From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy

Charlotte Druckman is the writer of Skirt Steak: Women Chefs on Standing the Heat and Staying in the Kitchen, the editor of anthology Women on Food, and a cookbook author, whose work includes the recent Kitchen Remix: 75 Recipes for Making the Most of Your Ingredients. We’ve never met in person, despite both living in New York for seemingly forever, and this was the first time we ever chatted not via Twitter DM or email. While we have rather different backgrounds, there is clearly a certain level of comfort already assumed when writers from the New York metro area talk—and boy, did we talk. This one breaks the record for longest Friday conversation, because there was so much ground to cover about the James Beard Awards, what the meaning of food media is, why food needs real cultural criticism, and the response to her recent Washington Post piece on the whiteness of food memoir. Listen above, or read below.

Alicia: Hi, Charlotte. Thanks so much for coming on. 

Charlotte: I have to tell you — and in fact, you know this. I'm very excited to do this ‘cause I really love this newsletter. It's a newsletter that brought me to newsletters — seriously.

Alicia: Newsletters are difficult. I'm signed up to so many. 

I logged into Substack yesterday because I was getting all these emails about someone trying to — I think someone was trying to change my password and hack my newsletter yesterday, which was weird. I logged into my account and I'm subscribed to so many newsletters, and I don't know if I'm — I guess a lot of them aren't updated regularly, so that's not so hard to keep up with. But I was like, ‘What am I doing?’ Is everyone's inbox like this now? I guess so.

Charlotte: I'm trying to keep it to a point where I am subscribed to a number where I'm actually able to read all of them, ’cause I know me and I know if I over-subscribe at some point, I'll stop reading any of them. That's my — how my brain will function. 

So, I've so far been very limited, but I went from really, from not reading them to realizing that this is where, at least for me, especially with food writing, I'm getting most of the stuff I most want to read right now. Which is amazing.

Alicia: Yeah, that's the thing. I think a lot of people are saying that, which is nice, about food writing specifically. But, yeah.

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

Charlotte: Yes!

I grew up in New York City, specifically on the Upper East Side, which at some point, I started referring to as Stepford-land. And I'm 45. so where — this is like, we're talking 1980s, Upper East Side, which — it's always been pretty WASPy but it was probably even WASPier then than it is now. It's not really a complaint, it's more, that's more an observation because I — it was a very privileged, safe space to grow up. And I was really lucky to spend my childhood there. And I think just to have lived in New York City as a child with that kind of privilege was — I mean, that's not — that's a rare thing. That's a gift. 

That neighborhood, by the way, is also not known for its restaurants or food. And I come from a family that is one, obsessed with food, and two, completely in love with restaurants. And also, in the land of the WASPs, were Jewish. And I don't know if that — if the obsession with food, some people would argue, and the Jewish thing, is related, but maybe it is. Throwing it out there. 

But the funny thing is, I didn't actually grow up with a lot of traditional Jewish food. Unless you count nova, and smoked sturgeon, and bagels. Seriously, my mom cooked, and she still cooks. She cooks a lot, and she does it by choice. I think it's like an outlet for her. But she does not cook Jewish food resolutely, almost antagonistically. Resistant, deliberate. She didn't really grow up with it, and she — I mean, she hates it. She really doesn't like it. And I think my dad has nostalgic feelings about it, but since he's not the one cooking he kind of can't really do anything about that. So, that's just how that goes.

She cooked from Julia Child's books. But really I think more James Beard, Craig Claiborne, some of the — she had the TIME-LIFE cookbooks, and she cooked out of those. My mom is a huge recipe tearer, so — and she saves a lot of them. So, she had, has yellowed pages from the New York Times and Gourmet. And then I feel when the Silver Palate came out in the early ’80s, like I feel like that changed everything. 

And then also we went to restaurants all the time. My younger brother’s four years younger than I am. And I think once we were old enough to be taken to restaurants, they took us. So, I have these incredible memories of on a Sunday night, going downtown to The Odeon, and Tribeca, and being maybe 5 or something, and my brother being in a highchair. I don't know if they still do this, but they had paper over the tablecloth and they would put crayons down at every table so you could draw. I remember going — I remember drawing with crayons, and having a hamburger and French fries, and having no clue obviously at that age that it was this really cool place where Andy Warhol was hanging out with his friends. I obviously was oblivious to that. I just thought it was awesome. 

And so I have a lot of memories like that, and a lot of the restaurants that I remember don't exist anymore. But then, some do, like the Odeon still does. So, yeah, I had a pretty well-rounded, in terms of food, childhood, but not — definitely not in terms of the cultural embedding, not a lot from my own Eastern European Jewish heritage.

Alicia: Well, what are the Jewish foods your mom didn't like that your dad does have nostalgic feelings for?

Charlotte: Honestly, I attribute it — any traditional Jewish food. But whether or not my dad likes them, I'm not even sure. It was more the point — actually, he does. He's one of those people who likes gefilte fish. That's an example. She doesn't make chicken soup, not into matzah balls, not into chicken soup. Yeah, it has nothing to do with gefilte fish. 

I was with them this last weekend, and I made my dad start reminding me the difference between Jewish foods because I literally — I'm like, ‘Wait, what's the difference between—?’ I was like, ‘What’s kreplach again? What's varnish-?’ I still to this day get this stuff confused. I hadn't had kugel until I went to college and someone made a kugel, and I was like, ‘Oh, this is kugel.’ I didn't know. There were certain things where we would have Seder at my grandparent’s house, so I guess there I would have some stuff.

The food I hate most of all — this has nothing to do with my mom — but I hate herring. I hate it. It makes me cry when I eat it. I have a viscerally bad reaction to it. 

So yeah, those are some Jewish foods I — we never had. She always says she was a juvenile delinquent in Hebrew school, and she got in trouble for smearing hamantaschen on the toilet seats in the bath. So, I also didn't grow up with Jewish pastry in particular. I hadn't really had a babka until babka became trendy a few years ago. So it's interesting because it's not like I had none of it. But the version I had of iit was probably not traditional. And in some cases, it was a really long time until I had it.

My mom would make latkes, but she made them with prosciutto in them, so then I don't even know if they're latkes anymore at that point. Yeah, they were great, but it kind of defeats the purpose of the Jewishness of the whole endeavor at that point. 

It's interesting. And I was aware. My dad made me go to Hebrew school from age five to — feel like I was still going in tenth grade or something ridiculous, and then finally protested. So I had the education and I had a very strong awareness culturally, but food-wise: no.

Alicia: That's so interesting. 

Charlotte: Kind of a void.

Yeah, it really is. I think it's really interesting too.

Especially because I feel like Jewish food has become sort of — I mean, whether or not it's Jewish, and that's a whole sidebar conversation, right? Because I think this sort of fixation on in some ways Eastern European, Ashkenazi food, but also Sephardic and Israeli food, but the conflation of Israeli food with Middle Eastern food. And then the question of how original actually is Israeli food to Israel? That's a whole separate thing. 

But that sort of surge in interest in that food in the last few years, and then the amount of food writing that has been dedicated to it. As a food writer who's Jewish, that's been very interesting for me to see because I don't have that same connection to most of those foods.

Alicia: Right, right. 

I grew up on babka, which is funny that you didn't have it until it was trendy. I remember when it got trendy. I was like, ‘I've loved babka my whole life.’ 

Charlotte: Yeah, it was like, ‘What is this!’

Alicia: I never thought of it — I mean, obviously, I don't know. I was a kid. ‘This is delicious bread.’ And I grew up with challah french toast and stuff like that, too. That's just what happens when you live on Long Island, I guess.

Charlotte: Yeah. [Laughter.]

Alicia: All right, so I didn't plan to talk about this, but it's timely. And the James Beard Awards are trying to kind of deal with themselves, but they're not doing a very good job. I address this in Monday's newsletter, which we're talking about actually before it comes out. Yeah, what is the deal with the James Beard Awards? How are you viewing the current situation?

Charlotte: Well, I decided that the James Beard Awards were not for me. Let me just say it that way, before I go all out in my rage.

And when I wrote Skirt Steak—because first of all, I interviewed enough women chefs who talked about their frustrations with it, and you just realized how the criteria and the rules were set up in such a way that you are going to have a really homogenous pool of both nominees, but also winners. 

You just saw how it was preventing people from getting recognition in a lot of ways, and there is even stuff — I mean, for me, the thing that was the most kind of telling was finding out that — so you know how you have, in each category, how many — I forget how many restaurants are nominated. Which again, this is sort of a random thing, but I always think it's weird that the chef gets nominated in the category — but it's for a restaurant. It's sort of like, why don't the restaurants just get nominated, and then the entire team, the staff, they collectively get that award, you know what I mean? It's weird to me.

Anyway, in the category of the regional but also the national ones, where it's those — the restaurants, and then you're supposed to vote, what I learned and couldn't get over and I still can't get over this because I don't think it's changed. And this is before we even get to what went on this year and trying to redo the election and rig it so that it turns out looking more ‘politically correct’ because the, again, the criteria have set it up so that demographically people are already primed to win. 

But even in a sense before you get to that, you have this category. It used to be that you didn't have to go to any of the restaurants to vote for them in a category. So you could be from any part of the country. You could have heard of a restaurant in a category in a different region. And you could just be like, ‘Well, I'm gonna vote for that because all my friends say it's really good.’ I mean, that's already ludicrous. 

Next phase of this, where they improve things, and they're really proud of themselves when they changed this. And I think it happened a few years before I wrote Skirt Steak. The new rule was that ‘Oh no, wait. Ok, no. You have to have eaten at the restaurant to vote for it.’ Ok, fine. If you think about it, if you're voting in a category where you're saying this is the best of this category, and you haven't been to all the restaurants in that category, how does your vote count in any way? If you've only been to the one you voted for, how do you know that’s the best one in a group? I mean, it's truly just that — so, let's look at that. That's something that's really small in a sense, but based in logic. And to me, the logic in that was already so warped that I was like, ‘Oh my God, what is this? What is this system?’ 

And then you could start to see, if you were more cynical, how that would start to play out if you're talking about a region in the country that is, is sort of less dense with traveling voters. And so let's look at the Midwest ,and let's think about how many in that category, how many of those restaurants — maybe, probably they're going to be dominated by Chicago. And then you're going to have a few outliers. The number of people who even get to the non-Chicago restaurants, and then the number of people who go to Chicago, and which of those restaurants do they go to? Probably the ones they heard of, probably the ones that they have — they know publicists at, right?

It becomes rigged, and it really is a pop— people say that it's a popularity contest, and you're like, ‘Ok, but what exactly does that mean?’ This is a clear case where it's very easy for it to be a popularity contest. 

And by the way, it really operates on an honor system. So, no one's checking to make sure that you went to the restaurant you voted for anyway. I don't think you have to show your receipt. And frankly, since I think a lot of those meals get comped, there probably wouldn't be receipts anyway. 

So, learning that was the case and learning that then, I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ I mean, this thing is a sham, right? And so then we have everything that's happened in the past few years, like this sort of — from the moments of them patting themselves on the back for their seeming progressiveness, which was barely a sign of even just catching up to the times. 

And now we have what's happening now. And I'm just like, ‘Guys, just get — honestly, just cancel the whole thing.’ Cancel the whole thing because the foundation is already rotten. Again, I'm not an awards person. So I'm not sure I believe in this giving out awards to restaurants in this way in the first place. It's just clearly this system. 

The restaurant committee releasing a statement — to me, that committee’s been operating for years and years in this country in this clearly busted system. And it's only now they finally decided to release a statement about their outrage. I don't know, to me that almost looked more like a damage control press release than anything else. Which again, maybe that's cynical. 

I'm just like there have been too many problems with this system, and actually, I think there have been enough problems with the foundation that at this point I'm just like, ‘People, let's close it down. Let's walk away. I have lots of ideas if you're all hell-bent on having restaurant awards for how you might reconsider going forward running them.’ I have similar ideas for the media awards. Happy to give them away for free. Or yes, maybe just no awards. 

I wanna know what you think. I mean, you're probably — you’re — 

Alicia: I don't want awards at all. 

[Laughs.] It's been such an obnoxious thing to deal with as a writer, as a food writer. As a freelancer especially, it's like, ‘Ok, I have to pay $150 to submit a piece. And I'm only going to be able to pick one piece.’ And then I have to maybe strategically consider which category I can submit to, to have the most chance of being nominated. 

And I've submitted twice. In personal essay a few years ago, when I wrote about oysters for Hazlitt, and I submitted last year, I guess, yeah, for this, what would have been this year, a big three-part piece on Puerto Rican foodways. And neither time was I nominated. And so it just feels really bad. And I think everyone just feels really bad when it's like, ‘I paid money to just — for nothing, to this organization.’ 

You're hanging all these hopes of stability on the idea of winning the award. It's like, ‘If I had a James Beard award, would I have gotten a bigger advance for my book? From probably a bigger publisher? Yeah, sure, probably.’ And that's why we care about this. And that's the only reason is because — and I think Tunde Wey talked about this in his interview with Helen Rosner, for The New Yorker. But we care about these sorts of things because we have to. Because the continued attention means we have continued stability in our work. And the only way we can do work is with the support to do it. 

And so the false, weird system — and I was a judge, too, for journalism this year, in a subcategory. And it was a really dumb experience, frankly. It was like you’re reading all these pieces — have you judged the journalism awards before?

Charlotte: No, I actually have — I have a good — when you're — when you’re — I have a good story about this. Yeah. [Laughs.]

Alicia: Even though I think these things are stupid, at the same time I was like, ‘I'm honored, I guess, to be included in this.’ And so I'm like, ‘All right, sure, I'll do it. I want to be included.’

Yeah, like rating people's work at one to 10. In the category I was a judge for, nothing I rated highly was a finalist. I think there's an NDA involved, so I'm not going to talk about any more of it. 

I, in 2018, held — I produced, kind of, with a friend, a dinner at the James Beard House, where we brought four chefs from Puerto Rico to cook a Christmas dinner or whatever. And it was one of the worst experiences of my life. I mean it was fun and I liked it. And it was — we were doing this sort of as a — because, to — kind of to demand attention for these chefs who weren't getting attention, because people — because of the way people perceive Puerto Rican food and who's a Puerto Rican chef. 

And so we did this dinner. We had this really exhausting experience of basically just doing a fund-raiser for this organization. And in the end, I guess it paid off because the next year one of the chefs was a semi-finalist. The year after, two chefs who participated were semi-finalists for Best Chef: South. And then one of the chefs who participated was a Best New Chef for Food and Wine. But then you just see so clearly how this system works, which is — and it's so gross, because it's like, ‘Why wouldn't these chefs have gotten attention without this fund-raiser for this organization?’

And I always say this: The James Beard Foundation extorts the industries it purports to be an advocate for. It extorts restaurants, it extorts — and chefs. And it extorts writers for money, in the hopes that they will get an accolade that will ensure them continued— 

Charlotte: And fear. And also the fear. 

What I really saw in Skirt Steak was that there is this fear that if you don't participate, that then somehow you are making yourself ineligible for any kind of acknowledgment. And so you feel like you have to say yes. And that was really hard to see. It was like, ‘This is awful.’ They're just saying yes because they're terrified, that this may be their only chance to ever be considered. And that was really hard. That is really hard to see. 

When I did Skirt Steak, when I wrote the chapter on awards, I kind of sat myself down and I was like, ‘You realize if you write this chapter, that's probably going to be it for you with the Beards.’ I think that I didn't hold out much hope after everything that I learned that it was an organization that if you kind of laid any of the reality bare, that you would then be rewarded in some way. I just remember thinking, ‘Well, do you not want to have the chapter in the book? Or do you want to have this chapter in the book?’ And thinking I'd rather have the chapter and know that I did that than be worrying about this. And also now that I see how this works, at least on the restaurant side. it doesn't make me feel that good about the media side anyway. So, I don't care if I never get an award from this foundation. 

And that was how I proceeded. And there was something really freeing in it, because it was almost like I exempted myself from being allowed to care, you know what I mean? I saw what it did for writers who won. I saw all of that stuff. 

This is my funny story about that, which is that — well, two, I guess, funny stories. But the first was, right before Skirt Steak came out — so the galleys had gone out. Like those advance reader copies had gone out. I got an email from a friend of mine, who was on the restaurant committee, asking me if I would like to join. And I was like, ‘I don't think this person has read my book at all.’ And I replied, saying, ‘Well, I have a lot of negative feelings about it. And I think the only way I would want to join would be if I felt like I could actually make some kind of real difference, because otherwise why would I do it?’ And I said, ‘But have you read the galley of my book? I feel probably you should read it before you ask me this.’ It sort of was a full-disclosure thing that probably, this person, or someone on the committee, maybe they all should have read the book. And so, their response was, ‘Oh, ok, yeah, let us get back to you.’ And a few weeks went by. 

And then I got this email saying, ‘Oh, you know what, Charlotte? We're thinking that because you have a book coming out, and you're going to be on book tour and everything, it's probably not the right time for you to join the restaurant committee.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, that's funny, because the one time that someone can actually get to all those restaurants across the country would be on a book tour, so I see what's happening here. I see now that you've seen the book, and you’ve realized I cannot be on the committee. And that's cool. And we’ll leave it here.’ And that is my favorite personal James Beard story. 

I, after this, made a point of never submitting my work, like I refused. I have editors who I think did submit my work. So, I'm not gonna pretend that my work wasn't out there to be nominated. 

Women on Food was the first time that I submitted, because I wanted to make sure that the contributors to that book got whatever full possible credit and attention and visibility they could from working on that project. So, Abrams was the publisher. I think they submitted the book as a whole, and then they would — they said they would submit three essays. And I was like, ‘I will personally then make sure that if anyone else, in addition to three — if you have more than three people who want their essays submitted, I will get that done. So, I ended up submitting, I think three, in addition to the three that they submitted.

The interesting thing was it was the first — because it was the first time I was submitting, it was also the first time I really had to start thinking about the categories. And I realized how limiting they were. There's such a kind of homogenization that happens with these awards. Not just in the sense that I think, writers see what wins. And then I think they try and write things that look similar to that, whether it's in tone or structure. 

But it's also that the categories — anything that's a hybrid almost doesn't fit. It's like, ‘Well, where are you going to put this?’ There were essays in Women on Food — and it was very deliberate, and it's what I loved so much about them — that you would look at it, and you would have to say, ‘Well, it's both. It's a travel essay. It's also about restaurants. Or, it's personal writing, but it's also a profile.’ So, it became this whole thing of I don't even know what category to submit this to. And I found that really limiting, and also really interesting. ’Cause to me as a reader, the most interesting stuff that I'm reading now doesn't fit categories. Again, it's like, ‘what do those awards—?’

Something I realized, and I realized it again ’cause Women on Food was nominated, which — I was so happy for the book and I was so happy for everyone in it, but I was actually really not happy for myself. I had a very strange reaction. I started crying. And it wasn't happy tears. I cried out of frustration, and I had a really hard time articulating why I was crying. And I realized, yeah, I was frustrated. I felt angry. I felt sort of like, first of all, I think that those awards are more about the person who wrote the work than the work. And I think honestly that the awards, if you're going to give them out, should be about the work. And I think it's always collaborative. 

And I really thought about that for this book. But I also realized that I was getting congratulated by people I hadn't heard from in I don't know how long. I had texts on my phone where I didn't know who the people were being like, ‘Congratulations, this is great.’ And I was like, ‘What is this?’ I felt like suddenly other people thought I was validated because I'd been nominated for this thing. And meanwhile, I'd been working for so many years doing my thing, doing stuff that I was proud of, just because I was proud of it. And it was suddenly not until I got this nomination that it seemed people paid attention. It really annoyed me. I don't know. That's a very weird reaction to have. And again, I was really proud on behalf of the book, but just as a personal thing, something about it really upset me. I know that's really weird.

Alicia: You recently mentioned to me that you would write Skirt Steak differently now, that you would have given race more primacy of place in your analysis of women in kitchens. How would you go about doing so if you were starting to write that book today?

Charlotte: Yeah.

When I wrote Skirt Steak, I was clueless — in, honestly, in so many ways. I mean, I'd never written a book before. I think it was a combination of immaturity and lack of confidence, but also that kind of ignorance when you're aware of your ignorance, and you decide to work around it instead of tackling it head on. 

Also honestly, there was just this — my fundamental lack of understanding of the history of feminism in this country, in the United States and how white it's been. So, I was really idealistic and naive in a few ways. At that point, I thought any form of feminism benefited all women. That's not how it works. And over the past few years, I've learned that if it's not inclusive, it isn't feminism.

It's not so much that it was naive, but it's a very kind of linear academic kind of thinking, I think. I kind of thought that I could provide a template, like a methodology with the book, that you could then apply to other professions, to other disenfranchised groups in those industries. And that was what I noted in the introduction, that as a heterosexual, cisgender, white woman, I felt — personally, I felt like I wasn't equipped to do the level of analytical work I wanted to in the areas of race and sexuality, or gender identification

But now I look back on it, and I’m like, ‘That's bogus.’ Because all I needed to have done was what I was doing anyway, which was just start with the women themselves, right? I mean, the book is grounded in the experiences, and then — and the voices of the chefs who were included. And I interviewed 73 of them. So, if I had just taken the time to include more women of color and Black chefs, especially, and to ask the necessary questions of everyone, there's no reason it couldn't have included race. And that's, of course, that's how I would do it now. 

And I'd also negotiate more time in which to do it, so that I had the time to interview more people and sit with it and parse everything. 

For me, it's a huge regret. I do actually still think that the methodology thing holds up. I think it's something you can apply. But I wish I'd done it myself, and in a more holistic and inclusive way. Definitely.

Alicia: Well, how long did you take to write that book?

Charlotte: I mean, I think it was really fast, because my — I don't even remember — by the time I signed the contract, it was after I'd started. But I knew that it was going to be due at the end of August in 2011. So, I started working on it — I think I agreed to the deal at the very end of December in 2010. So, I just started immediately in January of 2011. So basically, I did it between January and August of 2011. 

I traveled for it. So, to interview that number of people, to travel, and then to process all of it and synthesize it into a book within that period of time. When I look back on it, I'm like, ‘How did I do that?’ Yeah, it was basically seven months. I did it in seven months, and I can't imagine doing it that way now and feeling good about it. 

Alicia: Yeah, no, I'm in that right now.

My book is due July 1, 2021. I expected to be able to travel for it, and I think that that's kind of having a detrimental effect on — I mean, that, and time and money generally. I thought when I was writing the proposal for this book that I would go to places and have all this rich imagery, and atmosphere, and personality to draw on to write this. And now I'm like, ‘Wait, how do I do it without that because it's a pandemic?’ 

Charlotte: Yeah, it's also — it's expensive. I mean, I was not paid very much to do Skirt Steak, and I definitely invested. The fact that I traveled and did all that stuff, I don't think that — that might not have been the most cost-efficient thing. 

I think because it was my first book, I felt it was important to try to interview as many of the women in person as possible, just to have that sort of closeness you could — in my mind, I was like, ‘I can have conversations that are more — that go deeper, that are more real.’ When I was doing cities where there was a multiple number of women, I would try and travel to them. 

I have to say in hindsight, I'm — I think — now that I've — that we do so many interviews remotely, even before the pandemic, like we — I realize that it's not essential. But I do think, in terms of — I, so I just finished reading Isabel Wilkerson's Caste and it's changed — it's had such a profound effect on me. I feel like I'm one of the Oprah's Book of the Month converts. One thing I was thinking about when I read it was just the amount of time that she had. And also, I mean, the research that she did was — it's astounding. And the traveling she did was astounding. I wish all writers could be given that amount of time, and could have the resources to do that because you read it and you're like, ‘Oh my god,’ but then you also realize it took years. 

And I feel like most book deals now, they want you to turn your book out in these really short time spans. And we do it but then we look back and you're like, ‘How did I do that?’ And you wonder what it would have been like if you'd had more time. 

And sometimes I think it's better to have less time, again, almost for cost efficiency. ’Cause it means you kind of crank it out, and then you have more time to go back to doing other work that you get paid for. But on the other hand, then I look at a book like Caste. I mean, obviously, it's a special — it's an extremely special book, and she's an extremely, just unique talent. But you look at that and you do think, ‘Wow, to have that much time and support, to be able to go do that level of research and travel is just — it's amazing.’

Alicia: Right, right. 

No, absolutely. The time thing, for me, it's better to have a short amount of time. Because I don't want to get lost in the woods, and so — and I want to focus on it and get it done. 

But at the same time, I just wish I had the resources and the global ability to do some sort of research that I had really intended to do. And it's funny, because I've basically been doing research for this book already for a few years I guess, kind of with other stuff I've been doing. 

But there's still so much I wanted to do, and I tried to convince — the last time I had a publication offer me to cover expenses and to pay me a proper amount of money for a project. I was like, ‘Can I please go to The Farm in Tennessee, which is a commune where they still produce tempeh spores that make like most of the tempeh, I think, in the United States?’ And then also to San Francisco to go to Hodo Foods, where they make tofu and yuba and other soy stuff. And then there was some other thing I was gonna stay in New York for.

But I was like, ‘I want to do a whole audio project on tofu, tempeh, and seitan and go to these places.’ And I was like, ‘This will be really good as a project, but it also it'll be really good research for my book, and I'll have it actually funded.’ But then they didn't want me to do that. [Laughs.]

Charlotte: Why, of course. Because that's the thing, they’re always like, ‘We could get you to do a story for less money.’ 

I'm an optimist about that stuff. And I'm like, ‘But Alicia, that's an amazing, that would still be an amazing series.’ And the thing is that you can do the book you're doing now and then maybe that will be your next book, or maybe having done this book, you'll get the opportunity to go do that. So I just look at it that way, ‘cause that — you have to. And because the amount of information out there is unlimited, and the way your brain processes it is always going to be that unique thing. So, if you can't get it into this book, that doesn't mean that's it.

Alicia: Right, no, for sure. And that's a good way of looking at it too. Yeah, I'm trying to not be in despair about not being able to go do the reporting I wanted to do. Because even when I was on the call to sell the book with the editor I eventually went with, I was like — she's like, ‘This is gonna take reporting.’ And I was like, ‘I love reporting. I'm excited to do it.’ And it's like, I am excited to do it. But I'm not excited to do it kind of virtually. 

Anyway. There are bigger problems. [Laughs.]

Charlotte: There are. [Laughs.] That is true.

Alicia: But for Women on Food, the anthology that was nominated for best book at the James Beard Awards. [Laughs.] You also kind of had a wide array of voices, and what was your vision for that book? And how did you decide who to include there?

Charlotte: Well, for that book, most of all, I wanted — I really wanted to make a case, or a declaration, that if women were given the space and the freedom to write what we wanted to write, how we wanted to write about it, and to talk about things that we don't get to openly, that we could produce something that was as good as or possibly better than what you see in so-called mainstream food media. Which is why that part of me was proud when the book got nominated. ’Cause it was like, ‘Oh, I guess on some level, you could say that the point was made.’

But really, I wanted to show that analytical critical thinking, that — yes, things that mix genres together. And just honestly, creativity. That it makes for better reading, and that women are more than capable of that, and that we should be encouraged to do it. And I wanted to do it in a way that was inclusive, and somehow both no b******t but then warm, that felt it kind of had a kind of a warmth to it. And I really wanted to make sure that it felt like a safe space for the women who are involved. So, that was sort of my overall thinking just going in.

I also really did not want it to be a traditional anthology. The way my brain works is that if you're going to challenge a type of writing, if I was going to go in and challenge what food writing was, then I felt like the container it was in, like the format, then that should also be messed with. I was a little bit meta. If you're going to do that, then if the box you put it in feels just as sort of confined and generic and — what have you actually accomplished? 

The same way I'm not really into awards, I'm not into that typical anthology scenario where it's like, ‘This is the best of this genre.’ ’Cause most of the time, it's like, ‘What does that mean?’ And then you look at what the criteria for it is. It's a lot of sociological and cultural bias. And again, as I complained about before, just you — again, you see a homogeneity in the work. So, I really liked this idea that you weren't choosing the work, you were choosing the writers and saying, ‘No really, let's try and do something that you haven't been allowed to do before. Just, what do you really want to write about?’ So that we could mess with that. 

And then I wanted it to be a mix of essays, but also not essays. My vision for it was, ‘Could there be an anthology you would want to take to the beach? What would that look like? What would it be?’ 

So, I anchored it with the essays. Getting the essayists on board for me, even just psychologically for knowing that things were moving along and under control, that was where I felt like I just needed to start. It was very organic in that I was like, ‘Well, before I start doing the mathematics of who should be in here, what the demographic breakdown is.’ Haha, Beards, sorry. I just was like, ‘Well, who do you like reading right now?’ 

And I had a list of — first of all, I've noticed that the — well, two things I noticed while making my list. Number one, I really seem to gravitate toward women's food writing right now. I don't know if this was always true, but definitely right now, most of the food writing that I like — and of course there are exceptions — happen to be written by women. 

But I also realized that most of the stuff I really wanted to read, and the writers I was gravitating to, happen to be Black women and women of color. That made it, in a funny way, just the whole thing very organic for me. ’Cause coming from Skirt Steak and being very aware of the lack of inclusivity there, Women on Food for me, it had to be inclusive, or else I did not want to do it. I was nice to be like, ‘I just have this list of writers I love. And I don't have to start thinking about some kind of quota thing or something. It's literally just, this is — these are the writers I really would like to have.’ 

You also had the issue of how many essays can I have? How many essays does the book need? How many are too much? Also, how much can I afford? How much can I afford in terms of how much money I have and what I'm paying everyone? So, I just kind of was like, ‘Ok, I think I can afford like 13 essays.’ And so I just started with the 13 writers that I most wanted to read. My list was longer than I had essays for.

But I just kind of started with 13, and then I was really lucky because they all said yes off the bat, but then we had two drop out early. Everyone was very responsible and gracious with their dropping out. So, don't want to make it sound like people were delinquents. They were not. And then again, it was really easy for me to fill the slots because I had more people I wanted then room so it was — and I just got lucky. 

