently. But it's also a skill that, as a professional cook, will really stand you in good stead. It's really great to be able to cook without needing to have the best of the best.

Alicia: Right.

Well, you live in the Hudson Valley now, right? And what are you doing now? What's your life like now?

Taffy: Hmm, yeah, that's a pretty big question. 

My husband and I are in Hudson Valley. We came up about six years ago to open our pizzeria restaurant that unfortunately is closed right now. And I mean, honestly, it was such a big change. It was such a culture shock for me—not just from New York City, obviously. But from my past life, even very different. We're in, I don't know, just a very different environment. 

And our lives changed completely almost overnight, because we found a place and just sort of took it on spec and just went from our—the lives we had in the city. I was working full-time as a cooking teacher. He was trying to sort of figure out what to do with himself next. And all of a sudden, we were just in this business. His brother was supposed to work with us, and he didn't. 

So all of a sudden, I went from having this, my job, to—we opened the pizzeria. And then suddenly, I was in the pizzeria all the time, too. Our other source of income was gone. And it was just the two of us in this pizzeria. And it was do or die. And suddenly, we were just together 48 hours a day and—just doing one of the most stressful jobs or businesses you can imagine. So I just really, there's not really words for it. 

And then of course the last year and a half, just everything ended up changing all over again. So I'm kind of starting over again. So it's just been one really wild ride, honestly.

Alicia: [Laughs.] 

Obviously, you've worked with your husband. You do recipes. You've also been a professional cook. How doyou approach cooking in a home way versus a professional way, or is there a difference?

Taffy: [Laughs.] 

That's a great question. A balance? I've never heard of it. 

I don't know. I don't think I do. When it comes to cooking, I'm like this amorphous blob. It's just all food all the time. And so, I obviously cook differently at home than I did in the restaurant. But at the same time, when we were in the restaurant 12 or 14 hours a day I cooked all our meals in the restaurant. Or he did. So home cooking didn't even exist. 

And then suddenly when we were shuttered, and I was home and I was by myself because he was stuck in Montenegro, where he's from and couldn't get home. I was just home by myself. So it was unbelievable going from cooking all day every day for our customers to just suddenly being home alone. 

But I've always had kind of this porous—I don't really see it as distinctly different. I cook at home similar to how I cook professionally. I mean, obviously, I wasn't at home making pizzas all the time. [Laughs.] But a lot of the things that I cooked in the restaurant, I’d cook them at home. I mean, the only difference for me is just the level of prep and the level of service and how I'm plating it. But I'm notorious for cooking enough for 100 people when it's two of us. Never mastered small portions. 

And the answer is, I don't. It's just me. That's what I do.

Alicia: Well, you've also been teaching online cooking classes. And why did you decide to go that route? They're very affordable, too affordable I noticed. And I noticed you're doing one called The Art of Salad. How are you deciding what to teach, and why are you teaching online?

Taffy: Yeah.

I just decided to keep that one like extra affordable, because I'm going off the cuff. I'm not giving recipes or anything, so I was like, ‘Whatever.’ 

Well, it came about because I had a couple companies that I was working with as a recipe developer doing some online work. And so at the beginning of lockdown, they had asked me to do some Instagram Lives when everybody was just doing whatever, just doing anything to pass the time. That was how I kind of got started doing virtual cooking. 

And then a couple opportunities came up in the last few months. And I had already done some filmed cooking demonstrations for a company I work with, so it was kind of natural. We didn't even think we were going to live in this apartment for more than a few months. I had never even cooked in this kitchen before we got out of the restaurant or got pulled out of the restaurant, whatever. 

So, it's been weird. It's been awkward. And that's part of why I've kind of just kept the bar low, because my kitchen is not up to a lot of demands here. But I realized that it was a good way for me—I miss people. I miss cooking for people. I miss my students. 

So, it's different. It's virtual. It's not the same, but at least it gives me an outlet to be able to share. Because I'm one of those people like, ‘Yeah, I'd love to cook,’ but if somebody isn't gonna be there to share it with—it's just half of s experience. It's not the whole experience. I'm definitely a nurturer, I guess.

Alicia: Right. 

No, I hate cooking for just myself. It's depressing. Yeah, I don't know. For me, I just make something weird. And then, it's not even satisfying. I eat it standing up. I think it is almost why I'm—I will often plate things nicely and take pictures and post them on Insta. It gives me content to make myself something, but at the same time I'm not that interested all the time in eating it because I just don't like eating—I like eating alone out at a restaurant or a bar. I don't like eating alone in my house. [Laughter.] It's simply not for me. 

Taffy: Yeah, I know what you mean. I don't mind the eating alone. But I just don't care then about the cooking. Just keep it simple. 

Once in a while, but rarely.

Alicia: Yeah, no, Maybe it's my Libra moon. I like to nest. [Laughs.]

But I wrote about hospitality for my newsletter this week. And when you quote tweeted, “Nothing’s ever made more sense to me than the connection between hostility and hospitality.” And I wanted to ask why you said that, and why that connection is so clear to you. 

Taffy: Wel. [Laughs.] 

So first of all, we had a restaurant. Or I don't know, sort of, maybe we still have a restaurant someday. We'll see. 

I worked in food service and in our restaurant for a long time with contact with our customers. In our restaurant, we had constant contact with our customers as opposed to having a lot of front of the house staff. 

And the truth of matter is, there's a lot of hostility involved. People are hostile. They feel very, I don't know, kind of—and around here, they tended to be really kind of aggressive and gruff. [Laughs.] And the first impression was always like, ‘Well, I don’t know you. Why do you hate me?’ So I mean, there's just kind of that—obviously, or of it-

But after having worked in this world for a long time, the reality is that—and I always think about this for myself. And I think I had posted something on Twitter about this. I used to work in people's homes and call myself a private chef, and I always in the back of my head used to sort of laugh at myself and think, ‘Private chef. Yes, right. But you do know that 50 years ago, you would have been the cook, right? [Laughs.] You know, this, don't you?’

There is this strange interaction, and sort of bristly space between people who are being served and people who are serving. My husband would always, always says, ‘I'm your server, not your servant.’ But the truth of the matter is that comes from—they come from the same place. It's a small difference. And there is, I think, from the people who are being served, a lot of times they actually feel very defensive about their needs or how they be treated, whether they think that if they don't tell you what to do, you're not going to do it. 

Or just that there's that uncomfortability. I mean, I remember that working in someone's home and in their kitchen and being all day with, around their kids and whatever. It was a strange feeling. You had to keep this sort of veneer of professionalism. And yet you're in someone's most intimate space, and you're doing something so incredibly intimate: preparing the food that they're going to eat, especially when it's right in their own home. 

And there is this sort of always this undercurrent of discomfort or almost—I don't know, you kind of have to be on the offensive. Or they're on the offensive. I thought, ‘How can I put this into words?’ I couldn't really, but it just seemed so clear to me. It's so obvious. I was like, ‘Yeah, totally.’ 

I mean, in our last place, it was our place. We had to be so defensive, so protective of ourselves. People would walk in and see a brown-skinned woman, an immigrant. I would get emails complaining about how the staff treated people when they were talking about me and my husband. 

There was so much constant, kind of this undercurrent of hostility and having to kind of be on the offensive to keep people in their place, because they just kind of wanted to come in and take over if they could. So yeah, it just really resonated.

Alicia: Well, I'm glad for that. But it is so interesting. As you said, your husband says the connection’s also between server and servant. These are very, very thin boundaries between these things: hostility, hospitality. Server, servant. And I think, yeah, people just aren't aware of it. They're hostile and they want a servant, and I don't know how that changes, really, on a broader scale. It's interesting. 

It's funny. When I worked at a bar, I ended up being the only employee that ever—someone ever emailed about for being rude. [Laughter.] As I remember it, I had a packed bar, and someone needed more time to decide what they wanted. And so I said, ‘Ok,’ and put my hand up in a way of kind of gesturing to say, ‘Ok, I've got what you said.’ And they were offended by that. Because I put my hand in the air and pointed to kind of make a mental note while I'm trying to remember what everyone wants?

It's just such a strange interaction all the time. If I ever go out with someone who ends up being weird or impatient with the staff, I'm like, ‘I'm never going out with you again.’ [Laughter.] I can't live like that. I can't be associated with that. Our friendship is never going to exist in these spaces.

Taffy: Yeah. 

It's weird. It's interesting. And obviously, I mean, if you've never worked in the food industry or in service, then I almost understand that you don't understand. If you have, then I really am confused by where you're coming from. ‘Well, I served people. Now I'm gonna take it out on somebody else’ attitude. [Laughs.] Just ignore the reality of the situation, I don't know. [Laughs.]

Alicia: I don’t know.

Well, for you is cooking a political act?

Taffy: Yeah.

I mean, absolutely. I mean hopefully sometimes it isn't. Hopefully, sometimes at home, it isn't. But food is. And food is so political. And everything about the act of growing, selling, consuming food. Even the connections between the food and our perceptions of our bodies is so politicized. 

It would be impossible for it not to be, because we all have to eat. So therefore, food is a point of really powerful control. So whatever your choices are, you think you're making neutral choices about your food. Believe me, the ramifications are political. And if you have choices to make, if you have the privilege of making choices, that's political. If you don't have the privilege of making choices around what you eat, that's political. 

So to me, it's just—it just simply is. There isn’t, I don't think, in this modern day and age, a place where anybody can just choose to live off the land, be free and make their own food. So I think we're all very much caught up in the web of the politics of food. And cooking and eating are so—oh, boy. Especially in the modern American culture, is layer on layer upon layer of social ramifications and guilt. 

Alicia: Yeah.

No, I mean—because these industries aren't regulated at all. The state is not taking care of us or workers or the planet. And thus, it's all on our shoulders.

Taffy: Yeah. 

But I think that's what they—I don't know, whoever they are. It's obviously all about consumption and consumerism, literal consumption, obviously. But I mean about capitalism, consumerism, and money: the almighty dollar. And so I think that just throwing it back on the consumer and saying, ‘It's on you. You figure it out. You do it. You do something and it'll fix it.’ is really—I think it's really a scam. It's manipulative, and it's toxic. The average person didn't create the system, isn't benefiting from it. 

And then obviously, when you talk about less served populations and under, ‘underdeveloped’ nations, which—I don't know. I was thinking about it the other day. I was like, ‘Why don't they call some place like America an overdeveloped nation?’ Because we are. We're not nicely developed, we’re overdeveloped. As long as it's just finger-pointing things, like ‘You're responsible!’ Like me personally is gonna change what they're doing, so they don't have to take any responsibility for it. And it's always just another ploy to create another industrial mass produced food that will be this, ‘That'll fix the problem.’ Oh, that's weird. 

My husband always jokes about fasting kits being sold, like fasting came into vogue and now you can buy a fasting kit. I don’t know what's in it. I think that just sums it all up. You have to sell something to somebody for them to not eat or drink. So I mean, that's the world we're living in. I mean, I would like to feel like it were, it was a little different. 

I mean, I can make personal choices. And I can do my best. But you know what? Somebody else is eventually going to have to answer for themselves and do something different. If it’s gonna change, actions are actually gonna have to change. 

Alicia: Yeah, yeah. 

Well, thank you so much for your time today.

Taffy: [Laughs.] Thank you.

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I knew I wanted to talk to writer Hannah Selinger when she was openly angry that her Eater essay “Life Was Not a Peach,” about her experience working for David Chang, wasn’t included in Best American Food Writing 2021. The rule is that we writers aren’t supposed to comment on whether we’ve been snubbed for an anthology or an award, even when it’s a clearly egregious way to keep a highly critical essay out of the canon, in an anthology edited by a fellow chef.

So we talked, not just about the anthology, but about her culinary and wine studies, her generalist approach, and being a year-round Hamptons resident. Listen above, or read below.

Alicia: Hi, Hannah. Thank you so much for taking the time out to talk today.

Hannah: Thank you for having me, Alicia.

Alicia: Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate?

Hannah: Yeah, I had sort of a weird upbringing. 

I was born in New York City. And when I was seven, my mom moved to Massachusetts. So I actually came back and forth every other weekend between New York and Mass until I was 17. So, I grew up—

Alicia: Wow.

Hannah: Yeah. 

I grew up in a small town called Newburyport. It used to be Massachusetts’ smallest actual city. It's right on the New Hampshire border. 

What did I eat? My mother was a very, I would say, not inventive cook. So we had this cookbook called365 Ways to Cook Chicken. That was something she was really dedicated to. Bottled salad dressing and a lot of steamed vegetables, because that was very in vogue in the ’80s. 

My father, who lived in New York, was a little bit more adventurous. And he was more into cooking different kinds of meat and vegetables. But I would say that we were a pretty prototypical ’80s family. Nothing very interesting going on.

Alicia: Right.

Well, growing up between Massachusetts and New York is interesting in terms of the rivalry there. Do you have more of an affinity for one over the other?

Hannah: I have some pretty good stories. My father passed away, but he was a diehard Yankees fan. And my mother is from Massachusetts, and has always been a Red Sox fan. And I used to wear a Yankees Starter jacket to school in Massachusetts and was teased, I mean, just beyond all get out. 

Alicia: Right? Of course. 

I remember that moment when Etarter jackets were so popular, and my mom wouldn't let me get one. 

Hannah: They were very cool. 

Alicia: Yeah. [Laughter.] 

But you write about such a wide range of topics. Not just food and wine and travel, which kind of go together, but also parenting, real estate. How did you come to writing and built this career as a generalist?

Hannah: I definitely started in food and wine, which was where I was most comfortable. I had come out of working as a sommelier for some time, so that was kind of a natural segue for me. 

And more recently, as I've expanded my repertoire, I kind of follow things that are interesting to me. My husband is chief of staff for what we call out here a high net-worth individual. And so, he has a lot of experience in homes. We kind of GC’d our own renovation, and I got familiar with the real estate market, which granted me kind of some intellectual access, I would say. 

But I think I now view it as if something is interesting to me, and I feel like I have a base knowledge that's—if I'm, if I have enough understanding of the topic to be able to report it out, then it's something that I'll write.

Alicia: Right, right, right. 

And you are best known as a food writer, and were a sommelier and graduated from the International Culinary Center. And you have these huge credentials in this kind of field. So how have your experiences in restaurants and training for those careers influenced your work when  most writers about food and wine don't have that experience or background expertise?

Hannah: Well, first of all, it's granted me a lot of access, because I think that even at the very beginning when I was green in writing, I could always say, ‘Look, I'm clearly an expert in this field, because I've worked the floor. And I can tell you about X, Y, and Z,’ especially with wine writing where there are very few women in particular who write about wine just compared to the overall field. 

I would say that I have more empathy for what goes on in a restaurant and more understanding, and I would never—I think I would never find myself in the position of being a dining critic for that purpose, because I have too much kind of relationship to what's going on in the—both front and back of the house. 

Alicia: Right.

And what drew you to getting into that work?

Hannah: [Laughs.] It was born of necessity, I think.

I got a Master of Fine Arts in fiction writing when I was like, 24. And I thought ‘Oh, I'm just gonna go to New York and write the great American novel, and I'll be cool.’ So I got a job waiting tables.

Alicia: But what got you deep into it into making it more of your career?

Hannah: It was sort of a series of accidental situations. I was working in restaurants. Bobby Flay was the first major restaurant I worked at in the city, and then was working for Laurent Tourondel at BLT Prime on 22nd Street in the city. And I felt when I would go up to a table, I could talk to them about food, which was something with which I was pretty familiar because everybody eats. But wine felt kind of intellectually inaccessible to me. 

And so, I started meeting with a sommelier after work and coming in and doing inventory, which just sort of set me up for this career as a sommelier. When I was working as a sommelier, there were kind of a couple of things about it that felt compelling to me. One, the mood of a restaurant, the frenetic energy, and the fact that you're kind of always doing something. It wasn't an office job. I was in my 20s. 

There's sort of like a vigor to it. I mean, there's a lot to know about wine. And it does cross into kind of the literary study that I had been accustomed to and that I based my academic career on. And that part of it felt like it wasn't just serving people things. There was an element of knowledge and understanding that went with it. And that, to me, was intriguing.

Alicia: Well, how does your MFA in fiction do you think influence your work now, if it does still?

Hannah: If I could go back in time, I think I would have done that differently. I think I knew that I wanted to write, but I didn't know what kind of writer I was. And so I picked fiction, but I think I was always a nonfiction writer. I'm not sure if that set me up and then I exercised the muscle of writing more regularly. And I saw it as something that you kind of had to produce within a set period of time, which is useful if you're a career writer. But beyond that, I'm not sure that I got too much strategy out of it. It took me a while to kind of get to this place.

Alicia: Right, right. 

Well, you did write a book review last year that made a big splash, I think in some circles. For Eater, you reviewed David Chang's memoir, Eat a Peach, which was also your memoir of working for him. And it was one of the best I and many have read on the reality of working for one of—a big chef whose behavior is lauded and excused. And it was really just such an eye opening kind of look into that world. And I just the other day opened the Goldbelly website, and the first main page is David Chang's face. And I was like, ‘Are we still doing this? Really?’ 

And I wanted to know why you wanted to open up in that piece in the way you did, and how the reception was to it. Because I talk a lot with friends about the cost of exposing our trauma and whether we gain anything from it, really. Why did you decide to do that piece in the way you did it, and how have you felt in the aftermath?