I still think I was so lucky that people said yes, and that they said yes so readily. I still kind of can't get over that. I remember every time someone saying yes, being actually slightly floored just because it was like, ‘This is an experiment. It doesn't exist already out there, and I can't tell you what it's gonna be. But I know what I want it to be. But I also know that what I want it to be is going to be shaped so much by the people who contribute to it.’ That's a hard thing to qualify, or even when you're trying to explain what a project is going to be. 

I was just really lucky. It was literally like, ‘These are the people I love to read. Ok, let's see if they want to do an essay.; And it was like, ‘Wow.’ It's like everyone's at a party in one place. 

And then the questionnaire was very much like, ‘Ok, you need to send this questionnaire out to way more people than you know are going to respond.’ And the questionnaire was how you get all those outtakes in the book, right? The question that's thrown out, and then you get this — all of these different responses to it. That came from all of these women filling out questionnaires that I sent that were huge, as you know. 

So, I knew that not everyone would respond. What I wanted was people to only respond to the questions that they felt compelled to answer. If a question leapt out at you, that was what I wanted you to answer. And so that meant sending it to a lot of people, and then knowing that you're probably going to get maybe half of those back. And then that would sort of dictate — that everyone's responses would dictate what that content would be. 

And that was interesting, ’cause again, it was organic. And it started with me being like, ‘Who would I like to have fill out a questionnaire?’ It was the part of the book where — one of the parts of the book where — it was, I wanted food writers, but it also meant I could ask people from other areas of the food world. I could ask chefs, I could ask food entrepreneurs, I could even ask publicists. And so sort of kind of figuring out that balance. 

And then this was interesting, too. I am part of, some — this Facebook group that's — it's food, women food writers that someone started a very long time ago, I think. I do not like this group. People up there are always posting, basically trying to get other food writers to do their homework like basically being like, ‘Hey all, for a story on the best hot dogs in Arkansas, what are your picks?’ and I'm like, ‘Wait, are you being paid to do that? Hi, what do you think our job is? And we're just supposed to start feeding you our favorite hot dogs in Arkansas?’

I thought, ‘I'm part of this group. I should reach out to these women. This is perfect.’ So, I put up a post of how I was working on this book and who — was anyone interested in being part of it, and filling out a questionnaire. And I got all of these women responding, which was great, ’cause it was a lot of women actually I didn't know, and I ended up getting to know them because of the book and that — I actually loved that. But what I realized was like, ‘All of these people are white.’ And I realize in this moment that this Facebook group, I don't really know why — I don't think it was, it definitely wasn't deliberate. There was just a lack of consciousness about it. It was just all white women. They themselves basically just realized this, by the way, a few months ago. Now it seems like it's expanding. 

So, after that, I was like, ‘Oh, ok, wait, now you've got to balance this out. ’Cause you now have all of these white women who just agreed to do the questionnaire, and anyone who does it is going to be included. I'm not going to be like, ‘Oh, you can't do it, now that you said yes.’ 

So then, I already — I had had in my mind what felt like a pretty diverse group of women. But at this point, it was — now we're oversaturated with white women, truly. And so then I will like, ‘Ok, you know what, I'm gonna start from the really obvious but such a useful resource, Equity at the Table. And I'm going to branch out from there.’ And I did that ’cause again, I was like, ‘I don't want a book that is just about the perspective of white women. I've already done that, and it's just not what I want. That's not what this is meant to be.’

So, that was interesting. That was interesting, because the essay thing had gone so — just, really was so organic and fluid that it wasn't something I had to consciously think about in the same way. But for the questionnaire, I found myself having to be more focused on it just because I realized that: yeah, there are so many white women in food media and in the food world. There really are. It's not to say that there aren't women of color and Black women. It's just there are so many white women, right? 

Alicia: I've been in a food writers’ group, like the food binders or whatever. But I think that's a different group. 

But that one has had so many freaking, I don't know, drama aspects. And so many splinter groups that have had to form as a result of the drama, and it's — I just don't, I just don't mess with it anymore.

When I was an editor at Edible [Brooklyn, Manhattan], it was useful to be — put out a call for pitches or whatever. But again, there was so much — there were circumstances where it was — I was trying to suggest that I wanted a writer from Crown Heights for some specific story, and that I didn't want it to be a white person. But you would still get people who would — a white woman who would be like, ‘Well, I've lived in Crown Heights for three years. Is that not enough?’ I’d be like, ‘No, it's not enough. You're not bringing the context that I want for this story.’ It's just endless, that sort of reaction.

Charlotte: It makes you feel self-conscious, too. Because you're like, ‘I feel like I'm doing some sort of really strange form of central casting, and that’s not how this should be working.’ You just want it to be organic. I mean, I wish I had the kind of mental rolodex where it's like, ‘I already knew that person in Crown Heights.’ That's the thing. But we work in a field and a society where it's gonna take a while for that person to be someone that everyone just knows.

Alicia: Right.

Charlotte: Exactly. That's why we — you want to assign the piece to them too. It's very frustrating.

Alicia: I mean, navigating all of these people's crap all the time is very exhausting.

Charlotte: Yeah.

And also, you know that thing where you, when the white person who's like, ‘I lived in Crown Heights, why — for three years. Why doesn't that count?’ it's — you don't want to be rude to that person, and you also don't want to start giving them a sermon. You know what I mean? There's also that too, which can become exhausting, where it's like, ‘I shouldn't have to explain this to you.’ And then, ‘Should I take the time to explain it to that person? Is that a good thing to do? Should I let it go?’

Alicia: It's always that. It's always like, ‘Is it worth it to explain to this person why they're wrong?’ when they're coming at me kind of aggressively, about — And it's like, ‘I'm just trying to do a job. I'm not getting paid enough for this.’ 

Charlotte: I know. I’ve used that phrase like, ‘This is above my paygrade.’ Yeah, it's that. 

Alicia: And people talk about the emotional labor that men demand, but if you're in these groups, the emotional labor and the literal labor, the literal, intellectual labor that is demanded sometimes is just excruciating. 

But yeah, so many people don't do the work themselves, which is — Yeah. Yeah. [Laughs.]

Charlotte: That really frustrates me.

Alicia: Right.

It's like, ‘What rock do you live under that you don't understand all of — what's going on in the world?’

Charlotte: But then you know what happens? What I realize is that someone puts out the call for the best hot dogs in Arkansas, and people do respond. And those are the same people that will then go on and ask everyone for a recommendation for the best falafel in Wyoming. So I see that there's a certain thing where it's almost they're all on the same wavelength, right? But that's just not something I really want to be part of. 

Alicia: No, I don't want to be on that wavelength anymore, either. Luckily, I feel like I've gotten off that particular hamster wheel. 

But you've been writing about food for so long now, and often discussions on social media lack real nuance, or not big on looking backwards. For me, it's been really interesting to do — I don't know, to just do deeper research before you just announce something, or I don't — I mean, maybe you can talk more to this, too, but the way that everything has become so shallow. So many people who are just dependent on $200 garbage that that becomes what people think of as food writing now. 

But you know, are there books, or magazines, or writing, or resources that you wish people talking about food right now would go back to? How would you tell people who want to have a more well-rounded picture of the genre, what would you tell them to look at? I know this is like a random— [Laughs.]

Charlotte: I'm gonna preface this answer by saying it's sort of not a good answer. And it's kind of gonna make me feel like a hater, or possibly a self-hating food writer. 

But if I could send people a reading list with some older stuff on it, it would actually probably not include food writing or food publications. 

Alicia: Ah. Ok.

Charlotte: Yeah, but there's a reason for it. And I actually think the reason is — it’s interesting, and it kind of gets to why we're at the place we're at. This is my theory. Food, as a cultural genre, or really a pop-cultural genre, in the same vein as you look at art, music, film, television. It's really young, it's really amateur. We're barely out of the lionizing profile with a PR news hook phase. So the critical work, like capital C-critical work in our field specifically, is lacking because it hasn't had the time to develop. 

So I think mostly, if you look at the so-called ‘critical pieces,’ they've been limited to restaurant reviews. And I'm not even sure how much of what we would actually label criticism in the disciplinary sense, or just there being any real critical thinking, or even contextual I think applied, even applies to those restaurant reviews, by the way. 

And I was thinking about Jonathan Gold, and how we celebrate him as a food critic. But you can love his way with words. You can love his use of language in his writing so much. And you can love the Los Angeles he wrote about. But I don't think you can say that was criticism. And if you think that it was somehow countercultural, because he was writing about ‘other restaurants,’ forget the fact of his being a white guy, ’cause it’s honestly — that's not my point here. But it's this line of thinking that suggests that if something is not part of white or Eurocentric culture, it's outside of culture in general, which I'm not cool with. 

So yeah, I look at that, and I'm like, ‘Where's our legacy of cultural criticism in food?’ I think the good news is it's actually just starting to be written now, and I'm psyched for that. This is why I like the newsletter so much, because I — that's where I see it happening. 

But personally, my love of critical theory came from studying film and, more than anything else, modern art history. So, it's very nerdy, and that's what I get off on, but that's what I would be sending people to read. Just so that you see it in a field where there's been a rich history of critical thinking and critical work, so that it's actually — and you can see these generations of critics or philosophers talking to each other. You can see how one builds on the other or rejects the other. You really get a sense of that. We don't have that. 

For me, too, I think some of the most beautiful food writing actually exists in fiction. So, I would make people read Monique Truong’s novels, just because she gives you historical context, she gives you cultural context, and then she gives you tension. And she gives you a — this pure love of food written in just the most poetic prose. I think I would send people off in those directions, just because I don't think we have enough of an archive in our own backyard for people to necessarily even understand sometimes what criticism or critical thinking looks like. And I think that's the kind of depth that we're missing. 

And I feel bad, because it's not so much that I want to trash food writing. It's just that I don't think it's existed long enough in that same sense.

Alicia: No, I feel this way so much. You’re articulating a thing that I didn't fully comprehend for the first few years that I was a freelance food writer where I was like, ‘Oh, I'm gonna — because my idea about being a food writer, which started in 2015, or whatever, where I was like, ‘Oh, I know all this stuff about vegan food and all this cool stuff that no one writes about and I have this understanding of what it's like to own a small artisanal food business, and I have this understanding of how power sort of functions in these — ’cause I studied English literature.’ My background is also similar, though not to any sort of incredible level. I read all this theory in college ’cause that's what I was supposed to do. And then I was like, ‘I'm gonna bring this new perspective to it,’ and I was like, ‘Oh, no one actually wants this.’ 

Charlotte: Really, it's heartbreaking.

Alicia: And similar I guess to the James Beard Awards, in trying to get nominated but not getting nominated. But I've done all of my best food writing outside of food publications, and mostly even for publications outside the United States, like for a Canadian literary website and for a British-based website and stuff like that. 

And that's been a really interesting perspective to have, too. It's like, ‘Oh, the people who are letting me do the writing I want to do are not food publications.’ So this year, I've kind of made my peace with that in a real way. I've just stopped even pitching. I don't want to do it. 

And the newsletter I started because I was like ‘Oh, I want to be able to do, I don't know, mostly like personal essay, or just random writing that I didn't have a place for.’ And it just kind of morphed into what it is. But yeah, it's been really interesting to see that so many people want more critical food writing and just — yeah, the only people that anyone ever cites as [food critics] are people that I'm like, ‘I don't think they were doing anything that new or interesting.’

Like you said, with Jonathan Gold, where it's like, ‘Yeah, he was writing about restaurants that the major critics weren't writing about, and he was doing it in a way that was beautiful. But what real criticism of—’

Charlotte: Yeah, what criticism was there? 

It wasn't even like he would necessarily compare one restaurant's version of a dish to another. It was just really a love letter to a restaurant every week. And that's a great, beautiful thing. That's not criticism. We're talking about something different. 

And I also just want to say, ‘See, this is what happens. This is how you end up writing books.’ Because you get so frustrated with these babies that you're given, literally and figuratively, in magazines and newspapers. And you're like, ‘The only way I can really say these things, or go deep in the way that I want. I guess I'm just gonna have to make my own thing.’ So yeah, it's a newsletter, or if you want to do something really deep and researched then it's a book.

I don't know, I never thought I was gonna write a book. It wasn't something I thought I would one day do. It was more just, ‘But I want to say all this stuff, and I want to learn about all this stuff, and I want to hear from all these people. And I don't see how I can do that and make it analytical in any of the given outlets that I'm supposed to be technically writing for.’ I don’t see that.

Alicia: Yeah, it's just really frustrating.

When I used to write for The Village Voice, that was the closest I guess I got to being able to do something interesting while still being under the rubric of the food section. But that space doesn't exist anymore, either. And I think every time I get interviewed about the newsletter genre, I'm like, ‘Well, it's kind of trying to replace the alt weekly, I guess.’ Yeah, create this thing of actual criticism, where you engage with food and all the things that touch food, and also bring in other aspects of culture.

It's really interesting to me, and I talk about this all the time, I think how food is siloed as its own thing with no connection to art, or film, or literature, or anything like that. And it's really frustrating.

Charlotte: I mean, I think a lot of it comes back to money and what can be monetized. And this idea that food can only be monetized when it's seen as Lifestyle content. What that means is that it has to somehow be in — again, I feel like I put everything in quotes, but ‘service-y.’ Or what people would call fluff. 

And so, if you want to try and go deeper, and that's why — even — I look at the New York Times, and I'm like, ‘Why is it that I'll read what I think is a really fascinating food piece, but it'll be in the science section, or the business section?’ I was like, ‘Why could this not have been in the food section? Would have been — why?’ And I get so frustrated, and then I'm like, You got to stop.’ But you know the answer. And it's not changing, and you need to move on and get over it. But yes, it's that.

Alicia: You studied art history, right?

Charlotte: I was an English major and an art history minor. And within my English major, also did a weird film studies thing. It was very creative.

But, I decided — this is like a whole side story. But I had this very kind of reactionary response to my first job, which was technically in corporate America, and was like, ‘I don't want to be here. I want to be an art history professor.’ And felt it very, very strongly, and decided that that's what I was going to do. 

I went and worked in an art gallery, and then I went to graduate school, got my masters, got accepted as a PhD student at that point knowing that I missed the real world too much. I was part of this very old-fashioned, kind of absurd program where once you get accepted to the PhD track, they have to take you back at any — I could be senile and knocking on the door and be like, ‘I'm here.’ And as long as I could pay tuition, ’cause — I don't think at that point, like probably not gonna be getting any funding, but I could still come back. I liked knowing that. In my mind, if I'd had some other life, where I was making a lot of money at my job and could dream about retiring and getting my PhD just for the love of learning when I was older, that would have been a great dream. 

So, I did that. And then I went, technically went back to what was always my sort of first professional love, which was publishing, and magazines, and journalism, and writing. So, I had that. I'm actually very grateful for it because it did help train how I think, and how I look at things. And it also really helped me hone my appreciation for visual culture. And all of these things, I think, have ended up having a huge influence on my food writing. They're so related that it doesn't feel completely like it was useless.

Alicia: I don't think education could ever be useless necessarily, but—

Charlotte: I agree, I agree. You're not learning like a trade or — in that sense, you didn’t. I’d love to teach, honestly.

Alicia: It's funny, ‘cause I have this vague memory of when I was in high school and wanting to go to the Culinary Institute to study pastry. This was just based on watching the Food Network and being like, ‘I want to make humongous sugar sculptures.’ And then not doing that, and then always, kind of until I actually accidentally became a baker, then realizing like, ‘Oh, it was a better idea that I didn't do that.’

Charlotte: Don't you love your baking now, so much more than that? The idea even of a sugar sculpture?

Alicia: And I think I still probably would have ended up writing about food, but I'm also so happy that I have this education in something completely different from food. 

And like now all I read are art magazines, basically. And I feel like that's helped me write about food in a better way. I don't know.

Charlotte: It's so helpful. 

It's really funny, a small thing that I noticed — not just sort of the theory, and the way of looking at sort of material culture, which I found it really helpful for that. I always used to think that it was kind of silly. I remember I think I even said this to a professor, and it was — you were not supposed to say that. 

But you were supposed to spend all of this time describing the work of art. And I'm talking about like, you would be writing an essay for a seminar. And the thing is, you would always be including the images in the work. So I was like, ‘Why am I describing it if you can see it?’ It really would get — and then I realized, ‘Oh, this is actually a kind of a discipline, because it means that you're really looking at it, and then that you're forced to find the language.’ 

And I realized that it actually comes in very handy when you have to describe food. ‘Cause mostly you're actually kind of describing what it looks like, because it's so hard to describe flavor in a way that's going to be helpful to anyone. But you can always describe what it looks like. And so even that, I look back and I'm like, ‘Ohhhh, oh, okay.’ [Laughs.]

Alicia: Well, to get back to kind of the food media question, what have all these recent kind of kerfuffles looked like to you in terms of Bon Appétit, where we're having — here's going to be the new editor, Dawn Davis. And Peter Meehan leaving his job at the L.A. Times. Was this all very, I don't know, predictable to you?

Charlotte: It wasn't predictable in the sense that I felt — after we went through the kind of #MeToo wave, back in — what was it? I feel like it was at the end of 2017, right? That the Mario Batali, Ken Friedman, thing happened. I was kind of like, ‘Well, what about food media? Hello?’ And then it didn't happen. And so, I think I kind of was — kind of resigned myself. 

So, in that sense, I was not expecting it. And I also think it's interesting, again, to go back to this idea of the inherent whiteness of feminism, as we've known it for so long. That #MeToo was very much co-opted by white feminists. And look, in our field, we were not able to get anything done. And then I look at what happened in terms of Black Lives Matter, which I think had a huge impact on what we saw with Bon Appétit and Adam Rapoport and a lot of conversations. 

And I'm like, ‘Yeah, look who made this happen. It was Black women and women of color mostly who spoke up.’ That made me feel both a kind of awe and gratitude for all of those women, but also very disappointed in — I mean, even in myself. I was like, ‘Well, so much for the white women who dominate food media. Let’s see what we accomplished.’ 

That was a one sort of tangential thing that was going off in my head. But I was pleasantly surprised. There's another part of me, if I'm just looking at the big picture of it. I think my problem with these dust-ups is that they tend to focus too much on the personal, or this singular person, or the actors involved, and then not enough on the systems that created them, or got us to these situations as they are. That is the thing that I wished we could somehow change, that dynamic. 

I'm so glad for the people, and I really — I think that we need it. I realize that I'm very much of the Tunde Wey, let-it-die mind-set. Which I used to not be. I used to be very much that sort of Trojan horse advocate. I used to think if you could infiltrate and change from within, you could really do something. 

And now seriously, I'm like, ‘F- that. We need new models. We need a lot of them. And they need to be decentralized.’ And so yeah, my thing is more — can we start having these upheavals in a way that feels like we're having a systemic conversation?

I have been sitting on that and trying to figure this out, and it even started — I think before the pandemic, just coming off of having done Women on Food, and being like, ‘What am I supposed to do now?’ And then everything that's happened in the past few months has really made me question that even more, and in different ways. 

I think if you look at, just in terms of my work, right? If you look at Skirt Steak, or Women on Food, or even like the Piglet Tournament of Cookbooks, right? You can see a cry for help. It's the wrong way to say it, but you can see someone who really is interested in the why of things, and the underpinnings. And I sometimes like to look at that in mischievous ways. And I'm always like, ‘How can we find other approaches to talk about stuff?’

And I think the nice thing about what's happening now — just personally, this is selfish — but for the first time, I feel less alone in that. I don't want to take up too much space, and I don't want to take up the wrong space. So, it's like, ‘How do I keep doing that kind of work, but in a way where I'm giving the attention and agency to other people, not taking it for myself?’ And I think that that's the thing that's like the negotiation right now. That's the hard thing to figure out. 

Alicia: No, I think it's hard for everyone right now to be like, ‘How do I fit into this dying industry?’ Yeah, it's complicated.

Charlotte: And how do I make a difference? I mean, which is a corny thing to say, but it's — if I'm going to do it, I want it to have some impact, or be of use in some way. I don't want to keep contributing to the — to what we were talking about before, the sort of lifestyle stuff.

But on the other hand, we have to get paid, right? I need to get paid. Yeah, it's hard. Yeah, we were all talking about — I wish we could find ways to talk about it together more, literally just — how do we? For freelancers, I think, especially.

Alicia: Yes, for sure. 

No, and I mean, that's why I guess we had the Food Writers’ Workshop for two years. But this year, we had to cancel.

Charlotte: That was so, so good. You'll do it again. 

Alicia: [Laughs.] But yeah, just to create that space for these conversations that can be difficult to have. Yeah, because I think it's necessary. And I mean, this year, it would have been — yeah, if next time I guess we do it, it'll be quite interesting because of all of this. And because we'll be in the midst of the sort of recovery, I guess, from what's happened. But yeah, so we'll be able to see it, I guess, with better — with clearer vision. So, I hope that that happens, and that it’s interesting for people still, but we'll see.

Charlotte: I think it will be. We can imagine.

Alicia: Food media — I talked to Lisa Donovan a couple of weeks ago, and she was included in a piece you wrote for The Washington Post about kind of the whiteness of food memoir, which, I thought was a really necessary piece, especially as someone I had — it's funny that you even wrote it, because I had bought a million food memoirs and was like, ‘I'm gonna figure out what the hell's up with this genre.’ I was like, I'm gonna read all of these books and then I'm gonna figure out why food memoirs are really — I don't know, just something — just all the same. You were talking about before with the homogeneity of the way the Beards do things and the way the media, — how do we break out of this mold? 

I do think Lisa’s memoir, Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger, is a really fresh addition to the genre. It did create a lot of talk on Twitter, that piece, a lot of which I think was completely misguided and totally incorrect and total misreadings of what you were trying to do. But Lisa's critique was that there was short on class analysis. So, what would your response be to that? 

Charlotte: Yeah.

It was concerning to me. And not because I don't think there's a glaring issue with the socio-economic disparity or class dominance in book publishing and in food media. There clearly is. I would never argue that. There is.

But it was concerning, because that was a piece that was primarily about white privilege and about race. And as soon as you start saying, ‘Well, wait, wait, what about socioeconomic privilege?’, as a white person saying that, whether you're doing it as a way to justify your own work or to devalue someone else's, or even if you're looking at it systemically, what you're doing is decentering the conversation, right? You're taking the focus away from race and you're shifting the conversation so that, in this particular case, it no longer calls attention to the idea that Black women and women of color are not being given the opportunity to tell their stories, and are not getting memoir deals. 

One of my friends actually said to me, which was a very strong statement, ‘When the discussion is about race, you have to be absolutely destitute for poverty to erase white privilege,’ which — that really struck me. And again, as I said, I just finished reading Caste. So, it's very fresh in my mind. And, by the way, that would go on my reading list even though it's contemporary. But it really underscored that point for me, which is in the United States, race is the defining marker of caste. And class is fluid, but caste — race is fixed. So, I don't see this as like a chicken-egg dilemma, I think it's always going to be race first. And I think it definitely needs to be right now in these conversations. 

And when you see a white person push back against that, even when they have the best of intentions, and an otherwise, I think, seemingly clear-eyed understanding of how things work, for me, I think you're basically witnessing a form of white fragility. So, that's disappointing, obviously. But on that, it also makes me think about where my own white fragility is coming into play, now, or how it might in the future because truly, we're all trying to self-correct and be better, and it's an ongoing process. So, that is something I also understand.

But yeah, for me, that was upsetting. And then also, ok, this idea that somehow my being privileged needed to be addressed or made me ineligible to write about white privilege and memoir publishing. I get how it could be confusing for people who think that food writing is personal by default, or who are taking it personally as readers. I am extremely aware of my privilege, and in real life I'm actually — I'm very, very open about it. And I'm also pretty open about how my career has benefited from it, and how also — how I've been able to sustain my career because of it. 

But if you look at my work as a writer, I don't do personal writing. I don't think I'm that interesting. I don't think my life's that interesting. Or, alternatively, that I'm a gifted enough writer to make it seem like it's that interesting. In related news, I haven't written a memoir, and I’m probably — not probably going to write a memoir ever. It's not what drew me to writing or journalism. So, I don't write about my privilege in my work, because there's no place for it in non-personal writing, 

This whole thing made me think about it, and I was like, ‘Oh, where would I have included this information?’ And then should there have been a disclaimer at the bottom of the piece that read, ‘Charlotte Druckman is the daughter of privilege from Manhattan’? To me, in the context of that piece, it just really didn't seem relevant, right? Because it was about white privilege. And also because it was about memoirs.

So, that's the kind of thing where you find yourself feeling like, ‘I shouldn't even have to defend this or explain it.’ For you realize that we live in a world where, at some point, you have to, because that's what people seem to want to focus on instead of focusing on the actual piece and what it was trying to say.

Alicia: Right.

No, I thought it was really interesting, especially — this Friday's interview with Klancy Miller. The timeline of this interview now is all over the place. Before she proposed Cooking Solo, she proposed a food memoir about her time in Paris that was rejected by 30 publishers. And I was like, ‘Well, I think Klancy Miller's food memoir about Paris would be really, a really interesting infusion into a genre that is so white, that loves France, but doesn't like the — loves the story of an American in Paris, but apparently not a Black woman American in Paris.’

And so many people who argued in response to that piece were just all over the place, for one. But also, were citing memoirs being like, ‘I think lots of people of color have had memoirs out.’ And it's chef memoirs and that sort of thing. Being like, ‘These have all come out recently.’ 

Charlotte: Some of them weren’t even memoirs! Something I observed, which is that I've noticed that when women of color and Black women, instead of seeming to get memoir deals, they get cookbooks where — that are personal. And I wonder if that's a publishing tick, where that's being thrust upon them. I don't know. 

But I found out people were holding up things where I was like, ‘But that's a cookbook, that's not a memoir.’ You're proving my point. You don't even realize that you're proving my point. But you are. It's the pigeon-holing. It's the sort of place where erasure and pigeon-holing overlap,

It makes me think of Kristina Gill and Tasting Rome. And how it was kind of like, ‘Well, we're not, as your publishers who bought your book, which was your idea, we're not comfortable with a Black woman being the face of Italian cooking. But we're very comfortable with your white co-author doing that.’ Which was unsaid, but I think very much what happened. And to me that's very similar to all of those publishers being like, ‘Well, we like the Paris food memoir thing, but we're not feeling the Black woman writing it.’ It's that same kind of thinking. 

This was also crazy to me, because I think if it hadn't been for the pandemic, the books actually would have come out within five months of each other. I don't think I have seen seven food memoirs come out in one year before this ever anyway. Maybe I'm wrong, that's already seemed like a lot. That we had seven, and they were all written by women, seems like a big deal because that also. And then it's the fact that they were all white, it was like, ‘Oh god. Oh no.’ 

And it was funny, ’cause at first when I first started paying attention, I was more sort of just like, ‘Why are there all these memoirs?’ And then I started looking at all the authors, and I was like, ‘Oh my, what is happening?’ And it ends up being indicative of how book publishing works, or at least food and book publishing works. 

I wasn't expecting that pushback, because again, I have a certain — I realized this, that I'm not even, certain ways, where I don't think of myself as a controversial person or a controversial writer. I don't know what I thought would happen, but I wasn't — I just didn't expect that. I thought I was almost writing about something that to me seemed obvious. And I thought it was important for a white person to say it because again, I think it's been made really clear that it's like, ‘Why does it always have to be BIPOC who are having to carry the weight of pointing all this stuff out, and then ultimately being ignored?’ But I thought it was pretty obvious. 

The interesting thing was that all that Twitter stuff, if you look at it, it was mostly coming from white women. Which I found really interesting and sad on a certain level. And I almost felt like it was like white women policing other white women about how to be white women. I almost felt like I had broken rank or something. And that was before I read Caste and now that I’ve read Caste I really am like, ‘Wow. It's really like I broke rank. I didn't stay in some place I was supposed to stay in being accepting of a certain status quo.’ I was not expecting that response at all.

Alicia: Yeah. 

And I do think class analysis is required, especially in publishing and media because it is a — Yeah, it's complicated for me to talk about because it's — I don't feel like I came from a super-privileged background and so it's — I feel like I had to kind of bust my way into this, but even the fact that I was able to bust my way into it is a fact of great privilege. Even though the only time I was able to take a magazine job was ’cause I — finally someone offered more than like $28,000. It needs to be part of the conversation, but I think that it is true that when you're writing explicitly about race that it — that should be able to be the focus. But it is so complicated and everyone brings so much.

Charlotte: I think it should be addressed. I just — I think you have to do it separately. And I understand, because you — it's like, ‘That's my memoir. I wrote that memoir. I put all of this into it. I worked so hard to get to a place where I could write that memoir.’ I understand that. But when you start being like, ‘But wait, but wait, because this is what happened to me in my story, and it's not fair that you didn't talk about socio-economics,’ it does — it doesn't — that's not right for this scenario, where this is about whiteness. 

The bottom line is that you did get your book deal, and that we're talking about your whiteness in this context. And like that's this conversation. I mean, I look at how lucky I was, just like, it's even — For me, everything started with privilege. Everything. Let's just forget my education, and you look at my resume of where I went to school and all of that stuff. 

But even my first job in publishing was — I had just graduated high school, and my favorite relative who — she was my dad's mother's first cousin, so I think of her as a great aunt. But technically, she's a cousin with some removings. I'm not good with the once-, twice-removed stuff. But she was this special assistant. She ran the office of New York magazine for the then-editor-in-chief, who was Ed Kosner. And so I got to be an intern at New York magazine at age 18. That's ridiculous. 

And of course, I wasn't paid, which was fine ’cause I'm from New York City and I lived at home under my parents’ roof so I didn't have anything to pay for. Well, I didn't have to pay rent, you know? Do you know who the other intern was that summer? It was Ed Kosner’s stepdaughter. And there we were, in our internships and it was — I learned a ton. I worked hard. But, just that, look at that. That's how it started, and then look at everything that happened after that. 

So then, that's on your résumé. Look at everything, forget the fact that publishing in general tends to be about connections. And it can be about connections that you had even before you started as a professional. And then once you start it's always about who knows who,

right?

So, the whole thing is so — and, you're — it's operating on a very low paid salary for most people until then you get to the level of Adam Rapoport, and his golfing, and all that stuff. That's someone who also had already come from privilege. 

So, it's a disaster. It's a full-on disaster. So yeah, we do need to talk about it, but — that, when you're when you're having a conversation about white privilege, it's not the time to raise your hand and be like, ‘But can we talk about socio-economics and how hard it was for me to do this thing?’ It's just not the place for that, even though I understand it completely.

Alicia: I mean, just for everybody who is reading, when I was in college, I couldn't do any internships because they didn't pay. And I commuted to school in New York City from Long Island and I had to have a regular job to pay to commute. 

And then when I graduated college, because I'd never done an internship and I was, ‘Oh, but I'm just gonna apply for all these editorial assistant jobs, work in book publishing.’ And then I never even got an interview, but also when they put the rate there, it was $28,000 and it was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ 

I worked in the publications department of an offshore Caribbean medical school, because they had their offices—because in college, I had done work doing web design, and then doing web design, that's how I made, started to make more than minimum wage, was because I learned how to do web design. When I got fired from that job, which I got fired from when I was 22, ’cause I don't know, I just hated it. My parents got divorced, and I was just sad. And then I got brought into the office and they were like, ‘You don't seem to care about this job.’ And I was like, ‘I don't.’

I got hired at, actually funny enough, New York magazine as a freelance copy editor a month later. I got hired there. They paid me $20 an hour when I started, but I was working 10 hours a day. And then I got hired full-time at the end of 2009, and just stayed there ’til I started writing in 2015. 

I was still working 10 hours a day for the first two or three years I was there. So I was still in this position of like, ‘Well, I'm finally at a magazine, so I can't say anything.’ But I was getting paid like $45,000 and working 50 hours a week, sometimes more when it was Fashion Week. This is what this industry is.

Charlotte: Yeah. 

And I'm guessing, too, though, you were surrounded by people who were full-time. And who were coming from a place where they did not have to hustle that much, and didn't have to hustle as much at New York magazine either, right? 

Alicia: I was hired full-time, and then I was able to work from home. So, it was like, ‘All right, great. I love this.’ It was this feeling of like, ‘I'm not allowed to say anything.’ 

Right before I quit, I was starting to finally feel comfortable and was like, ‘I'm gonna go talk to HR about all this sorts of stuff, and how there's no movement for copy editors here, and that sort of thing.’ It was just stupid. I just left, and I went to be a copy editor at Food and Wine for a little while, which was also bad.

Charlotte: I worked at Food and Wine, but I worked at Food and Wine before you got there. I was there from 2003 to 2005.

Alicia: It was not a fun time. I had a six-month contract there, and I was like, ‘F- six months.’ I was like, ‘Good-bye.’ It's like, ‘I'm done.’

Yeah, well. For you, is—

Charlotte: Do you think maybe—

Alicia: No, no. Go on.

Charlotte: Don’t you think that the copyediting experience has made you though better at your job now? ‘Cause I feel like there's not enough — First of all, there aren't enough copy editors out there, and there's not enough emphasis placed on how important copyediting is. I just feel like it would probably make you a better writer and a better editor anyway. 

Alicia: I hope so. I mean, it's funny. Today I was like, ‘Oh, I should create — start a style guide for the newsletter.’ And I was like, ‘What a nerd.’ 

I love copyediting. I get to do it sometimes for print magazines, and it's always a fun experience to get back into those shoes. But then it's not a fun experience when I get back into the shoes of writers who think I'm an idiot. 

And talking about caste, someone wrote a great piece for the New Republic years ago about the caste system in publishing, and how copy editors are kind of the bottom. Even though copy editors are the ones who know how language works and how grammar works. 

Charlotte: Same with fact-checkers. Now that I think about it. I feel like they weren't even invited to our editorial meetings at magazines I worked at. [Laughs.] This is just Dickensian

Alcia: No, it's so interesting. 

For you, is cooking a political act?

Charlotte: It's funny, ‘cause I'm not sure how much I used to think about this. For me, once you start thinking about this question, I don't see how the answer's no, I'm just gonna say that.

I think yes, it's a political act, because even when you think it's not, where did you buy your groceries? Which ones did you buy? Do you only eat what you grow yourself? Maybe you're not going and buying anything, you know? How are you growing them? And then, how are you making those decisions? And if you weren't thinking about where your ingredients came from, or the labor involved in getting them here, you're part of the problem, but doesn't make it any less political. 

We are still contributing to an overall process of culture, or shopping, or producing in cooking. So, you're still part of that system and you're upholding it. When you're in your kitchen stirring your pot, I don't think that's necessarily political in the same way. Unless you're trying to make a statement with that food for whomever you're serving it to, or selling it to, or if you're supporting a cause with it. 

But I think if you're cooking commercially, where it's an exchange of money or goods and transactional, again, that — it can not be political. But me at home with my experimental baking, I don't see the part where I'm actually making my batter and putting it in the oven. To me, that's where it stops being political because it's no longer part of that exchange. But in the sense of the buying ingredients and choosing and all of that stuff: yes, it's political.

Alicia: Well, thank you so much, Charlotte, for coming on.

Charlotte: This was great. Who knows when I said, but I had a great time. I loved talking to you. So, yeah, thank you. Thank you for having me on, and doing this with me.

Alicia: Thanks.

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

Klancy Miller is cool as hell. She studied pastry in Paris, wrote a cookbook called Cooking Solo: The Fun of Cooking for Yourself, and is now working on the launch of For the Culture, a food and beverage magazine about and by Black women. She’s also nice as hell, and it’s a joy and a privilege to converse with someone so smart and compelling, who’s doing serious and significant work.

We talked about cannoli, why she went to Paris for culinary school, the political power of pastry (an ongoing theme!), and how this year has expanded her vision for the soon-to-launch magazine. Listen above, or read below.

Alicia: Hi, Klancy, thanks so much for coming on.

Klancy: Thank you for having me. I'm honored.

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

Klancy: So, I grew up in a few places. My dad is a minister in the Episcopal Church, and we moved around kind of a lot.

I was born in New Haven, Connecticut. Some of my first food memories are pizza like Pepe's pizza. And there is a great bakery called Libby's that had amazing cannoli. And, to this day, those — cannoli are my favorite dessert. I love cannoli.

Alicia: Me too. [Laughs.]

Klancy: Right, like so important. 

Yeah, so we moved from New Haven to Atlanta when I was 4. So, my food memories of New Haven are literally Pepe's pizza, cannoli, and Mississippi mud pie. My parents used to like to go to Chart House restaurant, and I think that was a recurring dessert there. So those are my 4-year-old memories. [Laughs.]  And my mom is an amazing cook. I just don't, from those years, remember what she cooked? 

We moved from New Haven to Atlanta. And I feel like Atlanta is where I spent the bulk of my childhood. And there I remember I was older and grew up there to a certain extent. So, I remember my mom's cooking a lot. She was really into The Silver Palate Cookbook. She also had this cookbook by Eileen Ford that had a really good chicken salad in it. My mom used to like to make some stuff by Julia Child, who was — when my parents got married, she really wanted to become a gourmet cook, and started taking cooking really seriously. But she's also a little bit of a health nut. So I remember a lot of vegetarian things, vegetarian lasagna. Yeah. 

And some Southern foods, too, because both of my parents are from the south. But my mom, growing up, I don't remember her cooking a lot of Southern things. But I remember enjoying it at my grandparents’ house, having greens or fried fish sandwiches or really good barbecue. 

What else? After dance class, we would always go to either Varsity's in Atlanta for my post dance class snack or Wendy’s, where I would get french fries and a chocolate shake. Or, where else would we go? There was this place in Buckhead that made these awesome beignets. And so, yeah, those were all post dance class treats I would get depending upon our moods. [Laughs.]

Alicia: [Laughs.] I'm always interested in how people who grew up with even a touch of that kind of vegetarian cuisine from the health-focused times how you relate to vegetarian food now, or how it manifests in your life.

Klancy: Let's see. So, I feel like I'm heavily influenced by my mom in that, like I said, she's always been a little bit of a health nut and literally at different times in my life has called me to say, ‘Have you eaten a cup of blueberries today? Are you eating enough green vegetables?’ [Laughs.]

She's always had a subscription to Prevention Magazine, and has always been into reading about health. And we're both hypochondriacs, and so I've always kind of been cool with eating heavily vegetarian stuff. And I also, for better or for worse, do kind of, in my head, link it to health sometimes. 

I think because of my mom, I feel very open to eating lots of vegetarian food. And because I'm kind of sometimes lazy in the kitchen I sometimes don't feel like cooking meat, even though I'm not — I don't consider myself a vegetarian. I just kind of prefer eating more vegetarian than not. But yeah, I don't even know if I'm answering the question.

Alicia: No, you are. Yeah. [Laughs.]

How did you decide to go into food and eventually go to Paris to study pastry at Le Cordon Bleu?

Klancy: When I graduated from college, I had no idea what I wanted to do, work-wise. And I decided to kind of make it into a little “choose your own adventure,” or trial-by-error adventure. 

I studied history. I studied French. I studied Arabic. I studied political science. I studied film. I wanted to figure out how to apply aspects of what I learned in some kind of job. I majored in history, so I was thinking — and I really was, and kind of am, still into languages. I was thinking, ‘Oh, ok, maybe international development could pull on things I had learned.’ I ended up working for a non-governmental organization, American Friends Service Committee, in Philadelphia. 

And I started taking classes on anything that interested me on the side. So I was taking film editing classes, I was taking dancing classes and acting classes. And I thought maybe I would become a documentary filmmaker. I hated editing film. 

I also took cooking classes. And the cooking classes were the most fun, because I felt like I saw the fruits of my labor immediately. So, it was like that immediate gratification thing. And I think I realized how much I enjoyed working with my hands. 

I ended up getting an apprenticeship at this restaurant in Philadelphia called Fork. I was actually trying to get a proper job there on the weekends. But the chef was like, ‘You have no restaurant experience at all.’ But she was kind enough to let me come in and do prep work on the weekends. 

And I really loved it. It was the first time I ever showed up on time for work. I felt fully engaged and completely stimulated and very present. And I loved that I was making things, and I loved that I was working with people and I got to see — even though I wasn't the person cooking, I was just chopping up five bins of onions, I kind of got a kick out of the fact that what I was preparing would be put to use to make a beautiful meal. 

And at the time, I also really wanted to go — I thought I wanted to go to grad school. I was all over the place. I was looking at business school. I was really, very materialistic. I wanted to become a millionaire by the age of 25. So I was like, ‘I’m gonna get an MBA, and that's how I'm gonna make millions of dollars!’ Which makes no sense. But I wasn't very logical. 

But I did definitely want to go to some kind of school. So I asked the chef I was reporting to about her opinion on going to culinary school and she was like, ‘You don't actually have to go to culinary school if you want to be a chef, but I would consider it if you want to go into pastry.’ And so that kind of was a lightbulb moment because I do have a major sweet tooth. I had some thoughts maybe of like, Julia Child. I had studied in Paris before when I was in college

for a semester, and frankly, I had a terrible time. And I wanted to go back and have a do over. 

And so basically I was like, ‘Ok, I can go to culinary school for pastries.’ So, I did research on pastry programs in this country, and they were all super expensive. And I already had student loans. So I was like, ‘I'm not trying to go into debt for culinary school.’ I did research on Le Cordon Bleu, and took a quick little — I think I took like — I was living with my parents at the time, so I was able to save money. I took a little research weekend trip to Paris and I was just like, ‘Ok, I could do this.’ And I got a second job, saved up money. This is, meanwhile, still working at the NGO.

And yeah, I was like, ‘Ok, Le Cordon Bleu, weirdly the more budget-friendly school.’ And also because I am a Francophile, it kind of checked that box. And it gave me the opportunity to have a Paris do over. And it all kind of seemed perfect. I was like, ‘Ooh, I'm going to learn how to make croissant in Pair-ee, and that's going to be amazing.’ 

I was there for a total of four years, but the pastry program was nine months. And the first nine months were a genuine fairy tale. It was a good choice for me.

Alicia: That's awesome. 

Were you fluent in French before you went?

Klancy: I was. Which was, I think, the thing that made it even more kind of magical. ‘Cause I was really able to connect in a way that made it feel like an actual home for me.

Alicia: And how did studying pastry in particular shape your approach to savory cooking?

Klancy: I'm not sure it really has, but maybe — I have a visual thing. ’Cause, at least at Le Cordon Bleu and in the pastry kitchens I worked in, you always wanna make it look soigné, you always wanna make it look nice. Especially in the French approach to desserts, there's such a visual emphasis. I care about how food looks. Even before Instagram, I cared about how food looked. 

And I think, I don't know, with pastry, it's kind of laborious. It's really precise. It's a little tedious. So, that is something that I don't really run away from with cooking. But that being said, I actually think because sometimes more difficult pastry is a little tedious, it makes me want to cook like savory food in the simplest way possible.

Alicia: And the political potential of baking has been a big theme this year. Do you view pastry as a tool for political and societal change?

Klancy: Totally. 

I wrote about Georgia Gilmore for the New York Times “Overlooked” section, either last year or the year before last. Time doesn't exist anymore. And I really, really loved researching her story and her work. And the fact that she, from her home, was baking and cooking and selling the food she made to help fund the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which lasted I think 382 days or 381 days in Montgomery, Alabama. And the fact that she was not doing this by herself, she was organizing other women to do the same. And so she's the woman whose name we know best from that moment, and from that action of cooking and baking and organizing. But there were many women like her. And I think that is one of the most powerful examples of how food and baking and cooking can be used as tools for political organizing.

Alicia: To change gears from pastry, but your cookbook, Cooking Solo, is about making meals for one. And what was the inspiration for that? Because that really is a unique idea in cookbooks, which — where the portions are for four to six people all the time.

Klancy: Yeah, so for Cooking Solo, that book is definitely heavily influenced from my time living in Paris. 

So basically, when I got to Paris, it was my first time ever living on my own, having my own little studio apartment, and my first time cooking all of my meals for myself. And it was really a joy for me because I was basically getting to know my neighborhood. And one of the ways I got to know my neighborhood was by going to the little farmer’s markets, the marché, every — whatever days they were running. 

And so I would just buy random things and experiment with them. And I had this teeny-tiny refrigerator in my teeny-tiny apartment. And so I was never really making — it didn't make sense to have a lot of leftovers. It didn't even make sense to buy a lot of food. So, I was constantly making these small meals or kind of single-serving recipes. 

After that whole experience in Paris, I actually wanted to write a cookbook about my time there and to make it kind of a food memoir, with an emphasis on things I ate. And that got roundly rejected. Like, literally by 30 different publishers. But my mom was like, ‘You have recipes, you have a repertoire, you should — something's right under your nose that you could mine for another book project.’ I took that seriously. And it was also at a time when — I don't remember the year, it was either 2012 or 2013. But the census had come out saying that for the first time in U.S. history, there were more single people than married people. And that was another lightbulb moment ‘cause I thought, ‘Oh, I am also single. And I also cook a lot. And even when I'm in a relationship, I cook a lot for myself. Or a romantic relationship.’ 

I basically was like, ‘There is an audience. The census just told me there's an audience for cookbooks for one.’ Even though I use leftovers, I don't really like having them. So I really thought like, ‘Ok, maybe there are other people like me who like to go to dinner parties and restaurants, but also like to cook for themselves and don't want to be bogged down with leftover food, and just want to enjoy a meal for one.’ So, that was the inspiration.

Alicia: Well, when did you decide you wanted to write? Was that always something you wanted to do?

Klancy: I've always written. I haven't always tried to be published —

After working in bakeries and restaurants in Paris, I kind of — I actually wanted to get a restaurant job, but the chef I was working for was like, ‘You're great, but you're too slow.’ And I was a little distraught, but I also was always tired from that job. I loved it. This is like the last pastry kitchen I worked in. And I was kind of like, ‘All right, I'm not necessarily — I think I have talent and skill, but I don't really have the chops to be working in a kitchen full time.’ 

And so at the same time as I was having that realization, Le Cordon Bleu had a job opening in the recipe development department. And so I was like, ‘This is great, I can make actual money and also learn something else in the food world or under the food umbrella, learn how to write recipes and stuff.’ And so that was helpful. 

And then I started kind of writing, basically writing for free, for a blog about Paris food, or  a blog about Paris but I wrote about food. And then I thought, ‘Well, I should try to be paid, try to actually sell articles.’ So, I ended up taking this class on food writing from Alan Richman who either still writes for GQ or used to write for GQ about food. 

And yeah, so I started a blog, Klancy's Potluck. And I did a series of informational interviews with magazine editors and chefs and journalists, basically asking them about their paths and how to get a foot in the door. And, yeah, I just very slowly started building, getting clips and writing stories. I actually got an agent through one of my informational interviews, and she immediately put me on a ghost writing project. So, that helped.

I think I got into writing about food, because I realized I wasn't going to be working in a kitchen but I still loved food and wine and very much wanted to be part of the food world, so to speak, and was trying to figure out, ‘How can I do that without being a professional chef?’ 

I also work as a writer for Columbia [University]. I never talk about it, but that is another hat I wear. I wear a lot of hats. And that's another major hat I wear that allows me to live.

Alicia: Right, right. It's always important — because people are always wondering like, ‘How does anyone survive as a writer?’

Klancy: Yeah, you have to juggle.

Alicia: Yeah, absolutely. 

Yeah, that's interesting, because I actually — I mean, I always wanted to be a writer and worked in magazines, but then I kind of accidentally became a baker, a vegan baker. And then that was how I decided to write about food, was because I was like, ‘Actually, this is too much and I'm never gonna make any real —’ I was selling stuff, but it's — the margins are so incredibly slim. I was like, ‘I don't think I have it in me to keep doing this.’ And that I was like, You know what, I can write about food.’

Klancy: Totally. Exactly.

Alicia: Yeah, it's a way to stay in the world without, yeah, without losing your marbles. 

Klancy: Yeah, totally.

This was in Paris, but I actually continued this in the States, I had a sweet potato pie little artisanal business. I would sell sweet potato pies to places. I worked as a translator. I don't know, I feel like you have to juggle but you also have to figure out, ‘How can I streamline and enjoy my life?’

Alicia: Absolutely. Absolutely. 

And, speaking of, last year you announced you were going to launch For the Culture, a magazine. And it seems people have been so excited for it from day one. But it was also a pretty prescient move as people are looking to independent media more and more, especially in food. So, how has your vision for the magazine changed over the year, of fund-raising and visibility, if it has at all?

Klancy: I think my vision is pretty much still the same. I've been really heartened and humbled and amazed by the very kind and generous support of For the Culture. Nobody could have made up this year. There's no way any of us could have imagined how 2020 would unfold. I am glad that it is a project that definitely, I think, resonates with the moment, or maybe reflects the moment a little bit — again, not that I predicted that. 

I feel like I definitely heard Devita [Davison] talking about like, ‘How is this moment radicalizing you?’ And I feel like for me, I really paid a lot of attention to and learned, I am still learning, about movements to support Black trans lives. And so I feel like, ‘Ok, if there has been any change, it's that I wanna figure out how to incorporate and highlight Black trans stories, specifically Black trans women in food, in the magazine.’ 

So, that's something that when I first started the project wasn't necessarily at the forefront of my mind. But over the course of the year, I've been like, ‘Oh, ok, this is something that I need to center. I need to have thought and reflection, and make sure that these stories are also included.’ 

So yeah, that's kind of a change, but it's not — I don't know. I feel like it makes sense.

Alicia: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

And for you, is cooking a political act?

Klancy: Yeah. I mean, I think of cooking as — I think cooking allows control. And I think it allows personal control. I think it allows for supporting a different food economy, or more directly supporting farmers. 

I also think of cooking in terms of its being a political act, I think of it in terms of imperialism. I also think of it in terms of hunger and ‘how does hunger exist?’ I don't know, just moments in history and moments in, I don't know, Ronald Reagan's war against food stamps. 

So, I feel like it's all connected in food — in cooking, cooking specifically is, I think, deeply political.

Alicia: Right.

Well, thank you so much for coming on again.

Klancy: I am so grateful you had me, and I'm — yeah, I’m totally honored. It's such a pleasure. It's my pleasure. Thank you.

Alicia: Thanks.

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

Lisa Donovan has always been a writer, but it’s only recently that she’s been able to do so full time. Before that, she was a renowned pastry chef. She won a James Beard Award in 2018 for her essay “Dear Women: Own Your Stories” in Food & Wine, which laid bare the abuses and harassment suffered by women in professional kitchens. The Nashville-based writer and former restaurant pastry chef’s new memoir, Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger, goes deeper into that theme, as well as into motherhood, mysticism, marriage, and more.We discussed intersectionality, performative liberalism, Catholicism, and why baking is naturally suited to political causes, among much more. Listen above, or read below.

Alicia: Hi, Lisa, thanks so much for coming on.

Lisa: Hey Alicia, I'm really happy to be here.

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

Lisa: Oh, sure, yeah. I'm one of these weird army brat human beings that sort of grew up in between several different worlds.

So, I grew up between South Georgia and Germany, which was a really interesting combination to flip flop between. And I also grew up in the ’70s and ’80s. I'm a little older than I think some people sometimes realize. 

And so I kind of grew up in that golden age of everything being processed, and a lot of fast food. And it was when you could, I don't know—I think that we could all pretend in that moment in time that it was not as bad for us as it actually was. And by and large, it probably actually wasn't as bad for us as it is now. I think that mass production of food has gotten significantly worse as far as our nutritional needs go. 

But anyway, so I kind of grew up flopping between Europe and South Georgia. And I think it's important to quantify South Georgia, because I can't just say the South because South Georgia is a significantly specific part of the South. And the ways that it's incredibly—what's the nicest way of putting it? Rural, but also not in a quaint kind of way? 

And I grew up on army bases, so my parents dropped out of high school, were enlisted people. And so we kind of grew up in this—kind of slumming it on army bases, was my childhood. And so knowing all of that, it was just sort of this weird combination of what was accessible to us from the commissary on the military bases, which is just one big warehouse grocery store that everyone shops at in a military base. 

And the really interesting thing about growing up on a military base is that you are typically—well, not typically—yeah, I mean, almost entirely you are amongst of—most of your friend’s mothers are foreign women. I mean, it's a real kind of incredible collection of cultures. And so the commissary ends up representing that. So you would go down the aisle for cereal, and you would have things that Filipino women had requested from their homeland. 

So we grew up kind of with these really great, multicultural shopping experiences in our grocery store, but we were still white Southerners. And so we bought our au gratin potatoes and we bought our SpaghettiOs. And so, I grew up in a really typical way even though I kinda grew up mostly in Germany. But that afforded me opportunities anytime we would go off post, which was a significant amount, to explore and try things and have experiences that I think most American kids don't get to have growing up, obviously, if they're not traveling overseas. 

So it was this sort of weird bifurcated experiences, being wholly Southern people and also being exposed to all kinds of food. So it was really interesting. 

And I think that's probably all of those experiences walking into houses and smelling different smells and seeing the different foods being cooked by my friends’ moms and sometimes their dads, depending on who was sort of the soldier in the family. In my day and age, it was typically the father, but occasionally they would have a working mother; it wasn't that common. I can just remember walking into a lot of my friends’ houses, and their Taiwanese mother cooking food, and just—I think being exposed to those smells that are really, just really important. 

So, yeah, it was an interesting—definitely created some interesting qualities and character traits in me. Where I really like trashy food sometimes. And I really, really enjoy really incredible, thoughtful, culturally significant food experiences. 

Alicia: Right, right. I feel like that's the suburban U.S. experience, no matter what maybe. I mean depending on where you grew up, I guess, right? It’s this really—

Lisa: Interesting—

Alicia: Yeah, this really split kind of identity in your food world that can manifest because of what we're given and what we see depending on where we live. 

You're the first person I've had on who I could talk to about this, but you're—in your book, you talk about Catholicism and mysticism. And the title itself is a very Catholic reference. And so how did these take root in your life, and how do they continue to manifest if at all?

Lisa: Unfortunately, I don't think Catholicism is a thing you can easily shake off. [Laughs.]

So yeah, they still do manifest. I come from a really rich culture of a very specific kind of Catholic tradition, which is steeped in my mother being a Mexican woman and her mother being a Mexican woman. And if there were any cultural—if there were any Mexican cultural habits that we can maintained, even though there was a really—just a disheartening and sad erasure that my grandmother felt she had to really fix for her kids of, going as far as—I think the word is pretending they weren't brown people in this world. 

But the one thing that I think she never could forsake was her culture, her Catholic traditions. So, those were the moments, I think for me, where I got to experience, I feel like, who my grandmother actually was as a person. She mostly prayed in Spanish. and she—and I talk a lot about this in the book where we, most—a lot of our conversations were about, were kind of sort—this is the first time I've ever said it this way, it's interesting that it's coming out—but a lot of our conversations kind of felt like prayers with each other, like collective prayers.

I just remember having a lot of moments with her where we would just sit and I guess what I'm realizing now is that we were just praying together, and I thought we were just having conversations. But she was—always had a rosary. She was a really deeply religious woman, and she would sew little medals of saints into my clothes. 

And there was a lot of this sort of—I don't know, a superstition feels like a shallow way of explaining it. But, there were just details about our lives that were—it was very common to me to know that if I was going out to play, I would have to say, ‘Going out to play,’ but I couldn't walk out the door because I knew she or my mother was on their way to meet me at the door to put holy water on my head. Those kinds of things, these kinds of moments where like, I had to sit there and wait for basically the ultimate protection to go out into the world, which was my grandmother's pope-blessed bottle of holy water. [Laughs.]

And so I think those kinds of things stick with you for a long time, and the idea that your—the people that have passed away from your family are literally—sometimes it feels like they're sitting in the room with you. It's those kinds of conversations of connectivity with each other. 

And even though I lost her when I was 10, I think the ways in which I still feel like I can connect best with her are those moments of just statuary. Catholic statuary moves me. Churches move me. Mass, Catholic mass. I think I will always just fall apart in the Catholic mass because I think it taps something—I don't know. There's some little window, little doorway in me that only gets opened when certain songs are being sung and certain chants are being sung. 

And even though I am absolutely not a Catholic anymore and don't practice Catholicism, I haven't raised my children Catholic, there are rituals that are really, really deeply ingrained in me that still feel like sometimes the only ways I can connect with my women, my mother and my grandmother.

So, I don't know. I mean, it's sort of a muddy answer to—There's a lot of ways I can answer that. But that one feels like the most significant, I think

Alicia: One of my favorite pieces of your writing was for Food and Wine, about how your notebooks showed that you were becoming a pastry chef before you even knew it consciously. Do you still keep notebooks, and what has it been like to transition from the kitchen to writing in a more formal way? How have those notebooks influenced your kind of becoming a writer, yeah, in that more commercial or traditional sense?

Lisa: Yeah, I still keep notebooks. And I think I would have eventually picked up the habit had I not sort of started this endeavor as a writer. The notebooks I think were always on me anyway, because I was a writer before I was ever a baker and I just never had one of the luxury or the privilege of just being a full-time writer. Very much of the working class. 

And so, finding a job that both was really creatively fulfilling and also had the potential to help me build financial security was really significant. And writing never felt like that in my twenties or thirties. It felt like I really had to find some different work to do in order to sort of justify or earn the right to write full-time, which is twenty-something-years later now, where I finally find myself, which is a really great feeling. 

So, the notebook sort of happened because I had always kept notebooks anyway, almost like a sketchbook. But, when you get into a certain level of kitchen work, everyone keeps a notebook: keeps recipe books, keeps notes about their process of cooking, the technique, the data for the day, the systems, the out—a lot of my notebooks now are Claudette’s hours for Monday. So, a lot of it gets junked up with just, I just needed a piece of paper.

But those are also nice momentos to mark on. After all these years of—I can remember at the time sort of cringing because I was like, ‘I'm gonna really regret filling these pages with day-to-day business and like the goat milk deliverer’s phone number,’ but now those are these really sweet mementos to find in the little pages between.

But I still keep notebooks. I'll always keep notebooks. In fact, I probably need to spend some time this quarantine getting my notebooks reorganized. Because as I'm talking to you, I'm literally looking around, and I mean, there's like five different walls of notebooks just stacked up in front of me. I probably need to sort of get some sort of organizational system together.

And it did start to inform I think the trends, just the transition from cooking full-time to writing full-time. Because what it allowed me to do is have these, basically these diaries, these journals. And it's not to say that I necessarily kept like, ‘January 5, this happened today.’ But there were definitely—there's a pretty good mix of recipe development and frustrated Lisa in a kitchen who just needed to crank out some prose in the bathroom instead of crying at her station. [Laughs.] And so there's this kind of great combination of that in all of these books. 

And then I just realized eventually, it became more of the writing. And then eventually I found my way out of kitchens. And so the notebooks became mostly about writing projects and ideas and, you'll hear—you'll be sitting at a bus stop and you'll hear someone say something and you write it down really quick because it's the kind of quote you could never imagine forgetting. 

And so they're by no means the most organized system, but they are mine. And yes, I still keep them.

Alicia: Yeah. No, I found for myself too, it’s—once I stopped putting kind of a—stopped trying to impose order on my own notebooks, they became a lot more useful to me. Where I wasn't like, ‘This is a to-do list. This is a journal. This is where I work on recipes.’ Once it all kind of came together, I feel I—my brain started to actually use them more creatively, I guess, and actually feel more free on the page because that order wasn’t self-imposed.

Lisa: Yeah, I mean I think if you can give yourself a space where—I hate to use the word messy, ’cause I do think that there's some—there is something about keeping a notebook in that way, and the same way that you're talking about keeping a notebook, that actually does help me organize my thoughts for project itself. So, it gives me a space to sort of not brain dump, but just sort of be a little messy and be a little, I don't know, a little wilder on the page than I would ever give myself permission to be when I start a project outright. 

If I know I have to write an essay, there's that initial fear of being as loose and as—I don't know, for me anyway, I definitely read these spaces to sort of embarrass myself, and no one will see it, and then go to the page and sort of have a little bit more structure in place for that starting point. 