Hannah: So when I decided to write the piece at first, I was—I felt like I had to write it. It was sort of—I didn't have a choice. The whole process began when Peter Meehan stepped down from the L.A. Times last summer, it was like right around the Fourth of July. At that moment, I kind of had this feeling in the pit of my stomach. All of these people are suffering—accountability, if you want to call it that—in some small way, but Chang never really did. And why doesn't anyone talk about it?

So I actually just sat down and wrote a draft of what was, at that point, a completely personal essay. It had nothing to do with the book. And after kind of speaking with a bunch of different editors who were interested in it, and then ultimately landing with Matt and Aaron over at Eater, we decided that the best way to frame it was through the lens of his book because his book had just dropped at the point that I was still shopping the piece.

So when you're a public writer and you write about yourself, which I do sometimes, there's always an element of vulnerability and there's an element of blowback that can accompany that. I think that's sort of just par for the course with my job. And I talk to other relatively high-profile writers about this, is people feel like they know you and they feel like they have access to you. They feel like they have, they're entitled to tell you how they feel about your work and your life because your life is suddenly public. And that's always challenging no matter what the piece is.

I actually was surprised by the reaction that I got from this piece, because I was expecting blowback. Whenever something goes viral, you do. But most of what I got privately was actually deep empathy. And a lot of people who had worked for Dave during different periods and at different restaurants reached out to kind of sus through their own trauma, which was an unexpected consequence. I think I didn't necessarily know what people who were in it were going to feel. And they felt largely the same way that I did. And that was a very surprising, surprisingly rewarding part of all this. 

I've been disappointed that it kind of disappeared in the national narrative, and people just kind of let it go away. And they let his behavior kind of just continue to be what it is.

Alicia: Right? It's really shocking to me. 

And I don't know, I've always been curious how you feel in the last few months when I've seen his name just kind of pop up in a really neutral manner. What has been your response to that?

Hannah: That's hard. And of course, I got that PR email that was advertising a project that he was working on. And I was like, ‘I actually can't believe that someone wouldn't even put my name into Google before sending this PR thing out to me.’ What?

It's not that I think that he's all one thing. It's not that I think he's a terrible person, or even bad at what he does; I think he created something that was really cool. I was certainly driven to work there and eat there. Even after I left, I wanted to eat at the restaurant, or the restaurants. 

But I do think that I had sort of this moment at the end of my piece where I called for him to say something and step down, or pass the reins of his business on to somebody else. And that has really been met with silence. People like to say that we've come so far in this industry, and I don't know how far we've come at the end of the day. Powerful men are still the ones who run things in the restaurant industry.

Alicia: Right.

I've been thinking a lot about this. I think that writers are punished for it—for speaking out about chef behavior and for writing about it, even though we think that that's our job. But we are really expected to maintain the status quo when it comes to these chefs. We are expected to be nice, be accepting that it is hard to work in a kitchen, hard to run a kitchen. And so even though these people, usually men, are getting rich off the backs of other people's labor that perhaps they've been toxic to, we are supposed to not necessarily criticize that. 

And that came up for me this year because the person who was chosen to be the series editor, the editor for Best American Food Writing 2020 or 2021, was Gabrielle Hamilton, who—I saw my job, when I was writing for The Village Voice, to—as a food writer to be someone who kind of held powerful people to account for their decisions. 

But I wrote a piece about how when she was thinking of going into business with Ken Friedman to—yeah, to restore The Spotted Pig, and somehow related it to a natural disaster and that sort of thing. It was just really horrifying to watch in the midst of this big movement for accountability to see a female chef thinking that she could kind of fix a rapist and a restaurant with a rape room that anyone in the industry had heard the whispers about. I was told people knew not to work there if you were a woman. It was just really bizarre. 

And so I wrote about that—when it happened in 2018. And then when she was the—named the editor this year, I was like, ‘Oh, I guess I'm certainly not going to be in it.’ And that has consequences for us financially, of course. And that's why I was like, ‘How is it ok to put a chef in charge of deciding the best food writing when this is, of course, someone who's going to protect other chefs as well?’ 

And when your essay on Eat a Peach wasn't included in the anthology, you were very vocal on social media about your feelings about it. And I was really impressed by that because I feel most of us are—We're going to be Charlie Brown going home or whatever sad, being like, ‘Ok, whatever. I guess I'm just not good enough.’ But when we know that's not the case. We know that these things are not judged on a real meritocracy—meritocratic level. 

And so I wanted to ask you why it was important for—to speak out about that. I don't think we can really have hope that awards or anthologies are going to reward work that's critical of chefs, because they are bound to protect each other. And I mean, there was something included about  just being the girlfriend of a Michelin-starred chef. 

Hannah: I saw it. 

Alicia: And it's like, ‘Wow, this is just really collected work this year, when we had—we're talking so much about restaurants and the role of restaurants. But we're gonna have an anthology that just pretends that none of that actually happened.’

But yeah, so for you, why was it so important to speak out? And how did you feel about this person being the editor?

Hannah: I mean, I'm pissed about the whole thing. 

And actually that essay that you're talking about, that was in Grub Street. I very much like Alan, but the winner of that award tweeted out how honored she was to be working with one of her idols, Gabrielle Hamilton. And I wanted to scream into the void. 

Look, anyone who has read my essay who is, who’s tangential to the food world knows that that essay belonged in the anthology if for no other reason than it memorialized a certain period of time that we were living in. And that is what is supposed to be the point of an anthology that comes out annually.

And I'm not afraid to say that it was an excellent piece of writing. It's probably the best piece of writing I have ever executed, with great gratitude and debt to my editors who reigned me in. And this is my bad. I really just thought it was a sure thing. I was like, ‘I'm 100% going to be in the anthology. Why wouldn't I?’ And even Pete Wells was like, ‘You're definitely going to be in the anthology or whatever.’ When I didn't receive word from them, I was like, ‘This is shocking.’ And then I was like, ‘I guess it's not shocking. It's not shocking for Gabrielle Hamilton to be exactly who I thought she was going to be.’

And in addition to the Ken Friedman thing, there was the 10,000-word essay that she had in the New York Times Magazine last year, which people blindly praised when it had a lot of really questionable things in it, like, ‘Oh hey, I'm not going to take a GoFundMe for my staff because it bruises my ego.’ And then a recipe a few pages later for using $60 crab and an appetizer. 

I don't have a personal grievance. I just think that how—who made the decision to put her—it's mystifying. The whole thing is mystifying. I think it's widely understood in the food community that changes need to be made. And yet, here we are, after all of this, repeating the same narrative over and over again. Let's take the people who were abusive and put them in positions where they get to choose what is good and what is not good. Let's ignore the fact that this was the biggest year in terms of racial injustice that we've had to actually face head on as Americans in my lifetime, and put a white female writer, restaurateur of all things in the position of editing the collection. 

The food world continues to be tone deaf. Of course. I mean, we can talk about James Beard a different time. But this is just sort of another example. And I don't know if there's a correction on that. I tried to call it out so that more people would amplify the understanding of it. And privately, a lot of high-profile people reached out to me. Probably not so much.

Alicia: Yeah. 

And that's disappointing, because we really do. And I said this, I think I wrote about the James Beard awards and how basically I think writers, if they bring back the media awards, writers, especially freelance writers, should boycott putting their work in. Because something has to give in terms of the way these things work, in terms of how much energy we put out, and then are expected to also spend money to be—have our work considered for these awards, I mean, while we get paid garbage and are taxed to the hilt for that work. 

The expectations really need to change, and I think—the reason it was so disappointing that Gabrielle Hamilton was chosen this year is that this was the year that we were hoping to see changes. And I think that her decision, the decision to put her as editor this year, showed we're not actually going to change anything. We want to consolidate power at where it is, and keep it where it is. 

Hannah: 100%.

Alicia: Yeah.

And I think it is important for people to talk publicly about that kind of thing. But the thing is, it looks like sour grapes to some people. It looks like you're being rude to your colleagues whose work was chosen. But it's not that. It has to give that we reject the status quo and this concentration of power with chefs. And it's just high time. [Laughs.] 

Hannah: Right. 

And I think also the public may not know, for instance, that when it comes to these compilations and awards—I mean, Best American you don't have to pay, but you have to be the one to actively send her your material and be like, ‘Please consider me.’ It's not like it's just a bunch of people sitting in a room going through every piece of food writing from the year. 

And with ICP and James Beard, you have to send them money, and then you have to send them your links, and you pay for every single submission. Obviously, there's an access issue based on the financial part of it. But in addition to that, you have to have the wherewithal to even know when to do this stuff and who to send it to. The system is completely messed up, even apart from the person making the choices about what gets included.

Alicia: Right.

No, it's just really upsetting. And I think I'm glad that you were vocal about this, because it's such a conversation, it's a conversation that's wildly overdue to just really point out that what is called Best American Food Writing is simply one person's kind of idea of what that means, and not a real expression of what that year meant in food writing. I mean, if it was, we would have seen a lot more independent outlets, I think, included there. It was really a year of independent media. But yeah, no. [Laughs.] 

And yeah, it's really sad that more people aren't willing to kind of reject these things that we know are harmful. But that's the world we live in. That's capitalism, I guess, right? [Laughs.]

Hannah: Yeah. 

I mean, I think my feeling is also—a, I mean, you mentioned sort of the collateral damage that writers can suffer by vocalizing this kind of stuff. I mean, I continue to be unafraid of anything except cockroaches. So, don't put me in a room with roaches. If I want to write a piece about David Chang, I'm gonna write about a piece about David Chang. If I want to post about Gabrielle Hamilton, I’ll suffer the consequences. 

I don't believe for myself, because of where I'm positioned, that these people are going to come for me. I recognize that they are very much capable of coming for people who are less established. And in some ways I see it as an obligation, because I have a platform and because I have enough of a reputation of being kind of an iconoclast and just saying whatever I want, that I'm not sure it's harmful to me. And so I feel like it's my obligation to use that lack of harm to everyone's advantage. 

Alicia: Right. 

And I would hope it changes things, but I think people are a bit too comfortable with the way things work, even if it is to their detriment. Yeah. 

Well, to shift a bit, I wanted to ask about living in the Hamptons because I know you're living in East Hampton. I grew up in Patchogue on the south shore. So I know the Hamptons. Well, because I used to work at Hildreth’s Department Store in Southampton. I designed the website for a couple of years when I was in college. 

And I wanted to know, how is it out there? Where do you eat? How has it influenced your work? It really is, I think, more interesting a place than people give it credit for because of that kind of merging of the townies and the working class and the wildly rich. And I think it is more interesting than people give it credit for, though I do think it's weird how much the summer, places from the city kind of open summer residency is out there now. I think that's weird. 

But for you, how is it? How is the experience?

Hannah: Well, what's changed in the last year because of the pandemic really—there's this sort of beautiful off-season that we enjoy as members of a resort community and it's like until late March, early April. And there's nobody here from September on, and it's our own private Idaho or whatever. These past two years, everyone's been out here. So we haven't really gotten a respite in that sense. 

It has its pluses and minuses. Where I grew up in Massachusetts was a seasonal beach community also, although certainly not to this degree. And wealth was not part of the equation. So I'm used to the pop in the summer, and I always gravitate toward the beach. That's something that's very important to me. 

But actually, the townie element of it for me is maybe the most interesting thing. I really did not know moving up to the Hamptons six years ago that it's very conservative out here. There's a lot of conservative politics, which are a tough pill for me to swallow as a former Brooklyn resident. 

In terms of restaurants, more and more, we're seeing things that are opening year round, which is exciting. I love the Nick & Toni's group. Rowdy Hall is actually one of my favorite just sort of go-to places. 

It's actually exciting for all of us, even those of us who live here year-round, when the stuff starts opening for the season because it's something new is happening. And I get to go to a different place to eat. So that's starting now. I like to go to Montauk a lot, because I'm close by and I lived there for a few years. 

But I would say that the experience is—it's hard to explain to people who don't spend a lot of time here. The blend between the high and low and the absolute—the wealth is so unimaginable. But then there are just ordinary people who live here, too, and there's a huge undocumented community who lives here, which is something I really value about the community.

Alicia: Yeah. 

No, it's interesting. I used to work out there. And then also my dad used to drive Martha Stewart around. [Laughter.] So I have this very weird understanding of the Hamptons. ’Cause yeah, when I worked at Hildreth’s, it was all people who lived out there. And you have a different sense of what it's like from that versus—when I've been home in the pandemic and I went out to Carissa’s, which is so beautiful. But it's such a different vibe. And they had the Forthave Amaro, and I was like, ‘Oh my god.’ It's just a taste of city stuff, which is good. And I can't wait to go back, honestly. 

Hannah: I mean, I can't wait to get to the beach. Everyone's predicting kind of a banner year out here, which is not necessarily what you want when you have to drive on one lane of traffic.

Alicia: Yeah, that moment when Sunrise Highway becomes one lane is killer. [Laughs.]

But for you, is cooking a political act?

Hannah: Yes. 

I mean, I think I make choices in terms of what I purchase, and who I do business with, both cooking and dining. And that is sort of informed by my politics of what I choose to eat, what I choose to feed my kids. 

I've had a farm share out here for the entire time that I've been living out here, because I really feel like I need to be part of the local farm system. And I feel it's important for people to buy into their community in that way. There are places that I absolutely stay away from. I'm not saying Blue Duck, but maybe Blue Duck. [Laughter.] Very big Trump supporters. 

Alicia: Oh! I didn’t know that.

Hannah: Yeah. [Laughs.] Although it's tough to navigate that out here, because if you were really to go by that you would never buy fish. 

But yeah, I think there's political—everything is political. People like to say, ‘Oh, don't get politics involved.’ But politics absolutely governs everything you do, especially in a small community.

Alicia: Right. 

Well, thank you so much for taking the time today.

Hannah: Thank you for having me. This is really exciting.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pendingdeletiond27a89986e6248e.substack.com

I had this conversation with interdisciplinary artist, writer, recipe developer, and Palate Palette editor Krystal Mack in the middle of May, and it’s been influencing everything I’ve thought about ever since. Mack is hyper-local, hyper-specific, and dazzlingly smart. Her Patreon features wonderful recipes and essays, and while her approach would be considered counterintuitive in mainstream food media, to me, it makes absolute sense.

We talked about how her work came to be, the power in being deeply rooted in her city of Baltimore, allowing other people to tell their stories in their own language, and more. Listen above, or read below.

Alicia: Hi, Krystal. Thank you so much for taking the time today. 

Krystal: Yeah, no problem. Thank you for having me. You can hear me well?

Alicia: Yeah.

Krystal: Ok, good.

Alicia: Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate?

Krystal: Yeah, I grew up here in Baltimore, Maryland. And more specifically, I grew up splitting my time between the Northwood neighborhood of Baltimore City and Loch Raven, and also in the suburbs in Essex, Maryland. 

And I would say that those two places heavily influenced what I ate growing up. My mom was also a teacher who was a single mom, but also in school getting her master’s. So it was kind of a lot of latchkey kid situations. So, a lot of processed food, for better or for worse. Lunchables were my best friend growing up. I loved Stouffer’s mac and cheese. 

When I was in Northwood area, Northwood, Loch Raven, I was spending time with my cousins and my grandmother. And that was a lot of home-cooked meals then. So chicken and dumplings, or fried okra, things of that nature. So I kind of got a mix of those two things. I feel it's a true Black Great Migration story kind of situation going on with my palate, especially from the Mid-Atlantic region. Soul food from the south, but then also Stouffer's.

Alicia: The Stouffer's mac and cheese is good.

Krystal: It is good! It is.

My mother, though, she really tried to pass that off as hers for a little bit. I remember at one point she was dating some guys. And I remember every time she was like, ‘We're gonna make dinner!’ And they would always think that that was her mac and cheese. Like, ‘Why are you lying to these men?’ [Laughter.] 

But yeah, no. Very delicious.

Alicia: Very delicious. 

So much of what you do is specific to Baltimore. And I read an interview you did in 2019, where you talked about using interdisciplinary art as a way of understanding the city and the changes it's gone through. Now that so much of your work is online and accessible to people outside of your city, outside of that framework that you have, how—Have you changed your approach at all? How are you maintaining the very specific Baltimore nature of your work while you're now working for so many, a much broader and bigger audience geographically?

And I wanted to ask this, because I really love regional specificity. I think that we lose so much of it in the national media. And I think that we get to the truth when we are hyper-specific about locations. And being specific doesn't mean being esoteric. 

But anyhow, how do you maintain that in your work?

Krystal: I feel like maintaining that is kind of an act of maintaining my identity in a way. So for me, it just feels like it's something that I actively do every day. I get up. I have coffee. I have breakfast. And then I actively engage with my neighborhood, just to kind of have a sense of understanding of who I am and where I come from. 

And it is harder. I would say it's actually harder now, more so because of the changes that are happening in Baltimore. Well, fortunately, unfortunately, I've always had to kind of create and share my work online, because there really isn't a space for me that I feel fully fits my work. I mean, I'm not in a restaurant anymore. I don't own a bakery anymore. I don't do any of those things. Like you said, it is very interdisciplinary. 

And for me, I feel like my work is more of a lived practice. I know that sounds cheesy and hippie-dippie. But for me, it's never like, ‘Ok, the angle is to get this item on the shelf, or the angle is to be in this magazine, or have this established space.’ For me, the angle is to better understand, to better understand who I am in this moment, where I am in this world. And the tools that I use every day, how are they—specifically food—are they influenced by my surroundings, influenced by what's going on, influenced by my emotions? 