I think that that was one of the hardest parts about writing this book for me was, especially as a retired/recovering pastry chef, is I definitely got to a station in my career where I was not—in a kitchen, you try to sort of work within certain parameters of what you know you're good at, and that allows you a lot of freedom to sort of create things that you hope to put on the menu. But you never show that process to anybody. You show people the plate, the dessert, and then you have a conversation about what needs to be worked out or what needs to be amped up or whatever measure of that desert needs to change. You never show it to anybody until you're pretty confident about its success already. 

So starting a project as big as a book, and you have these editors—I had these two really wonderful editors on this book. And they kept urging me like, ‘Just show us the s**t, man, just bring it. Show us your worst.’ And I was like, ‘I can't. I don't know how to do that.’

So much of this writing of this book was about me trying to sort of relearn how to let go of my—think creative control habits that I've established. So, the notebooks help with that significantly. 

Alicia: Right.

No, I've interviewed, I think, a couple of pastry chefs, or former pastry chefs who are also—consider themselves writers that—I mean, are writers, but also self-identify as such, and so it does seem that there is a complementary thing there between pastry and writing. I don't know if you—

Lisa: It’s interesting. It's so funny, you find—for a long time, I didn't meet a lot pastry chefs because pastry chefs are, especially in the time I was coming up, there wasn't Instagram, there wasn't, it wasn't this, it—we were in a kitchen working by ourselves. [Laughs.] And that was pretty much the extent of our experiences. 

And then the world got a little more accessible, and smaller, and you could all of a sudden communicate with chefs in New York and San Francisco and L.A. And then you would find yourself getting invited to these events where you're amongst 20 pastry chefs, which was crazy. You guys would start talking about yourselves, and your work, and how you found yourself to pastry. 

And it was really funny. It sort of became a joke. It was like you were either a writer or a dancer, or you had been a writer or a dancer. And that was sort of like the two categories that pastry chefs fell into, was ‘I'm a recovering ballet dancer,’ or ‘I am an aspiring writer,’ like those were the two—or you're some combination of both, which is also that's my combination. That's Phyllis Grant’s combination. There are definitely people out there who are a strange combination of both. So, it's really interesting. It definitely pulls a certain personality towards it, that's for sure.

Alicia: Right, right, right. 

So, you have used baking sort of as a political tool. And so have many, very recently and in history. Why do you think baked goods specifically are such an effective tool for fostering these kinds of conversations, for fundraising, for protest? 

Lisa: Well, I mean, it's a fast track to your community, right? It's one of the friendliest, most accessible ways to, I think, get people involved who might not have the courage, or the tools, or the privilege to know how otherwise. It's a generous way of helping people meet the moment, meet the movement, meet the revolution. 

I mean, you can go back and talk about the significance of the hearth, and in the context of human culture, and how that's always been the center of communities. And I think there's something really significant in that regard. But I think the real—just the real clutch of it is that's, it's just a really easy way to reach people. You get access to people, you—and there's something comforting about baked goods, obviously, that I think speaks to the generosity of humans.

I just think there's some power, there's a lot of power in feeding someone. I think it helps you gain access to some people that might otherwise just sort of sit on their hands and be a little scared, or a little unsure of how to participate in these really important conversations. 

So, the people that I see turn up at bake sales are both definite street pounders who go out there and protest and are active in the most righteous, amazing ways. And then a lot of them though are women that have eight kids and are exhausted, and the best they can do is show up and buy some brownies and buy as many as possible so that they are hopefully making a bigger impact. 

And I see most days—it's so funny, this whole quarantine has been—I'm usually a pretty measured person, and I don't tend to extremes. I'm deeply pragmatic. And I'm deeply measured in ways sometimes that even frustrate me. I wish sometimes I could go back to resting on sort of my absolute radicalism. I've definitely matured and sometimes I'm even frustrated by that. 

But I recognize something in these moments when I, when—anytime I'm ever at one of these bake sales, and in a lot of—women in particular that want to engage. And, again, whether or not they have the time, or the ability, or the courage. It's a generous way to offer people a place to participate in something they seem to truly believe in. 

I try to keep focusing on those things, and I'll tell you, man, this year and this quarantine, and these moments, have made me a little bit more polarized. Some days I'll feel really hopeful and I'll focus on women and people like that, who keep showing up for every bake sale. And then some days it's harder, so it's interesting. It's interesting. 

I think that's the real catch of it is—it’s just a powerful and generous way of helping people be involved in something that they might not otherwise know how to. So, it's accessibility. It's real easy to encourage people to show up when there’s sugar and butter involved. [Laughs.]

Alicia: [Laughs.] Well, recently—and I'm sure that my taking note of this is—there’s—about my own preoccupations. But you tweeted about mezcal being a truth serum, and about food media. Which, food media: consistently disappointing. There is a new appointment of editor-in-chief of Bon Appétit. Hopefully, there is some newness being injected into the whole shebang. But do you think there is a way for food writing to kind of shed its very patriarchal white gaze, and get rid of—stop prioritizing the greatness of male chefs always over and over the—at the expense, really, of anyone else? 

Lisa: Yeah, I mean, kind of going back to what I was just saying about your much easier question about bake sales is—I was having a hard time even answering that question with any optimism. So this question is gonna be a real downer. There's our pre-apologies. 

I'm not in an incredibly optimistic phase of this year right now. What I want to say is look to Stephen Satterfield, look to Kat Kinsman, look to these new appointments being made. And I think right now I'm sort of—I'm really acutely focused on the system that those people are still up against. We haven't undone the system, and I guess I'm just feeling discouraged in this moment. 

Because this book has brought so many really beautiful opportunities, and really so many incredible—I mean, I don't like to dwell on the small people that can otherwise jank up a good opportunity, and good experience, and good platform to talk about the things that we need to talk about. But it also is an opportunity to talk about the things we need to talk about because so much of what I'm seeing. 

So, just to sort of be really clear, because I'm talking and I'm talking around it right now, because it's such a bummer to talk about. But look, do I think that we're ready to stop prioritizing the male ego and are we actually pulling ourselves out of the system the patriarchy and misogyny has built? No.

I'm really starting to sort of feel this deep sense of frustration about—I'm facing this whole situation in Nashville. And again, I want to emphasize that this is a really small, small minority of people in this town. 

But there's supposedly liberal women in my community, women who fancy themselves anti-racist in the world. And if you were to go on their Instagram pages, you would—you might not take much notice, because they have 12 followers and they're sort of shouting into an echo chamber. But they can't even deal with sort of their own accountability in this moment. And instead of actually trying to have some conversations that do the actual work of anti-racism and undoing internalized misogyny, that's not a thing that they even know how to address. 

So I'm feeling this sort of ultimate frustration, because I'm watching in real time that it's easier and more reflexive for people to protect a wounded white male chef ego in my own community. Someone who frankly I was incredibly generous with in my book, because my aim for this book wasn't to indict anyone, but to really deal with my own internalized misogyny. And instead they'd rather elevate his narrative, a white male narrative that's very egocentric and very based in his image in our community. 

And that's what they're conditioned to believe. Instead of hearing a woman's experience and believing a woman's experience—and in this case, my experience. I mean, sounds familiar, right? A woman tells a story, spends three years putting together a collection of her experiences, and their reflex is to call me a liar. Because it hurts his feelings, instead of trying to think about the bigger point and the bigger conversation of a white woman facing down the b******t that she's both dealt with and contributed to her whole adult life. 

And I don't know. Maybe it's an opportunity for them to do the same. Because that's the way through to actual anti-racist work, and cultural change, and shifting societal norms. And that's the real thing they have to deal with in order to do the work they say they think needs to happen.

But they won't. So instead, they'll go through the motions and look like the good white liberals. But the conversation has to be about how to dismantle the system that actually built these sexist and racist infrastructures that they're so incredibly mouthy about fighting on Instagram, right? I mean, they're kind of just a lesser degree of the white women who vote for whomever their MAGA-hat-wearing white husbands vote for to protect their station in life. 

And so I get fixated on sort of—yeah, we can keep replacing people. But there are people—and these people aren't in any kind of power. The ones I'm dealing with, the ones that are trying to sort of devalue the—my book in our community, because it hurt this one white male chef’s feelings, and literally calling me a liar in our community, which is one too far for me, which is why I'm a little riled up about it. 

Because you can not like the book. I don't give a f**k. You can disagree with the book. I don't give a f**k. But to go out there and sort of perpetuate this habit of calling women liars because they've shared their stories is such an insidious part of the systems that we're trying to undo right now. 

And so when you ask a question about—is the food media industry ready to make these changes? F**k, man, I can't even see it in my community right now. So, the whole industry? Beats me. I don't know. [Laughs.]

Some days, I feel way more hopeful. But today, I don't really see it. I don't know. 

Again, I want my answer to be like, ‘Look at all the people that are out there really doing the work.’ I think you're doing the work. I think Stephen Satterfield is doing the work. I think there are people out here who are doing the work that needs to be center stage. I think that we're still dealing with such really deeply problematic, structural, systemic problems in just who we are as a culture that no matter how successful this book becomes, for example, or how successful that Bon App might become, I just worry that we're always going to have this part of our culture that can't meet the conversation and and that's obvious with people who are so clearly opposed to what we're trying to do.

I'm not foolish enough to think the whole world's gonna get on board with this movement. But I think the real reason it worries me is that there are people out there masquerading as liberals who are trying to advance the conversation of anti-racism or anti-sexism, the moments that we're all out here trying to have conversations about, that are actually still actively contributing to them in real time. 

And so today I'm just not feeling incredibly generous about the s**t I'm seeing. So, sorry. [Laughs.]

Alicia: No, I mean, I rarely ever feel optimistic about the state of things. So—

Lisa: I mean, there's so much of me that really always tries to stay on the hopeful side. I really try to mine for hopefulness. And I do see the potential in this moment. I really do. I think there's so much b******t out there, and so many people masquerading as something that's actually going to make it so much harder for us, for the world, to get where they need to go with this conversation. So.

Alicia: No, for sure.

I mean, I didn't intend to talk about this, But I don't know how you felt about the Washington Post piece that Charlotte Druckman wrote about numerous memoirs and kind of naming—including yours, of course—and naming whiteness in it, but she got a lot of backlash to it because she is white. 

And I thought that that was kind of a fundamental misunderstanding of the conversations that we're supposed to be having right now where you can—there's certainly things to critique about any piece of writing, or any piece of work, but at the same time to say that a white woman who's benefited from her whiteness is not allowed at this moment to interrogate the whiteness of an industry? And it's like, well, who should be doing that work? Is that work we're supposed to be putting on the shoulders of Black women, of brown women, or is that— No, this is the work that we're supposed to be doing among ourselves, I thought. It was a very interesting reaction.

Lisa: It was an interesting reaction. I thought it was really interesting, on a couple of different counts, right. 

I think I benefited from knowing, as someone—excuse me—who she interviewed, knowing what her intentions were. And I thought that she tried to sort of reach a conversation that needed to be had. 

And I think the thing that I think was problematic for me—and this is the first time I've ever spoken about it, and I've actually—Charlotte's a pal, and I think I wish that I would have said this to her first. But I've been thinking about it over the last couple of weeks, because I've definitely had people come to me saying, ‘What the f**k did you think about that? What do you think about that?’

And I thought, ‘Well, I know what her intention was. I understand the conversation she was trying to have. And it is a valid conversation.’ I think the thing that keeps lingering for me is

more of a conversation about class and privilege. 

I'm not sure how we start having conversations about—or if we even should start having conversations simultaneously about class privilege, with race privilege. But I think there's some deeper vein of the conversation that she missed, and that was a little frustrating for me, who has been someone in the world who has literally fought and earned from a place of damn near almost poverty to sort of support a family and earn and be a working-class person who earned the right to be a creative-class person. There's a conversation there for me about the privilege of being a creative-class person. 

If there was a rub for me there, it was that that came from frankly a Manhattanite who has some class privilege in this world, who's—and I don't want to speak disparagingly about Charlotte and her experiences—but I think if there was a rub there for me, it was that there was not a lot of room for her to sort of address—I don't know. 

To be categorized in a way frankly, of—this was just something that got thrown to me because I happen to be a white woman, and that I didn't work for 30 years to earn it, was a little bit of a rub from a woman who's been a—who's been privileged enough to be a writer in Manhattan her whole life. [Laughs.] That to me was the rub. 

And I think I was less concerned about a white woman talking about white privilege from—I understand that argument. But I think the rub for me was sort of assuming that I just sort of materialized and got this book deal. And this was intentional. This was my hard work. This was my working for $8 an hour while raising two kids, four jobs at a time sometimes. And this was not an accident. This was my dedication to a goal. 

And so I think there's a conversation there about earning your right to be a member of the creative class, because the creative class is a very different space than the working-class space I have lived in my whole adult life. So, that to me felt like a little bit of a miss. And if I was rubbed by anything, it was that, you know?

Alicia: No, for sure. 

Yeah, I mean, there's just so much nuance that gets lost in these comments. We have to think of everything as intersectional. It's not just one thing ever. It's not just gender. It's not just race. Race, class, it's all these things at once. 

And, yeah, it's very difficult to have these conversations, because—especially when you're trying to have them in public, in a publication. Because, I mean, kind of as we were saying before, the culture is in one place, and we're all in another place, maybe. Especially if we're discussing kind of individual lives.

And, I mean, I don't know if you've had this experience at all. But I've had this experience where people are constantly putting me on lists of women of color, and—because I don’t know, my dad is a person of color. And so—but I'm not. And so it's this interesting—I don't—people always want to put everyone in a very tidy narrative, you know?

Lisa: Well, I will tell you, I have—I won't name names, and I won't name publications, but thrice times now in the last couple of weeks, I have been eagerly sought after by writers who wanted to talk about in particular the bake sale efforts and things like that. 

And it's mostly just funny and anecdotal more than anything, but they'll get on the phone with me and they will, within the first couple of minutes. say, ‘Well, you as a woman of color, duh-duh-duh-duh.’ And I'm like, ‘No, I'm not. I'm not a woman.’ They're like, ‘Oh, we were sort of thinking about your Mexican mother.’ And it's like, ‘No, I identify wholly as a white woman. I have been raised as a white woman. My experiences are that of a white woman in this world.’ And I can't tell you how fast they get off the phone with me. It's really funny.

But I've only had a little bit of that experience where I've seen sort of that hunger for them to tap the right people. So, just to kind of speak to what you were speaking to. But yeah, it's interesting.

Alicia: No, it is interesting. 

And I do feel like there are people who don't want to talk to me when they find out that I don't identify as a woman of color. And, even though—my work is one thing, and it's just—it's such a weird space to be in, because my experiences are of growing up with a brown dad and a white mom. And so, that, of course, influences how I perceive the world, and—but it really depends on who a person is, whether they—I mean, this is the whole b******t of the whole thing, I guess. It depends on a person's perspective, whether they see me as a woman of color or not, but I never know whether someone, what—how someone is seeing me. And so I never know whether I’m being regarded as a white woman, or if I'm being regarded as a women of color, of someone of ethnic ambiguity or whatever. Yeah, it's just an interesting thing to have to contend with. 

And yeah, I've been trying to just be super vocal about—now I have other people, kind of, when I'm put on a list by someone who has like a million Twitter followers saying I'm a woman of color. I start to have a mental breakdown about it, and other people deal with it for me, which is nice, but I don’t know, it’s just such a—

Lisa: Well, I think you're getting at sort of the complexities of how we are learning how to have nuanced conversations in this country. I don't think we're inherently gifted at it, I’ll tell you that. [Laughs.] I think we are failing in a mighty way at knowing how to have any sort of measured complexities in these conversations. I will say I think we have to keep trying. 

And if I can kind of go back to the Charlotte article, I think she was attempting at having one of those kinds of conversations. And I can see the ways in which people felt frustrated by that article; I can see the ways in which I might have felt frustrated by that article. I will be really honest, it was the first time I ever really sat and thought about class disparity as a creative person. 

I've always lived it. I've always known it. I've always been aware of it. But it really started getting me engaged in a more— think if I'm coming at this from any place, it's really interesting, the ways in which the—kind of going back to sort of what you were just saying—the kind of the ways in which the world will categorize you. 

I had a man. I can't even remember his name, but Jesus f*****g Christ, he was like a guy in New England. You could tell he had some conservative leanings. It was one of the things that I did because I was kind of tasked to do it, and he kept saying, what—you could tell what he really wanted to do was to call me an angry feminist. And he couldn't—he wouldn't do it, but he kept using the language to sort of suggest it.

And he kept saying, ‘Well, you're really definitely angry in this book.’ And I was like, ‘Well, I don't actually feel like I am angry in this book.’ Maybe explain to me what you mean. 

And he felt so threatened by I think so many of the things I was talking about, but what it really boiled down to was he ended up saying like, ‘I mean, what's wrong with capitalists trying to make money off of their money?’ And I realized—and then he showed his hand and said, ‘I mean, I own four restaurants. I own—’ He's a white guy who needs to—yeah, he's a white guy talking about all the sushi restaurants he owns in some New England place. 

And I'm like, ‘Well, yeah,’ I guess I said. And so then I had to have a conversation with him about, ‘Ok, I see why you would think I'm angry. I thought you meant—’ and I didn't say this to him. But I thought I was being categorized as an angry feminist, and what I was actually being categorized for him was an angry labor workers’ rights advocate.

So much of the conversations that I'm trying to have about the restaurant industry reside in labor rights, and taking care of your work—but taking care of the working class, and how this country has essentially built everything on the backs of exploiting the working class. And that ended up becoming our conversation. 

But it just was really interesting to me that he really wanted to sort of categorize me as this radicalized angry person because I had an opinion that spoke against his—the ways in which he's benefited from our really failed capitalist structure and system.

Yeah, it's just been interesting to me also to sort of see how the lack of nuance in the world for these deeper, more meaningful conversations about how we actually move forward and make the changes. And I guess that's partly why I brought up the little collection of women who are in Nashville that want to go around and call me a liar about this book is—am I angry about it? Yeah, I'm angry about it because calling someone a liar is again such a tool, such a trick. It's such a part of what has kept women down for so many generations.

But I think that sort of speaking again to this inability to think about the nuance of who we are as a culture, and who we are as a people, and who we are as a person in our community when we engage, and just these things that you think are somehow protecting what you've earned in your life. 

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I could talk circles around that all day. But that's, I think, for me right now, sort of the thing that's a real source of anger and frustration for me right now.

Alicia: Yeah, no,

We're way overdue for real conversations about class and media, and who's allowed to be a member of the media and the creative class, as you call it. It's very interesting. Because I grew up on Long Island and was—New York was right there, I feel like it was always so easy for me to be like, ‘All right, well, I'm just—my goal is to get there. Get back there, even though all my ancestors left this for the suburbs.’ So it was very easy to imagine that.

But then onceI got to my first magazine job, and I realized everyone went to Harvard and everyone—once you realize where all these people come from, and it's just such a shock, always. 

And it's such a conversation that's hidden because for most people in media, this is their milieu. Who they're around all the time. It's people who grew up in money, people who went to Ivy League schools, and so they never even think about it. 

So, I think that conversation is probably going to be a more difficult one to force than other conversations because it's going to knock down a lot of walls. 

Lisa: Yeah.

I mean, because it is the team everyone's trying to play on. [Laughs.] Everyone wants to be able to make a living the way that that level of creative class makes a living. And there is some real privilege and luxury to that.

And I don't know. Yeah, I just don't know how far we get unless we're willing to sort of address that a lot of this is major class disparity conversations. And, in that—I don't know which umbrella, which is the umbrella? Does the conversation of race fall under the umbrella of class? Or does the conversation of class fall under the umbrella of race? It starts to become a chicken and egg conversation for me. But I do know that you can't have one without the other. And if we—

Alicia: Everything has to be intersectional. 

Lisa: Exactly, so. And yeah.

You're gonna have so much editing to do, Alicia. [Laughs.]

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

Lisa: I think for me cooking was an act of survival. And at first it was an emotional, and then a financial act of survival. So yeah, I mean I think when you're a woman and a member of the lower income bracket, working class sector of a country and a system that's absolutely built for you to fail, every act is political. Or, it should be, especially if you're raising kids in that system. 

Food’s an opportunity to, I mean, be heard, or at least to be seen. And that's powerful. It’s powerful in a world that might otherwise prefer you stay passive, and silent, and invisible, and dumb. And so much of this country really wants that of us. They want us to stay passive, and dumb, and invisible. And how much you choose to use, whatever your tools are—and my tools were food—to amplify your voice is, it's up to you. I mean, I chose to write a f*****g book. [Laughs.]

I think food by nature—obviously, this is—that’s such a catchphrase in 2020. Food definitely gives you access to having political conversations. But for me, I think it came from a real space of survival. 

If you care anything about justice, you take your opportunities that you can to just say this—these were the times, these were the moments, these were the experiences where I am wholly aware that the system was built to make me fail. And you say it out loud as much as you possibly can.

And if you're lucky—

Alicia: Thank you so much. Yeah.

Lisa: And if you're lucky, you get a book deal and you get to write about it. [Laughs.]

Alicia: Well, thank you again.

Lisa: Thank you. It was fun talking to you. I'm sorry, I'm in a downtrodden—not my most hopeful self today. So hopefully, I didn't muck up or— [Laughs.]

Alicia: Not at all. Thank you.

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Listen now | We discussed intersectionality, performative liberalism, Catholicism, and why baking is naturally suited to political causes, among much more.

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Aaron Hutcherson, a freelance writer and the recipe writer behind the long-running blog The Hungry Hutch, once made me care about brunch long after I thought I was done with this much-maligned weekend meal. He’ll even have me, a fiercely meatless eater, reading about neck bones, and I’m grateful for what he taught me about Lawry’s seasoning. His writing is conversational but rigorous—what you might expect from someone who left a finance career for culinary school: He knows how to get down to business and when to prioritize joy. We talked about how he made that transition, what he thinks might change (or not) in food media, and more. Listen above—Substack fixed my podcast problem!—or read below.

Alicia: Hi, Aaron. Thanks so much for coming on.

Aaron: Hi, Alicia. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to chat.

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

Aaron: Sure. 

So I grew up in Chicago. So, being in the Midwest, that means there's lots of meat and potatoes. And also, a decent amount of Italian foods. So spaghetti was a regular occurrence. Lasagna, we had every so often sort of when my mother decided to go through the production of making lasagna. But then there's also meatloaf and pot roasts and roast chicken and things like that. 

But also, I am from an African American family. So we grew up with lots of soul food, like fried chicken and smothered pork chops and collard greens and macaroni and cheese, candied sweet potatoes. So those are also very regular occurrences.

Alicia: And what inspired you to get into food? Because I know it wasn't your first career.

Aaron: Yeah, so my first career was working in finance. And sort of shortly into that, like literally only four or five months after I started working, I decided that I needed a hobby. And I had always had an interest in food, because I love sort of the creativity. I love the way cooking could bring joy to those that I was able to feed. 

So I just started a blog as a hobby and something to do in my free time. This was back in 2009, so blogs were just sort of getting started. I was like, ‘Oh, I can do this.’ Keep in mind I had no idea what I was doing. But then just the passion and the interest just sort of grew from there, to the point where I went to culinary school and then I graduated and quit my job in finance all in the same week. And I haven't looked back in the eight years since.

Aaron: Did you work in restaurants after culinary school?

Aaron: Yes. 

So after culinary school, I took an internship at Food Arts magazine, which was more of an industry-focused restaurant publication. And I did that Monday through Friday, nine to five. But it was unpaid. So partly because I wanted to make some money, but also partly because going into food media, people had said it would be good to get actual restaurant experience, I started working at a place called Northern Spy Food Company in the East Village in New York on the weekends. So I was working seven days a week for about four months. And then after unsuccessfully trying to get an editorial assistant job elsewhere that paid, I ended up just staying on at the restaurant full-time for about a year total.

Alicia: Wow. 

And do you think that working in a restaurant has given you a very different perspective as a restaurant—as a food writer then people who haven't worked in the service industry?

Aaron: Definitely. I think it's one of those cases of sure, anyone in theory can write about food and restaurants. But having that firsthand knowledge makes you that much more adept at asking questions and sort of getting to—some of the nuances for when you're interviewing chefs and managers and servers and things like that.

Alicia: Right. 

So you started your blog in 2009. You didn't really expect it to turn into your career, but it kind of has, right? And so how have you kind of grown and maintained it over the years?

Aaron: Yeah, I had no clue what I was doing, why I was doing it, where it would go. But it was just one of those things that I slowly and steadily just kept chugging along at. 

I feel like there are lots of sort of better, quote, unquote, bloggers out there in terms of—they're constantly putting out content constantly, growing page views and all that stuff, which is great for them. But all the way up until I guess the pandemic happened, I've always had a full-time job. And the blog was always just my hobby, which transformed to an actual part-time job that I spend lots of time on now. 

But yeah, it's been quite a journey over the past almost 11 years now. After a few years of seeing people turn it into their careers, they’ve sort of given me that drive and pushed me to just grow and learn more and do better with my own blog.

Alicia: Right. And I feel you have a very specific style. I think so many people focus on different types of cuisine, but yours is just very you. So, how do you approach deciding what you're going to create in terms of recipes, and then also what is your developing process for recipes?

Aaron: So, in terms of what I want to create, is—a lot of it's just what I want to eat, what I think will taste good. Sort of who I am was like, ‘I went to culinary school, so I have sort of classic French techniques. I grew up in the Midwest, eating soul food.’ So, comfort food is sort of the base of a lot of what I like to do and cook and eat.

But also, living in New York City. There's a global sort of array of cuisines at my fingertips that I like to explore and experiment with every once in a while, and sort of incorporate the occasional ingredient or flavor profile I haven't necessarily grown up with—but I've tried and I'm intrigued and I'm trying to find ways to sort of incorporate that with what I am used to doing. 

In terms of developing recipes, it's sort of like a variety of ways. It could be I come across an ingredient that I’m not familiar with, and I just have a natural curiosity. There's something I don't know, then I want to know about it and try to learn how to use it.

With one of my recent recipes, rye chocolate chip cookies, this was the beginning of the pandemic. I couldn't find regular flour. I saw some rye flour. So I was like, ‘Let's see what I can do with this.’ And that's how sort of that recipe was born. 

But also there are times when I think of other dishes, and I see people out there that have all this equipment, or all this space, or all these fancy ingredients. And I try to keep my recipes simple and the preparation—strip out things that aren’t necessary to the finished result, or don't have as huge of an impact. Just, simplify things. Make dishes full of flavor and hopefully not too difficult to prepare.

Alicia: You mention finding rye flour instead of all-purpose to do cookies. How has the pandemic changed your cooking, in—generally, if at all?

Aaron: I think one way that it's changed my cooking is that I used to go to the farmer’s market at least once or twice a week and sort of walk through and pick up things. Just whatever was abundant and looked beautiful that I wanted to take home and cook it. But since the pandemic started, I’m making just fewer trips to the grocery store. I hadn't gone to the Greenmarket since March until last week. So it's just what I am able to get has changed, and also just the fact of shopping for a week versus a couple of days that changes what I purchase.

Alicia: Right. What have been some changes that you've made to your own general cooking to accommodate that?

Aaron: I've tried to make better use of pantry ingredients, so beans and rice and pasta. And then I also try to force myself to just cook from what I already have on hand. ‘Cause there's always times when it's like, ‘Oh, it would be really nice to make X, Y, and Z. That's what I want. Wanna go out and make—buy those ingredients and make this.’ When in reality, I have tons of other things at home that I should eat that I may not have wanted to but of like, ‘Ok, I'm gonna try to make something with what I have here.’

Alicia: Right, I think everyone is still doing a version of Chopped at home. I've been doing that too. I make a big order of local produce, and then I'll be like, ‘I'm not making another order until we use all of this.’ And so it ends up being kind of unhealthy, because then I eat all the greens and then there's no greens left and then it's just like, ‘Well, whatever. We're surviving on eggplant and yucca for the next week as our only vegetables, and it doesn't matter.’ I don't know. It's very interesting, the accommodations that we've had to make for the situation. But the show must go on.

Aaron: Yeah, in the beginning I had bought some canned vegetables for the first time in years, because—I don't know, I sort of over-prepare. [Laughs.]

But, they were—ended up just sitting there for the longest time. And I didn't use one of those, them until a couple weeks ago when I was just sort of like, ‘Ok, I have these here. I need to sort of get through some of the stuff that I have just to—yeah, not waste anything.’

Alicia: No, for sure. I mean, I think people have been talking about canned vegetables again in a way that no one has in a while. 

I remember, I interviewed Joe Yonan about Cool Beans at the start of the year when it came out. And he was like, ‘We never talk about anything else in a can except beans, maybe tomatoes.’ And I think now everyone is just so—is open again to the idea of like, ‘Well, maybe canned corn isn't so bad.’ 

Maybe I should eat green beans from a can, which actually I had—my ex-boyfriend, when I was a teenager, his family was really into canned green beans, and they had this really interesting metallic taste that I'll never forget. [Laughs.] Yeah, I don't actually want to eat those again. But it's good to know they're there. 

So, there's also been all these changes in food media during the pandemic. You know, the Bon Appétit situation, the Peter Meehan situation—we'll just call them situations—in terms of people leaving their jobs which, those of us in the industry, we've kind of been twiddling our thumbs waiting for it to happen. And then, Tammie Teclemariam made it happen. 

But, what do these changes look like to you? And what's your perspective on how this actually might change food media? I know you had been working at the Michelin Guide kind of before the pandemic. And so, from your perspective, what is the actual possibility of this moment?

Aaron: I think the possibility is very great for the actual change that many people have wanted, and talked about wanting, and said they’ve wanted for a while. Just in terms of new leadership that's more diverse and inclusive and representative of a country that we live in, and people that occupied and work in the food spaces.

But I'm a little pessimistic in that I guess the people who are still making those decisions to hire these new leads for teams, and editors-in-chiefs, and senior editors and such, they—I don't know if they are willing to go as far as we should be going at this point. 

I'm sort of thinking right now about the Bon Appétit situation in terms of—they are bringing in Marcus Samuelsson to sort of guest at it for, I don’t know, a couple months. Which is like, ‘Ok, that's great, but what's gonna happen after that? Why not hire one of the numerous people of color, very senior and experienced food editors that were qualified for the job and have them actually implement real change?’