All of that, for me, especially as I mentioned in the need for visual, I’m a neurodivergent person. I feel like I view the world in a way that is not commonly explored. I guess one of my traits is being a little bit more vulnerable than the average person would be. And I feel like while that to some can be seen as a weakness, to me it's seen as a strength. 

And being able to have these open conversations about what's happening in Baltimore, and how that is very much intertwined with the fate of what's happening in cities like Baltimore, like St. Louis, in Detroit and the like. These once very industrial cities that are heavily populated by Black people, oftentimes Black people who came there because of the Great Migration. What does that—the foodways of those areas look like? And how do they connect with how we identify in a national sense as Black Americans? 

So that's always been something that's fascinating to me. And having been put into this position where I guess through my connections or relationship to women in food in the, white women in food specifically in the food industry, being able to have these conversations in a way that, I don't know, kind of hold folks accountable. [Laughs.] These are not just things that are happening off in cities that you have no connection to. They're happening in Brooklyn, too. It’s just people are refusing to acknowledge the role that they play. 

So for me, it feels now that I have great power, but with this attention, with great power comes great responsibility. With this attention. I feel like it's my responsibility as a Black person that's not in a major market to have these conversations for myself, for my city, and for other people whose lives in—I guess as a place intersects with those things, if that makes sense.

Alicia: That makes sense. [Laughter.] 

You bring that hyper specificity to ingredients as well. You use local ingredients. I've gone through so many of your recipes in your Patreon. I'm like, ‘Wow, I love this use of things that are not going to be available everywhere.’ I don't think that that kind of specificity is alienating. And I do think that sometimes we have these conversations that kind of assume that that is alienating to people. 

But you really just bring that into the fore of your work, that you are in a specific place, and you use specific ingredients. And so I wanted to know about how you ended up using food as a medium and how the locality of those foods has become important to you.

Krystal: Yeah.

I think for me, it actually all started years ago when I had this frozen dessert business called KarmaPop, which was frozen popsicles based on Mid-Atlantic seasonality. So I was using okra in desserts, and frozen desserts like an okra granita kind of, with coconut milk and mucus from the okra kind of giving it that creamier texture. 

Just really trying to show the ways that food in this region doesn't have to be presented in one specific way, and if we tap into our imagination, the possibilities are endless. So working with urban farms here, working with Black-owned farms here. Using those ingredients in those unique ways, it kind of shows the imagination and the range, but also we're not tied to this specific image. If I were to say okra to someone, they would, as I mentioned before, instantly go to fried okra or oh, some type of soul-food-style dish.

But to me, it feels we know that it's so much more than that. It's not just this, reduced to this one thing. I feel oftentimes how Black foodways are reduced in this country. It's very much like, ‘Oh, fried chicken, soul food. Period. That's it.’ There's no complexity there, when the reality of it is so complex. 

That was the thing that drew me to food, the ability to use that as a storytelling medium. And I was loving doing that with something that was very, I guess, childlike and somewhat pedestrian, like a popsicle. It shows that you can use very regular everyday ingredients, but kind of have your own fun, unique twist on it. And the story, the end product itself, can tell the story of how you arrived there. 

So I guess that's how it came to be for me. Just kind of finding a way to show the diversity and range of Black food items, or foods that are popular in Black food culture, and then wanting to expand on that by telling the story. 

Alicia: I read also that you talk about food as medicine, and that you've done herbal medicine coursework. What got you interested in that, and how does it influence your kind of recipe creation work?

Krystal: Well, for me, I think I got into that just because the whole goal of my practice is for me to kind of heal from living in this society and just living in the world that we live in. Like I said, I never wanted to create things to kind of have this angle of putting it into a museum. And I think that's why people really struggled for a long time when I started self-identifying as an artist. They were like, ‘We can't put this in a museum. And also, this is something that people do every day. So why is this art?’

So, that made me kind of transition to calling myself more of an interdisciplinary creative. Because the act of healing is artful. It's very artful. And I don't think that it should be just

kind of—I don't think it should be something that lives in silence. I think public healing is important. 

And I think that that was one of the reasons when I started creating, I guess, activations and spaces and things of that nature. Programs, public programs. I really wanted folks to show that you can heal but you don't have to heal in isolation. You can heal collectively. We can heal collectively. We can use food as an item to heal ourselves collectively, making active choices with what we want to eat. And understanding that if we don't have the access to certain things, what are the steps that we need to take or what are the steps that we can take as a community collectively to feed each other, to ensure that our community has access and ownership over the type of food we should be eating. 

So I think that, for me, it—the act of healing in itself was one of the things that kind of drove me to exploring herbal medicine. It was like, ‘Ok, we can continue to make work that is more of a figurative expression of the ‘act of healing,’ or I can actually double down on that and have it be something that is actually physically healing my body.’ 

And I think that's how I came to kind of growing in the work, through this dinner series that I had called Clearing the Field. And it was about healing the intergenerational trauma in my family, but using specific ingredients that I knew had healing properties. So specific types of green—types of greens and herbs, activated charcoal, all that other stuff incorporating that into the dinner, along with poetry and some personal narratives around the specific courses. And just showing how it's a journey on the path to healing, and how it can be something that is really transformative, painful, but also nourishing at the same time. 

Alicia: Right.

And when I dove kind of deep into your work, and the—all the stuff that you've done over the last decade and built and all of this. And whether it was KarmaPop, or it is Studio IAO, and now you're publishing on Patreon and you're putting out palatePALETTE, what—How has working independently, why has that been your path?

Krystal: Eww. [Laughter.] It’s physical. 

I actually don't always want to work independently. Ok, well, I’ll get a little vulnerable for a second, which I don't mind being.

I would say over—which, by the way, I want to say these questions were very good questions. And answering them myself this weekend, writing them out. And I was like, ‘Damn.’ [Laughs.] These are really good questions that people have never asked me. So, thank you.

Alicia: Thank you. 

Krystal: It's easier for me, unfortunately. As I said, I'm an autistic person. It's not something that's new to me. I was diagnosed at a time where—my mother had to fight to get me diagnosed as autistic, because autism is only really for white boys. She had to fight to keep me in school. She had to fight to get me accommodations in school to graduate. And also understanding my social—it is very exhausting for me to be social. 

There are things about my autism that I see as a superpower. And I feel it really allows me—Again, I feel the work that I do is because of my autism and allows me to see the human connection to food in a way that I don't think is fully talked about. But it also is hard to work with people who are living in a neurotypical world, where being able bodied is the norm. 

And especially, it's difficult for me because I don't really present as a disabled person, I don't present in the way that autistic people show up in the world. So I tend to struggle with having a conversation with people about my identity as an autistic person, as a neurodivergent person. And it is important to me that I do have that with collaborators. 

So I can't casually collaborate in that way. If I do collaborate, it’s usually after a moment of fully sitting with this person or spending a lot of time with this person. And then disclosing, I guess, to some folks who are in the neurodivergent community, it could come off as me masking. 

And in essence, I guess I am. I have been masking for over 20 years, just because it's already hard enough as a Black woman to survive in this industry, or to survive in this world. And to have another element added to my identity publicly, where people aren't even fully understanding of what autism means and they think it's something that needs to be cured. And they think it's something that needs to be fixed. People barely understand my experience as a Black woman. They are not going to understand my experience as a neurodivergent Black woman. 

So for me, when I do collaborate with folks—even for example, palatePALETTE. It’s usually in a more of a ‘I control this.’ Like, ‘Ok, you want to work with me? Cool. This is what we're gonna do. Would you like to submit something?’ Which I feel for my work and the way that it's shifting lately has been really helpful. I've been doing a lot more zines, a lot more digital prints, or digital publications. And I get to control that element. Now also, that does mean that because I am in complete control, if something goes wrong, it does fall back on me. [Laughs.] But I'm learning to deal with that. 

But I will say with my most recent project,  palatePALETTE, with Homie House Press, I did disclose to them like, ‘Hey, I'm autistic. And these are the things that I need. It's gonna be really hard for me to communicate with you without a visual. I have trouble with auditory processing, so I need to see you. I need to know where your face is looking. Also sorry if I don't look at you in the eye. There’s a lot of things. If I seem really overly passionate about one specific aspect of this project, please let me have that moment.’ [Laughs.]

Yeah, it's just a lot of things that I don't fully feel comfortable working with folks on without having to fully disclose how I show up in the world with that. I think it's a little bit of me, but I think it's also mostly, just like I said before, the world that we live in.

Alicia: Yeah.

No, absolutely. And that makes sense. And I mean, it means that you having ownership of your work means it is an expression of you. And I mean, I know from my own experiences even having—when you work with other people, there's a compromise and vision that is not always ok. 

I've had more success working by myself than I have trying to get things through in a more traditional way. And it's a struggle to come, to work independently and have all the pressure be on you and have all the work be on you. But at the same time, the reward ends up being so much bigger, because—not because it's all for you. It's not an ego thing. It just means that you got out what you meant to say.

Krystal: No, exactly.

I mean, I feel that way about palatePALETTE. Like you said, it is very much focused on Baltimore. And it is for me a love letter to my city, and how my relationship to this city has influenced so much in my relationship to food. And I really didn't want anyone else kind of coming in and telling me about how my relationship should present to the world. It was really about like, ‘This is what it is. No, it's not L.A. It’s not Brooklyn. No, these poems are not formal poems. If a poet came through, they would rip it to shreds. Cool. This is all real authentic emotions from a person who is just living, reasoning, existing within and doesn't have any formal accreditation to do so.’

That was important to me. And I think that that was one of the reasons this was a successful collaboration. I'm really proud.

Alicia: Yeah.

And on the website for palatePALETTE, you kind of explain your motivation to self-publish by saying that you've seen much food media that was PR and social media influencer driven. And that's why you wanted to create something new and fresh and hyper specific to your city and your experience. 

So, what is the food media that you do enjoy? What are you looking for when you look for stuff about food?

Krystal: Yeah, I guess I'm looking for hyper local stuff, too. I love to see that. I love to see how someone's relationship to a place has informed their relationship to food.

I'm looking for people I don't know. I’m so tired of seeing people I know. Even when it's people that I love, I'm like, ‘Oh, yeah!’ But it's also like, I also follow 10 other girls that do this. And I all know them, and a lot of people don't know them. And maybe I'm really good at doing research, but I feel as though I—if I was able to find this person who lives in Portland, Oregon, doing very Black stuff, how was it that y'all were not able to find ‘em? And you have a whole institution behind you. You know what I mean? You have all these resources. 

And I don't think it's just the journalists, I think they do sometimes do their research. And then they present it, and the editor is like, ‘No. No one's gonna read this, and no one knows who this person is.’ I think it was really me being like, ‘If I'm tired of the way that people are writing about Baltimore, specifically folks like Bon App-’

I think the people at Bon App, the ones that are still there and the ones who were there but left, I think they mean well but I also feel they don't fully understand the harm that they perpetuate in markets like mine. And it's upsetting. And it's frustrating. And I get tired of—like I said, my city is changing so much. And it's changed into a point where I don't even recognize it anymore. 

The diner that I used to go to before the pandemic has closed down and has been bought by some DC person, and they're going to turn it into this new fancy diner, but also a play on the diviness of it. It just feels like that's happening everywhere in Baltimore. The gay neighborhood that I pretty much, essentially, grew up in the 20s, all the gay bars have been turned into condos, or CVS’s. It’s just so upsetting. [Laughs.]

It's so upsetting. I walked into the CVS, and I was like, ‘I had my first dirty martini here in this CVS. And I was writing about that the other day, and just thinking about it. And I was like, ‘Damn, so much has changed.’ And I wish that the things that aren't celebrated are not—I wish the things that were celebrated were things like basic working class foodways, which we could also dive deeper into and just explore how capitalism has gotten us to this point. 

And I think that while I'm not necessarily in love with the food anymore that I grew up on, I think—And I can send you a copy of this. Do you have a copy of palatePALETTE?

Alicia: I will order it, don't worry. [Laughter.]

Krystal: In the issue, it is called, nostalgia is the Greek word, or kind of the Greek word for home and pain. Those are the root words of nostalgia. And the whole point of the poem is at the end, I want to celebrate the ways that we have survived even if they're not the prettiest, even if they're not what is trending right now. 

That was the whole point of palatePALETTE in itself, talking about chicken boxes and how, yes, this is something that is very much heavily a part of Black American culture. But how has this tool also been used to oppress us? If we were doing a very basic baseline argument about fried chicken and saying like, ‘This is culturally appropriate food,’ why it is not a food sovereign item? Then people would be like, ‘Oh, Black people love fried chicken. So why are they complaining? We're just giving them what they want.’ 

And I think that for me, creating that type of work and having those type of conversations, it was really important. Because I knew that no one else was going to have that. I know that my experience in Baltimore is not the same as the experience of someone who was living in—a Black person living in Chinatown in New York. But oftentimes in food media, that is how the experience is completed. 

Or even let alone Harlem. That's not my lived experience. If anything, a lot of folks in Harlem, at least the new Harlem, they look down on places like Baltimore. You know what I mean? Even though there's so much of our fate that's tied. That's a whole ‘nother conversation, Black capitalism and whatever. But these are all things that show the importance of representative space in a city like Baltimore, that is not just another—Blackness is not a monolith. And we're not all experiencing the same thing. We experience very different things everyday. 

So yeah, I'm sorry if I stumbled over the question.

Alicia: No, that was great. 

It's interesting, because I hope that they changed their approach to doing travel stories now at Bon Appétit, because they published a whole package on San Juan post Hurricane Maria. In one of the write-ups of a place, they called—they thought that this guy on a pernileria was Karl Marx. But it was Betances, who was an important person fighting for the liberation of Puerto Rico in the 1800s. But they published that it was Karl Marx. 

It's really a missed opportunity when they are so lazy and think that they understand things before they ask questions. I come from working in traditional media, and I come from internalizing its norms about how to approach things. And so I've been undoing that in my own perspectives. And so much of the answer to not doing a bad job is just listening and asking questions. It's such a simple solution, is just read and listen and ask questions and not be embarrassed to not know things. These are very simple things we can do to do a better job. [Laughs.]

Krystal: That's the key part, like you said. Not being embarrassed to not have the answer? That's not common. 

I don't know, I feel like once you get to that point. And maybe this is me just making an assumption, but I feel once you get to that point of being at a Condé Nast journalist, you're like, ‘I have the answer. I'm in this place. This place is validating the fact that I am the expert.’ 

I don't have hope for Bon App personally. I really don't. I just feel all there is to the change of staff. And just because your staff has more people of color, you act that's something that's only white people want. Everybody can move from a place, have a very huge ego and look from a place where they know—I don’t know. [Laughter.]

Alicia: Well, I was excited to see, even though I don't have a copy of it yet—the mail is slow, too. So I'm always like, ‘It's gonna take forever to get to me anyway.’ That you have non-English language in palatePALETTE. 

And I have been saying this. I used to write about literature, which has a very small, but a very significant—

Krystal: Oh, no. What you said is happening is happening.

Alicia: Oh, can you hear me now?

Krystal: Yes, I can hear you now. Ok, I'm so sorry. 

Alicia: No, that's okay.

But I was gonna say that I come from literature and literary criticism. And there is such a strong, though very small, tradition there of translation. 

And not seeing that in food media has always been really perplexing to me. If I read art magazines, and even if they're not the most perfect art magazines, they do make an effort to be international in their scope and to have dispatches from different cities from people seeing the shows there. And I'm like, ‘Wow, this is—there's a real understanding of the need for that international conversation, which will build international solidarity.’ 

So I guess I just realized why there is no translation in food media. It has so much money and so much tied up in maintaining the status quo that of course, they wouldn't want real conversations between working people around the world. 

And so for you, why was it important for you to have translation in the zine?

Krystal: Because it's not my story to pick apart and tell. 

It's so commonly the thing where I just know to expect it. I just want to pick pieces out. Obviously it's radio, but NPR, I think they do a good job sometimes. But even still, at times, I find that they fall short when they have foreign language reporting what I—when I hear it, I'm like, ‘Oh, what else is she saying?’ I know that's not really what they just translated. I want to know more. 

So for this publication, I had two women who were part of a collective here in Baltimore called Mera Kitchen Collective. And it's a women's cooking collective, and they—well, they’re a business. They work with refugees and immigrants who have come to Baltimore, some through the IRC and some through a visa lottery. And they get to share their cuisine and make money and earn a living doing what they love doing, which is cooking. 

And I wanted to share their stories. Because in Baltimore a lot, that—they are often used as a heartwarming story, right? Even the Baltimore Sun, City Paper, when they were operating. Everybody was just like, ‘Immigrant. Women. Business. Boom. This is it. This is the story. Let's do it. And it was just like, ‘There's so much more happening here. And y'all are really just focusing on all of the little target points. I want to know who this person is.’

And I feel like with chef Iman, who was, is a chef from Syria, and also with Chef Émilienne, and, who was a chef from Burkina Faso, I wanted to focus on how they got here, how they didn’t even want to be here in the first place. And how they got here, and what life has been like for them here? And is this the community that they expected to find? Do they think about their lives before they came back here, or came here? I just want to connect with them.

How are they feeling about being here in the midst of not only this pandemic, but all of this uprising that's happening around social justice and race right now? How are you processing that as a refugee, as an immigrant person? Coming here and thinking America is all of this, that, all the propaganda that we put out into the world of this being the place to be. How does it feel to be here and be like, ‘Damn, they got some s**t, too.’ You know what I mean? So that was really what we were talking about in the conversations. 