It just seems like smoke and mirrors.Like, ‘Ooo, look at this shiny thing, Marcus, that we brought in. Just don't think that we actually haven't brought anyone full-time to do this for the foreseeable future.’

Alicia: Right, no, it seems like Condé Nast specifically thinks that it can get away with some shiny guest editors for a little while and hopefully pay them a nice rate for doing the work, but it's not a long-term solution. I think they're waiting for everyone to stop paying attention. And hiring these guest editors to kind of be a stopgap while they wait for everyone to turn their gaze away from the poor work they've been doing, and the ways in which they have marginalized their labor force and continue to do so clearly. 

Yeah, it's really interesting to watch how predictable the actions are on behalf of Condé Nast. It's like, ‘Wow, you really had the whole world watching, and you just, that's what you did. You didn't pay anyone enough money and they all quit. And now, what are you going to do?’ It's really interesting.

Aaron: Yeah.

And I'm very curious to see—they keep talking about, ‘Oh, we have some new talent that we're bringing into the Test Kitchen.’ I'm extremely curious. Who exactly agreed to do that?

Alicia: Right. But at the same time it's like can we fault whoever they are because it's a paycheck, you know? And we're in an industry that's falling apart. I don't know.

Aaron: True. Good point. [Laughs.]

Alicia: I really respect everyone who's come out and said, ‘Bon Appétit asked me to come and do this, and I said no because of X, Y, and Z.’ But at the same time whatever young hungry people they probably got to do that are people who needed not just the exposure, but probably the money. And yeah, it's just—it's such a difficult, awful situation. And it's all created by these suits at Condé Nast. 

But it's interesting, and I hope we see some changes. I think people have been paying attention more to independent stuff. Has your blog been more popular of late, because you—people are looking for other sources for recipes?

Aaron: So my blog, I think traffic doubled at the start of the pandemic, just because people were looking for more recipe content. And then it continued to grow after that, once all the murders and movements and such sort of continued to happen and sort of resurfaced a lot of the discussion around supporting black creators and things like that. 

So, I've gotten a lot of attention and—all this within the past couple of months. Which is great on the one hand, but it's also like, ‘I've literally been doing this for over 10 years.’

Alicia: Yeah, no, I've had this conversation. Yeah, with Stephen Satterfield from Whetstone, of just—it's an, a double-edged sword in terms of the attention these days that people are getting. But-

Aaron: Yeah.

But overall I welcome the attention. It’s like, ‘Sure, give me more page views and followers and likes.’ ’Cause in the end, having my own platform, those metrics help me get more money and help me survive.

Alicia: Right.

Aaron: Bring on that.

Alicia: [Laughs.] No, and I think it's so important too. We're seeing how significant it is to have one's own platform, something that follows you no matter what you're doing. What your blog has been for so long for 11 years, where no matter where you were working or who you were writing for, you always had your own platform for yourself. And that's proven, at this difficult time in the industry, to be absolutely critical. Yeah. 

And for you, is cooking a political act?

Aaron: Oh, I've been thinking about this question since you asked me to be on the podcast.

So, my answer is—the short answer is yes, with an asterisk. And I say that because food, to me, is obviously political. And it always has been. It's evolved in spice trades, to sort of shaping whole economies and civilizations, to sort of its impact on enslaving people to sort of take their agricultural knowledge and use them to grow and harvest crops, to even today with government subsidies, which dictates the value of certain foods and things like that. So, food is political. So I think sort of, by way of food being what is needed for cooking, cooking is also political. 

But I believe there's times when it's overtly political, in terms of selling box lunches for—to fund the civil rights movement, or sort of the Black Panther’s free breakfast program for kids. Or even today, like the Bakers Against Racism sort of fundraiser, and like feeding resistance with feel the people and things like that. So, those are sort of the explicit choices that people have made to make cooking political.

But I think that there are tons of people who participate in the system, but don't have any sort of agency to have impact. So, they might be cooking—sort of like capitalism, you participate in it because you have no other choice to do it. So I think people cook, and it is political, but they don't have any power to make impact. Or, sometimes they're sort of unknowingly having an impact. Like, ‘Oh, I bought this X, Y, and Z. But I don't know necessarily where it was grown, or who grew it, or whether those people were paid equitably and things like that.’

So, it is political. But I think, for people, sometimes we can choose to make it political. And sometimes we participate in cooking without control over our impact on society. 

Alicia: Right. 

Well, thank you so much, Aaron, for being here.

Aaron: Thanks for having me.

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There are few things more glamorous than having a house Champagne, and wine writer Julia Coney’s is a Lallier brut rosé. “I drink about a bottle of that a week,” she tells me, and in doing so, provides a point of inspiration. Her work itself, too, is inspiring. She’s written for publications such as Wine Enthusiast, Vinepair, Food + Wine, and more, does popular weekly “wine chats” on Instagram to introduce her followers to new bottles and regions, and has recently formed the platform Black Wine Professionals.We talked about how she got into wine, not being able to travel this year, and how she’s managing this new platform. Listen above, or read below.

Alicia: Hey, Julia. Thanks so much for coming on. Julia: Oh, thank you for having me.

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

Julia: So I grew up in Houston, Texas, and pretty much every weekend went to my mother's side of the family in Leesville, Louisiana, which is why I always say I grew up between Houston and Louisiana—they are both a part of me. But I grew up eating a lot of Gulf Coast seafood, which I absolutely love. I grew up eating crawfish. I grew up eating, you know, fresh vegetables and fresh meats because my grandmother kept, like, rabbits and hens and all that kind of stuff. So basically, just like to me a normal family meal was like, it was always greens on the table. It was always some type of seafood or protein, you know, meat protein, and it was just a lot of fun. My dad was the cook. My mother couldn't cook, so my father cooked.

Alicia: That's so you know, rare?

Julia: Yes, yes, but in the south a lot of men cook. I think a lot of men cook really well, actually, too.

Alicia: And you're based in DC now?

Julia: I'm based in D.C. and between D.C. and Houston a lot. So because of COVID I am here, otherwise I will usually go to Houston. This is the longest I haven't been to Houston since I moved to D.C. 15 years ago. I usually go to Houston probably every six, eight weeks, sometimes maybe a little longer, like every three months, but very often.

Alicia: And you were just telling me before we started recording that you're super busy right now, what are you working on?

Julia: Well, I am between writing assignments, helping people with panels—I'm moderating a panel next week; I’m on different panels. As you know, that happens, that people are doing those. I slowly am weaning myself, trying to take August off from not having any personal wine chats. I usually do a different wine chat most Mondays. And so I had one two days ago and I have one tomorrow, but it's not a wine chat. It's just talking with an author I really, really like. And I'm going to not actually do my own chats; I'm just going to be a participant in other people’s chats for August.

Alicia: Amazing. And how did you decide to enter the wine world, and specifically, how did you get so interested in French wines?

Julia: So, I will say this, I studied abroad in France. That was not the way I got into French wines. I got into French wine because an attorney—I used to be a legal assistant, and an attorney I worked with, he drank a lot of California Napa Cabs, but he also drink a lot of Bordeaux. And so he introduced me, actually, to food and wine pairings. He was a person that paired, like, Texas barbecue with all these amazing high-end wines, as we would call them. And he just really made me taste a lot of food and I'm a, you know, adventurous eater, but I just—I don't know, my family doesn't drink. So I didn't come from where wine was on the table. And he could really see I was really getting into it, and he would always encourage me every week, buy a different bottle of wine, have something different with it, just try to figure out what you like, try to work on it, and make it fun. And it wasn't too pretentious. And I wasn't working in wine; I was a legal assistant. So it just became really, really enjoyable. So for me, in my late 20s, I discovered wine. And that's when I really started traveling back to Europe to drink wine, as part of my vacations.

Alicia: How did you professionally get into wine? How did you make it your life?

Julia: Well, from the legal field, I moved to D.C. I was still a legal assistant, and in 2006, I started a beauty blog. I don't think people really know that. 

I did a beauty blog for ten years. And I could see I really enjoyed doing it. I really, really enjoyed writing. I mean, I actually have a degree in English. One of the things I kept going, Wow, I could eventually make this a job,like my job. And in 2010, I quit my legal job to write full-time. But I was writing about beauty. And so at the end of 2015, I had been having these things going back and forth that I didn't want to write about beauty anymore. I actually wanted to move into food and wine, because I was finding more enjoyment with that. I still like beauty; I think it’s great, but something was calling me about food and wine, but food wasn't calling me to be a food writer. I could say I wanted to be travel writer more, but the wine was calling me, because also I was when I started realizing and googling, I didn't find many Black wine writers. I knew about Dorothy Gaitor from the Wall Street Journal. I knew about Melody Fuller. I knew about a handful of people, but I just—I knew a couple of bloggers that I met because I googled them. But I didn't see anybody who was making a career out of it. So I just took the leap of faith in 2016 to write full time about wine.

Alicia: People, you know, might be hopeful writers or people interested in how people's careers start. How did you make that happen? Like, how did you get your first assignment in wine?

Julia: Well, you know, like it says everything: you pitch until you get a rejection, right? And I also kept my own blog. I am a person that believes, I think people should own something of their own, so they can also write about whatever they decide without that. 

And I was still, as having a career in legal, I was still doing freelance stuff,; I was picking up other jobs; you have to do that to really where even it keeps going. But even now, I work at a wine store part-time. It helps with being able to taste a lot of wines. That's the way I was able to really taste a lot of wines is because working at a store, you know, before COVID, people brought so many wines to the store for you to taste to see if you want to put them on the shelf and we taste as a team. We didn't, you know, it wasn't like there's a buyer and they taste–no, we all taste, everybody tastes, because the story is very small. And they allow me to have this crazy travel schedule. So it started because I was just pitching and just knowing the publications like, okay, what's the front of that magazine, and learning those terms, because if you don't work in magazines, you have to figure out how they are laid out. But I read a lot of magazines, and I still read a lot of magazines, so I knew what part that I can get an entry to, and also, just keeping the blog helped me keep my creativity going, because I was always writing content.

Alicia: And so you recently formed the platform Black Wine Professionals. What inspired you to do that and what are your hopes for it?

Julia: Well, after I will did this Instagram Live talking about the racism in the wine industry, which a lot of people don't realize, I have been talking about this nonstop for two years, literally two and a half years, have just been really, really talking about this and writing about and speaking about it. 

I remember being on a media trip and one of the PR ladies, she said, “Well, Julia, I'm being honest, I just don't know how to find many Black wine professionals because I just don't know them.” And I remember that just kind of sparked my mind. I was like, Okay, I get what you're saying is she was like, I don't know a lot of media, especially Black wine people in media, like we're talking bloggers and podcasters that kind of thing. 

And so that had been in my head, but it took that Live and people going, Wow, we didn't know so many Black people in wine. You know, I made this little quick little Canva like photo of like, hey, please don't tell me you don't know anybody Black in wine, because here are some Black wine professionals. After that, I just couldn't sleep. So I just started to say, if I create a list and this database, and I personally visit every single person on that list, not an influencer—because I always tell people, I am making a very big distinction between an influencer and a professional, some people were a little upset about that. But I have to make that distinction, because these are the people who are honing this as a craft; these are these people's livelihoods. But then how do I get people to recognize them for projects, for wine classes to lead, and actually get paid to do that? That's why I created it. So if someone needs a somm, if they need a wine educator, if they want to talk to a wine buyer, if they want to talk to a salesperson, if they need other voices in media, here's a list of people that we have in it to say, hey, and we're going to slowly keep adding people, but we have a process. If you haven't had the experience, you have to have a certain level of certification, because that also means you have skin in the game. It's not for people who are entering the industry, and I'm working on something for people who are trying to get into the industry, but this platform isn't that.

Alicia: And how did you differentiate between influencers and professionals, because I think this is a big conversation in food, travel, beverage media?

Julia: Well, I look at if you make a certain income of your living as a wine professional, but also I went through—and it took a long time. I mean, I took a lot of hours. I went to a lot of people’s social media, not just the pictures. I went through their videos; I listened to their language. Wine is very factual. There's an emotional part of it, but the wine is factual. And if I listened to someone who couldn't explain tannin, what they're trying to—they're calling themselves an educator, and they couldn't explain it. They're not on the list. Because you're not a wine professional. That is a simple factual thing. There's a reason there's a tannin. It's one of those things you cannot see. And if there's—if you don't have that basic wine knowledge, then how can you teach someone else? And so I know there are people who are on social and they're win professionals and they have influence, but to me, I think an influencer is someone separate.

Alicia: It was interesting. I watched that Instagram Live of yours and it brought to mind so many media events that were just, you know, just I mean, yeah, you know—you know from me just saying that. I mean, I remember going to a dinner for Uncle Nearest Whiskey, and I don't know if you've heard of that brand, but—

Julia: Oh, yeah, we sell it at our store.

Alicia: Yeah, right. But you know, everyone there was white and I went home and I was like, what what was that and I you know, I emailed my friends and was like, Hey, did you get invited to this? No, okay. So how are these—the decision-making among the publicists who are organizing things is just, it's really beyond my comprehension because people who do this work are not hiding, you know? Like, by the nature of this work, everyone is out there. And so that, you know, you've had to take this time to form this platform, which is going to be great and is going to hopefully be, you know, game-changing for the wine industry and for wine media, you know, that's, you know, you shouldn't have had to take on that labor. I don't know how you feel about that. 

Julia: Here's the thing. I shouldn't have. I mean, right. But I'm glad I did, though, right? At this point, I'm just glad I did. Because now I could actually, you know, talk to publicists and go, Hey, who do you need that actually fits, right? And we can work together that way. They're not googling someone who you know, they may want somebody who, you know, could actually talk about the wine for some, you know, a class or an event, a live whatever. Now, we could actually work together. And that's why I created it and that's why I'm glad I had the time, because I will say this and I hate it. I always hate to say this, is it took COVID and a person getting murdered in the streets for actually me to have time to sit down and create this, because otherwise I would be on the road. 

Alicia: Absolutely. And that's one of my questions for you actually, is are you finding that inability to travel right now challenging, you know, how has it changed your work in your life?

Julia: So, I'm—honestly, the first month was rough, right, when I realized, I'm not going to Champagne. And I just did one of these really big cries. I grieved that, that is not happening, probably won't happen this year for me. And when I let that go, I was okay. I was like, Okay, I'm creating community with these wine chats. I'm bringing these great people who some people have never heard of, they've never known about this wine. We're just coming on and having a great chat. So I'm bringing a new set of eyeballs to these wines, into this region. And I just embrace the new way of traveling, which is in a wine glass. That's just the way it is.

Alicia: And have you been trying anything new and interesting? What have you been drinking lately? And how are you deciding what to focus on in your chats?

Julia: Well, a lot of people know me because I love bubbles. I love sparkling wine. So I love sparkling wine and I'm one of those people—I like all wines, and a lot of people think I only drink, when I say sparkling, Champagne. I, you know, am working on a Champagne certification because Champagne is usually the way a lot of people set the way they make sparkling wine. But I am able to find wines because I have, you know, work in a store, people email me, or I'm just reading other publications. Also, I find out about a lot of different wines from the UK wine newsletters; I subscribe to those. I'm just a naturally curious person, so I'm always trying to figure that part out.

So right now I am drinking—is that what you’re asking me? What am I drinking? Alicia: Oh, yeah, yeah.

Julia: I'm drinking a lot of Chenin Blanc and Sauvignon Blanc from California, which is surprisingly one of the just—I just like drinking it. I really enjoy it. I'm also definitely drinking some pet-nats, sparkling, to just see how people are making them. I don't want to say that they are natural pet-nats; I don't use the term natural. I just know they're very well-made, from a very good soil, from a very good family. And also, I do drink, one of my favorite Champagnes is called—quote unquote my house Champagne—is Lallier Brut Rosé. I drink usually about a bottle a week.

Alicia: And you mentioned the natural thing. I mean, that's a huge topic in the wine world right now and it's being covered usually quite terribly, it seems, in the mainstream media. It's always just like, what is natural wine? So yeah, how did you come to not use the term natural wine? And how do you make these kinds of differentiations between things that might be, you know, low-intervention versus higher-intervention wines?

Julia: Okay, so you know how like in the food world we always say everything now is about the soil, or the soil and where it comes from and where it's grown, right? I drink wines based on that. That's how that winemaking family, company, makes wine. They don't put a label on it. They just make wines with minimal intervention, but they don't even call it natural. They just make wine that actually appreciates the land and they don't want to ruin the land. And that's what I drink; I don't think it needs to have the natural label or organic label. You have a lot of people—they don't want to pay for that organic term, and that's okay if they don't want to. They don't have to. But I think it's my job as a wine professional to say there are people who make natural wines that don't use that word. There's a lot of people in Italy, in France, and Europe in general who have been making a lot of natural wines. They just never say it. If you drink Georgian wines from Georgia, the country, they have been making natural wines for 8,000 years. They just don't have to say it. 

Alicia: And so why do you think that's become kind of a buzzword?

Julia: I think it started with a lot of somms. I think it's somms getting geeky and then you had a lot of people talking about it’s healthier for you. It's the same thing as this whole “clean wine” concept. That kind of like—that's just the way the world works, and I understand that. And I think it just took off with, like, social media. “No, it’s natural,” and you know, I've gone to natural wine festivals and some of that stuff is horrible. Some of it is not good. And people were using it like “Oh, is it like—” No, this is not good. This is not done. This is gross. And they're using the term “natural” and I’m like “hmmm.” If I wanted kombucha, I’d just drink kombucha for $3. I'm just going to drink kombucha.

Alicia: Because I know exactly what you mean by wines that taste like kombucha. For, you know, for people who might not understand these distinctions on a visceral level of like, you know, the not-doneness of a wine, can you describe what you taste in a wine that is done versus a wine that is not done?

Julia: Well, one, you know, sometimes there's a bubbling on the tongue, almost like if you put baking soda or peroxide on your tongue. That's not what I want in a wine. I want, when I taste the wine, I want to be able to experience all these great flavors, right? If it's going to be lemon, if it's going to be, you know, honeysuckle, or pineapple, I want to experience that. I don't want to drink a wine, to me, and then the whole thing is just like this very tart—and I really say kombucha-esque, because, you know, the whole thing with like, a lot of natural wines, it's like we don't filter wines and everything and natural sediment and that's perfectly fine, you know, if that's your thing, but at the end of day, whether or not they filter that, I just need to know that the fermentation that actually should have probably been longer, should have had more time in the bottle, and actually just is a well-made wine, that everything is in balance, that the acid, the alcohol, and the flavors, and some of these ones that they're missing the flavor, but the alcohol and the acid might be there. So for me, I don't mind, you know, if it's supposed to be a carbonic maceration with a little bubble, your frizzante like in a pet-nat, that's perfectly fine. But if it's supposed to be a still wine and I'm still getting that, that is to me something that's not done. Abd that’s the beauty of wine, right?

Alicia: I worked at a wine bar and we would refer to that as kind of effervescence, that would be the euphemistic way of describing that. Julia: Okay.Alicia: But I you know, that and it depends on whether you like that or not, but no, at the same time, it is super interesting  how people are describing all these wines and how people are creating distinctions when they're really, you know, as you say, you know, wine is wine and whether it's good or not, and whether you like it or not, or those are the those are the judgment points. You've written a lot about the $1.2 trillion buying power of Black Americans and how the wine world has ignored that—have you noticed any changes in that or are you hopeful that there are changes in that in terms of how the wine world is marketing to and and being welcoming to Black Americans?

Julia: Well, I first want to say Nneka Okono wrote that story initially about the trillion dollars. I did want to clarify that, and so I was quoted in that and I speak on that a lot because I feel like the wine industry, the color they're missing is green. And I say this all the time: The color is green, and in their marketing, the way everyone markets now. We're in a social media marketing culture. It is not going anywhere, as much as sometimes the wine world is behind the spirits world in that. And they're missing the money on who they think is a wine drinker. It is the same reason why you shouldn't market a wine to, Oh, this is for women because it's soft and pretty. It can be pretty but are you—why are you marking it to just women? Because men like rosé. That's the perfect example. Rosé. Usually the marketing for rosé is always women; it's never mean. Why is that? And so with that, with race it’s almost when I see your social media, you have all these beautiful vineyard photos and vineyard shots. Why are there no people of color? Why are no Black and brown people in the marketing? We all know that Black and brown labor—primarily brown labor is the reason we have wine. That's why it seems like people are voting with their dollars. And people are listening to a lot of these brands who are taking initiatives and I've talked with them, and I also tell them, as I tell myself, I have to allow everyone to have grace that this change takes time. This is not an overnight change, some things can be fast. We still live in COVID. So you can't shoot new photos for your vineyard, right? That's, you know, we have to look at that. You can’t hire all these people to be so close to each other to take a photo shoot. So understanding also, that's going to take time. But if you decide to use stock photo images on your social, you can go look for Black people drinking wine; those stock photos exist. It's not that hard.

So yes, that’s in a nutshell. I have patience. I am waiting on people. I think, in the grand scheme of things, you're going to always have people who want to be on the right side of history and you're always going to have people who don't care, and that's going to be it. I'm just going to concern myself with the people who are going to be on the right side of history.

Alicia: For you, is cooking—or, perhaps more appropriately, drinking wine—a political act?

Julia: Well, here's the funny thing: I drink wine and cook, and I cook and drink wine. And that's one of the—here's my thing, though, too, that the food world and wine world are very separate, and I don't really know people who don't drink wine with food—they've seemed very separate. But, to me, I do think, as you know, I know you had on your newsletter, the comment, “has the term ‘food is political’ been overused?” “Has ‘wine is political’ been overused?” We can say that, right. But I do think they're political, in a way, right? I can drink a wine and think, Who made it? How are they treating their workers? How, you know, do the staff that actually work for this winery feel? I can be okay with that and say it’s kind of political and do that part, but that’s me.

I think for me food and wine are political, so yes wine is political. It’s political in a way. Recently there has been who or who gave donations to the Dunk campaign—because I don't like to say his name—but I also have friends who work there who are very nice people who don't believe in that either and so it's very multi-layered and it's hard. So yeah, wine is political. It really is. It is voting with my dollar. It’s political. It’s political.

Alicia: Well, thank you so much, Julia, for coming on and chatting.

Julia: Oh, no, thank you for having me. Thank you. So feel free to reach out anytime and oh, man, your work and your newsletter is my cup of coffee on Mondays. Is it coming in? It’s in my inbox. Looking forward, it just makes me happy because you make me think about things I wouldn't think about.

Alicia: Ah, I'm so happy to hear that. And same for your work. Your work is so indispensable. 

Julia: And I'm really, really, I'm like, how do you do it? How do you do a newsletter every week? I'm just I don't know how you do it. I'm grateful to be a subscriber. Every week, goodness gracious, and all the writing you do like, which is amazing, and the cooking and I'm like, How is she? Okay.

Alicia: I'm always worried I'm not gonna have anything to say. But somehow I always end up with something. All right, great. Well, thank you so much again.

Julia: Thank you.

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 could have talked to Devita Davison, executive director of FoodLab Detroit, all day. Technological difficulties, though, thwarted that plan, and we talked for just under an hour. I think we still had a good discussion, though, on everything from her upbringing as a first-generation Detroiter with roots in Alabama, experience in magazine publishing in New York City, starting her first business, the devastation of Hurricane Sandy, and, most of all, about the uniqueness of the city of Detroit. Whether you listen to this chat or watch her short but information-packed TED Talk on urban agriculture in the city, you hear the love and passion in her voice for her hometown. She told me about how its history of labor and racial justice activism, focus on art and architecture, and more have all come together to make it fertile ground for food justice; she told me about how false narratives form to capitalize on the work of Black people. But it’s better to hear her tell it. Listen above, or read below.

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

Devita: Hey, Alicia, thanks so much for inviting me. I'm really looking forward to this conversation. I've been looking forward to this conversation for a while. So this is the highlight probably of my month—maybe of the whole damn pandemic.

Alicia: No, no, I'm super excited to have you on because I've been following your work but I've only been following it online. So I can only have, you know, one level of understanding, I think, of what it is you do. And I know that it goes much deeper than what one can see from Twitter, from videos, and from, you know, articles and that sort of thing. So yeah, let's get to it.

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

Devita: Sure. So, that is a layered question. And the reason why I say that is because I identify as a first-generation Detroiter. So it's very simple in terms of where I was born. I was born in the city of Detroit, and I identify as a first-generation Detroiter, but it gets complicated after that. Not really complicated—just because it layers and the reason why it is layered is because I'm a first-generation Detroiter, and what that means is is that I am the first person in my family that was born in the city of Detroit.

Both my mother and father are southerners. They are from the rural south. They are from Alabama. So were my grandparents, my great-grandparents and their parents. So not only am I a first-generation Detroiter, but I'm also a descendant of the enslaved, and I also identify as a daughter of the Great Migration. My mother and father migrated, fleeing the Jim Crow South and racial terror in Alabama in 1963. They fled Alabama and they moved to Detroit, Michigan, looking, of course, for a better way of life, opportunities, much like 7 million other African-Americans who made the migration from the south to the north. Opportunities for their unborn children. I was the firstborn, I also have a younger brother as well. And so it was really important for me to kind of lay down that context; it is so important because it influences your next question, which is what did I grow up eating. And so, even though my parents left Alabama, the place, and made good lives in Detroit, Abbott, the segregation and redlining and violence they received when they came to the north, they did make a way for themselves to provide opportunities that were better for themselves and better for their children.

So even though they did leave Alabama the place, they never left Alabama, the idea, that altogether. And what I mean by that is that, you know, I didn't spend my summers at camps. I spent my summers as a girl growing up at my grandparents’ house going back down to Alabama. As a matter of fact, when my father used to drive myself and my brother every year when school would let out around Memorial Day, the end of May, early June, and then him and my mother would come and pick my brother and I back up in September, my mother and father would always say, “it's time to go home,” right, every summer. And so we knew when going home meant going home, it was time to go to our grandparents’ house in Alabama every summer. And so that kind of reconnecting with culture really influenced what I ate. So growing up as a child in the summer I can distinctly remember trips that my mother and father took driving me and my brother to Alabama and what we ate. We ate shoebox lunches, right, and in those shoebox lunches were things like fried chicken, potato salad, and coleslaw. And of course something that was a southern dessert that my mother would make—it would vary: coconut cake, sweet-potato pie, pecan pie. I remember those lunches over those ten-top rest stops as a child growing up in the city of Detroit when my father and mother migrated. They also brought the agricultural skills and love of being able to cultivate the land, so my mother always had a small garden in our backyard, and what that meant is fresh greens, you name it, collards, turnips, mustards, mixed greens, black-eyed peas—mommy grew. Corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, homemade ice cream, watermelon and honeydew.

We didn't call it farm-to-table when I was growing up as a child, Alicia, we called it eating, and that just has has always been with me and has influenced the way that I still eat today.

Alicia: How did you become involved in the food world in a in a professional way?

Devita: So I became involved in the food world in a professional way through my work with Hearst magazines. I worked in a department that was called branding and licensing. And Hearst is a magazine publisher with titles like House Beautiful, Veranda, Seventeen, Cosmo, Country Living, Oprah, Esquire, etc. And you think to yourself, like, how in the world are you going to make the connections? What is the connective tissue between a magazine and the food world? Well, and I'm dating myself, so I'm 51 years old, and if folks can imagine this, like back in the day when I worked in publishing and when I worked from Hearst, there was no kind of social media presence. Magazines weren't online like they are now. We were still buying and subscribing to magazines and the earned revenue strategy for Hearst was the earned revenue strategy of many publications or publishers of magazines, right, it was either through a subscription base or through advertising in the magazine. Hearst had added an additional revenue stream, and that additional revenue stream is where I come in. They started a department that was called branding and licensing, and that is they would take their hundred or so magazine titles, and they would attach the name of their magazine or the title of their magazine onto a consumer product of good. I had what was called the shelter category. To give you an example of some kind of consumer products that I created with large manufacturers would be something like Country Living pie in a jar, Good Housekeeping salad dressing, Esquire barbecue sauce. I can't even believe I'm telling you this, because—but you know, I gotta tell you so yes. And my job was to create licensing deals, and using and leveraging Hearst magazine titles and working with the editors and the writers; they would write what was called advertorials, right, using the products that we created with these large manufacturers. And it was a model until it wasn't, and when I say until it wasn't, there was a time in which, you know, again, the internet and digital became very prolific, where magazines started to move all their content online and to think about what digital strategies will look like. Advertising on the internet became big, and so Hearst made a decision that after about five or six years of working in branding and licensing, they shut the department down and decided to start moving all their content online. And I took a buyout. When Hearst decided to do that and shut down our entire department, with the money that I got from the buyout, I opened up a small store in Brooklyn. And the reason why I opened up this small store in Brooklyn not only was an homage to my family—it was called The Southern Pantry—but it was also because there were so many of my friends, Alicia, who lived in Brooklyn. I lived in Queens at the time, but there were so many of my friends who lived in Brooklyn, who, to be honest, were laid off from either like Wall Street or finance or they either worked in theater—they were super-creative people, and one of the things that they started to do was they actually started to make like these “Made in Brooklyn,” locally sourced products, right? And so it was like, I mean, it was so ridiculous. Like I'm talking late 1990s, early 2000—folks were like raising chickens on top of frickin’ rooftops, chickens were laying eggs and they were making limited-edition, handmade, crafted artisanal mayonnaise. I'm talking like, you know, growing Meyer lemons—it was like this whole made in Brooklyn phenomenon that was taking place. And so I wasn't making anything, but I opened up a store, that small hyperlocal kind of store. It actually sold the products that my friends created. So that's how it all started.

Alicia: And then when did you go back to Detroit?

Devita: I lived in New York for almost 20 years. I worked for only two companies while I lived in New York. I worked for Ralph Lauren for about nine years, worked for Hearst for about five, six years, and had my own business for about three or four years. And so I lived all over New York City. I stayed in Manhattan, stayed in Brooklyn, and stayed in Queens. But then I got married and I bought a home in Long Island, small little cute maritime community in Nassau County that was called Freeport—South Freeport, because it was south of the Sunrise Highway, and then a superstorm came. And that storm was Hurricane Sandy. And it took me out, and what I mean by that is the storm hit my community really, really hard. It destroyed my home, nine feet of water came to that house and destroyed it. As a result, not only was I rendered homeless, because I had no house anymore, and not my store that was located in Brooklyn, but the warehouse that I stored all of my product in was in Red Hook, Brooklyn. And that warehouse was destroyed as well, along with all the products inside of it, right. So it wasn't like I could call a mainline distributor and be like, “Oh, I need more ketchup. I need more eggs. I need more…” like, everything's gone. And so, yeah, I went back to Detroit. And as a result of that hurricane, I permanently moved back to Detroit in 2013. And I have been here now for about seven years.

Alicia: Wow. I had no idea you lived on Long Island. Devita: You're you're a long Islander. Alicia: Yeah, I'm from out in Suffolk County. I was born in Huntington and grew up in Patchogue.

Devita: So you so you can understand my short answer, like, yeah, I lived in Long Island.

Alicia: But Hurricane Sandy, I don't think we we hear often enough about how powerful and life-changing that storm was for so many people. I think because it didn't hit, you know—Manhattan was largely spared. And so at that time, I was working at New York Magazine, and I remember the way people were regarding it coming in, and the way people regarded it after it happened was so nonchalant. And it really brought a lot of class differences to the fore for me, in terms of how—in terms of how the media was perceiving people who lived in communities that were so hard hit, but it seemed like oh, because Manhattan was fine, it's not it's not actually a big deal. It was a very—it was just very strange. I remember not having power for you know—I got through it, but not having power for four days and waiting on long gas lines. Like that was it for me, because I was living on the north shore at the time, which wasn't as hard hit, but it was catastrophic. Devita: Absolutely. Yeah, it definitely was. So yeah, but you know, I've gotta tell you, my life in the way that it is now never would have happened, Alicia, if I'm quite honest, if I had not moved back to Detroit as a result of Hurricane Sandy. You know, listen, I am again, born and raised in the city of Detroit and Detroit was going through what many people classify as a renaissance, right. There was a lot of investment that was happening in the city. Things were happening in downtown or the 7.2 square miles, the greater downtown area, and so many people—my mother and father included—said Devita, “There are so many great things happening in Detroit. All eyes are on the city of Detroit right now. When are you going to come back home and contribute and be a part of this, this kind of like new Renaissance or dare I use the word revitalization that's happening in the city of Detroit?” And Alicia, if I'm super honest with you, like I never thought about when I was coming back home to the city of Detroit, maybe like, yeah, sure—like, I don't know, like, I never really thought about it.

But when folks would ask me that, my question was not an answer to when I was coming back to Detroit. My question was always, “Why would I ever leave New York City?” Like why? It’s the place that I've always wanted to live my entire life. And, you know, I lived there for almost 20 years. Me my husband there got married there, got divorced there. I mean, good times and bad times. But you know, it’s New York City. I mean, and, you know, say what you want to say, Well, I guess if I could take a line from, you know, Carrie Bradshaw from Sex in the City, nobody talks s**t about my boyfriend, right? And it was just kind of like, yeah, you know, it was good days and some bad days. But at the end of it all, it's the place where I always wanted to live. And to be super honest, I have a little niece, um, her name is Aaliyah, she's four years old, and yeah, I want her to live in New York, too. It's just I don't know.

Alicia: And it's fascinating that you went back to Detroit during this time, even a bit reluctantly, perhaps. But when I interviewed chef Omar Tate, I asked him if he had seen places that were reckoning with the inequities built into the restaurant system and he said, you know, a million places in Detroit and he named FoodLab, you know, as chief among them. But it made so much sense to me when he said that He's like, you know, Detroit, of course. And so why do you think Detroit has been such a fertile ground for food justice?

Devita: Yeah, that was nice to him to say. Oh, gosh, you know, that. You know when I think about the word, food justice, one of the things that the elders in Detroit tell those of us who are kind of like in this movement: There can't be food justice, without social justice, and how important we have to think about our work, kind of intersectionally. And so you know, why Detroit, right? Why is Detroit such fertile ground? To be honest, Alicia, I think because, yes, it is because Detroit is a place that when 6 million African-Americans migrated from the south to the north, Detroit was the place that many Black folks along with Chicago, or along with Indiana, or Cleveland or other places in the north, or Black folks landed, you know, Harlem, Philly, you know, you name it. Right. And Omar is is is from Philly. So I can't just say it is because Detroit had a large population of Black folks from the rural south, right? I mean, that's “yes, and” right. I think that there are other things that make Detroit super unique where the food justice movement was able to leverage and build upon, and I think one of the things that for me I always harken back to in Detroit's history is how there is this history in Detroit that is really rooted in labor activism. And the reason why I say that is because Detroit is literally the city that put the world on wheels. We are known as the Motor City. And so it was labor activism and our long history of organizing around labor. I think that when you look at Victor and Roy and Walter, these are the three brothers. They are the three Reuther brothers, Walter Reuther, Roy Reuther, Victor Reuther, right. These are the men and the organizers of the UAW. And they organized around harsh working conditions in the auto industry, in this the roosters, who champion kind of like this industrial democracy, and they created the UAW right back in 1935. And then, through that organizing work, like people began to see Detroit as a fertile ground for activism. And what happened? Union leaders end up joining Martin Luther King Jr, who brought the fight for civil rights for African-Americans—he brought it to the city of Detroit. Before Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous speech, that I Have a Dream speech in Washington, he tried it out first in the city of Detroit, right. And so there's this long history, the first strike against a fast food restaurant, Burger King, happened at a Greyhound bus station, Burger King was located in the city of Detroit. And so Detroit has this long history of organizing. And it is that same kind of principle around activism that I think influences movement building and organizing in the city of Detroit. But that's not even enough, Alicia; I think there's layers on that too, right. I think also what’s so important about the city of Detroit that people may not really know when they think about the city of Detroit. So when you think about Detroit, again, I mentioned that you think of cars, some people even think of like Motown, right? But it’s rare to think about art. And the truth of the matter is, is the city’s grit, has long been fertile ground for artists. And so you know, I can remember harking back to a gentleman by the name of Dudley Randall, right, the founder of Broadside Press, right. He was a poet, but he was also a pioneer of being a publisher for Black artists, so it was Dudley Randall and his publishing company Broadside Press that brought the world the leading voices in the Black Arts Movement, folks like Gwendolyn Brooks, Sonia Sanchez, Audre Lorde, Etheridge Knight, Nikki Giovanni, like so Detroit has its like—it gives me goosebumps when I think about the history of my city, and how we leverage our work. And the reason why I bring up labor, the reason why I bring up art, is that that all has influenced, Alicia, how we think about food, right? And how we think about food justice for movement building in the city of Detroit—all of that is influenced by Detroit's history around labor, and art, and music and activism.

Alicia: I love that. I love that because I think what I've been hoping to do with this newsletter is show how much all these things are connected—labor, race, you know, farming, art, literature—all these things aren't as disparate as we've been trained to think of them as, and I love that Detroit really brings it all together.

Devita: Listen, you know, and I'm sure we were going to get into this but you know, one of the things that is so important, and why for me, it so important right for us to know and understand our history, is so that we can push back against false narratives and why that's so important, right? And so, you know, when I hear people say, call Detroit, oh my God, like, a food desert? Of course we immediately correct them and say no, Detroit is not a food desert, you know, the citizens of Detroit are living under food apartheid. A food desert—no, you know, that is a negative framework. And more importantly, we have over 1,600 farms and gardens in Detroit, so we know how to grow s**t in the city of Detroit. So let's be clear: We're not a desert.

But another thing about the city of Detroit, even when you talk about the citizens living under a food apartheid, it's just kind of like the things that were done to Detroit. Like, let's be very clear, was like super intentional. Like, these are neighborhoods that were intentionally created in the city of Detroit and the reason why I mentioned that is because when I talk about the history of the city of Detroit and why art, why design is so influential is that Detroit had a neighborhood that was called the Black Bottom neighborhood. And that's where a lot of African-Americans were kind of marginalized when folks made that migration from the south to north. And it wasn't only in Detroit, but Black folks were regulated to certain communities or certain neighborhoods, because God forbid, you know, white folks have us living next to them. And so we were relegated to certain communities or neighborhoods, and in Detroit, where a large majority of Black folks live was called Black Bottom. But do you understand in the 1950s, as a result of a federal policy that was called urban renewal, they destroyed that community to create a freeway, and when they destroyed that community to accommodate a freeway, they also built a residential development, and you know who it was designed by? An artist and architect called Mies van der Rohe. So Detroit has this beautiful community now of all these beautiful nice homes, and they were erected after Black communities were destroyed and after hundreds of African-Americans were displaced, right? So this erasure of our history to make space and to make room, right, for artists that were not reflective of our community is very prevalent in the city of Detroit.

Alicia: And when you mentioned false narratives, it reminds me in your answer to the first question of how you didn't call it farm to table, you call it an eating, and how these things, these concepts have been, you know, taken from the root and sold back to people who may not have the same connection to the land that your family has, but what do you think about that phrase, farm to table?

Devita: Yeah, again, I think it is a narrative that was created in a way to add this marketable, this palatable, sense of kind of value—to upcharge, to charge more to the consumer, very easy, easy way in terms of how folks used it to describe their restaurants. Basically through that description and through that kind of added value kind of narrative, they were able to charge more for a plate, right. You know, and it's really interesting. I mean, I feel the same way about from the table as I do nose to tail—it's marketing jargon, that's exactly what it is, right. And in so many cases, you know, we see that now. We see that and when I say “we see that” is that even now in this moment, like mass protests that are happening all over the world and you know, the value of Black lives and racial inequality—you're talking about that now and in a mainstream way, like in the public square, like there is this national or global conversation, like you even see the coopting the coopting of our language, Alicia, that came from like movement building, we see this right. You see the coopting of survival skills, my God, Audre Lorde, a Black queer woman that gave us the language of self care. Now what they have done is they've commodified self-care and now it's about what? Going to get your nails done and like facial mask or whatever, and like, you know, cleaning, skincare—like, are you serious? So they take our language, right? I mean, that's nothing new, like even youth culture. I mean, it was a Black girl who created like, on fleek, and they took that. Next thing you know, you’re seeing it in commercials? Like, what? Excuse me?

It is taking language, and it was a language we did not have, but it's not something that we that we called it, but it's this marketing of our lifestyle that they have been able to coopt. Alicia: It's a very interesting phenomenon that keeps repeating itself in terms of the coopting and the shifting of narratives to serve, you know, specifically, you know, these capitalist purposes.

And so I wanted to ask, though, in your TED talk on urban agriculture, you talk about people knowing where their food comes from—community kitchens, cooperative models. Why do you think agriculture has such power to change how communities interact? And do you see the potential for these models to have as strong an impact in other cities, not just Detroit?

Devita: That's interesting. I've been thinking about the power of agriculture and the power of food. And I think that, you know, Alicia, it has always been a powerful kind of movement-building tool in our toolbox as African-Americans. And so it just, it makes sense, and what I mean by that is that, you know, ever since Detroit filed for the largest municipal bankruptcy in the United States of America, we've seen tons of articles about what went wrong with the city. Now, a lot of it was political finger pointing. But the common narrative is that Detroit was in decline. And it all began in the 1960s when Black folks started to run their cities, when we elected our first Black mayor, right. But what annoys me about this language, not only is it false, but it also does not, again, go deep enough and explain that the creation of communities in the city of Detroit were intentional, and I think what is the power of a food and what is the power of agriculture is that it had the power to like transform these communities. It had the power to kind of like reshape neighborhoods, and it is important to understand how when southerners from the south moved to the north, how they were met with northern anti-Blackness that really did shape their neighborhoods using systemic violence, using segregation laws, using discriminatory practices. And when white folks started to flee Detroit—we call that phenomenon white flight—so did resources, so did investment begin to leave the city of Detroit. It was by the imagination of those farmers, it was through the imagination of folks who knew how to grow food. It was through their imagination that they didn't succumb to the fact that there were vacant buildings or blighted property. Like I just think about the fact of what kind of imagination they must have to imagine that they can actually use this vacancy to actually grow food. So I remember one of our elders, her name is Grace Lee Boggs. And she died at 100 years old, but one of our elders and an activist in the city of Detroit. And she talked about, you know, a revolution that is based on the people exercising their creativity in the midst of devastation is the great historical contribution of mankind. And I think about those farmers, I think about those elders, I think about the people who actually put their hands in the dirt, and where other people saw despair, they saw opportunity, and so agriculture does that. And it did that for the city of Detroit. That's why I think is so powerful. That's why I think it's so strong.

And what I love even more, right, is that, again, the reason why I lifted up Detroit's history around art and design is because the farmers and the people who are part of this urban agriculture movement in the city of Detroit, they had that artist, they had that designer mentality around imagination, right. And the reason why I say that is that Detroit is a city where we practice imagination-collaboration. And that means inviting someone to be a part of an idea, or to create an idea with you. So the urban agriculture movement wasn't created in a vacuum. And the reason why I love that is that, you know, I'm the kind of person who thinks really big picture, right? I'm like, oh, like, I got a vision; let’s do this. And that's the work that I do at the nonprofit that I work for, FoodLab, we’re thinking how can we transform the food system, right? I'm thinking really big picture. But in order to be a farmer, your imagination has to be systemic and structural; it has to be a process. You have to understand the soil. You have to understand what the plant [needs]. You have to understand the weather. And so I love working with farmers because they bring a different imagination skill set that I don't have. And so when I think about imagination-collaboration, I also think about what the farmers and folks involved in agricultural movement were doing, right?There is a book by Dr. Monica White that's called Freedom Farmers—my God. And so when you think about snatching back the narrative, particularly in a place like Detroit, where you have so many people that left the south and moved to the north, snatching back this narrative around farming as freedom. So you began to change the narrative and instead of thinking of Black farmers as the enslaved people who are working the land or picking cotton, instead of thinking of Black farmers as sharecroppers, right, instead of thinking about tenant farmers—like now, in the city of Detroit, when you see Black farmers, we think about power, we think about sovereignty, we think about dignity, we think about harm reduction, right?

That's the power of urban agriculture. So you say to yourself, when we're planning, and when people are thinking about turning side lots or people are thinking about turning their backyards, people are thinking about turning their school gardens into, like, these agricultural places, not only to grow fruits and vegetables, but for conviviality, bringing people together. Questions are asked, Alicia, like: how do we make sure that the people who are most impacted by what's ever happening in this community in this neighborhood, get to co-imagine this particular part of land with us? How do we prevent those people from being excluded from the conversation because of someone else’s power dynamic of an imagining? So here in Detroit, like we've gone through massive gentrification in certain communities, but it is in those places, it is in those gardens it is in those fields, when we start to think about, you know, who is not at this quote, unquote, imaginary table, like who should be a part of the conversation. And so you know, you and I talked a little bit earlier about like this divergent of movement, and how it was important to like, think about the work that we do, or the work that I do from an intersectional lens, and a big part of the work and the language. And the practice that I borrow from has to be the Disability Justice Movement, because they are very clear that if you don't have people who use wheelchairs, if you don't have people who are blind, if you don't have people who are deaf, at that imaginary table, when you're creating or building? I don't care what it is. You'll find out later, that whatever you made is not actually accessible to those people, because they weren’t at the table, right? So this is collaboration that happens in Detroit around urban agriculture that makes it so powerful.

And then you ask like you know, can what is happening, what has happened in the city of Detroit, what will happen what we're continuing to build in the city of Detroit—can it happen in other places?

You know, Alicia, that's so touchy for me. Because to be honest, when I think about, you know, it happening in other places, I really think of the word scale. And I hate using the word scale, because I'm so place-based. It is so important that we do place-based work. I don't know. You know, I definitely think that, you know, people have got to find a place, people have got to find a space within food justice movement, where they're creating spaces where love gets fermented. I mean, that's—and I don't know how that looks, I don't know how that shows up in your community. Right. I don't know if that shows up in a big shared-use kitchen space. I don't know if that shows up in a farm. I don't know if that shows up in a cooperatively owned restaurant. I don't know where that happens, but wherever there's food happening, wherever there's growing happening, produce happening, it needs to be fermented in love. Because I think we should be working to love each other and create spaces where people feel loved and sustained. And guess what? Unfortunately, food movement work is often driven by fear and scarcity, not love. People are coming together in food movement because they're terrified something. Oh, my goodness, we're terrified of security, right? We're terrified of the fact that we won't have enough money to actually be able to go to the grocery store to put food on our table. We're terrified that all the grocery stores are going to leave our neighborhoods and we won't have someplace to go to buy food— like we're terrified of something that's coming.

As a result of that, there's this deep, urgent scarcity but I know that when you operate like that, that can burn you out. And so I know in movement-building work, when we talk about, you know, scale, when we talk about expanding what is happening in Detroit to other places, right, we always talk about scale happens, movement building happens at the speed of trust. I like to think that movement happens at the speed of love, right?

So I don’t know if it can happen in other places. But I do know that people come from all over the world, to come to the city of Detroit, and to look and to learn, but you know what they always say when they sit down at the table with me or my comrades or colleagues or people when we take them to DBC FSN D-Town Farms or Oakland Avenue Farms or Keep Growing Detroit's farm. They're like, I feel so much love in this space. That's where the transformation happens: Through the stomach, but it also happens through the heart.

And that's what we want. Yeah, we want you to see everything that's grown here. Sure. Of course, we want you to feel it, we want you to see it. Right? Absolutely. Our mission is food sovereignty. We want to make sure every produce, fruit and vegetable, that's grown in Detroit stays in Detroit. Absolutely. But you can't do that without love. So we want them to feel it as well as see it. So that was a long way of answering your question.

Alicia: No, but I think that's so important. And I think it's missing a lot of the time when we talk about food systems and we talk it that word scale does come up so much and growth etc., etc. And like, we have to make sure everyone has food but we're not talking about what that food is and you know, how it connects to them culturally locally, etc., etc. You know, it's that bigGreen Revolution thing of, you know, getting everyone enough rice but—

Devita: Like for me, can’t you tell the difference between if you're eating string beans that were actually grown by someone and someone's hands physically snapped those beans for you versus some s**t that you get out of a jar? Like it tastes like pain. I'm sorry, I don't want to sound elitist or anything like that, but like, canned vegetables taste like trauma.

Alicia: [Laughing.No, it's real.

Devita: You can take those string beans out of the can and y'all can make your casserole and put all that—I don't even know what you put on it, but it's crazy. The casserole with the—I don't even know what the crunchy stuff on top is. It's crazy to me, but yeah, no: I'm not eating it. I’m just not.

Alicia: The green bean casserole comes completely from a can, every ingredient.

No, and it is—it's really interesting and it's so important that everyone remind themselves that things need to be so place-based and so much would be lost if it wasn't it—these movements and these ideas that people are forming.

But for you—and I think you answered this question with the can comment—but for you, is cooking a political act?

Devita: Oh, gosh, yeah. I mean, absolutely. I mean, it courses through my veins. I mean, I couldn't even think about it in any other way, about how revolutionary and how political food is, especially when you come from a southern family like mines, who was obsessively preoccupied with food, even based upon the fact that they had very little, right? Here I’m gonna tie it back in terms of that imagination, that artistry mindset, like they have very little but the creativity that they exhibited when they created every meal—that was a revolutionary act, right? I think it's political for me is that, you know, when you have dishes that are crafted using fresh produce from the garden the meat that came from—ooh, and I know you I know you are a practicing vegetarian, Alicia, but you know, the meat that we raised that came from the slaughterhouse, fresh eggs from the hen house. I mean, it came from revolutionaries who grew their own food; they grew their own fruits and vegetables and ate whole foods and, emphasized—you know, again, we didn't have the language, but they emphasized what we now call food sovereignty. And I think through that, and growing up with that, two things happened. Number one, it's in the gardens and in the kitchens and in the markets where my ancestors have revisited me, right? They have revisited me. And when I say that is I feel them in my stomach. I feel them whispering to me knowledge about food systems. This knowledge is in my hairs and my blood, is in my hands. It reminds me that there's so much left for us to do, right. It reminds me of their resistance. It reminds me how they used food as liberation. But you know what else it reminds me of? Is that, you know, when I think about my ancestors, and I think about my grandmother, Thank God my mother is still living who reminds me of her grandmother, which is my great-grandmother, reminds me of every day when I'm sitting around the table with family, enjoying a meal? That I know that somebody in my family or somebody that I knew grew it.

You know, it also reminds me of joy. God, and that right there is revolutionary. And the reason why it is revolutionary and it feels like is important, and I think is politically important for me as an African-American woman is because I think it's politically important to be a Black woman having a good time and being free and letting people see this. And I tell people all the time, I'm like, they tried to kill us. They tried to steal our joy. But they didn't succeed. And look at me, right? Look how happy I am. Look at me on the farm, changing that narrative? Look at me on a farm with other Black folks, other folks? They try to define our work. Isn't it a fact they don't even want to give us credit for being the backbone of the agricultural systems that we now have in the United States. We created this—Black and brown people.

But I don't want them to always speak our story in tenant farming or in slavery; I want them to see me in the field happy. Here’s the thing: I'm happy, but I'm still connected to great suffering at the same time. But despite everything, despite the work, despite all the s**t that's going on, despite all of the history getting wrapped up in the land around Black people, I still find joy, and I think that that is important, because I want Black women specifically, to tell them every day it is okay to experience some joy each and every day. And I believe it’s a measure of freedom to be able to experience the joy that's available to me and available to others at this moment.

So absolutely it’s a political act and you know, I can get into history and explain what I see that you know, food, of course is political. I can talk to you about the southern tenant farmers union, right, as a part of a rich tradition, again, of labor organizing. And again, that happened from farmers in the south, at the height of the 1930s, of course, political. So I can tell you about CTFU and the rallies and the meetings that were heavily influenced by the Baptist Church. Why? Because my father is a preacher, my grandfather was a preacher, my great-grandfather was a preacher, so I know the role of farming and the Black tradition of spirituality, and how that is all wrapped up into political movement building. I can talk to you about the Black Panthers and their understanding that hunger deserves immediate attention. And they also understood that radical transformation happens through—if you can't lead your people, if you can't feed your people, you can't lead your people and they knew a new political education was vital to understanding the reasons behind hunger and envision a world where all children are fed, the Black Panther breakfast program, long before the United States of America, long before the government had the free breakfast program at schools—it was the Black Panther Party did it first. They talked about food at the intersection of health care, intersection of education, intersection of housing, at the intersection of land, in the intersection of the right and the privilege for water. And so all of that, but that history around movement building, food movement building, food activism, I guess, is a part of my DNA. Absolutely. I cannot sit up here and deny any of that. So for me food has always been political, because it's a part of my history. It's a part of who I am.

Alicia: Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for coming on, Devita.

Devita: Yeah, thank you so much for having me, Alicia. It was great talking with you.

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There are people who view astrology as frivolous, but I am not one of them, and one of the astrologers who makes that feel very easy and defensible is Claire Comstock-Gay, perhaps better known as Madame Clairevoyant, who writes weekly horoscopes for The Cut that toe the line between incantation and prose poem. Her book, Madame Clairevoyant’s Guide to the Stars, has deepened my understanding of myself as a Scorpio with a whole lot of air in her chart, and the cast of characters she invokes—think David Wojnarowicz, but also Kim Kardashian—speak to a rare breadth of cultural understanding.

But Comstock-Gay is not just an astrologer, but a brilliant thinker generally, and she’s been recently lending her kitchen skills to a mutual aid effort in Minneapolis. We discussed the stars, Silvia Federici’s Marxist-feminist recognition of magic, and the beauty of a kitchen without bosses or customers. Listen above, or read below.

Alicia: Hi, Claire, thank you so much for taking the time out to come on.

Claire: Thank you for inviting me. I'm really excited to talk with you.

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

Claire: Yeah, so I grew up a couple places. When I was a little kid, I lived in Towson, Maryland, which is just outside of Baltimore. And then when I was in fifth grade, my family moved to Concord, New Hampshire. And so what I ate, I feel like my early childhood food memories are really like stereotypical kind of white American mainstream food. Like the strongest

early kid food memory was my mom making bags of frozen mixed vegetables, and I hated the peas in it so much and I would, likem swallow them whole because I didn't want to taste the peas. Chicken breasts and mac and cheese and mixed veggies.

I think kind of that as I grew up, my family's food tastes and the foods that we would eat in the house really changed kind of, along with what mainstream America was eating. So like,

by the time I was in middle school, maybe we would have avocados in the house, or like in high school, we would have sriracha sauce in the house, and so these things that became popular that kind of hit the mainstream, hit my house and my own palate at the same time, I think.

Alicia: Yeah, there's a great book about that called Eight Flavors. I can't remember the subtitle but it's about how things like sriracha, specifically, enter the American consciousness, which is a very fascinating topic. But how did you get into astrology?

Claire: I think I'm a little bit different from what I can tell than a lot of other astrology people that I know. I think for a lot of people, they encountered it when they were young or teenagers and something really great clicked right away. For me, I hated it when I was young; I felt kind of belittled and insulted by all this stuff that I would read about my sign. Like the Sagittarius stuff was kind of like, you're this cheerful jock, which was so sick to me. I was moody and really wanted to be, like, smart and intellectual and it just hurt my feelings a little bit. And it also just seemed silly, the newspaper horoscopes you would read, like, I don't know, like, “talk to your boss for that raise today.” Nothing to me, this is fake. So then it was only like later on, I was in my early 20s living in New York, and I met all these kind of cool feminist punks who were into astrology and were conversant in it in really different ways than I had known were possible. And so that was kind of when I started to take it seriously even as a thing that I might want to know anything about.

Alicia: Why were you in New York, first of all? What made you move there? 

Claire: Nothing, right? Like, I didn't want to live in New Hampshire anymore. Um, New York seemed cool.

Alicia: Well, what were the ways that they were into astrology that made it compelling to you?

Claire: I think part of it was just being from, like a social universe that felt legible to me. Like all the horoscopes that you read in glossy magazines are imagining you, the reader, as this glossy magazine type of person, or all the newspaper horoscopes are imagining you as this like, professional-class man, basically. And so to see these astrological ideas kind of reflected in a way that I could see myself—that changed things A lot. And also a lot of it was just mainstream astrology, and this is changing some now. But it has traditionally been just extremely heteronormative. All about like, men in the sign are this way and women are that way. And in relationships, it's this way. And if you're a woman, here's what you want when you're getting married, right? Like all these things that just were so icky and gross, and so to see it outside of any of those constructs really helped me.

Alicia: No, I totally understand because like, as a Scorpio—I think probably every Scorpio is really excited that they're a Scorpio. Like, for their entire lives are like, “Absolutely, I am intellectual and mysterious and you know, dark and brooding.” Yeah, like absolutely correct, but then like to get my whole chart and then understand, you know, I contain many different things and have to reckon with that. That was like, that's a good intellectual exercise—to not think of yourself in such a, like, singular way. But yeah, it makes so much sense that it is a really interesting way—like it's embodied differently in feminist and queer spaces, because it is a way of understanding yourself as a plurality, you know. The first page of your book notes that one of the possible uses of astrology, which are vast and varied, is kind of predicting political unrest, and so was our current moment predictable in the stars or no?

Claire: Honestly, it was. It was really funny. I don't know if you saw this. A few weeks ago, there was a piece in The New York Times that was like, will astrology be canceled since it failed to predicts the pandemic? And astrologers got so angry because for like, literally years, everyone's been saying 2020 is the year of upheavals, change, transformation, and it's funny, right? So like, the simple answer is, yes, 100%. 

That's not really what I do, right? Like, I'm less interested in kind of the societal applications of astrology. Personally—I think this might get astrologers mad at me, I don't know—I think a really good historian is going to be able to predict things, honestly, as well as a good astrologer. It's just different ways of looking at patterns to get to the same thing. Alicia: And you do have a very unique voice among astrologers, and I might be getting this wrong. Did you start writing your horoscopes for The Rumpus, or—

Claire: I did. Yeah.

Alicia: Yeah. And so it has it always been more of kind of a literary form for you or—

Claire: It has, honestly. And when I started writing horoscopes, it's funny, I really kind of learned about astrology as I was writing; I knew not very much at all, and it was more of kind of the literary exercise of it. And over time, right, I've kind of grown more and more deeply interested in astrology itself. But it is a lot about the mood and the voice and the feeling versus right, like, “it's a good day to talk to your boss.”

Alicia: And you're based in Minneapolis. Now, how did you end up living there?

Claire: I am, technically right across the river in St. Paul. Very important to people who live here and are from here, and to me feels not different at all.

But mostly I just really wanted to live somewhere other than New York. This is a very Sagittarius thing about me is that I love change, and I love moving. And so I’d left New York before; I moved to New Orleans, and then moved back to New York, and then wanted to go somewhere else again. And I moved here specifically because my boyfriend was able to get his job transferred out here, so it was kind of an easy move to make. That was a few years ago, I really didn't like it very much at all at first and like it a lot more now. And weirdly or not that weirdly, I don't know, all of the uprising has made me like it so much more here. Alicia: I mean, who would have thought that Minneapolis would be the site, the starting point of such an incredible, you know, worldwide protests. I mean, I sure didn't, but that might be my New Yorker thing. How has it been to be there during that time. I've seen on Twitter that you've been cooking at a mutual aid kitchen, and I know from doing some other interviews with folks based in Minneapolis—which again, I had no idea I'd end up talking to so many people in recent weeks— but it seems very, very, you know, community-oriented and driven, the work that's happening now, and not just through mutual aid, but like, in all ways, and yet how has that emerged, and how have you become part of that?

Claire: Yeah, so I've been involved through—it was a group that was organized through a part of the DSA here, and this was work that they had started doing previously just to address kind of people's food needs because of the pandemic, and then really rapidly shifted to meet this kind of sudden emergency need that came up. And so, what happened was I got involved kind of right at the start, you know, protests have been going on for maybe one day, maybe two days. So we were like scrounging around trying to find kitchen space in the cities, and so cooking in all these kind of bizarre, random churches using their wacky serrated knives only and glass cutting boards. Just horrible equipment to try to cook these giant meals.