And also, I really wanted them to have their words in their own dialect. So thankfully, I'm in a space where I'm near Hopkins. So we have tons of translators, and I could work with folks on getting things translated in their specific dialect. Because to me, that is important. I hate when I see—even with Black folks. I hate when I see Black folks interviewed, especially folks from the deep south, and it's changed around or is published in a way that's kind of cute. Cute little Southern accent that’s cute. That just adds to them being more of a character, as—and it takes away from them being an actual human being. 

So for me, I really wanted it to be true to the dialect and their own words. I wanted them to be able to read this. They don't speak English well. They don't read English well, these women. So I want them to see what I wrote about them, or what our conversation consisted of. I want them to see their words on paper, and then be able to share that with their family and friends. 

Because it's not just about me. These stories are important, and they should not lose an aspect of their livelihood because they get translated to English, which I feel like they do. It's who is telling the story. English—speaking person is sharing this person's story with no consideration of the fact that they can't even read it. 

So to me, it was really important that that happened.

Alicia: Yeah. 

No, I love that because, like you said, the immigrant story in food in the U.S. is used as just a tool of nationalism, basically. There's never a lot of honesty about it like you're saying about  why are people coming here? What is that experience really like? It's not just always the feel-good story. It's a story of also loss and everything. And it's really interesting—it's not interesting. It's predictable that it's always like, ‘Look at this immigrant woman-owned café changing the world.’ We have to have more conversations about everything. 

It’s just really exhausting. And I'm so happy to hear that you're present—you're talking about it in that way, as it's just such a—it's such a story that is told in the most whitewashed possible way all the time. 

And for you, is cooking a political act?

Krystal: It never started out being that. But now that I have a better understanding of my political presence, I guess, in the world as a person, yeah, it is. Absolutely. 

I think cooking is a political act. But I definitely also—I do still order out. [Laughter.] I do occasionally buy a processed food item, like a frozen-food item that's like, ‘Damn, why am I doing this?’ 

Yeah, I think it is important to learn to teach ourselves to trust our tastes, our own taste. Also, be curious about other people's tastes. And maybe not let that influence us too much, like, ‘What is popular right now?’ But I think curiosity is important. Curiosity being tied to cooking is definitely important. 

We shouldn't just be out here—I mean, we should be cooking to live and survive. But I think we should also be curious about where our food is coming from and where these flavors are coming from that are trending now, and like why they’re trending. What does that say about us as a country and consumers? All that is important. 

I'm definitely not an Alicia Kennedy right now. You be hitting it, girl. When I was listening to you, I was like, ‘Oh! This is so cool.’ I think that you always come with the real. And I think it's really great that you are having these conversations that people are just now opening themselves up to. I think a lot of us if you're—

I mean, I was having conversations. I remember at one point my ex—not my ex, I’m lost at this point. My boyfriend, my partner. My boyfriend, when he was in the military, they had a Burger King on the base. So he has this very special place in his heart for Burger King, and he still eats Burger King. And I’m like, ‘Bleh.’ 

I remember he came home one day, and he was like, ‘Don't be mad, but I got you a whopper.’ And I was like, ‘Why would you get me a Whopper?’ He was like, ‘This is an Impossible Whopper, and I want you to taste it. And I was like, ‘Oh, ok.’ And we just had this huge conversation about processed meat and meat alternatives. And it was just making me think like, Is anybody else having these conversations?’ And then to see a couple months later, you having these conversations. And then also, I think, Food and Wine did a story. Yeah. So I was just like, ‘Wow, this is really cool.’

And also to know that that's something that you've been exploring for a while now, though. I think it just kind of goes back to showing—I think we're in a shift now. I hope we're in a shift now of having conversations like this and not putting them off to the side as like, ‘Obviously, you’re like food justice, right?’ 

That happened to me one time. I was in Cherry Bombe Magazine, and somebody was like, ‘Oh, are you in the food justice section?’ And I was like, ‘No, they’re just gonna sort my bakery, why am I in the food justice section? Because I'm Black?’ Just this whole idea of the things that you are allowed to talk about as a Black person and as a person of color. 

And I think it's interesting how it can be very exhausting as a Black person in food where you are constantly positioned to be having the ‘woke’ conversations, right? And s**t, I just want to make pie. Can I just make a pie? Why are y’all pressing me about all this race s**t? I don’t have to tell you more, and you still want me to tell you about all the stuff that’s wrong with my society so you can be like, ‘Yes,’ but then not do anything about it? So what do you want from me? 

So I think that I'm happy that we are having these conversations about food being a political—or cooking being a political act. And I think that it's good that they're becoming more mainstream and not just kind of, like I said, being pushed off to the side of being social justice warrior. Yes, it's for everyone to have. We should all be having these conversations.

Alicia: Yes. People call me an activist sometimes, and I’m like, ‘What are you talking about?’ [Laughs.]

Krystal: Oh my god. I hate that.

Alicia: You can’t talk about any of this stuff without people saying that you're an activist, or—and it's like, ‘No, there are real activists and I am not one!’ [Laughs.] 

Krystal: Krystal Mack, activist? I was like, ‘What about real-life people? Can you tell me 

specifically? ‘Cause I don’t think I am.’

That's saying if we walk into a room, and I see a pile of dirt on the floor, and I'm like, ‘There's some dirt.’ And it’s like, ‘Krystal Mack is a cleaner.’ I just pointed out some dirt. I mean, we’ll all clean it up. That doesn’t mean we’re cleaners. It just means that we’re being responsible human beings and cleaning it up. 

To me, I think that that is a way for them. It's more for them. It's more they're hitting all their bases, because the real activists are having conversations that hold them accountable. And they don't want to do that. 

Anyway, sorry. 

Alicia: [Laughs.] No, I love it. That's the greatest analogy I've heard ever about that.

Krystal: It’s so stupid. It’s so dumb. You can change almost anything. 

It’s like me walking into a zoo and being like, ‘That's a bunch of animals.’ All of a sudden, I'm a zookeeper? It doesn’t make any sense.

Alicia: No, no. 

Well, thank you so much for your time today. This has been wonderful. [Laughs.]

Krystal: I'm already a subscriber. I've been for a while. How do I go back and adjust to become a member? Or do I have to sign up twice? Because I tried to do it and I was like, ‘Why would I have to sign up twice?’

Alicia: Honestly, I don't know how to do it. I think I can send you a link to your, what would be your page for your account. And then you can do stuff there. But I'm gonna forward you this interview anyway when it comes out next month, so don't worry about it. [Laughs.]

Krystal: Ok. 

And how many interviews—It seems like you do a lot of interviews a month. 

Alicia: Every week, once a week. And so at this point, I've done 50-something for it. Yeah. So it comes out every week. [Laughs.]

Krystal: Well, cool. 

Well, thank you for reaching out to me. I'm a very big fan of yours. I think you’re a great writer. I'm still a baby budding writer trying to get to that point. 

But no, you're amazing. 

Alicia: Oh, thank you. Thank you. [Laughs.]

Krystal: Glad to be a part of this, so thanks.

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Listen now | Talking with the interdisciplinary artist and 'Palate Palette' editor about hyper-specificity and locality in her work on Black foodways in Baltimore.

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Dianne Jacob has been writing since the 1970s, and she brings the perspective of someone well-versed in the industry to her book Will Write for Food, the fourth edition of which just came out this week. In the text and her online writing, she demystifies what is often thought of as the romantic world of food writing for anyone who might want to break into it. That’s required paying attention to how the industry has evolved in the last twenty years, especially, as people have moved away from restaurant reviewing and toward online work.

We discussed what drew her to food writing, how she’s adapted to a digital world as a self-described “print snob,” and how she defines diversity. Listen above, or read below.

Alicia: Hi, Dianne. Thank you so much for coming on today and taking the time out.

Dianne: Thank you. It's my pleasure.

Alicia: Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate?

Dianne: Sure. 

I grew up in Vancouver, Canada. And my parents were refugees. They came there in 1949 to escape Mao. They were from China, born and raised. So we grew up there, because my mother was British, and she could get into Canada, it being part of the Commonwealth. 

I think, in the beginning, my parents did not know anything about cooking because they had servants in China. But eventually, they missed their food and they had to figure out how to make it. There were a lot of phone calls with family. And I grew up eating three, maybe four or five kinds of food. Iraqi Jewish food, Bombay, Baghdadi Jewish dishes. Chinese dishes. My mother loved to make Japanese food as well. And every once in a while, she would attempt Western food, which she put her own spin on. Sometimes that went well, and sometimes it didn't. [Laughter.] 

Alicia: And what got you interested in food as something to spend your life focused on?

Dianne: It took a while to figure out why. But I think what it came down to is that, is because of my parents. They had a very weird background, and they didn't fit in anywhere. They didn't fit in with the Jewish community. And they didn't fit in with the Chinese community, because they weren't Chinese. They still wanted to express their identity, and they expressed it through food. 

And it was really, really important to them. My mother cooked every day. My father was in charge of pickling things and making leben, which is the Arab yogurt. So, they had a garden. And it was a major focus of their life. So I think I just took that for granted for a long time. And I didn't really understand that it was also a major focus of mine.

Alicia: How did you learn that it was?

Dianne: It was when I became self-employed. Before, I had a lot of different kinds of jobs as an editor and reporter and feature writer, and I just worked at different kinds of magazines and newspapers. And even a book publishing house, on whatever topic there was, ’cause I was an editor. 

And then when I became self-employed, I realized that I had to become an individual contributor. And before, I had always been a manager. And so I had to figure out what I wanted to write about. And what I wanted to write about was food.

Alicia: What has made you focus on food for so long? I mean, I'm sure we'll discuss this, but food media is not a really easy or welcoming place. And so, what has kept you writing about food all this time?

Dianne: Actually, I haven't been writing about food that much. Early in my career, I wrote restaurant reviews. I wrote a lot of service pieces. I wrote a column, a recipe column. 

But then, because I had such a long career as an editor and I missed working with writers, I got more interested in working with writers. So most of what I write about is how to be a food writer in all its glorious guidance, and how there are so many parts to it. There are endless subjects to keep me interested: food and politics, food and identity, ethics, how to write a good recipe, how to get a book deal, how to make a living, how to grow your blog. It's endless. And so, I've never been bored. [Laughs.]

Alicia: [Laughs.] Yeah.

And you've just come out with the fourth edition of your book, Will Write for Food. What has kind of changed in your motivation and your approach to this book since the first edition in 2005?

Dianne: Well, I started teaching food writing at Book Passage, which is a big bookstore here in the San Francisco Bay Area. And I couldn't find a book on food writing. So I thought, ‘Well, maybe I should write one.’ I figured if I was going to teach on the subject, it would be useful to have this book. 

So the first edition came out in 2005. And at that time, restaurant reviewing was really big. So there was a huge chapter on restaurant reviewing, and it was all focused on fine dining. And there's a chapter on fiction writing, which are—Mostly, the most popular genre in food fiction writing is murder mysteries with recipes, with great titles like, ‘The butter did it!’ 

And food blogs were just starting out. But I was still a print snob, then. And I thought, ‘Well, I don't really know what this is,’ and ‘Where are the gatekeepers?’ So I just ignored it. [Laughter.] And that turns out to be a big mistake. 

So in the second edition, I had to write a huge chapter on food blogging, which was in full swing. That was in 2010. And the Pioneer Woman was a big celebrity blogger then. And she wrote a blurb for my book. 

And then the third edition came out in 2015. And by then, people were more interested in how to make a living as a food writer—and mostly, especially online. They wanted to know how to make money online with recipes, or as content creators. I had to write about transitioning from a hobby to a business, more about photography, social media. A lot less on restaurant reviewing, because with the advance of Yelp, it just—restaurant reviewing has become a job that ten people have. [Laughs.]

And then for the fourth edition, which comes out on May 25, I got rid of the Eurocentric focus on food and writers. And I brought in more diverse voices, younger voices. There's a much smaller chapter on restaurant writing, more on making money. 

And I wrote a new chapter on voice, because the field has become very crowded these days, and a lot of people are writing the same kind of content. And so, how do you stand out in a crowded field if you're writing the same kind of content as other people? For me, it comes down to voice. 

Alicia: Right.

No, that's so important. And you also have your blog. You also send out a newsletter. Why have you gone sort of an independent route with your work?

Dianne: Well, I started the blog in 2009 because I knew I was going to have to write about food blogging. And I felt if I didn't jump in, I was never going to understand it. 

So I mean, I did jump in. But I didn't start a food blog. I started a blog about writing, particularly food writing. And at first I did twice a week, short posts about whether blogging is journalism, how adapting a recipe doesn't make it yours. It was really fun because in those days, people weren't on social media as much. I would regularly have like 50 or 80 responses. And I would get in theoretical arguments with people. 

I remember having a big argument with Shauna Ahern about whether blogging was journalism, all in the comments, going back and forth. And Paula Wolfert was one of my first commenters. It was a really heavy time. 

And then for the newsletter, I started that probably ten years ago. But then, it was just for anyone who had been a student of mine or a client. But now it has a bigger audience than my blog. And both of them together have me—they kept me on a regular writing schedule, and—which is really important. Because I don't want to just be an editor and coach for people. I want to keep my writing practice. 

And so I've been writing mostly service, what's called service writing, how-to pieces. Opinion pieces. And I bring in a lot of guest posters when they have wisdom to share.

Alicia: Right.

And how do you find it now? It's been over a decade that you've been kind of writing for yourself, writing directly to readers. What have you gleaned in that time from that kind of writing versus writing for publications?

Dianne: Well, the joy of not having a gatekeeper, and writing whatever you want, just can't be underestimated. But you still have to be relevant for people. 

This is something I learned as a writer early on, I think, when I was doing restaurant reviewing. What I learned was that people may never go to the restaurant, but they still want to read my review. And they wanted to be entertained. And I think I'm still learning about entertaining people. I tend to be very serious. [Laughter.] You are too, right? 

But entertainment is a huge part of writing for people. And so, it always has to be an element. I'm still figuring that out. I'm still figuring out how to be personal, and not just talk about what's going on in the industry. How much of myself to reveal. And of course, social media only amplifies that issue.

Alicia: Yeah. 

I don't know. I hope I'm not serious. I hope I don't come off serious. 

Dianne: Really?

Alicia: Yeah, the funny thing is that I'm not a serious person as a human being. So it's interesting that my writing that is popular is very serious. 

And it's a little bit frustrating to me, because I think I am trying to balance within one audience a few different ideas of what people want for me. And so some people like the personal writing and some people like the polemical, political writing. And some people like some more specific food writing about specific ingredients, or that sort of thing. 

And it's really hard to make all of those people happy all of the time. Which I guess the answer is—it's impossible.

Dianne: Yeah, it is.

Alicia: I find having direct contact with an audience that wants things from me pretty challenging most of the time. I don't know if I have the ability or the stamina to go on with it for over a decade, like you have. [Laughs.]

Dianne: A lot of what I write is not personal. I think that’s how I've been able to handle it, it's—just a while ago, I wrote a blog on how I noticed that I had a half-tablespoon measure in my drawer, but I never see half-tablespoon measuring recipes. And when I do, I usually edit it out and put one and a half teaspoons. Sometimes, you just never know if people are gonna respond to that or not. 

And people were all over it. And they were telling me, oh no, they've had this tablespoon for years. And they always use it in recipes. And it was the most minor subject.

Alicia: Right. It got people going.

Dianne: Yeah, it got people going. [Laughter.]

Alicia: Well, I think it's interesting to talk to you today, because while this is coming out in late May, we're talking in late April. And the people who are in the essays that are being included in Best American Food Writing 2021 have been announced in some form.

Dianne: Oh. I haven’t seen that yet. 

Alicia: [Laughs.] 

And I wanted to ask you, because you wrote about—you wrote a gorgeous and award-winning essay about mangoes for Lucky Peach in 2016. And then you wrote a blog post that just broke down the process. And I feel that was such a na—genius, kind of ahead of its time move to do that because I think it's only in recent times that we've really been having this conversation about what makes things successful in food media, and what makes a piece end up in an anthology or winning awards and that sort of thing. 

And so, I wanted to ask you why you wanted to matter-of-factly break that down for people.

Dianne: Well, thank you for calling it gorgeous. I appreciate that. And also, thank you for finding that post, because I've got thousands of posts now going back to 2009. So, I didn't even remember that one. So, I went back and read it. 

But I think what I wanted to get across is that people tend to think that writing is some kind of magic that people can just pour things forth, and it will be beautiful and fully formed. And that was not my experience writing that piece. That piece took a long time. And it appeared in various guises. And I just want people to know that it's work. It's work to get there. 

And also that if you do want to be recognized for your work a lot of the time, you have to—most, almost all the time, you have to apply. And I was so freaked out by the James Beard awards that I didn't even apply. I didn't even for that piece. I just couldn't get up the nerve. It was just ridiculous. The things you tell yourself are insane sometimes. [Laughter.]

Alicia: No, it's true. 

Has how you perceive awards changed since that time?

Dianne: Not really. You have to believe in your work enough to submit awards. And I'm always telling people on social media and in my newsletter, ‘Ok, the award deadline is coming up. You can’t wait anymore unless you apply. You've got to pay some money. You've got to believe in your work.’ And that hasn't changed. 

I think there are very few awards where you don't apply. Maybe the Art of Eating award, you don't apply for that. Even Best Food Writing, you can submit your work to it.

Alicia: No. Yeah. 

And I mean, it's interesting. The James Beard awards are, I think, the most expensive award to submit yourself for. And I don't know if you've ever judged the writing awards for them. But—

Dianne: I have judged them, but not journalism. I've judged books for the Beard Award. 

Alicia: Oh, ok. Right. 

Well, it's interesting to me that it's—people pay so much money to be considered, and then the people doing the reading aren't paid for that time, either. So, it's interesting. I mean, I've written before about how much I loathe the James Beard awards. [Laughs.] 

Yeah, it's a difficult thing. And that's why I appreciated that blog post, because I think that people often do think, like you said, that it's this magical process toward writing the great essay that will get attention. And it's not. It just is plodding to get there. 

Dianne: Yes, with a lot of self-doubt and putting it away and bring it back out. And yeah, just how it is. I’ve been a published writer since 1974, and I still go through that.

Alicia: And I didn't give you this question, ’cause I'm only really—I'm considering this right now this week, that the idea of being creative and working in a creative field is, I think, something that we're supposed to always talk about in a very lofty manner. And your whole work that you're doing now is about, and have been doing, is about breaking that down for people and making it about success and not shying away from the business end of it. 

And I wanted to ask how you kind of balance or decided to balance those things, and how creativity and business—how in your mind do they kind of fit together?

Dianne: That's a really good question. 

What I've decided is that there are some people who are entrepreneurs, and they’re business people first. And they apply their creativity to their business. Whereas food writing, I think, for so long has been a hobby and not taken seriously and things that people do on the side or they just do it for fun, or they do it because they're privileged enough to not worry about whether they're going to get paid for it or how much. That's a whole other kind of thinking. 

And so you can produce the same work. I mean, you can write a recipe and have either point of view. But the people who are making a business from it are focused on that. They're focused on financial success, however they define that. I've had people as clients who have made six, high six figure incomes. I've interviewed people who have made high, mid-six figure incomes. And they're just as good as writing a recipe as the people who get paid nothing. But they’re entrepreneurial about it. 

Alicia: Right, right.

That's an interesting way of looking at it, I think. ’Cause I think I have a lot of guilt about money in being a creative person. Guilt about thinking of my work as labor and guilt about thinking of my work in business terms, in a way that I never did if I was selling people cakes or cookies. I would never feel this way, but because I'm just writing—And as I say it, I say, ‘just writing.’ 

Dianne: Just writing, yup.

Alicia: Yeah. [Laughs.]

I'm like, ‘Is this real work? Am I supposed to be caring about money? Is it gauche of me to need money to live?’ [Laughs.] 

Dianne: Exactly.

Alicia: Yeah. 

And so trying to kind of be honest about these things, and how it all really works, which is a lot—it's very complicated.

Dianne: It is, because money is fraught, especially in American society. Fraught with so many issues. 

I have the privilege sometimes of writing a piece for my own pleasure and getting paid very little for it. And I think, ‘Is something wrong with me that I do this, because at the end of the day, it's not—my labor isn't being paid for. So, is that wrong? Or do I just decide that I'm a privileged person?’ and then I have guilt about that. [Laughter.] You can make yourself crazy with this stuff.

Alicia: Right, right. 

No, and in this new edition, in the introduction, you talk about the diversity of voices that have emerged in food writing in the last decade and the major writers of color, or Black writers who've emerged in this time. And you yourself could be said to have a ‘diverse’ background. So, I wanted to ask you how you define diversity.

Dianne: Thank you. 

So first, I'll define it for the book. So my editor and I spent a lot of time on how we were going to define it. And she was very helpful. So of course, there's BIPOC, which means Black, Indigenous and people of color. But that's not everybody. 

I just looked up the new abbreviation LGBTQQIAP. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual, ally, pansexual. Got all that? [Laughs.]

Alicia: Yes. [Laughter.]

Dianne: We're leaving out people who are disabled. I know, it's not everyone. But at least we're enlarging who can write about food and how they write about it. 

And so I tried to describe the intersection of food writing and more diversity in the first chapter. And I don't fit into one category. I mean, I present as a white person, and I have the privilege of a white person. But my parents were Chinese refugees from—who were Iraqi. So it's kind of complicated. Identity for me is a huge topic, and I'm endlessly fascinated by it.

Alicia: And I wanted to ask if you've faced—I mean, you just said you, you're a white person with the privileges of a white person. How do you view the kind of gatekeeping that occurs in food media and the fact that we have taken so long to start seeing food media more accurately reflect the world at large? 

Dianne: Oh, yeah, it's taken a long time. I mean, I graduated from journalism school in 1974. And it was almost entirely white. And every job I had, the whole staff was almost entirely white and the writers I hired were almost entirely white. 

I never questioned it in the beginning. We weren't having those kinds of conversations. And it's taken a long time to start—for the publishing industry—to start having the conversation, and to own it that publishing is, what, 85, 86 percent white. Depending on which publishing you're talking about, but I think, for us, it is. It's just taken a really long time because the gatekeepers were not really aware of how, of choosing their own and how their own were always available. 

I mean, white writers came to me and want to be published. And I didn't think about seeking out other kinds of people for the longest time.

Alicia: Right, right. [Laughs.]

And how did that moment of clarity kind of emerge?

Dianne: Well, just in the last few years, it's become a lot more obvious that this system has to change. And I've had my own understanding about it also, and questioning what I could do about it. 

Last year, in honor of Black Lives Matter, I had—I said I would take on five new clients who were interested in food writing, who are all Black, for $100 instead of $800, because I know there's this disparity in the income of white people versus Black people. And so that was something new, for me to do that. And it went really well. I had really terrific people to work with, who were—or I could just suggest to them, they work very hard. And it was good. It was a good experience. And now I'm trying to figure out what else I can do. 

Alicia: Right.

How far in advance do you start planning your next edition of the book?

Dianne: Well, they've come out every five years. I guess, technically, it was supposed to come out last year, but because of the pandemic they pushed it. So this one is out every—on the sixth year. So I can keep a file of all the stuff I’ve forgotten to write about, and how to rethink what I wrote about.

When I first got into food writing, I was absolutely bewildered by the Eurocentric nature of it. And it was so foreign to me, because I didn't know about European food. I didn't have the income to go to fine-dining restaurants and eat continental food, as it was called at the time. And I just didn't understand why everyone was so excited about it. [Laughter.] So we've come a long way from that point.

Alicia: Right. 

And for you, is cooking a political act?

Dianne: Certainly. 

Yeah. Because you make decisions, you make decisions. Are you going to buy organic, and is that just for your own health or is it for the health of the people who work in the fields and for the health of the planet? Can you look beyond yourself and see why that would be a good idea? Are you eating a plant based diet to—for environmental reasons or for your own health? 

Are you claiming your food as being from one country or another? I just had a guest post about—that Nandita Godbole, I don't know if I'm pronouncing her name right, wrote about cultural appropriation. And I realized that I had written a recipe for some—a Chinese dish that my mother made. And I was very wrapped up in the memory of how she made it and how delicious it was and what my memories were as a child eating it. 

And then I realized after reading her posts that I hadn't thought about, ‘Was this a dish that existed in Shanghai? And did my mother eat it? And is that how she found out about it? And what do I know about the Chinese version of this dish?’ I hadn't thought about it at all. So, it just enlarged my thinking about how to write about food in a way that's more inclusive. 

Alicia: Well, thank you so much for taking the time out today.

Dianne: It's my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pendingdeletiond27a89986e6248e.substack.com

Karla Vasquez is a writer and keeper of culture documenting the women who are keeping Salvadoran food tradition alive in the United States. Her project SalviSoul is putting oral tradition down on paper so that it can’t be lost, and it also points to the significance of specificity when discussing Latin American traditions: The U.S. considers the Latinx community a monolith, when it is actually wildly diverse.

I wanted to discuss with her the inspiration behind this, her experience so far working on a cookbook proposal, and how she expresses her voice authentically on social media. Listen above, or read below.

Alicia: Hi, Karla. Thank you so much for taking the time to chat today.

Karla: Of course! I'm so happy to chat with you today.

Alicia: [Laughs.] Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate?

Karla: Yes. 

So I grew up in L.A. It's where I am right now. And I grew up in a very Salvadoran home. So, that meant a lot of—yeah, a lot of the Salvadoran staples. A lot of polea, a lot of rice, a lot of tortillas. The occasional carne asada over the weekend. Because we were new immigrants in this country, the food was really what told me we were from El Salvador because we didn't have things that I saw other Latino families had around in L.A. There wasn't tacos at the party. It was pupusas. It was tamal de pollo. Yeah, it was a very Salvi-saturated food upbringing.

Alicia: And so, what led you to working in food and founding SalviSoul?

Karla: [Laughs.] There were a few things that led me to this work that I'm doing now. And I guess I can summarize them by pointing to three reasons.

I mean, the fact that my family are just storytellers, and this was—we carried our histories through storytime. So I think wanting to do good storytelling just became a part of just legacy that my family has. When we would sit at the table, when we would have dinner time, it was automatic—we were going to know, we were going to find out more about where we came from and our histories. 

So apart from that, a huge reason that led me to SalviSoul and to starting this work was because I had a very personal experience with my health. I became a person who had to deal with a chronic illness. I am a Type 1 diabetic. And in my early 20s, when I was diagnosed, there were a lot of doctors who had good intentions. And a lot of what they said to me were, ‘Diabetes has everything to do with food. And you're Latina, and Latinos eat very poorly. So we would advise you not to eat XYZ.’

And as I mentioned, my upbringing, food was what told me we were from somewhere else. So when I got to experience my culture, it was at the table. And so hearing this kind of recommendation from several doctors and nurses, and it just broke my heart. And I felt like I had to make a decision of, ‘Do I cater my diet to my health, or do I try to figure out if they're—if they maybe don't know the whole truth?’

And that's really what got me into food justice advocacy. And before I did food writing, I was managing farmer’s markets. I was working in low—income areas here in L.A, doing cooking classes, free cooking classes, where we would talk about all the things you can do with all the harvest from the farmers. And so that definitely informed my work. 

And as I started to research different cookbooks and really just getting obsessed with the food world and becoming familiar with all the work farmers do to give us options at the farmer’s market, I started to look for Salvadoran cookbooks. And by this point I had been going to cooking school doing a cooking program here in L.A. 

And the results that I found when I started researching Salvi cookbooks, I found two. I found two books, and I just thought, like, ‘There's millions of us here, internationally.’ We have had to adapt a transnational identity because so many of us have had to leave El Salvador. And it just felt completely absurd that there wasn't a library, or that the library we had of cookbooks were so limited. 

And also that the two books available were not—they weren't things like books from 50 years ago or anything. They were recent, within 10 years—yeah, I think when I found the first English cookbook, it was 2015. And that book had been published in 2013. So, it was relatively new. And I longed to know more. I longed just to understand where—what foods did my family have for fest—for the days of festivals? What foods they have for lazy Sundays? Food was really a way for me to understand where I came from. 

And it was a way for me to know, in that passports were not there—I, for a moment in my life here in the U.S., I was undocumented. So when documentation can’t tell you where you're from, when the language on both ends is a struggle, food was the thing that didn't ask me to be any way. I just knew we were from El Salvador because we eat plátanos, polea, queso duro, pan francés. 

Those were the, yeah, I guess the veins of the work that eventually led me to say, ‘What if I started a project, and I interviewed my grandmother and ask her for my favorite dish?’ And there was a really incredible moment in working with my grandmother. And she's definitely the co-creator of SalviSoul, because without me saying too much about it, I didn't have a name. I didn't have much, but just a question of curiosity. And I pitched it to her. And she said, ‘Oh, sí, Karla. Esto se trata del legado de la mujer salvadoreña.’ Like, ‘Karla, this is about the legacy of El Salvadoran women. You're going to interview women, they're going to tell you stories. And we're going to get these recipes documented that no one has really bothered to look there.’ 

And that was it. That was the moment that really—yeah, it was the beginning of so many things.

Alicia: And when Patricia Escárcega wrote about you for the L.A. Times last year, she wrote about your desire to write a Salvadoran cookbook. And she specifically mentioned that what you were just saying, that the cuisine of El Salvador is kept alive by women. Can you tell me more about the significance of women in Salvadoran cooking?

Karla: Absolutely. My goodness.

So much of what we know, as a diaspora is because of women in the kitchen, and women feeding their families. There’s that entrepreneurial spirit in, with immigrants, where I can't be hired. I don't have documentation. I don't know anyone here. But I know how to make some bomb tamales. I can make 150 of them and sell them on a corner, and people who are hungry will come and try it. 

When I started this project, there was a lot of wanting to give credit where credit has been past due. We have so many enclaves of Salvadorans in this country, and a lot of these enclaves really surround little mercaditos, little restaurants who have been serving these foods. And it's because of their diligence. And I think cooking, especially within a Latino, Latinx context, for women, I think it's a very complex issue because of course, we have been forced in the kitchen. I definitely had a lot of that push and pull feeling of like, ‘I don't want to work in the kitchen, because that's what has been-’ A good girl will want to work in the kitchen. And I didn't want that.

This work taught me a lot of nuance that we haven't been able to really sit with as a community. And I speak for Salvadoran community that I've interacted with. I definitely don't speak for the whole of our community. But with the experiences I've had, so many folks will say to me, ‘Karla, I don't know where else I can feel I belong to El Salvador or that I belong to this culture if it weren't for the home-cooked meals that my mom makes me or that my grandmother makes me.’

And the tension I have with that is that it then becomes this granny practice, right? And I've had moments where people say, ‘I don't need to bother to learn a recipe because I can just go home and eat it there.’ And I always have to stop myself from reacting honestly, because I want to say, ‘It's up to us. It's up to us to practice. Any culture that’s alive is practiced. It’s participated in. And you can’t lament not being able to have access to it, or for it to be a part of your life when you’re kind of assigning it to a generation that’s the older generation. It's an unfair ask to then put the whole weight of preserving culture on a generation that's done the work.’

So absolutely, there's huge significance. And especially because a lot of the history in El Salvador, there's been a lot of violence towards women. And my project is a place to highlight Salvadoran women. And yes, to highlight their sazón, to highlight the vibrancy they have for life. But also to say, ‘This is their place. This is a place that's dedicated to them. They are amazing individuals. They have incredible stories, I will introduce you to them and give you a snippet of who they are.’

SalviSoul is very much Salvi woman-obsessed. [Laughs.]

Alicia: Right. [Laughter.] 

And you mentioned before knowing you were Salvadoran by virtue of what you were eating, and that you weren't eating tacos the way everyone else was. And I feel I haven't been to L.A. in a—I was there once, I think, maybe in 2008. 

But I know that L.A. is such an amazing food city. And reading Jonathan Gold and all that stuff, it really—it gives you a sense of what L.A. is about and how significant food is for L.A. How do you think your city influences your kind of culinary vision, or your kind of culinary understanding?

Karla: Hmm.

Alicia: If at all? [Laughs.]

Karla: No, it absolutely does. I feel like there's a few ways in which it will influence. 

And I mean, I can speak on it from my point of view as a writer. Being able to meet so many different food writers here. I mean, just last week, I was talking to someone who is a food writer. And she's working on a Hungarian cookbook. And her cookbook is very similar where highlighting a lot of the women in her life, who are these cultural hubs for a lot—for the community here in L.A. 

And I think when you see a place like this city like Los Angeles, and you see people who come from the same place as you or similar places, and you see them not having to make compromises of who they are, it's a very—I remember the first time kind of seeing El Salvadorania and kind of being it. There weren't many out there. 

But I was just like, ‘Holy s**t. This is really f*****g bad. I didn't know this was possible.’ Because I think being an immigrant and growing up here, you really are trying to check all the boxes so you can stay here, so you're not separated from your family. So you can flourish the way you believe you can. And sometimes in that thought process, you realize that there will be compromises or that you will have to stop being a certain way or that your Spanish will have to disappear or any of those kinds of things. 

But living in a place like L.A., you start to see beautiful food concepts for restaurants that are led by the people that they are representing. And they are beautiful. They're a breath of fresh air. There's a huge spirit of pushing back and punk attitude. And I definitely feed off of that, because the publishing worlds, when I pitched this to them, were very much like, ‘People won't know what this is. People won't know what to do with it.’ I had an agent who I was pitching to say to me, ‘The American public won’t know what this is.’ And because I am in a place where there's—thankfully, I have a lot of examples of pushback where I can say, ‘I am the American public. And I want this, and plenty of other people want this.’ 

So yeah, I'm so grateful. It would be interesting to know what SalviSoul would look like in a place that wasn't this kind of presence of thriving and not compromising.

Alicia: Right.

And I mean, to speak to that, too, you post your Instagram captions in a mix of English and Spanish. And so I wanted to ask how you came to your voice as a writer, and if anyone was an influence on the way you approach your voice?

Karla: Well, the one piece of—I have one quote that I always lean on, by James Baldwin. And it's, ‘The responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him.’ Of course, I always say her, ‘who produced her.’ 

That's kind of been a piece of advice that's been a North Star for me. This whole question of figuring out what your voice is, it's so vague. And it's scary. And you want to make sure, or at least I want to make sure, that I'm speaking to the people who are looking for me. And so I do think about who are the people who produced me and produced these kinds of questions inside of me. 

I think about my grandmother, and—she was a phenomenal storyteller. And I think about how she never, ever had writer's block. And she didn’t necessarily type out stories or anything, but she did share lots of stories. 