That was to feed people on the front lines and also to feed people in the neighborhoods in South Minneapolis right by the precinct, where the stores were either damaged or just closed down because, you know, they didn't want to get their windows broken or whatever, I don't know. But in that neighborhood, for a few days, people really couldn't access groceries. And so we were making meals for them.

I feel like overall, it's funny—I've been out to protest only a little bit. And my experience of the uprising has really been about this community work, and the mutual aid stuff, and it's so—it's so joyful; there's so much possibility. And I think it's really, it's really euphoric, and really wistful at the same time because, right, we all know, or if you've done anything like this ever before, you know how hard it is to keep the energy going. There's this wonderful moment where everything breaks through and everything is possible, like okay, but once the normal life pressures start to come back, how do we keep it going?

And I think in the kitchen itself—so, after the church spaces, eventually we found a professional catering kitchen that was closed because of the pandemic. And so they let us use their space and that was really, really great, to be cooking in this professional space without any of the bad things about professional cooking. There's no bosses; there's no customers on the other side. There's people eating the food, obviously, but there's nobody holding it over you that there is a paying person that needs to be treated a certain way. And so that was really this magical kind of euphoria, like why is it not like this all the time? Why is cooking food not always like this? Because it could be.

Alicia: Was this your first experience in a professional kitchen or no?

Claire: No, it wasn't—first for a long time. But in my early 20s, I worked for a prepared foods kitchen for a fancy grocery store in Brooklyn. And so that was really funny in a lot of ways. It was kind of, all right, like, not totally restaurant style, but it was a weird kitchen to work in. But it was really fun to be doing a lot of the same things, right, like the same type of embodied labor, but only because everyone wanted to be there. There's no no bosses and so—I keep coming back to this.

Alicia: Well, what influences your politics in this way, you know, the doing mutual aid, you know, hating bosses? How did you come to your kind of political perspective?

Claire: It's such a good question. It's such a hard one to answer at a certain point, right?

It's like, I don't know, this is the world; this is my life. I don't know if I have a good answer for you. 

Alicia: Well, is there any reading that especially was influential for you? Maybe?

Claire: Um, let me think. I'm so embarrassed. Let me look at my books.

Alicia: No, these are hard questions. And I know it's putting it puts you on the spot for this, but I'm always so curious about you know, what, are the moments and the things that are really, you know—to use a very old second-wave term—consciousness-raising for different people. I always go back to my American feminist poetry class in college where, you know, we read this big anthology called No More Masks and we read Anzaldúa and we read Adrienne Rich and we read all these, you know, feminist poets and I was like, holy s**t. But, you know, we all have our different moments.

Claire: No, I think that's, that's right. I do think for me— similar, I think, to a lot of white women—got into it through feminism first. And then hopefully, you broaden and deepen that.[In unison]: So many people don't.

Claire: A recent one that I was reading that was not so much foundational but has kind of clicked things into place right around a lot of this work. I was reading Silvia Federici, this book about the commons. What is it called? Reinventing the World. I really like Silvia Federici kind of on the astrology side because unlike a lot of Marxists, she believes in magic a little bit. She's not dismissive of these kind of non-material things that are still a part of our material lives. In this one specifically, it was all about this worldwide erosion of the commons, and then all these different little spaces where people are trying to rebuild them, and so this is a really nice example what's been going on here in the kitchen, with so many of the projects happening, I know in Minneapolis and other cities too, as these ways that we're trying to rebuild commons for each other, whether that's about food or housing. The hotel that was here. They took over this former Sheraton Hotel to house unhoused people who had been displaced by the police because of the riots. And that's, I think such a beautiful example too. Like, there's this huge hotel here. Let's use it for each other.

Alicia: No, that's so important. And when that happened, it made me think of how many hotels here in Puerto Rico were probably vacant during the pandemic, yet the unhoused population was still unhoused. And during this very dangerous time, because we've had a curfew ever since March 15, you know, being policed as well, in that time, and it's like, well, why wouldn't you create an initiative to put people in the hotels and it's like, we know why but—At the same time, it's just, why isn't this very obvious good pursued. I don't know—it’s very crazy. And then there was another time during the earthquakes here at the end of last year when so many people were sleeping in tents in their yards, and again, it's like—there's hotels here. There's plenty of hotels and you know, just never making—

That's why I think that was such an important moment of this time, was the Sheraton kind of—I don't want to say takeover but you know, right, you know, use proper use of that space, because feeding people, we have that language for it because we have soup kitchens, I think, you know. So with mutual aid kitchens and community fridges and that sort of thing, it's like, okay, like, we understand this, like, we already do this in a charitable way that is translatable into the capitalist world. So it's not as you know, difficult on people's minds, but I do think maybe the Sheraton thing didn't get covered that extensively outside of Minneapolis probably because it is so challenging to ideas that we never really conceive of.

Claire: I think think you're so right about that. Like for some, for whatever reason, kind of because of that charitable model, right, people are really comfortable around food as the site of charity in the way that they're not comfortable with other things. 

I think a lot about around here, kind of in the immediate days after the precinct burned and all of that. There were so many distribution sites set up to get food and stuff to people, which is great. And the need was there, right, unlike in a lot of disasters, I think: There's stuff and it’s not what people need. But it was the stuff that people needed. But it was—I don't know, something about the people who are willing to do that work versus like, okay, but let's get these people housed. 

Alicia: There's a strange unwillingness to house people who need help. It's just, why isn't this need seen as the same as the need to eat food? I don't understand.To get back to your your book a little bit, I was of course happy—you know, I've already gone over that I'm a Scorpio and all Scorpios are very pleased with themselves—but you cast the Scorpio as the punk and you use Kathleen Hanna as kind of the icon there. And you do include a lot of counterculture figures in the book as well as major pop culture figures. How did you decide on the references? Was it kind of a conscious effort to balance the popularity of the iconic figures or you know, what was the kind of framework you had in mind for how you used people as characters to describe the signs?

Claire: Well, first of all, thank you. I feel like not a lot of people—people talk about

the book as a pop culture book, which it is, but it's not only a book about like, celebrity-celebrities. 

Alicia: Well, it's cultural. It’s just cultural figures.

Claire: This was something that I struggled with a lot as I was kind of putting together the proposal and the structure of the book, because astrology only works in this sense, right? If you have characters to talk about, right? It only works when it's connected to real people. It gets really boring to me, at least when it's just these like lists of qualities, right? It's like, oh, Scorpio, like, dark, like, Okay, what does that mean? I don't know.

And so we’re in real life.  I can point to my mom as a character, right? Like, oh, you know, my mom. She's such a Pisces. It doesn't work when you're writing this book for a general audience. And so the question becomes how to use kind of common touchstones and these common people in a way that's interesting enough to me to write about it. Because a lot of these big celebrities, that's not interesting to me personally. And I also think that at a certain level of wealth, right, you're all a little bit more like each other then anybody else.

I think if anything, it was kind of the reverse, where I had to work to get enough like, actual celebrities in the book to balance it so it wasn't just my own personal canon.

Alicia: That's funny. And so for you, is cooking a political act?

Claire: Yes, I love this question, because it's like so simple and complicated, right? I feel like there's things I have to define and explain to get to an answer. 

I think, you know, in the most basic level, yes, of course it is. It's political kind of in the same way that literally anything any one of us ever does is political and obviously cooking as part of a mutual aid effort, that's political in a different way. As far as my personal home cooking goes or cooking for other people, right, I think it's political, but it's not revolutionary—and I think those are things you've talked about before—but those are things that we like to conflate a little bit more than is totally helpful, especially kind of broadly on the left. We want everything we do to be radical. And there are things that are not radical that are still valuable and worth doing, and that's kind of where cooking falls for me.

Alicia: Well, thank you so much, Claire.

Claire: Yeah, thank you. This was great.

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Nik Sharma, author of Season and the forthcoming The Flavor Equation, always comes to my mind first as a scientist, but most know him for his blog A Brown Table, his column at the San Francisco Chronicle, and his new gig at Serious Eats. That association was probably at the forefront of my mind because I’d just gotten done going through a galley of that forthcoming cookbook (preorder it here) and was absolutely blown away by the depths of the science presented in such an accessible manner. There are charts and illustrations of a chili heat scale, a flavor wheel of amino acids, smoke points of various cooking fats and oils, and so much more, all alongside recipes for things like pizza toast, gunpowder fries with goat cheese sauce, and new potatoes with mustard oil herb salsa—all gorgeously shot by the multi-talented Sharma, whose photography style is immediately recognizable for its distinctive use of dark backgrounds and movement, a massive departure from the overblown whiteness that’s been so in fashion.We discussed why he hates overripe bananas, the stigma that continues to exist around food blogging, the potential of cookbooks, and more. Listen above, or read below.

Alicia: Hi, Nik. Thanks so much for coming on and chatting with me.

Nik: Hi, Alicia. Thanks for having me.

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

Nik: I was born and brought up in Bombay, India, which is now called Mumbai. For the most part, what did I eat? Let’s see. I ate a lot of things. It's always easy for me to remember what I don't like to eat, so that always jumps into my mind immediately. But as far as what I grew up eating, I grew up eating a lot of seafood because Bombay is on the west coast of India. My mom also comes from a community that eats a lot of seafood, so seafood and then coconut was a huge part of our diet. Let's see—a lot of fruit. I actually do like eating a lot of fruit and a lot of yogurt. Those are a couple of things that have moved on with me into adulthood.

Alicia: Well, what didn't you like, since those memories are more vivid?

Nik: That’s the interesting thing that conjures images in my head. So I don't like to eat bitter melon. I do not like to eat turnips. Let's see, and overripe bananas. That's something that's actually happened in adulthood. I think it's because I recently—uh, let's see—about a year, two years ago, I made an upside-down banana cake from my blog and I had to recipe-test that several times to get the texture right. And because of that, I went through several rounds of overripe bananas, extremely overripe, and now, the smell and the texture—it really makes me queasy, so no more of that.

Alicia: Well, that's so funny. You're known as a food scientist, I think first and foremost, and also a photographer and also a writer. How did you end up wearing so many hats and how do you balance all of those skills? When you're when you're figuring out how to spend your days, like, how do you—how do you balance all that? 

Nik: I think I’m definitely known more as a food blogger, for the most part, and then photographer. The food science thing is something that I've been pushing for so long to write more about, because that's what my background is in. I studied molecular biology and biochemistry before I moved into food. I think it was part of the fact that I started with a food blog, and because of the nature of a food blog, people usually don’t—they may not cook your food, but they definitely visually react to what's available online. And so photography was a skill that I had to learn to convey the food across. And so photography is—that’s how my relationship with photography began, in terms of forging a career, and then in terms of writing about food science, that’s something that I've always always been interested in; it's also what drew me into food, to see the similarities between how people cook food, test recipes. It's very similar to what's happening in a lab. And I think the similarities—with its differences, of course, kind of blended in and so it made sense to me that this is really what I want to talk about.

Alicia: Your photography style is so singular, though, how did you come into that style?

Nik: One of the things that I wanted to do with food photography was to talk about the process visually, because that's what I find really exciting. Besides the hero shot and the beautiful shot at the end, one of the things that really draws me to cooking is, you know, the little, little steps. They might seem unimportant at the time or something so simple that's being done every day, but I find those kinds of things to be very beautiful. So I look to kind of exploring that visually and see how I can do something—say whisking something, or just adding flour, folding it in into a batter. How do where, what is the beauty in that? I think what is amazing a bout photography, it's a moment in time; you're taking a snapshot. So something might be moving, say the flour’s moving through a batter and it might look really pretty in texture on one side of the bowl versus the other, and that might change over time. So for me, those kind of macroscopic things that are taking place are really attractive.

Alicia: You reminded me of the idea that food blogging is thought of as different from food writing. And, and it seems like as a blogger, like—same as someone who's publishing something themselves—you have to have, like, a host of different skills in order to even put anything out. You know, you have to like, be a photographer and a recipe developer and you have to have this very approachable kind of voice in your writing, and you have to be able to like know how to create a website even. Do you think there is a divide between food bloggers and food writers? Like, is there a stigma around blogging still?

Nik: I think there’s definitely still a stigma around blogging. I definitely think there is that.

I mean, it was a struggle for me. I mean, I'm really fortunate to be given opportunities by different editors at, you know, different publications to get a chance to write for them. Because I know it's not easy. It's not easy to make that transition. I've been really fortunate to kind of navigate that journey, but it also took a lot of work. You know, it didn't happen overnight, that’s for sure. I mean, I took my time blogging, so I blogged for perhaps, I think four or five years before I actually started writing for the Chronicle, which was my biggest—for the San Francisco Chronicle, which was, at the time, you know, the biggest moment in my career and it still is. So, it definitely took a lot of getting to learn how to know my voice. 

Also, I didn't go into it wanting to write for the Chronicle. It just happened. It was a coincidence. I was looking for food photography freelance jobs at the time, and that's when the editor at the Chronicle asked me if I would be interested in writing a recipe column. So it wasn't an intended path. And at least for me in a lot of cases, a lot of instances, these things were never—I didn't have a plan or a focus. So I feel weird sometimes when people ask for career guidance, because I think when that happens, people want me to kind give them a set of steps or a series of goals. I just didn't have any. And I am not trying to like minimize or, you know, make this sound superficial in any way. But I was focused more on being a photographer more than anything and also with my job in science, I did not expect to get into food writing because I don't see myself as a strong food writer by any means.

Alicia: Has that changed now that you've done two books?

Nik: No. I still panic when I write. Writing for me is a struggle, because it's really easy for me to develop a recipe and you know, work on that. It's also really easy for me to photograph—not easy, but in relative comparison, writing is always the thing that I worked my hardest at.

Alicia: And in Season, your first cookbook, which was very well received, and it was, you know, pretty straight-forward as a cookbook, but it was very distinctly you, with recipes that are clearly influenced by the various places you've lived and notes on the science behind the cooking, but your forthcoming book, The Flavor Equation, goes like way, way deeper into the science. There are charts on emulsions and you document, like, chemical structures of aromas and the effects of pH on the color and texture of onions. Like it's, I mean, it's stunning to look at and it's all, you know, a great amount of information, which is I'm sure going to be endlessly useful as a reference. But what made you want to go in that direction? And how was it to, you know, develop a book like this, that’s so, so science-driven but for the kind of mainstream consumer and kind of such a departure from the first book in tone?

Nik: Yeah, so with the first book, I wasn't sure at the time if I would get to write a second book, so when developing the idea for the first book, Season, I really wanted to just come out and say, Hey, folks, this is who I am. This is what influences my recipe development and my style of cooking. I wanted it to be a bit more personal, because what if I never got the chance again, to write a second book? I didn't want to be one of those people that kind of like came out late in my career publicly. I mean, though, I'm already out. I just wanted to deal with my background initially, you know, in the first book, and then move on from it. It's not something that I really want to spend my time focusing on. But I just wanted to say, Hey, this is who I am. This is how life has shaped my thinking. These were and are my personal struggles, and this is the food that's been influenced by my life experiences. But in the second book I really wanted to get, when I got the chance to write the second book, which I wasn't sure I would, I've always wanted to write a book about the science of cooking at home, but explore it more from a taste and flavor perspective, because even in Season, I'm more focused on flavor than anything. And then in the second book, I really wanted to talk about the science because now I could talk to people about Hey, this is actually what's going on in my head, what's influenced my style of cooking, but at a more in-depth level. And I also wanted this book to be about science, but one of the balances—this is something that I personally have to kind of navigate, and thanks to my editors on the book—one of the things with writing a science book is that I can get lost very easily writing about science because to me, it's familiar. It's something that, you know. That’s what I actually have studied all my life, and so I can go down this rabbit hole of, you know, a lot of things that probably a lot of people don't care about. So one of the things that I really wanted to do was write a science-based cookbook that felt practical to people at home where they could see the science that I'm talking about, but with real-life examples and kind of correlate those things. Now in this book, I'm really focused more than anything on flavor, less about textures—even though texture is a component of the book as a separate chapter, I wanted to do that. And then the other thing with this book was I really wanted to talk about emotion. Because one of the things that I did when I was living in D.C. was I went back to school at Georgetown and studied public policy and health, and one of the key components during the course was human behavior. And I had never put two and two together to see how people respond in behavior to policy changes. So like sugar taxes, and all those kinds of things. So I found that really fascinating where you play with, you know, like the labeling on the box, or, you know, to affect policy change, for consumption of ingredients, to improve health outcomes. So I found that really fascinating. And that's what led me to explore human behavior in this book, although very gently. I don't really go into that much depth, but just about what I think will be applicable for a home cook, So I wanted to talk about those things, but how emotions affect our cooking and perception of taste, but also how this can affect the perception of taste also affects our emotions. And I wanted to do that in a cookbook, you know, kind of build a whole picture, because I don’t—I've never seen flavor as something that's just taste or aroma. I see it as a multidimensional component. So one of the other things that I did with this book was I also talked to folks that had lost their sense of smell, or their sense of vision, to get a better understanding of how they then relied upon their other senses to cook at home, and a lot of that informed on the topics that I wrote in this book.

Alicia: And how did you go about using emotion—were you focused on kind of how the visual influences, you know, how much someone eats, in terms of when you’re talking about labeling and that sort of thing like, yeah, how does emotion kind of affect our perception and our experience of recipes?

Nik: So one of the things is, one of the things that I read a couple of studies on being done on this is, for example, if you're in a bad mood, or you've had something that's happened in a negative way to you, you perceive food, the taste of certain foods as sour, bitter—it’s a turn-off. And an example that I use in the book, which is based on a study that was done, was about people who've lost a game. And when they lose the game, their perception of food becomes negative, because they're sad. So it changes and you're not, they're not really interested in eating and if you think about it, that's something quite common. Like when we're sad, we lose our sense of appetite. Nothing really tastes good. And this is something that happened to me. My dog passed away last year, so when he passed away, I really wasn't interested in cooking. I really wasn't interested in eating out and it was a struggle. I remember my husband taking me out to kind of get to help me move on, but also get a little distracted from what we were going through. I just wasn't interested. And so I started putting two and two together when I was writing this book, and I said, Okay, you know what, I'm actually going through these things that people are researching on a personal level. And I want to kind of bring that into this book. And then there are things that excite us so when we are happy, you know, like, if you think about it, sweeter drinks are often used at celebrations. You've got desserts, like cakes that are used as a symbol of, again, celebrations, birthdays, weddings, etc. Desserts at the end of a gathering. So, you know, the taste of food is—it’s really interesting how people look at things.

Alicia: And this is totally unrelated, but we talked a bit once about food media's obsession with identity for a piece I wrote at The New Republic—that representation in the media doesn't often translate into material changes for the people who are represented. In recent weeks, we've seen, you know, two top men at at magazines and newspapers in the food world, either resign or lose their jobs. Or I know you're you're a bit distanced from this kind of food media as someone who's focused on recipes, but do you do think that there will be a real shift in how stories are told and who's telling the stories and what do you think, you know, food media could look like in the future if there's different people in power?

Nik: I’m a bit pessimistic about what will happen, to be honest. I don't want it to be a one time thing in response to fear, you know, in response to fear of accountability. I want to see something that's long-term, you know, I don't want it to be seen in 2020, and then come back to 2021. And then it's all kind of pushed back. And then maybe like five years from now, again, you know, the same thing is repeated. This shouldn't be in ups and downs. That's not what I want to see. What I really want to see is that people who are talented, given a platform, you know. One of the things for me this year, that was really exciting was the James Beard Awards, because for the first in a very long time—and you can correct me if I'm wrong, and I'm sure people will—but The Ethiopia Cookbook won the international category. That's what it should be. Right? It should be a person who’s—and I don't want to also limit people from writing about other cultures. That’s not what it is. And you don't have to do this for everything. Like for example, cumin came from Iran. I’m not going to mention that all the time, you know, in a recipe because it's something now that's a part of Indian culture. I do understand that assimilation of ingredients will occur over time. Nothing is static; everything is dynamic, so we have to accept that. But at the same time, kind of acknowledging or giving recognition to the culture or the place where things come from, to me that's important. Also, it makes you look really well read, so I don't know why people don't do this enough. That's when you start respecting someone. The people that I respect as food writers are the ones that from whom I've learned things, from the people that say, Oh, you know, this is actually something that originated in say Italy, or in a say in Turkey. You know, those are the things that make me understand better. 

And also, as someone who's really interested in like the science behind food, it also then helps me understand why people were using a certain ingredient somewhere. For example, why date syrup is used as a sweetener in the Middle Eastern countries. To me, that makes sense then, because that's a plant that grows really well there, so I can connect those dots and see the influence. So for me, it's a learning experience. I really want that more of that. And I think people who are really talented are getting a platform to speak and share their food. That’s something that I’ve really enjoyed reading about, and also to see different voices come in. But it should be focused on talent. That is something that's really important to me. Because you could have a lot of the same old, same old, which happens in cookbooks. You know, I'm probably guilty of this too. I probably repeat ideas all the time, but it's the diversity of ideas that makes not only food writers better, but also the cook at home, because in a way, a cookbook can be so much more. It could be a gentler way to teach someone history; it could be a gentler way to teach them all about food science; it could be a gentler way to explore culture. And I'm not the person also that says "food brings everyone to the table,” because I think there are definitely things that food actually throws everyone against the wall and they’re not willing to talk about. So I don't want to, like, sell that notion. I'm quite aware that people get angry about food, too, all the time. But I think there should be opportunity to explore and write about things because, I mean—like I said earlier, if a person knows about what they're talking and they write about that in a head note, it means so much to me, because I view them with a lot of respect. Because I'm learning from them.

Alicia: I’ve thought about this lately, how important citation is and how important. I think because during the pandemic, I've had time to read again in a way that I didn't before, and now I'm like, Oh, if we all just had time to read and think more, we would not stop being so reactionary and superficial, in kind of the way we present ideas, especially around food. And I think it's also important that people haven't been able to go to restaurants so much, because I think it's just people have had to think about things that they haven't thought about before, because they just haven't had time or it's been too easy to just go out and prioritize like the chef-y type energy. Nik: And I think one of the things that I'm hoping comes away from this—nothing against chefs, but I feel it will be nice, and I see a lot of chefs are doing it right now—where I found a lot of chef cookbooks for the longest time, well, a bit unapproachable. Even for me, like I look at it and say, Okay, this is a nice idea, but I need to reinterpret so it works for me at home. And I can do that. A lot of home cooks will probably not. And sometimes I'm not always successful with these interpretations, but I think there seems to be a focus now more on the home cooks, but a lot of chefs have been forced to pivot in that direction. And I think that's good. That's one good thing that's coming out of this. There are a lot of bad things that are coming out of this. But I think that's one of the good things, where they're building a better connection with home cooks.

Alicia: I've talked about this, how it's been nice to see chefs have to take on sort of a new role, where it's less about their ego and more about your knowledge.

And so for you, is cooking a political act?

Nik: Well, this is the—I looked at this in your questions, and this was the hardest one for me. Because I never know. I've been asked if my cooking is queer or is it political, and I know food is political. But at the same time, I don't know if what I'm doing is with an intent to deliver either of these messages, if that makes sense. And so I would probably say that there are two statements that I'm probably trying to make with my food intentionally. One is that I should be allowed to cook whatever I want to cook. I don't want to be boxed into just because he's Indian, he has to cook Indian food, which I'm always trying to navigate very carefully because it is a terrifying thing for me. I want to be able to write about the food that I want to cook. And that's what I tried to do with Season—even though it's Indian influenced, it's also just influenced by what's around me. And then at the same time, I also want to be able to have the freedom to reinterpret things the way I want to. I don't want to be boxed, is what I'm trying to say. And that is my goal throughout—is that if I want to reinterpret something Indian, I shouldn't have to answer questions about why did you not do it this way, you know, and sometimes I do get that from a lot of people who are more familiar with the cuisine, or grew up eating it. And this happens to me with—I'll probably get attacked for saying this—but for me, I really want Indian people as a community, for us to be proud of the food we cook, and that doesn't mean we have to be boxed. One of the things I did with this new book also was—I do have Indian food in the new cookbook, but not enough to make it an Indian cookbook, by definition—but at the same time, I did want to express some of the science in Indian cooking because for me, it is really fascinating from a historical perspective, to see that our ancestors were doing things in the scientific way, even though at the time there were no definitions for those things. And for the longest time, if you look at science cookbooks and books on science, they primarily focus on the science of Western cooking. The principles are the same, you know, like, fat-soluble ingredients will dissolve in fats. And that's what I've been trying to do with Serious Eats. I’m not going to write about Indian food all the time at Serious Eats—definitely not. But at the same time, when it's relevant, and I feel I have something to say about the methods being used in Indian cooking or other techniques that I'm familiar with, from Asia, the Middle East, then I will bring up the science, because I feel all of us need to be proud of not only the history of our food and culture, but also about the science that our ancestors used, developed by trial and error. And those are celebrated techniques that have been used time and again, and I think we really should acknowledge not only history and culture, but also the history, the science that's behind these things.

Alicia: Absolutely. Thank you so much for coming on. 

Nik: Of course. Thanks for having me.

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When I opened Zoe Adjonyoh’s bright orange cookbook Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen, I was immediately thrilled with all the possibilities for the many plantains and various root vegetables—viandas—that enter my San Juan kitchen. “Yam 5 Ways,” “Plantain 5 Ways” kick off this book, which is subtitled Traditional Ghanaian Recipes Remixed for the Modern Kitchen.

But Zoe isn’t just her recipes: She’s also part of founding Black Book, “a global representation platform for black & non-white people working within hospitality and food media,” and has spent much of the pandemic feeding her community. We discussed all of this and more. Listen above, or read below.

Alicia: Thank you for taking the time and putting up with my technical difficulties today. Zoe: They’re my issues, not yours.Alicia: Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate?

Zoe: Yeah, well, I mean, I grew up in more than one place, really. Because you know, I'm from southeast London, but I'm a third culture kid. So my mum's Irish and my dad's Ghanaian. And so I'm brought up English in southeast London, but I spent a couple of years as a baby into my toddler times in Ghana, so I would’ve been eating fufu and like Ghanian baby food, basically lots of mpotompoto, pounded yam, porridge, things like that.

But I also spent a huge part of my childhood growing up in Ireland. So yeah, like, every available summer—all the school breaks, half terms, Easter, summer holidays - up until I was probably… I think I started losing interest when I was about 14, I think I carried on doing the family holidays until I was about 15. And when I say family, I mean, that was just me, my mom, my sisters—very small nuclear family. And yeah, I was in Ghana, without my parents, actually living with my grandmother, and there was some woman looking after me. But the majority of my childhood, I guess, was growing up in southeast London.

Alicia: And then how did you end up working in food?

Zoe: Yeah, really good question. There's not an easy answer to that either, I’m afraid. But, you know, I like to think of it as kind of, in one sense, it's like this happy serendipitous accident, but actually, increasingly, I've come to believe that the universe funneled me down a certain path because it really never felt like any of it was, you know—I didn't think I was destined to be a cook of any description; it was really not on my radar. But it's certainly the space in where, like, I found my power and my voice and stepped into my purpose. But, how did that start? Well, I guess I have to go back quite a few paces to childhood and the fact that I am from two different ethnic parents and the fact that I had this close relationship with Ireland and my Irishness growing up. And I didn't have that same relationship with my Ghanain-ness, and so food, from quite a young age, became my access point to Ghana and that sort of inquiry into my heritage and trying to understand what that part of my culture was about. I started working with food, in a way, from a very young age. I used to cook my friends particular dishes that I love, like peanut butter stew, which has gone on to become my signature dish. And then how my business started was in 2010, I basically got back from the States. I spent three months traveling around the States on Amtrak and, you know, any means possible really to see as much of the continent as I could and had an amazing time and I came back broke. I've always lived in Hackney Wick when I've been back in London—well, not always, technically, that's another story—but anyway, I came back to Hackney Wick, and I don't know what you know about Hackney Wick then or now, but I guess it was like Brooklyn 20 years ago, where it was kind of very affordable living, cheap warehouse, big spaces. So the dominant kind of tenant then, we were artists, creatives, writers, photographers, right? Huge studios, white spaces. But there was nothing else here. There's no bars, no restaurants, no cafés or anything like that—good times, before it was gentrified. So Hackney Wick then used to have a festival, an arts festival called Hackney Wicked. And so all of those studios would get opened over the course of that weekend. And so during this weekend, I was looking at this bleak industrial landscape of Hackney Wick suddenly fill up with like all these people from all over London. And I thought, well, there's an opportunity to make some pocket money here because they’re gonna be hungry, they're like roaming around. So basically, I decided to make a makeshift kind of food store outside my front door because my actual home, like the warehouse we live in, was being used as a video gallery, so I couldn't be in it. And I didn't have anything to do, so I thought, well, let me cook some food and see if I can sell it. And my friend made a big sign saying Zoe's Famous Peanut Butter Stew. Obviously only famous for me and to them, but as a marketing ploy, it kind of worked. And the smell, you know, it's a big smell. It's like a bold, full flavor piquant, spicy, sweet, delicious smell so it drew people and to outside my front door, you know. I kept selling out of this stuff, basically, and it started some interesting conversations around why people had never heard of Ghanian food, why people have never heard—a lot of people didn't even know where Ghana was, you know, on the map. So I think that's the moment where something subconsciously ticked in my brain, I thought, there's a problem to solve here, but I'm not going to be the problem-solver, do you know what I mean? It was still wasn't on my radar. And people wanted me to do it again and I was like, “Ah, probably not.” Anyway, fast-forward a year and I started my MA at Goldsmiths and that same weekend—I was just about to start my MA at Goldsmiths, sorry. So that same weekend, we turned the flat into a restaurant, so instead of an open studio, we made it into a restaurant because we had so much fun the year before, right? And I called it Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen—actually, I called it Ghana Kitchen; it didn't have my name on it yet. So we made loads of tables and chairs—I still live in this space now, actually, I’m sitting in it—and we made lots of tables and chairs. I would basically ransack loads of charity shops, got all second-hand cutlery and plates and went through Ridley Road Market, got this African fabric; I created a Spotify playlist. And for all intents and purposes, it looked like a restaurant. So people thought they were in a restaurant and people were trying to—and it was Ram Ram, Ram. Thank you, ma’am. It was so busy, like so I cannot tell you how extraordinarily busy it was over the course of four days and people were trying to book you know, for next week and the week after, and so on. And I had to be like, I'm really sorry, this is actually my living room, you're actually standing in my office. This isn't how this normally looks. It's like a fun thing. But I'll take your email address, and if I do it again, I'll let you know. And that's basically how that started. And because I enjoyed it so much, I kind of started doing it every few months, and then it became monthly. But it's still a hobby, right? It wasn't a business. And then when I started the MA, I thought, Oh cool, I can do this and not have to work for anybody else. And, you know, I can just write and read and have all the fun and cook when I feel like it and have these amazing parties. Because that's what they were, really, is like these huge dinner parties of like 60 people twice a night. And we used to do 60 covers twice a night. It was just so much fun. 