And I think sometimes, the fact that we're writing kind of gives us this, makes us neurotic people. Because we’re not just sharing it, where there's so much that comes with the actual action of writing. And she never had writer's block. She never doubted herself when she would share a story. She would walk into the kitchen, and she'd be like, ‘[Snaps fingers.] Karla, ¿Qué esto pasó?’ And she had the feeling in her body. And she knew how to capture her audience. 

And so, I think of her whenever I start to get too much in my head. And I think a lot of what I've learned is—it's not about my feelings of me as a writer. It's just the story, this emotion. Something I've been realizing a lot recently is that writing is really catching feelings. You're trying to catch as many as you can.

I mean, I've read a lot of people who have shaken something inside me, and yeah, those are there. I don't know that any of those folks I've read, like Jonathan Gold, any food people you read have helped me become the writer that I want to be as much as the quote from James Baldwin and the attitude of my grandmother and how she was a storyteller. But, yeah, I think there's been so many little pieces of guidance and wisdom that have found me 

I'm not sure if I’m answering the question, but-

Alicia: You are. [Laughter.]

Since that L.A. Times profile of you last year by Escárcega, have you found an agent for the project of your cookbook?

Karla: I have, and honestly I can’t believe it. I shouldn't say that. I really didn't think I was gonna find one. I was pitching and sending out my proposal. And people would say, ‘This project sounds wonderful, Karla, but we've learned that compilation books really don't do well.’ Or, ‘Karla, this sounds great. But there's too many voices here.’ I'm sharing stories of 25 different women, plus myself. And then, of course, getting comments about ‘Well, what is Salvadoran food? People are not really interested in it.’

So yeah, I finally found my agent. After having all these different experiences with these folks, I did have a few kind of rules. Like I said, ‘I'm not going to work with anyone if they're making me feel like they're doing me a favor.’ No, I am doing them a favor. There has not been a Salvadoran cookbook published in this country by a traditional publisher. They should be happy that I am giving them an audience, because this will only help them in the trajectory of their business. 

I have had to kind of have this attitude, because—yeah, it's just unbelievable the way some folks have treated me. And it's ridiculous that it's taken this long. But my agent gets so many things. From the beginning, just said, ‘Put me in. I'm ready to work. I'm ready for this to be on bookshelves. Let's get to work.’

So yeah, I am so close to finishing my proposal right now. We had to kind of fine tune a lot of it. And I'm sure you know all about the proposal business here. It's been hard. 

Alicia: It's hard. It's so much work. Before you even get to the book, it's so much work. And then when you get to the book, it's so much more work. [Laughs.]

Karla: Yeah.

Alicia: Yeah.

Karla: The publishing industry is cruel. 

Alicia: Yeah. [Laughs.] But that's so exciting. 

You’ve been working with traditional kind of food media. Have you found a lot of pushback there? Have you found yourself feeling good working in food media?

Karla: Yeah.

I mean I will say, I think everything that's been happening in food media for the last year since last summer with the whole BA episode, I think the environment is different than when I started in food media in—beginning in 2016, I believe that’s when I started. 

Yeah, I would send out pitches back then saying like, ‘Hey, I want to highlight this restaurant. They are innovating Salvi food, and no one's really talking about this.’ And people were not interested, or—if they did, if I did hear back from them, they would say, ‘Oh, well, so-and-so already wrote about this.’ And I would say well, ‘That so-and-so is a Chicano writer who has no nuance. Can we at least consider a different angle perhaps?’

And now, it's different. I mean, I've had a few food opportunities knock on my door and say, ‘We want to feature you. There's a few things coming down the pipeline.’ So I can't say all the details, but I would have never imagined them knocking on my door and saying, ‘Hey, we would love if you could write a recipe or, and write an article. And we want to feature you.’ So I think it's a different world now for food writers like myself. We can start to see some changes. 

I do think that I'm also at a place where I have maybe a little bit of— all of the rejection you get kind of get to you. I don't care if they knock on my door now. I care less. Some of the places who have featured me—L.A. Times did feature me. But there have been some other ones who, they say they're really prestigious and nothing happens. Nothing happens, except that they end up looking maybe a little bit more inclusive or diverse, highlighted someone from a small country? Sure. 

I can’t honestly take you seriously as a food media when you haven't bothered to cater to this expanse, food media cultures that you haven't really bothered to look into. So, I take myself seriously. So, I will work with folks have demonstrated that they have been invested. It's a very small group of people. It's interesting how that happens, right? When they finally start calling you, you're just like, ‘I'm not interested in you. I am shocked that I ever thought you were that important, that I had angst about whether or not I'd ever be on your radar, you know?’

Alicia: Yeah. No, it's interesting. 

And I mean, you mentioned having the lack of nuance when a Chicano writer writes about a Salvadoran restaurant. And the U.S. media really has an idea of Latinx culture that is very one note. And you can kind of interchange one Latino for another. 

And how have you seen that get better, maybe, in the last couple of years if you have? I feel it watching coverage of Puerto Rico. Obviously, there's a huge Puerto Rican diaspora in the U.S., but it's very interesting to see the diaspora prospective versus someone who lives here and that sort of thing. It's considered the same thing, though, from the U.S. perspective.

Karla: I mean, my gosh. 

I think that several things can be true at the same time. Things have gotten better; things have stayed the same. How do I say this? How do I express all the feelings? If there has been an opportunity for me to write something, I think that there are—because of Twitter, I'll be tagged in something that said, ‘They should have hired Karla to write this. She is one of the few Salvadoran food writers, but they decided to go with a Chicano.’ Those kinds of things are happening. Before, those things didn't happen. 

So it's not to say that they’re hiring me for the—that would be awesome. But they’re acknowledging—or the people are acknowledging, and that's how we accomplish anything. Enough people who have the platform's hopefully strong enough, big enough, that you start to see something change. That's what I'm seeing. Before if I wasn't really putting myself out there, pitching, kind of being in front of folks, it's not—it wasn't going to come my way, or it's not going to. 

But I mean, we'll see. I think this is why I want to do this cookbook, right? And why I decided not to self publish, but to pursue traditional publishing, because I do believe that having that kind of—it's almost like having that rite of passage for the community will create an environment where, ‘Hey, are we doing our due diligence if we aren't asking Salvadoran writers to write Salvadoran content?’ Or, as a bare minimum, asking Central American folks. 

So I think that there is a path that has been made. It's not a path that is very populated, but there—we're getting there. Yeah, I think that's the best I can say as far as—if I were to give a grade, I would add in the comments, ‘Shows huge improvements. Keep it there, but we’re not there yet, honey.’

So yeah, I don't think I'll ever be satisfied with food media because historically, they've taken too much from everyone. I don't know that they deserve my satisfaction. So, I do think what I want is for the people, the powers that be, just to get out of the effing way. If you can't support, if you can't give up the jobs, get out of the way. Stop sabotaging. 

But anyway, I digress.

Alicia: [Laughs.]

No, but it’s real. And I know in that L.A. Times piece, again, you were talking about how Instagram following is kind of considered super important for selling a cookbook. But I have seen lots of cookbooks be published by people with 2000 followers on Instagram and 2000 followers on Twitter. And I think it's something I've seen be told to a lot to women of color, who are trying to push a cuisine that has—that the publishing forces-that-be don't think has a big audience.

But meanwhile, I have a Romanian cookbook. And it's great. And, of course, but that's a similar kind of a small country as well. But it has a cookbook, and I don't want to say that that writer didn't put in a lot of work. But it's, how many people in the U.S. have eaten Romanian food versus a pupusa? 

So how do you see social media? To me, it's this kind of necessary kind of evil of promoting your work. But what is your kind of relationship with that? 

Karla: Let's see. Gosh, heavy hitters.

Alicia: I'm sorry. [Laughter.]

Karla: No, I love it. I love them. Absolutely here for it. 

My relationship with social media has had to evolve. At the very beginning, at the onset of SalviSoul, bringing it into the social media scape, it was just such a nurturing place. All the folks who have kind of been that person and had that experience like I had, where I was really excited to look for Salvi cookbooks and then came up on two, and then the two were sold out. We were all finding each other. And it was just so beautiful. I kept having these feelings, again, and again, of like, ‘Oh, you too! You have this thing? Oh my gosh.’ So, it was a really beautiful thing. 

And knowing that the numbers kept going up, and I had—I remember when I just had a few hundred followers. And I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh. I have 400 people who are with me on this, who think that this should be a thing. Oh my gosh, this is so f*****g cool.’ 

And then when I had made the decision to not self publish, but to pursue this journey of traditional publishing, I met a great agent. And she said, ‘This is an incredible project. There is an audience for this. We definitely can find you a publisher who will do right by you. However, you need more followers.’ And I think at this point in time, I maybe had like 4,000. She said, ‘I need you to have at least 10.’ And I thought, ‘Oh my gosh. That's a lot.’

And for me at the time, I think I also interpreted it as I can't connect to that many people. Because it was just like, ‘Connecting, connecting, connecting with—it was just I was finding family. And you do the catch of you go with friends. You go, ‘How you’ve been?’ And it was just organic, too. It wasn't a strategy of how to gain a bigger following. It was just like, ‘I want to know, where the rest of the diaspora is.’ Because people from Canada, from Abu Dhabi, from Tokyo, Savis all over the world, they're like, ‘Oh, my gosh, I've been waiting for something like this. And I'm so happy I found you.’

So then hearing, ‘We need 10,000,’ I was like, ‘There's no way I can get these by myself. I need to find people to promote my work. I need to get in front of more people.’ It's just this compounded stress of ‘I need to keep having these emotional connections people that I don't think I have capacity for.’ That had been the way that the community grew. 

And a lot of this too, I have to be very careful. Because I see this happen a lot, where you have projects or books that are about tough things that we've had to survive. It becomes the gimmick. You show all your pain and suffering, and then they say, ‘Oh, yeah, that's enough for us to humanize you. We feel something now, so we're gonna care now.’ 

I almost felt when this person said, ‘I need you to have 10,000,’ I felt like this person wanted me to do that, because that's the fastest way you can get attention or make a meaningful connection. And those were a lot of things to process. No one's in my family has ever been published. There's never been a freelancer in my family. I became one so that I could be available for this. I was Frankensteining income with whatever came my way. 

And now I just felt like I had this huge task of, ‘Go find another 5,000+ people that you need to connect with and that they need to find value in the work you do, when you have receipts to show that the general public has cared less about the Salvadoran community.’

So yeah, it was fucked up. I was like, ‘I don't know how to-’ I didn't know how to deal. But I just kept doing what I was doing. I kept posting, posting not really with a strategy in mind but just, ‘Hey, this is what I'm learning. I'm sharing it with you all, because this is what the page is.’ And then eventually, a few folks with—who are also Salvis and had larger, much larger followings, who were Salvis in fashion, Salvis in makeup sharing, ‘Oh my gosh, there’s a food account and she's doing cooking classes. You guys have to follow.’

And then, we eventually got to 10,000 especially after the L.A. Times piece. That helped a lot. And I went back to that agent and I said, ‘Hey, guess what! I have the 10,000. It was amazing.’ And then unfortunately, they ghosted me. So, I don't know. Was she really serious, or was she maybe just giving me a number that felt difficult and she maybe thought, ‘It'll take her a really long time.’ Or maybe she really was—It was last year that I got back to her, so 2020. Have to have a bit of patience with folks, because we're all still going through it. 

So yeah, I think social media—it's hard, ‘cause that was the same year that American Dirt came out. And we were all talking about how does someone with 3000 followers. Three books, I think. She'd already published three books, get a six figure book deal. And she only has less than 5,000 followers on any accounts. How did that happen? How? So, we know how. 

So yeah, I think that I, as far as my strategy now with social media, I'm wanting to still connect with people. I'm choosing to create from a place that is of service to Salvi folks. creating beautiful things, creating informative things. 

The end of last year was really hard, because I had family who was hospitalized due to COVID. And thankfully, they're fine now, thank and goodness. Everything was just really difficult. And I think I didn’t post for like three months, which I think is—yeah, exactly. It's criminal when you think about it and everything you have to do. I stopped doing my cooking classes that I was doing weekly. I stopped posting. I didn't have it in me. 

Yeah, I’ve have had time to rest. I have help now, too. I have someone who helps me with social media. So yeah, I think it's always a habit of resetting what social media is there to do for you. And publishers, I'm sure, will want me to have hundreds of thousands. But if that's not what I have, then that's not what I have. And I'm not gonna buy followers. I'm not going to do anything that doesn't feel honest. And that's just what they have to deal with, ‘cause I have to deal with a lot more than just worry, worrying about how many followers I have. 

Alicia: Well, for you is cooking a political act?

Karla: I think so, yes. Yes. It doesn't always have to be. I think cooking, the intention behind it can be very much like eating. But sometimes we eat for health, sometimes we eat for enjoyment. Sometimes we eat because otherwise we're gonna die. 

Being a diabetic, my relationship to food almost feels like it's on this whole other level. Because there have been moments where—yeah, I'm not sure how familiar you are with diabetes, but you can—I have Type 1, so my pancreas, which produces the insulin that helps me break down all the carbohydrates that become sugar that become energy, my body doesn't make any. So I have to give myself between five to six injections a day of insulin. And everything I eat is a very conscious choice. 

And so naturally, anytime I cook is also very conscious. And when you add that layer of cooking Salvadoran food when there are so many policies that have meant to harm my community, cooking is definitely a very political act. To say that I'm going to learn and practice these ways in this country, and that I'm going to teach others to thrive at it as well, I think is the most radical thing I can do for my community and for us to feel strong. So absolutely. I think it's a political act.

Alicia: Well, thank you so much for taking the time again.

Karla: Oh my gosh, thank you so much. This has been wonderful.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pendingdeletiond27a89986e6248e.substack.com

Do I need to introduce Julia Turshen to a food crowd? Her cookbooks are best sellers and she’s written for everyone. Before I made my foray into food writing, I envied her quite a bit for seemingly having achieved all my dreams far before I was ready or able to do so, despite the fact that we’re the same age.

In this conversation, I wanted to understand her approach to creating “healthy” recipes and what inspired the one vegan chapter in her new book, Simply Julia, but I also wanted to discuss how privilege has manifested in her career and why she’s stepped away from the spotlight to work on a farm. Listen above, or read below.

Alicia: Hi, Julia. Thank you so much for coming on today.

Julia: Thank you so much for having me. This is very exciting, and I appreciate it so much. Yeah, thank you.

Alicia: Of course.

Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate?

Julia: Sure. I've listened to, I think, all of the interviews you've done. And I love this question so much. I love hearing everyone's response, so this is just very surreal and exciting for me to answer. 

So I grew up in Manhattan until I was about eight. And then my family moved to the suburbs, about half an hour outside of New York City. And I was raised by my parents, my mom and my dad, who both worked full-time since way before I was born. So I was also very much raised by my babysitter, Jenny.

And I would say the food I ate growing up, I ate a lot of food outside of our house. We depended on Chinese takeout a lot. We ate a lot of pizza. We ate a lot of Jewish delicatessen food, Ashkenazi, all different, chicken soup and knish and that kind of stuff. My family loves a diner. [Laughter.] Lots of bagels, and occasionally McDonald's. I was a chicken nugget kid. 

And I would say the food in my family's home—I was thinking about this, and I feel like it was divided between three basic food groups. Or not food groups, but items or themes. So there was a lot of packaged diet food. There was a lot of SnackWell cookies, Boca Burgers, stuff like that. In our house, there was a lot of food purchased from prepared food stores, so containers of pesto pasta, stuff like that. 

And then there was also Jenny's cooking. And this was the food that I loved the most when I was a kid. Jenny's food that she would mostly prepare for herself and share with me is the food that I feel, I guess, one of the foods I feel most deeply connected to. 

And it feels, I don't know, especially important to talk about right now because Jenny is from St. Vincent, which I'm sure you're aware of because of where you live. But there was just, or there continues to be, this really crazy volcano erupting in St. Vincent, looks like devastating the country. So thinking about Jenny and her family and St. Vincent right now is kind of top of mind for me. And if it's ok, can I just shout out a website? 

Alicia: Of course! Yeah. [Laughs.]

Julia: Ok, so there's a website called https://www.feedstvincent.org/. So it's S-T-Vincent, https://www.feedstvincent.org/. And the chef from Food Sermon in Brooklyn, who is also a Vincentian, he's started this kind of meal response thing, ’cause a lot of people are in need there. So I'm really grateful that he set that up. And it’s just a very tangible, easy place for people to go to support just a country that is going through a very rough time right now. 

That was a long answer. [Laughter.] 

Alicia: I love the Food Sermon. Yeah, it's a great restaurant. 

Where outside of New York did you grow up?

Julia: I'm sorry, I didn't hear what you just said.

Alicia: Where outside of New York did you grow up?

Julia: Oh, in Westchester County. My family moved to Harrison.

Alicia: I'm from Long Island, and so I always want to know. [Laughs.]

Julia: Yeah, totally. The bridge and tunnel connection, I’m with you.

Alicia: [Laughs.]

And also, what you grew up eating was so very similar to what I grew up eating, which is pizza, Chinese takeout, that sort of thing. It's very, very similar. And it's also funny, because I didn't realize that we were born in the same year until I was googling you because for the entire time I've been writing about food, you've been the—a presence in the food world and in food media. And so, what made you work in food and how did you kind of become focused on home cooking?

Julia: I have been interested in food my whole life. I have been cooking since before I can remember, since I was a little, little kid. And I've always wanted to be in the kitchen, and I think some of that is because I didn't grow up in a family where my parents were cooking. I didn't learn to cook at my grandmother's knee or anything like that. I think I was seeking that kind of, I don't know, sort of domestic life maybe in some way without even realizing it. But these are thoughts I've had as an adult. As a kid, I just wanted to be in the kitchen. I thought it was just the greatest place. And I continue to think that.

But the thing that is, I think, most significant for me in terms of working in food media as opposed to just food in general—‘cause as you know, the food industry is one million industries under one big umbrella. But my parents worked in publishing. So my whole life, I have been exposed to print media, to books and magazines. 

And I've had that early exposure. I've also had access to the publishing world since before I can remember. After school, when I would go to my parent’s office, I was walking into office buildings that I continue to go into now. I mean, I guess virtually [laughter] if I'm meeting with someone. But that definitely has informed my career. It's paved the way a lot of, for a lot of my work and everything. 

So I think that's super important to mention, because I think when we talk about opportunity, especially within publishing, which is the most opaque industry and is allergic to transparency, I just feel it's super important to just talk about how we got into it, which I appreciate how much you do that. 

And the second part of your question about home cooking, I have always been a home cook and I proudly identify as one. If someone calls me a chef, I feel like I'm always looking over my shoulder, like, ‘Who are you talking to?’ [Laughter.] 

And for me, home cooks and chefs are just different things. And I'm really happy to be a home cook. I think they're both worthy. They're both valuable. They're just different. And I try not to confuse them, because I'm really proud of what I accomplish in my home kitchen and I'm proud of what other people accomplish on a daily basis in theirs. And I'm so happy to be a home cook who writes for other home cooks. I try to share all my recipes and stories from that sort of shared place, I would say. 

And I guess the only sort of professional cooking experience I've had, in addition to recipe writing, is I did work for many years as a private chef. But that was always me cooking in other people's home kitchens. I still think of that—even though it's not just sort of the daily relentless grind of home cooking within your own home, and it is paid. And yeah, I guess you could call me a chef for that. Whatever, I don't care what you call me. 

But that, to me, just continued to inform my life as a home cook. And I just had access to many home kitchens and access to many families who had the ability to hire someone to cook for them in their home, which is a really interesting, fascinating experience. And at the end of the day, I think everyone just wants to feel very taken care of. I think that was a big takeaway for me. I mean, I have other takeaways from that time, but I won’t bore you. [Laughter.]

Alicia: Well, you mention kind of the relentless grind of home cooking. How are you feeling in the home, cooking, after working on cookbooks—we're in a pandemic. How have you been relating to food over the last year?

Julia: I mean, it's made me appreciate the fact that I love to cook so much. I'm so grateful for that. 

I don't know. I feel like I'm always kind of ruminating about home cooking and home cooks, and always thinking about the labor that is home cooking. The undervalued, unacknowledged, just—I think, really—not very well-understood labor. And I'm someone who gets acknowledged and credited for that labor. I get to put my work out there. I get to make a business, a career out of it. But I'm doing what many people are doing everyday without any credit or acknowledgement.

And when we cook at home—again, you know, this—but we're not just making dinner. We are planning for it. We're maybe keeping a budget. We are keeping endless mental inventory of what's in our kitchens. We're trying to use things up. We're probably taking other people's needs and desires into consideration. We're shopping. We're also cleaning up. We do so much cleaning up. 

That's part of why I don't put—this is a sidebar in a tangent. But I don't put times in my recipes, ‘active time’ or ‘prep time’ or whatever, because I just feel like it's endless. Are we including washing the dishes and cleaning the counter and the grocery shopping? That's all part of making the recipe. So I just don't put that, because then I feel like I'm measuring myself against it or something. I don't know, it just makes my head spin. And am I asking other people to measure themselves against it? I just don't like that kind of vibe. 

Anyway, so yes, home cooks are just incredibly valuable. We sustain households, communities, and this is really important work that often just doesn't get the credit that I think it so deserves. So, yeah, I definitely am so happy and proud to be a home cook, especially over the last year. And I'm also really happy and proud to have the opportunity to celebrate my fellow home cooks who don't often get that—I don't know—cheer or celebration.

Alicia: Yeah, no. 

It's funny, because I think over the last year, it's the first time I've really thought of all that labor that you just mentioned that goes into it. I think it's been so apparent to me in a way that it wasn't before, where before, when I would cook dinner, it would be part of, more of a—what felt like a full day. And now it feels more just the only point of my day. 

I just see it also clearly. That mental inventory, I have felt the weight of that mental inventory of what's in the kitchen over the last year in a way that I never have before, which is interesting. And actually, maybe I want to explore that deeper because it really is such a—it’s so much pressure, I feel.

Julia: Yeah, for sure. I'm nodding out loud. [Laughter.]

Alicia: No, but it's funny. And, it's a lot of different complications there of trying to keep life afloat and also make sure if there's food in the kitchen, etc, etc. 

And, it's been better to get inspiration from cookbooks like your new book, Simply Julia. And I wanted to—it's hard for me, and I don't really talk about it. The only time I've written about kind of ‘health’ in my newsletter, it was—I literally put it in quotes, so that I wouldn't be kind of making a judgement because I do feel it's so difficult to talk about. People are so connected. You don't want to tell anyone a food is bad or a food is good. And health necessarily kind of says, ‘This is good.’

And so I wanted to ask how you kind of decided to approach that idea, as well as the issues of fatphobia, which are so deeply connected to ideas of health and how we talk about them.

Julia: I so appreciate you asking this, and kind of giving the context for how you've gone about it in your work or, or not gone towards it, because it's super sticky. I'll just back up for a second, because something I just heard you say that I feel is tied to this is just that feeling of pressure within home cooking. 

Having nothing to do with health, but that's something I just think about a lot. I think in the age of social media and cookbooks and stuff, I think, in general, I see and feel and observe the sense of pressure that home cooks feel, that I think a lot of people feel. I think this measuring of ourselves against each other and ourselves. And that's something I try to push against as much as I can in my work.

I basically feel like the kitchen is the one place where I don't feel anxious in my life. [Laughter.] Everywhere else, I am so anxious. And that's why I take medication and see a therapist and have supportive friends and boundaries in my friendships and all these things. Anxiety is a big part of my life. And it's really interesting to me that it's not a part of my cooking life. And I feel that's a place that causes stress and pressure for most people. So I feel like that is this big knot I am constantly trying to untie and understand and just be aware of.

And I'm saying all this, because what you mentioned just really resonated, but also because everything I just described to me, for me personally—I can only speak from my own personal experience—but that's all rooted in diet culture. In the sense of perfectionism, this sense of trying to attain the unattainable. And I'm talking about thinness. [Laughs.] 

And the more I understand about diet culture and the role it's played in my life—I mentioned I grew up in a SnackWell’s Cookie home. The more I understand the roots of diet culture being the roots of everything that's problematic in our world, which is racism and white supremacy and these things that, I don't know, you do such a great job of tackling in your work. 

And I've been the beneficiary of reading work like yours, reading work like, I don't know, Sabrina Strings’ book Fearing the Black Body, really understanding this—The Body is Not An Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor. 

Work like this has really changed my life, because, as I told you, I've loved to cook forever. It's where I have found so much joy, so much curiosity, so much connection to other people. So much confidence. I feel my most confident in the kitchen, not because I think everything I cook is great. I just think that I can figure it out. And that feels really good. But I have not felt the same competence, or joy, or positivity when it comes to eating. Cooking and eating have been kind of separate things for me. 

And my whole life, I felt so drawn to food in ways that have sometimes felt obsessive. Which I think is true for honestly a lot of people in food. I've talked to a lot of people about this. I think that issues around eating, whether it's living with an eating disorder, or disordered eating, or just any sort of obsessive feeling about food, I think it's incredibly common. It's part of what brings us to it. I don't know, what you're asking and this whole topic is such a huge topic. And I think I need to just slow myself down while I'm talking about it, because I think I'm trying to talk about so many things. 

But basically, yeah, the subtitle of my new book is ‘healthy comfort food.’ And I know that those words bring up a lot for a lot of people, including myself. And I guess the reason I wanted to go in that direction and go for it is because these issues have been a big part of my life. I have loved cooking, but I have had intense issues with body image and disordered eating and restrictive eating. 

These are things I've been working through personally, and my work is really personal. So I chose to share with us more publicly, and I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to write a healthy cookbook that is not about weight loss. This is a healthy cookbook that doesn't equate the word ‘healthy’ with skinny. 

And I guess in terms of thinking about your question about why I've chosen to address this publicly, I'm not the first person to do so by any means. Some of those books I just mentioned, there's many more like them. I just do think fatphobia is everywhere. It's everywhere. Diet culture is everywhere. And so, I think it needs to be confronted from everywhere. 

And for me, that definitely includes mainstream cookbooks, because mainstream cookbooks, ones I've been lucky to produce and be a part of, they go a long way to influencing how we understand terms like healthy. And they have definitely informed how I've thought about healthy, and I used to think it just meant skinny. And coming to understand that it doesn't—it's just something I feel really strongly about sharing. 

And I guess in some ways, I think I wrote this book to kind of change my own definition of it just for myself and therefore kind of hold myself accountable. And hold myself accountable in a really positive way for myself to just, continue to treat myself with compassion, and to try and do that for other people. I don't know, I feel like everything I'm saying is a little bit vague. [Laughs.] But it's a big, it's—no pun intended—a very weighty topic. 

And I just think health is a really—it reminds me of the word ‘natural’ on food packaging. It's overused, so much to the point where it both means nothing and it also means something that it doesn't mean. It's come to mean that. And I just think that's honestly really dangerous. And I don't know, I feel I just want cooking and eating and food to be as safe of a thing as possible. 

So, I think this is an attempt to be part of that kind of conversation. I don't know. Those are some rambly, separate thoughts, but I'm happy to talk about all of this or more. But yeah, it's definitely—ok, I’ll stop. 

Alicia: No, it's so loaded. It's so loaded.

And I feel it, because I write about, not about veganism or vegetarianism. And people tie these things to restrictive eating. There's a big strain of vegans who are recovering from an eating disorder and veganism is a safe way to still be mindful, I guess, of what one is eating. 

But I've become really, really intense, like you were saying, about talking about the way that fatphobia is an expression of anti-Blackness. And the ways in which we have to talk about it as a European beauty ideal is the same as blonde hair and that sort of thing. We have to make it as though it's as neutral as that. Its meaning is as neutral as that, and we have to talk about the reason that we are kind of obsessed with it. [Laughs.] 

And so I really think it's important to address in the way that you have, because people are very weird about food. And because our culture has made us weird about food. And I don't mean weird about food in a negative way. We don't, especially as women, etc., etc., we don't feel very free to eat in a way that maybe our bodies are telling us to. We just don't. 

Julia: Yeah. I, again, am just nodding my head really vigorously over here. You can't see me, but just please know that that's happening. 

I could not agree more. And something that I write a little bit about in the introduction to the book, when I'm sort of talking about the word healthy and something I think about all the time, is the fact that I think it's a word and a feeling that I think is up for all of us to define for ourselves. And I think having the agency to define it individually is incredibly important, because we live in different bodies. [Laughs.] That is obvious, but I think that maybe isn't always obvious by the way these things are written about. 

And, for me, I definitely define healthy using that word you just used, which is free. It's feeling freedom. It's feeling freedom from these imposed sort of pressures and restrictions and everything you said, beauty ideals, and all these things. And it's feeling free from judgment, and it's feeling free to make choices. 

Freedom to me is an incredibly important part of what it means to feel healthy. And I also know that the word freedom is incredibly loaded as well. And I don't know, I just appreciate the opportunity to just talk about these things with people like yourself, and many other people. Because I think that's how these things can change is through these types of conversations, right?

Alicia: And to also talk about vegan stuff, you have a chapter on vegan meals in the book. Which I think is great, because I do think people think of eating a vegan meal as something daunting. I mean, it's funny to me, of course, because I'm like, ‘I don't even know where I would put cheese in a meal. I don't know where you put the meat. I don't know.’ [Laughter.] 

But I'm always kind of talking about people in food media having sort of a responsibility to talk about the ways in which meat is a destructive force in our planet, in the way that it is industrialized, etc., etc. And so, how do you approach that idea that the food system is a huge part of global greenhouse gas emissions? Meat is also the biggest culprit in that. How do you approach that personally, and also in your work in a way that isn't alienating?

Julia: Yeah, great question. 

I don't know that I have the answer here. But I can just tell you some thoughts I have on this. And I guess my disclaimer is that my thoughts on this are constantly evolving based on information that I am finding. Information that's new to me, that's not new information. 

And, yeah, not to keep saying this, but a lot of that information for me on this topic comes from you and your newsletter. It comes from other people I read and talk to who either identify as vegan or work in farming or work in policy work, or cook for their community or feed their community in other ways. People who are attached to the food system in very conscious ways. I would say people I've learned a lot from who I know you've talked about a lot in your work are people like Karen Washington, people like Leah Penniman. I don't know. The more I learn, the more I learn, which is true for all of us. [Laughter.] 

So I don't know. In thinking about this, I was thinking about ‘How do I decide what I put in my books, or what I put on my table?’ Which are very similar things. And most of these decisions come from the people I am feeding, the people I am cooking for. The person who I do that for the most—if that's a sentence, I'm not sure—is my wife, Grace. 

My home kitchen is me and my wife and our two dogs. I would say our dogs are the ones who consume the most meat in our household. So I don't know, that's maybe a sidebar thing, but would be interesting to talk to you about ‘cause you have a dog, right? 

Alicia: Yeah. 

Julia: Yeah. ’Cause veganism and dog ownership, I think, is a very interesting topic. Yeah, I could talk to you about so many things. But I'm going to try and answer your question. 

I think a lot about who I'm cooking for and what their needs are. And so in our household, I mean, I basically, I'll eat anything. I'm very lucky to not have any allergies or anything like celiac disease, like my body can handle most foods. I'm grateful for that. I try to be selective about what I eat based on what I like and what supports my local farmers and all that kind of stuff. 

But in terms of meat consumption in our household separate from our dogs, we—my wife, Grace, doesn't like red meat. She used to eat a lot of pork. She's Southern. But she just no longer really likes it. So we eat a lot of vegan and vegetarian meals, and we also eat chicken and fish. We have the privilege to be very selective about where we buy, those items or all these items. 

And something that's been on my mind, which was interesting to hear you talk about a lot of people who are recovering from eating disorders or disordered eating turning to veganism, the way I have continued to, I guess, just heal my disordered eating has been through the framework of intuitive eating. And this is something I would say I'm probably, I don't know, I don't think I'm at the very beginning stages of but I'm not out of the dark space altogether. This is something I'm just continuing to figure out for myself. 

And within the framework of intuitive eating, it's really important to me to not impose restrictions on myself and to just listen to my body and to get to know my body more. And the minute I imposed any restriction, I'm going to cut out whatever it is: sugar or dairy or vegetables. I mean, I'm not cutting out vegetables. But whatever the restriction is, it doesn't matter. But the minute I hear, ‘I'm cutting this out,’ that brings up a lot of not great stuff for me. So I try to not do that.What I tried to do, which causes no triggering things for me, is to just be really conscious of where I'm getting my ingredients. Which is a privilege to have that just time to think about, to have the money to choose where I spend it and all that kind of stuff. 

So these are things I think about. But in terms of the book itself, yeah, there's a chapter of—it's vegan one pot meals for the reason you kind of suggested. I think a lot of people think of a meal without meat in it as something like, ‘Well, what's it going to be? What's the centerpiece of this or something?’ I talk to home cooks all the time. I talk to home cooks on social media all the time, like, I am in this ongoing conversation with people who are cooking at home. And I know this comes up for a lot of people. So that's why I wanted to make it one pot meals. Make this feel really simple, because it can be simple, but also make it feel cozy and familiar. And I don't want to other it. 

But yeah, that chapter is in a book that also has a chapter of chicken recipes. And I don't know, in terms of being conscious of the food system and climate change or climate crisis and how it infects all this, I don't know. If I were to write this book today versus when I started working on it, that's something I've thought about. Would it still have the chicken chapter? I'm not sure. I don't know I'm continuing to learn and I'm just grateful to learn. 

I feel like I would like to share this with you if it's ok. And maybe we'll get into this with some of the questions that are coming up. I've taken a big pivot, and I, a couple weeks ago, started working and I'll continue to be in this job for the rest of the year. I have a new full-time job. And I'm actually working at my favorite local vegetable farm. And I have taken a step back from cookbook world and food media and stuff. Everyone I work with is vegan. We're talking about this stuff all day every day while we're farming. And I feel my mind and body just absorbing a lot of new information. 

So I don't know, maybe we can talk in a few minutes and see—I don't know. It's super interesting. 

Alicia: And I love that you're working in a local farm with people who are vegan, because a lot of the narrative around veganism that we get online, I'm gonna say. [Laughs.] And it's terrible, because in the pandemic, I've just been online. Twitter is the only way I know what people are doing or thinking about. It's affecting my book that I'm writing, obviously, because I'm writing it in a pandemic. I'm not out in the world talking to people. 

And so, I'm just hearing what these people online have to say. And I identify as vegetarian now, because I do eat local eggs and local goat cheese. And sometimes I'll eat pizza with—just out of just a sense of communal joy, I would say. [Laughs.] 