And I was still kind of hesitant, to be honest, because I really was focused on writing and wanting to be a writer. And I tried to move to Berlin—and I did move to Berlin, because I found my bohemian paradise there. And, you know, I was going to be this cigarette-smoking, whiskey-drinking, late-night, you know, bohemian person breathing in Berlin culture and society and then putting my spin on it. But I also took a kitchen residency while I was there to earn some money, and then at the same time—and in doing that in Berlin, right, the first event I did in Berlin went into their version of Time Out straightaway. And after that I had like my inbox full of people in Berlin trying to book for the next one. So that gave me a reason to keep going back to Berlin before I moved, then I eventually moved there. But you know, there was this Zeitgeist moment, I think, where cooking shows were taking off. Jamie Oliver's Naked Chef had done some interesting perspective-changing around what TV cooking looked like, you know; foodie became like the new language for people that love food. And there was this big gap, right, around what African cuisine was. And nobody was really stepping into that gap. And not to say that there weren’t African restaurants all over London, because there certainly were, but they certainly weren't doing what I was doing, which was having a modern perspective and modern take on it and also making an environment for people from all parts of society to feel comfortable in having that experience. The reason I came back from Berlin was because, you know, I just kept getting so many catering jobs in London, I ended up coming back to London once every two weeks I thought, Well, this is silly. So I decided to move back to London. And when I realized, you know, so it started taking off in blogs and the press. I was in German press; I was in British press; I got asked to go to do some amazing projects in Moscow, like this long table dining in a public park and it was f*****g cool as f**k. And so I was like, Okay, there's something here. What is it? Like, why do people enjoy this so much? What is the problem that I'm solving? kind of thing. And I decided that the reason—well, there's lots of reasons, but I just decided that, okay, so what you need to do is educate people about what this food is. And then that became the mission statement for Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen, to bring African food to the masses and start an African food revolution. And that's pretty much why we spent the last 10 years doing.

Alicia: And it's so interesting because I do feel like the universe, you know, you can have all these intentions and put all the work toward doing one thing that you think you want to do, that you think you're supposed to do, and then the world will be like, absolutely not. No, you're doing this other thing. Zoe: But yeah, and ironically, I mean, interestingly, I don't even think that, you know, everything that's happened so far in the last ten years still isn't even—I think I'm only just now actually getting to the point of what the purpose was of all of that experience. And that's exciting.

Alicia: And in the introduction to your book, Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen, you write “African cuisine has been surprisingly marginalized.” And that reminded me of, I'm sure you know her work, Dr. Jessica B. Harris. She wrote in High on the Hog, which is about African cuisine in the States, the same thing, basically. And you know—why do you think that's the case? And have you seen that change at all since your book came out? I mean, in the States, for whatever reason, right now Nigerian food is having kind of a moment—at least in the media because, you know, nothing can have a moment in real life right now. But yeah, so do you feel that that's changed at all? Or if it has, you know, maybe morphed slightly?

Zoe: Yes, I mean, I wish when I wrote that that I hadn't written “surprisingly,” because it's not surprisingly at all. I was a bit more polite in 2015 when I was writing that book than I am now, for sure. 

But it's not surprising, actually, for lots of reasons. And the big reason is because we understand that the food world has a white gaze all over every single aspect of it, right. So... but let's take some responsibility where we need to actually, and we do, and I think that part of the reasons that we can raise our hands up on that front is the fact that you know, within our communities—and even as I say this, there is still the lens of white supremacy behind what I'm about to say—but you know, 99.9%, if not 100% of African mothers and fathers want you to do a hard academic or hard science degree, right? Because their belief is, the world is going to be hard enough for you anyway, you need to have the best qualifications behind you so that people can't say no to you. So we don't think of, in those cultures, we don’t think of hospitality and catering as desirable careers, historically, for good reasons. 

Also, from a historical gastronomic perspective, those cultures in West Africa haven't had that leisurely headspace that the French and the Italians have had for hundreds of years to develop their cuisine, because we've actually been oppressed for hundreds of years and been trying to get our land back or our freedom back. Food was very much sustenance, and a means to an end. We know that, culturally speaking, food is very important in terms of celebration and in family get-togethers and things like that, but outside the context of nostalgia, sustenance, familiarity, and togetherness, and connection, there isn't a career associated with any of that, at least historically. 

So they're just not careers that we’d have thought to go into. Add on top of that, the huge lack of representation of Black faces in food media, full stop. I’m going to speak to the UK perspective. Growing up, the Black faces and food I saw on TV—and I mean, no disrespect to these people—were… it was just Ainsley Harriott. He's a guy of Caribbean influence, but he wasn't cooking Caribbean food. He was hosting this fun, throwaway, almost... it was called Ready Steady Cook or something like that. In its first iteration, it's like “Oh, I've got a pepper and onion. What can I make?”

And he was a fun, nice, charming character. Easy on the eye for the white gaze, for sure. And then you had Rustie Lee, who similarly, I think, was from a Caribbean background, but cooking in in stereotype of, yeah, ha ha ha, I'm a big, gay, boisterous, fun, unintimidating Black woman. Let me guide you through this thing that's got nothing to do with my heritage or culture. That was kind of the landscape apart from, maybe you saw Amanda Jeffrey occasionally or something like that. And certainly anybody from the continent of Africa was just absolutely absent in terms of representation. 

You can't be what you can't see, right? If you don't have any role models in that space to make you think, Oh, that person's doing it, I can do it, and you put all of those things together, and you've got roadblocks in the way. But then there's the inherent problem of having an all-white media and whether or not they're interested, and this is why I'm always going on about how important it is to own story and narrative and be in charge of it. Because if I wasn't the person I was, with the experience I have, and my intersectionality and all the tools that I equipped myself with, because I came into food in my 30s. I wasn't some spring chicken.

I had my armor for the world already, and I had my intention. So, you know, for a lot of young people, I think that it could have gone really wrong, really quickly. It's because I've got a strong voice and a strong intention. I have this armor that I built up through various other things over the years, I was able to be really quite forceful about how I wanted my cuisines to be represented. And even with that strength of mind and voice, I still get mis-introduced on panels. My cuisine, my style of cooking, all the food I cook still gets mis-called or mis-named on labels. There's constantly this desire to put me in an authentic bracket or traditional bracket, which is absolute b******t. I just spent an hour on the phone in another interview talking about that. 

There's like layers and layers and layers of reasons why, but has that changed? Absolutely, yes, of course it has. Dramatically. When my book came out, Hibiscus, it came out the same time. How that book came out, and the way they went about publishing that, I'm not 100% behind, because basically what they decided was, Oh, Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen is doing really well. There must be some kind of market for African food. Like, let’s do a competition to find a Black cook, because we like to—we're just too lazy to actually do a real investigation who's actually cooking this stuff. So it’s this kind of like this tokenistic adding into the equation another cookbook. And I don't say that to take anything away from Lopè Ariyo, because we’re friends; I like her a lot, and she was a great food blogger before that book came out, and the book’s a lovely book. But I don't think that she had the armor she needed to make that book the success it needs to be and to have a strong enough voice over how the marketing and publicity of that book happen.

And incidentally, another racist thing that happened was they put those books out intentionally at the same time. So they delayed my release by a year so that it would come out at the same time as her release, which meant that they then split our audience. And, you know, the reason I say that that's part of systemic racism is because they're not giving appropriate value to the work, and to the fact that we're already competing in a space that is hugely competitive with niche cuisines. And trying to give it a voice, a place, and a platform. And if you split our market, you split our voice and you split our earning potentials and blah, blah, blah, and so on. 

I thought that was an extremely cynical and untrustworthy move by the media. And of course, we had The Groundnut Cookbook just before those two books came out, actually. So there was that moment around West African cooking, but they would like to keep that as a moment, so they're not going to encourage us to keep producing books, and I even had a meeting in which my publisher said to me, probably not even a year after it was released, they were like, sales haven't been what we wanted and we’re not going to do a reprint. And I said, will you do a paperback or something? And she was like, no. And then I said, okay, well, I'm interested in doing like an afro-vegan something or other, and she said, I think you missed that boat. Missed that boat? In 2018? What the actual f**k are you talking about?

So I've been trying to get my rights back to my book, which they haven't been willing to give me. Well, let's say there's been a lot of excuses like this person's on maternity, this person's on maternity, this person's not in the office. And then the whole BLM movement blows up. And then suddenly I've got my extra 3,000 followers overnight, and everyone's like buying Black. And then suddenly the publisher wants to reprint my book, and it's like, oh, you son of a b***h.

But anyway, in the meantime. We have lots of new African food businesses. Some of which have been kind enough to reference me as an inspiration for what they've done. So you've got you we have Jollof Box, we have Nim’s Din with her Cham Cham from Sierra Leone. We have Little Baobab, who's got a cookbook coming out soon. Chuku’s, which is in London, has just opened a restaurant in North London and Tottenham. They do Nigerian tapas. We have Akoko, which is fine dining opening October which has been delayed from April this year. We have Stork in Mayfair. And obviously we have Ikoyi, but they want to distance themselves for whatever reasons they have from West African, being labeled West African food, but inherently it is and, and hundreds, hundreds of street food vendors, supper clubs, private dining, and food writers, food bloggers. 

We have seen a huge change in how at least the cuisine is represented in terms of the number of people representing it. We still have a long way to go in terms of how it’s represented in the media visually, whether it's online or on TV, but also in print. And we still have the problem where there's only space for one Black face at a time, and there's only room for one conversation around African food at a time, even though it's a continent that has 54 countries. 

There's still lots to do. But we have made huge progress. And I have seen that progress translate to the States. I think there's a whole other conversation there around the relationship with slave history, and slave culture and the food. That is the origin story of so much of the food of the South. And I think that's a complicated thing to unpack, but I think that there's definitely been, in the last 10 years, a movement of voices, whether they're chefs or writers in food, who are making the connection between the African American food experience and the origin point of all of that and that is leading to great new concepts. 

There’s cooks, people like Kurt Cooks; Yewande [Komolafe] is doing great things; she's a great friend of mine as well. And I mean, I could list lots of chefs, Kwame [Onwuachi]. There's lots more chefs who have gained traction and profile around their cuisine, and they are majority Nigerian. And I don't know if that speaks to the fact that, especially the East Coast has a larger population of Nigerians than does Ghanians.

Maybe that is why it's gaining some traction, because there must be a lot of immigrants from those communities there to have the relationship with it in the first place, I suppose. Whereas we have a huge community of Nigeria and Ghanian people in Britain, probably in equal measure, whereas perhaps maybe on the East Coast, there's more Nigerians. 

Eric Adjepong from Ghana, he's not based in New York, I think, but he's certainly been a huge profile builder for Ghana in the States. I'm hoping he does all the work that I've done over here so that like when I get there I don’t have to explain to anybody where Ghana is.

Alicia: It's fascinating for me because I'm in Puerto Rico right now. And for me, in the cuisine here the African influence is so obvious, you know, and not in a way that it's been sort of translated through the food of the American South, like because the climate is the same, the food, the ingredients are so much the same. And that influence is so, so strong and it's obviously it's combined with Spanish influence from that colonization. But it's interesting because I feel so distant from whatever is happening in the United States around food right now, because I'm not there. And so I'm watching this and I'm like, Oh, wow. How is this happening? I mean, as you noted, it's like there's this push right now where people are like, Oh, follow all these Black people in food, buy their books. And it’s a bit… I've talked a bit about this with another friend whose magazine has seen this kind of bump from this moment, and it's a complicated thing to deal with. It's absolutely and so how I feel like... did you launch Black Book, the kind of conversation series you're doing on Instagram, as kind of a way of discussing how this moment is very complicated?

Zoe: Well, the answer to that is also a little bit … not complicated, but it's actually a bit longer than that. The Black Book has been on my mind as an important thing that needs to happen for a couple of years. And I'll tell you, when I've worked in New York...  my wife's from New York, so I spend quite a lot of time in New York, and I've been lucky enough to work there. I've been lucky enough to meet some amazing inspirational voices in food. And when I became part of or saw what Black Food Folks was, honestly, my jaw dropped. I was like, What the f**k is this? Everybody in this room works in F&B, and they're Black. And there's no hierarchy in this room, right? We're just all there because we are all Black, and we are all working in this industry. And it's really easy to have a conversation with anybody in this room. And I was blown away by that, because nothing like that exists in the UK. And ever since that, I've been like, how do I make that happen? Like, how do I make that happen here? But I was still trying to run my other businesses in this chaotic, horrible, messy way. So this wasn't a priority there. But when I just got back from New York, recently, in February… I was having this big... as a result of COVID, as a result of lots of personal development and growth I've been doing in actually shifting my perspective on vision and purpose and stuff. 

And so really the Black Book is born out of that experience of being in America and seeing the power of connectedness between a community. So back in February, March, I emailed two friends of mine—I've been having these conversations for years. This is the other thing that's very frustrating, is I've literally been one of the few voices criticizing publicly or having these conversations with people about inherent systemic racism and how and why our voices are controlled and limited and how we're not paid properly. 

So at the start of COVID, I reached out to these people and said look, I want to start Black Book, here's the vision. This is what I want it to be. And we’d been working towards that. And then the BLM thing happened. And then in the UK, the wave of the movement. And then suddenly all these people were wanting me to speak on panels. And I was like, wait, wait, wait, no, you've got this all wrong, you don't get to host this conversation. You don't get to tell me what's important to me, or what needs changing because you've got no f*****g idea, you know? 

So I just contacted as many people... I just said, we need to talk about this meaningfully, and it actually, it needs to be a global conversation. And it needs to have the voices in it who've been having this conversation for years, because we need to get past this question of whether or not there's a problem because of course, there's a f*****g problem. The next part of the question is, How deep is it? And how do we unpack it? And do we bother unpacking it or do we just let them carry on with it and we start our own versions? 

The food industry is so big—it's bigger than hospitality. There's so much to discuss. And there's so much to unpack, it's like, you can't do it in one panel. So that's why the Black Book series was born, decolonizing the food industry, is because I wanted us to take control of the conversation, and also not wait for them to have the right conversations, and not wait for them to come up with the solutions that would only just suit them. So that's the point of the Black Book series of talks. It's eight weeks at the moment, but I can see it probably extending, because there is so much to talk about on so many different topics. I've been lucky to get some amazing, amazing voices on the panels, and the first one last Sunday was great, very energetic, and ultimately very positive, because what we also want to do is give people hope that there is space for Blackness in F&B and hospitality. Whether it's in the existing institutions or not is another question. But everybody should be hopeful in this moment, because there is so much for us to look forward to if we've got the right glasses on, you know what I mean? 

Alicia: Absolutely. And what made you what the specific topics that you guys are talking about over these eight weeks? How did you decide on what they would be?

Zoe: The honest answer to that is in about 30 seconds, I just went—off the top of my head, what are the eight most important things? I said, guys, can you work up these headline topics a little bit, like give me a paragraph as to what this conversation looks like? And that was it. That's how it started.

Alicia: Amazing. Yeah. I always say this, that the best things start from nothing, you know, the best things start from just dumping your brain.

Zoe: I think it's true, because I've been saying this a lot recently, because the vision for Black Book is so big—and I don't think I've explained it adequately. So let me just do that for a minute.

So Black Book, the vision for Black Book is to be a global representation platform for Black and anybody who doesn't identify as white, right? So some people, I don’t know why they get hurt by this phrase non-white. If you’re not white, then you’re not white, and that's the end of it. I feel okay about non-white, but have it your way. Ultimately, it's about creating, inspiring, and empowering people, and giving them the tools to represent themselves in a way that gives them the tools to fulfill their dreams the way that they want those dreams to unfold, rather than going down the wrong rabbit hole and seeking the wrong kind of attention in the wrong kind of press because the way the system is currently works… it has its own kind of modality and its own rhythm. 

Publishers are like, okay, we've got a cookbook, it has to go into the Times and The Telegraph and so on. And it’s like, is my book suitable, actually? Is that the right space for this book? No, it really f*****g isn’t. I know that, but trying to tell the man at the top is another story. What we need to do is understand where we want to be, be connected to the right people to help us get there, but the extra piece of it in its essence isn't agency, but it wants to be a little bit more than that, because it wants to plug in the need for self-care, self-empowerment. I wanted to give people tools to navigate a white space and industry. 

It wants to give people the connections they need for the things that they want to get done. Mentorship, training, funding in some respects, and to do it or to do it in a more holistic kind of way rather than just being like, okay, I've signed you up, you go for the next five years, build your career, and when you start earning money, I'll take 20 percent of what comes into your inbox, you know what I mean? Which is majority of the time my experience of how an agent treats you and your talent. They just wait for you to do the work, and they try and cling onto it.

It's an antidote to all of that. And it wants to give people across the world a platform or voice for whoever wants to build their businesses how they want to do it, or their brands, if they’re writers or whatever they are. It wants to create equity in the food and beverage industry and also wealth creation. This makes sure people are earning the appropriate amount of money for the amount of work they're doing, because for so many years, I have literally almost killed myself working for other people's interests for nothing. Not getting anything out of it, apart from what they would like to call exposure in entirely the wrong media, in entirely the wrong space. That's what the big vision is for Black Book, a global representation platform for anybody working in F&B.

Alicia: That's great. And not to kind of pivot back to your book, and to food, more literally. But in the notes section of your book, you mention sourcing ingredient ingredients responsibly. And that's not a thing that anyone says in a book that comes out in the United States. In a cookbook from the United States, no one talks about where the food comes from. That's not a thing that anyone talks about in the States. There was kind of a moment maybe in the maybe 10 years ago when that could have been a thing, but it's very alienating to a U.S. audience to ask them to care where their food comes from. But I've noticed it's more of a thing in the UK, like, from the cookbooks I've read, which I have…. I have like a million British cookbooks on my desk right now. I don't know why—I don't know how it happened. But why was it important for you to make that statement? And how does it affect your food choices in your day-to-day life, and in your work as a cook?

Z: Inherently, I am a human who values the planet, right? So if we consider ourselves humans that value the planet, then we have to be thinking sustainably around most things we do every day. What I am aware of is that definitely something I don't want to do is be preaching at people, you have to buy organic, you have to do this, and you're not a good human if you're not spending 20 pounds on your eggs. This actually really winds me up, because people are priced out of sustainability and they're priced out of healthy choices because of  idiotic marketing around it. And, you know, I love that you've got a new book coming out, haven't you?

Alicia: I do. Yes.

Zoe: I love the topic, and I love the title because you’re right. Anyway, let's go back. I try to practice sustainability as best I can every day. And sometimes it’s macro choices, sometimes it's micro choices. When it comes to my everyday cooking, like Sarah and I—she's keto. So her protein usually comes from a meat source or a fish source. But we only eat meat or fish maybe two or three times a week, and that's because we want to be buying the right sustainably-sourced meat or fish proteins. And that's a responsibility to the environment that we think is important. We don't eat loads of meat and fish.  

If I put loads of meat or fish on my menu when I'm cooking, it means that the price will reflect the fact that it is sustainably sourced and organic, and that is problematic for a lot of people, because they're people think they want to be woke, and into sustainability and the environment, but then they don't necessarily want to pay the price of what that actually costs when it comes to a supper club or a restaurant. So it's challenging. I have something to say as well about how we can work harder to bring the cost down of organic and free range and stuff like that. Because there's lots governments could do in terms of subsidies and legislation against existing farming practices, and just make everybody f*****g do the same thing the same right way and subsidize it and then we're all good. 

I'm certainly not there to preach at people about their spending choices around food. I grew up eating out of tin cans. I'm not saying I was poor on the street, I'm just saying, tinned food wasn't uncommon in my house growing up, frozen meals and ready meals. I'm not a snob around any of that stuff. But I certainly see the value in amazing fresh ingredients. And I see the value in the better flavor that you get from good sustainably sourced ingredients, full stop, whether it's vegetables, proteins, legumes, lentils, grains—whatever the ingredient is, it's always going to taste a little bit better if it's sustainably sourced, sustainably farmed. All sustainably means, really, is with love, right? Instead of for money. Instead of capitalism being the sole driving force behind the production of food.  

That’s in there because I care about it. But also I don't want to labor the point too much. Also, a lot of these ingredients are coming from the continent of Africa, and there is an environmental impact there. I choose to make these other choices around not using single-use impact plastics or using cleaning things that are better for the environment than what I used to use. Nobody's perfect, so you have to make compromises. 

It’s—okay, if I want to eat really good quality meat, then I'm only gonna eat it once a week. If I want to be importing ingredients from Ghana, well, then I should be a bit more mindful about how many times I put the kettle on, how many times I flush the toilet in a day. Whether I'm using eco- or some other environmentally friendly products. If I'm using cling film or not, which we don't anymore. I try to make the choices that I'm comfortable with, because I know that me and my business are essentially adding carbon. Even things like using the browser I use, Ecosia every time I do a search on Ecosia, they plant a tree. My conscience is balanced in those ways. I think it's up to everybody to find their own conscious balance in a way that's affordable for them. 

But I am really, really annoyed and frustrated by the marketing around healthy food and veganism, actually, and just the barriers to entry that are put over people who don't have high disposable income. They're kind of marketed out of and priced out of healthy choices around food, which is probably a campaign I might take up at some point later. Maybe not this year, but maybe next year. 

Alicia: Yeah, no, that's why I'm... my book will be about these things, sort of about how all these choices that get pushed on us as individual are actually structural, and the price of things that you know, meat isn't cheaper then vegetables, inherently, it's because of the subsidies. My book is about veganism, but it's more about how to diversify the way you eat in a way that recognizes all these forces that are crushing your ability to make good choices, to make better choices for the world. And to show that yeah, it's not a rich person's thing. Eating well and eating sustainably is not just for rich people.

Zoe: Exactly. I don’t know if I’ve already spoken on this or not, but Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen as a business is pivoting now… I hate the word pivoting, because we were doing it anyway, but I wanted to change the brand a little bit to make it more focused around accessibility. For one, there are a lot of people who don't want to do the work of just googling where to find an ingredient. But then there's the problem of okay, I'm interested in that ingredient. I didn't want to pay 25 pounds for a kilo of it from that posh health food store, because what if I don't like it? 

Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen now is basically transforming into an e-shop, basically, for interesting, healthy, African, not just West African ingredients, whether it's your maringas and your baobabs or grains of paradise. And the beautiful thing about this food is every single thing has an amazing health property behind it, and not just one, probably like four or five, six or seven, right? What I get to do now is bring African food to the masses, but do it through an e-shop that's also going to give people access to healthy ingredients in small quantities and affordable quantities with guidance on how to use them or apply them. That's where we're going. Basically, your health is your wealth, and you can achieve this. You don't have to only shop at Holland and Barrett, you don't have to go to Whole Foods. Here's some nice choices you can make that happen to be exciting flavors in your kitchen, but also have these amazing properties behind them as well. That's where the business is going long term, and more away from catering. Definitely away from street food. I'm done with that.

Alicia: Is there Whole Foods in the UK? 

Zoe: Yeah, yeah. 

Alicia: I didn't know that they made.., I don't know where Whole Foods is and that anymore. I thought it was just a U.S. thing.

Zoe: Here’s the thing. You can tell, the people who shopped at Whole Foods… it's like there's some cachet around it, you know? There shouldn't be cachet around buying healthy food, it should just be, everybody has access to this food. Like the whole caged hen thing. Why are we still doing caged hens? Like, why? Why, why, why? I want to ask the people in agriculture at the ministerial level, why haven't you not just banned caged hens? We know it makes bad products, we know it's bad for the hens. And it's probably not that great for the environment somewhere along the line. So why are we doing it? Just give everybody nice, good quality, organic, free-range eggs. That's a big bugbear of mine, how health is marketed mainly to white people, mainly to middle-class white people. And it assumes that nobody else is interested. And it prices out anybody else who might be. I'm over that as well.

Alicia: Absolutely. No, I love talking to Bryant Terry, because he is so vocal about being like, people think veganism is a white thing. But he grew up in Tennessee, where also people think veganism doesn't exist. And it was Black folks who were the people who taught him about plant-based eating and that lineage is so important. And it gets erased because it serves a purpose, of course. 

Zoe: There's so many reasons why I wanted to start. When I figured out the reasons why Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen existed, there were so many reasons why it needed to exist. And part of it was this…. I grew up in the ’80s, watching this narrative come out of Africa—that there was poverty, it was famine, it was destroying itself, imploding, dictators. That was the media description of what was going on in Africa for me. And you know, compare and contrast with my delicious kenkey, and my tilapia, and my shito, and I'm like, what is going on? There must be some other stuff happening here. And so, you know, it's all about the gaze, and how they want to position it, and how they want to keep the power. 

The other part is people thinking that African food is bush meat, and it's all like, fatty, greasy. People were looking down their nose at that cuisine. My menu, before veganism became fashionable, before plant based became fashionable—that's what my menu was. I didn't even realize. It was gluten free. It was dairy free. I had probably 80 percent of the menu was vegan and plant-based. And you would have a meat dish, you would have a fish dish and maybe you'd have one more. I had my fried chicken, you always got to keep fried chicken on the menu. But the majority of it was plant-based and like, I've kind of missed a trick by not capitalizing on that sooner. I certainly would have made some bang for my buck then. But it wasn't in my marketing concerns because it just inherently this was it, you know? Fixing those stereotypes, or addressing them anyway, is super important and yeah, we live off of plant-based diets, because me actually is a luxury in some part of the world. 

Alicia: People don't understand that. And so during the pandemic, not to use the word pivoted again, but you were providing—are you still doing this? You're providing meals to NHS workers from Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen? 

Zoe: Well, I set up a community kitchen via public donations from crowd-funder, and that was to specifically help vulnerable people in the community around me in East London. So I’ve been working with like Hackney Migrants’ Center, Across The UK, which is a West African at-risk migrants center—lots of little organizations, basically, whether they were elderly people or people in sheltered accommodation, or homeless, or had health underlying health conditions. I work with all these little small groups to get food to those people. And then on top of that, we were also providing meals for NHS key workers and staff, and also care homes. So yeah, we were doing about 500 meals a week in the end, which is kind of incredible because I only set it up to do 150 meals a week. 

But we're not doing NHS meals anymore, as of this week. And the crowd-funder, to be honest, has kind of lost its momentum and stuff like that. But I've also decided I can live my purpose by running a community kitchen, or I can live my purpose by doing the bigger work. So I decided not to extend it very much. So what I am going to do is I'm going to continue to provide meals for the at-risk migrants, because they are my community. And the numbers are small enough for me to be able to pay out of my own pocket. So we're going to carry that on. But like the big 500 meals a week stuff—this is the first week where I'm not doing that, actually. And it's really nice, in a way. I hate to say it. 

But it's been a very rewarding thing to do. I've grown tremendously from it. I stepped into my myself a lot more during the process of doing that scene, I had to make myself super vulnerable by asking people for help, and that really isn't me. That's not what I've done historically, I'm a strong Black woman. I learned so much, and I met some amazing people along the way and obviously, we've done good work, feeding people. It's been hugely rewarding. That's scaling right back now so that I can focus on Black Book, focus on writing, focus on the spice business. There's so much more going to happen.

Alicia: So for you is cooking a political act?

Zoe: Yeah. Yes, it always has been for me, and you can define your politics another way. I mean, it's cooking at home political for me? Hmm… also, probably, because of the choices I make when I make my purchases around food, right? They're politically informed. They're made with a consciousness around food politics, around sustainability. But I don't always want to talk about politics when I’m eating. 

So politics is informing my choices around food, but me cooking, me representing Ghanian flavors, or West Africa, or Africa in any context when it comes to food—and whether that's me on a panel, whether that's me giving a demo, whether that's me hosting a soccer club or a residency, whatever the space is—that is political, because I'm challenging people to interact with a culture that's perhaps, for some people, unfamiliar to them. Or I'm challenging people to interact with a culture in a new way that's familiar to them. And that's going to challenge all their concepts of what is traditional, who’s allowed to cook what, cultural appropriation, and so on. 

If you're from a place that's considered other, and if you yourself are a representation or have been made to be a representation of other, then everything you do is political in the end, because you're a living, breathing, walking… I nearly went so dramatic and said bill of rights, but that’s too much. But you're basically like a manifesto in flow, right? So every exchange you have around food, every meal you cook, you're prepared for the conversation that's either an interrogation of the thing, or an introduction to the thing or an education of the thing. There's always some political moment around the food, even when it's a positive, bringing people together over food, there's politics in that as well. Why do we need the food to bring those people together? Because there was some political thing keeping them apart. So I think inherently when you are what other people call other, politics is that part of my fabric.

Alicia: Thank you so much for taking the time.

Zoe: Oh, absolute pleasure. You know I love to talk, babe. If there was a job where I could just be on back-to-back podcasts… 

Alicia: I mean, there are so many podcasts. I feel like I now—I have to say no to people lately. I'm like, I can't... I can't, because for me, I'm like, I don't actually enjoy talking that much. Like, I like writing. So I'm like, doing this is just like… stressful. 

Zoe: We do need… I mean, I know there's a lot out there but we need to have a lot out there so that people can hear. So thank you. 

Alicia: Thank you.

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