Julia: Yeah, pizza has a lot of communal joy. I agree. [Laughs.]

Alicia: People are really upset with me about this. Even though I am, all I promote is the idea of centralizing vegetables in your diet and stepping away from meat as the centerpiece of your eating. But the vegans are very angry with me all the time. 

And I think it's because they're not really understanding how ecological systems work. And I'm probably gonna upset any vegan who's listening to this, but sometimes there's just a real disconnect in terms of actual farming and how an actual agro-ecological system would function. And how localized food systems would work. I mean, obviously, you would eat very little animal product. That's just it.

Julia: Yeah.

I live in New York State. I live a couple hours north of New York City. And if I were 1,000% vegan who ate no animal products and was also very aware of all the things you just said, I would also never eat a banana, or a lime, or an avocado, or these things that I think are very prevalent in a lot of vegan recipes and stuff. And I don't know. It’s all fascinating. 

And it's just interesting about the sort of the conversations happening on Twitter, too, because this idea of upsetting the vegan stuff, which I'm sure we're both doing in many ways. But it's also like, yeah, upsetting the vegans who are active on Twitter, which I think is one group. Again, I just keep using the word interesting. 

And I don't know. I think, again, there isn't a one-size fits all for everyone. I think that's why we have to define healthy for ourselves. I care about you as a person in the world, but I don't care what you eat. That doesn't matter to me. But I am interested in it. I'm curious about how you make these decisions, but what you eat has zero impact on my life. 

I mean, maybe the decisions about who you're supporting and stuff, maybe it does have an impact. I don't know. This is complicated. But I think the judgment and the measuring against each other, which I think, again, rooted in white supremacy and racism and diet culture. Everything we're talking about is connected, even if it doesn't maybe seem that way. I don't know, I think that's something I'm very passionate about, is just trying to remove judgment.

Alicia: Yeah, no. 

And I mean, it's hard because there is—the collective impact of what we eat is real. And I mean, that's why we need systemic change, to make it easier for everyone to make choices that are healthy for the earth, healthy for us as human beings, because we do feel—and I mean, this is a bit woo-woo. But we do feel the impact energetically of how healthy and how good other people feel. That has an impact on all our lives. 

Julia: I mean, I am a gay woman who's working at a vegetable farm in the Hudson Valley. I'm all for the woo-woo. That's fine. I'm with you. You don't have to explain that to me. [Laughter.] 

Alicia: But it's real. And I think it's important to talk about. Yeah.

It's hard, because I want to talk to vegans about my own choices and my own kind of—but then I'm kind of considered an ex-vegan. And that's a really bad thing. [Laughs.]

Julia: It's really interesting, ’cause it almost—there's a parallel here to me about conversations I have with people in the queer community, where what does it mean if you, I don't know, have always been a lesbian and then you date a cisgendered man or something? 

I think these communities and cultures where labels take on a lot of, I don't know, weight and import and stuff, I think the world isn't black and white. [Laughs.] And there's a lot of nuance. And it's hard to figure out where you sit in the community that relies on labels to define yourself. And I think that gets really amplified when you enter spaces like Twitter, where there's very little room for nuance, which is why I don't spend much time-

Alicia: I need to stop. [Laughs.] And it's hard to get off when you're a writer, and when my work really depends on—I can look at the hits to my newsletter, and they're mostly coming from Twitter. I have to engage somewhat, but I am trying to engage in a more healthy way. Which, obviously, this is not what we're talking about, but I am engaged in a more healthy way. I don't see any one's responses to me unless I follow them, and so that's changed my whole life. 

Julia: That's cool. That’s smart. Good for you. That's great. 

I mean, I know, this isn't what we're talking about. But it's also-

Alicia: Social media is such a big part of our lives. I love to ask about people's relationships with social media, because I think it's useful also for the readers or the listeners to know what it's like for people who are kind of, I hate this phrase, but creating content and having to be on social media on this professional level. But it is work. It is labor.

Julia: Yeah, no. 

And it definitely feeds into our income. If you're getting hits on your newsletter that you're getting—there's paid subscribers, including myself. Highly recommend it. Very good investment. I get it.

I'm trying to get people to buy my book. Because, yes, I believe in my book, but I also have a mortgage I'm paying. These are actual things. And I think we don't talk about a lot of stuff like money and all that. I mean, you talk about it, but that's rare. And I don't know, the way social media plays into this, I think it's tied to everything we're talking about. This kind of sense of pressure, or exceptionalism. 

For me, when I used to check things like likes, or comments, or my ranking on something like Amazon or something, which is just not something I recommend anyone do. When we're checking these numbers, to me, it always just felt like how I used to feel when I would step on a scale and check my weight, which I haven't done in a long time. I threw out my scale a while ago, because it didn't make me feel good. 

And this kind of constant measuring. I feel like you kind of spoke to this earlier. I just feel it's worth mentioning now because I think there's a connection between these things. And something that's been really helpful for me is like, ‘Who provided these numbers? What are they getting out of it, because they're probably the person getting, or the institution getting, something out of it?’

This constant checking, we're doing it because someone provided these things. These rankings, these numbers. It's a big part of why I joined the farm crew, because it means I'm spending at least eight hours a day not on my phone or computer. And that feels revolutionary for me personally. And even in just a few weeks, I've noticed the difference in just how I feel. And honestly, to go back to this word, I feel healthier. I feel more free. I feel less judged, I'm judging myself less. I just don't care about these things, these numbers. And that feels honestly a relief.

Alicia: No, it's real.

Julia: Sorry, we can continue.

Alicia: Yeah, I mean I love the—any tangent is good. [Laughter.]

And I wanted to talk about your past cookbook Feed the Resistance. The website Equity at the Table, which is a database of food professionals who ID as queer, Black, Indigenous, person of color, women, non-binary. As a white food writer with a big platform, why have you taken on these political projects in food?

Julia: Excellent question. 

I have taken on these projects because I feel like I have the time, the money, and the access to do so. And it feels like a responsibility to do so. I don't consider myself a leader in these projects. And when I say that I'm not trying to abdicate responsibility, I just want to be very clear, again, about how I see myself. Sort of the home cook versus the chef thing. I think that leaders in the space know a lot more than I do. I am someone who's trying to actively learn more all the time, and trying actively, to connect with more people all the time. Because that makes my life more interesting and richer. There's a lot of really wonderful things that come with that. 

And I don't know, I've been thinking about this in anticipation of talking to you because you were kind to share some of these questions ahead of time. And because of these relationships, I have had the tremendous opportunity to have people be generous with me and call me in. That is incredibly valuable. I try to surround myself with people who hold me accountable. And I try to hold myself accountable, as a white woman with a lot of privilege in the community. And the space I work in.

I mentioned to you, I grew up in publishing with white parents. It wasn't like I had to figure out how to get in the door. I was on the other side of it. And so I just think, I don't know, I think my thoughts on this position and these projects and stuff are again constantly evolving. 

And that evolution is, it happens in conversations like this one and ones I've had with many people. I try to talk to people who have had different experiences than I do, different perspectives, who have different levels of access than I do—both less and more. And I know what it's like to have the kind of access and agency I have. So I just basically feel I just try to do whatever I can to create more of that for more people. I feel really grateful for the moments and people who have talked to me along the way. 

You mentioned Feed the Resistance, which came out in 2017. I was thinking about, because you have interviewed Tunde Wey. 

Alicia: No, I haven’t, actually. I love Tunde Wey. I've never actually spoken to him. Which is funny, because I think we're fans of each other's work. But I haven't invited him for an interview yet, because I feel like I'm not ready. [Laughs.]

Julia: Yeah, no, I get that. I mean, I think you are, but I mean whatever. You’re a person, he’s a person. That's so funny. I really am totally a very regular reader and listener. Maybe I've just heard the two of you talking about such similar things, I imagined I've heard a conversation. Whatever. Anyway, you can cut this out. 

But Tunde was someone who—he wrote an essay for Feed the Resistance. He was part of it. I had reached out to him. And I was thinking about a conversation I had with him where he called me, basically—I don't know, I haven't talked to him about sharing the story, but I hope it's ok. 

He was like, ‘Are you the right person to be doing this book?’ And I was like, ‘I don’t know. I don't know if there's a right person. I don't know that I am the right person. Here I am, the person doing it.’ And I don't know, it's just a really interesting conversation that I just really appreciate. But he took the time to have this conversation with me and not just about me. 

That's something I try to do in my life, personal and professional. I try to talk to people rather than about them as much as I can, ‘cause I have definitely benefited from that. I'd rather throw a lot of darts against the board and see what sticks and learn from the mistakes I make along the way, and just try and create safe spaces within my own life personally and professionally for the people I care about to have the same kind of space to get it right. And also get it wrong, ’cause we're not always going to get it right. So yeah, those are some thoughts.

Alicia: No, for sure. 

And I wanted to ask you about kind of—and I ask a lot of people about it. Do we think that the big moment of Adam Rapoport stepping down from Bon Appétit, has it—is it really going to change anything. And I've always said, I'm a mixed race white woman. And I've always been kind of conscious about how much easier it is for editors to give me an assignment or put me in a position than it would be for a Black or visibly Latinx writer. And what has kind of been going through your head during these moments, and how have you kind of decided to respond to it using your work?

Julia: Sure. Again, really appreciate this question, and all you do to ask other people the same question. And yourself.

I guess what's been going through my head right now, is what's been going through my head for a while. I know it's been going through yours as well based on things you've written about, and the Food Writers’ Workshop. I remember the first one, I went. And it was right after Equity at the Table started, within days, I think. It just felt really great to be there.

It was awesome to see what you and your fellow—I don't know what you would call them, colleagues, organizers, or whatever—put together just a conference that cost exactly what it costs to put on. Wow. That felt novel.And just with this tangible information, and I think all of that is very true to Equity at the Table, which was free to use, always will be. Free to join. This is not something that's scaling. And, anyway. 

So yes, I think that this ‘reckoning’—I put it in air quotes, because I'm not sure it is actually a reckoning. I'm not sure. But I feel like it's—I know it's overdue. 

And in terms of what I'm thinking about now, I'm actually working on something that I'm really, really excited about that has not been a very—it's not been a public thing at all, because I don't think it needs to be. But I think it's worth just kind of talking about here, because I think it answers your question. 

So I have been working with a really wonderful literary agent, which is not a unicorn. That is a thing that exists. There are few and far between. But this wonderful literary agent, Cindy Uh, who is an agent at CAA, which is a huge agency. I know Cindy, because she's a member of Equity at the Table. 

And she reached out to me, it was a few months ago, about working on a book with a client of hers, working as a co-author, which is something I've done a lot of. And I just didn't think I was the right person for the job, and I also wasn't looking for that job. I was approaching the burnout that has led me to work on the farm, which is maybe funny. I don’t know. [Laughter.] 

But I got to talking to Cindy about how did my name become one of the very small number of names on the post—it that someone like her or a cookbook editor reaches out to when an author is looking for a collaborator? ‘Cause it's not a very long list of names. And we got to talking about this. 

So we have, over the past few months, been working on this—I don't know what to call it. Workshop, I guess, that we started. We’re in the middle of it now. And basically, we are working with five writers who are all either women of color, or queer, and or queer. Basically all the same people who are part of Equity at the Table. 

But five people. And we are doing this workshop where we're meeting every Sunday afternoon on Zoom, and we're basically giving all the information of what it is to make a cookbook, what it is to be a collaborator. And we've broken it down. We've made this whole syllabus. Cindy has really taken charge on that. That's awesome. 

And what I think sets us apart from other things is it's not just the information. We're also trying to create a lot of connection and access. So, we are not the ones giving this information. We have brought on agents and editors,  high powered cookbook agents and editors who are sharing the information and getting to know these writers. 

And I think the combination of those two things, the information but also the access and the relationships and the connection, that feels incredibly important. Because, as you know, because you've done this, you can provide information. Someone can Google how to write a book proposal. I can give you ones I've done before. I can tell you exactly how I make them. I'm happy to do that. I do that all the time. But that's not the same as helping create a connection between the gatekeepers who get to make the decisions about who gets to be hired. And working on this is something that has just fueled me, and it's honestly left me feeling much more positive about the industry that I am taking a pause from because I have not felt so positive about it for a long time. 

And I guess what's going through my mind right now, to answer your question, is the difference between working on a large scale, working on something like Equity at the Table, which has a lot of members, that reaches a lot of people. That's very big, right? Working on something like Feed the Resistance, which, again, had a lot of contributors, got a lot of press, tried to reach a lot of people. These large scale things. 

What I am really interested in now is something on a slightly smaller scale but that has a lot of impact. These five writers, that will make a very big impact, ‘cause that is literally doubling the number of go-to collaborators. And that feels important. 

And it's not that the other stuff doesn't feel important. I guess in general, I've tried to reach a lot of people with my work, whether it's in cookbooks or in other work I do. And I think I'm just at a point in my life right now when I'm just much more interested in much more personal connections, including stepping away from cookbooks to work on the farm and work with a small group of people in person every day, and not try and reach thousands of people online. 

I want to know the people who are buying the vegetables we're growing, and I want to know the people that I'm working with. And that feels just really—it's nice to have both these things in my life. And I guess that's what's on my mind, right now. I don't know, this is incredibly cheesy what I'm about to say. 

But something that has helped me just—it's given me a really helpful framework for everything we're talking about as to just try and think about food media, making it and consuming it, in the same way I think about making and consuming food. And I just try to think about, ‘Where does it come from? Who is making it? How are those people treated? What is the level of access and agency?’

I don't know, I think all these things apply for both. And that just helps me organize the stuff in my head because otherwise, it feels really overwhelming.

Alicia: No, it is overwhelming. And we do need our own little methodologies for dealing with. Because it's overwhelming. The world is overwhelming. It's so hard to do any right thing ever.

I was having this conversation with friends yesterday about whether it's okay for us to go to Costco in Puerto Rico, because—and it's like, I cook all the time. I bake all the time. I make recipes for other people to make, to influence other people to do vegan baking. And I need a lot of stuff, unfortunately, to do that. And the way to do that is in an affordable manner is to go to Costco. 

And I don't know, we don't have a car. You take kind of the climate impact of being people who don't drive every day, who don't put a car on the road. so what is it to kind of have some imported food in that— Anyway. 

So the whole thing is this whole kind of arithmetic around what choices can you make that are good for the planet and your local economy? And what choices are good for you as a human being who has to also work? [Laughs.]

Julia: Totally.

Yeah, I mean, I'm so with you. And these are things I think about often as both, to use this dreaded phrase that I think we both don't like, but as a creator of content. But also just as a person who feeds myself and my loved ones, and exist in this world. 

And I just think, I don't know, hearing what you just said, trying to figure out the right thing? I'm trying to understand that. I think with the options that exist and the systems that exist, I don't know that the right thing is available to us. So I think we are just, all, just, I don't know, doing the best we can with what we have. And we have different things. I just feel calmer about it when I'm like, ‘Oh, there isn't a right answer, because these things aren't built to support the right answer.’

So I think we're figuring, I think we're building the plane while we're flying it, whatever other analogies work here. And I don't know, I feel like I get things wrong all the time. But I'm trying to understand that that just is what it is. And part of why I get things wrong is because we're not set up to get things right. And that is the issue. Not so much my personal choices, though those are important.

Alicia: No, they are important. And I mean, to get now to this question, why for you is cooking a political act?

Julia: Again, hear you ask everyone this. I'm always like, ‘How would I answer this?’ And now? Oh, my gosh, we have reached the moment. 

Is cooking a political act? Absolutely. It's a political act. 100%. I don't think it's always a conscious political act. I don't think every single time I, I don't know, make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich am I like, ‘This is political.’ 

But I think that every time we spend money on anything, including food, we make decisions that have a political impact and make decisions that give feedback to systems that we are very attached to, whether we want to be or not. 

I think also another sort of part of this is that I think every time I share something I cook, whether it's a cookbook or an Instagram post, I think that sharing, that amplification, that attempt to communicate something, I think that is inherently political. So that's something I think about a lot. 

I love that you ask this question, because I think it reminds us that, or at least it reminds me, that I think we often think about political as something like capital P, right? ‘This moment, I'm voting. I'm advocating for this politician or something.’ These things that are incredibly important. But I think our lives are political. We exist in political systems. So everything we do is attached to that. And I think that it's kind of designed to make us not realize that. 

So yeah, I think my everyday cooking at home is totally political, as are so many other parts of my life. And the fact that I don't realize that often is, I think, part of both the problem and maybe the solution, or a solution. 

Oh, my gosh. I have so many other thoughts based on everything you ask, and that is just, I think, a testament to the work you show. So thank you.

Alicia: Thank you. 

No, you're too kind to me through this. I keep saying I need to get some people on who are going to be contentious. [Laughs.] I don’t have to do that. ‘Oh, are people bored? Are these too kind? Am I not challenging myself enough by not sparring in any way?’

Julia: I think that's the Long Island in you. [Laughter.]

Alicia: Well, again, I appreciate so much you taking the time out today to talk about all this. I'm so excited to hear and see more about your work on the farm and to continue to get inspiration from your cookbooks.

Julia: Well, thank you so much. And I really appreciate your time. I appreciate the time you make for all the amazing people you have on this. I'm really grateful to be one of them. And I just continue to look forward to learning from your work too. So I guess this is some mutual appreciation. And I think that is A-ok. I don't think you have to get the haters. That’s fine.

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