#jewishfoodwriters

[illmakeitmyself]

Got to see Michael Twitty @thecookinggene last night at his author talk on The Cooking Gene. I can’t fit all of his genius into a few tweets or an Insta post (thank goodness @seattlepubliclibrary is releasing this author talk as a podcast), but so I want to share something he said from when he signed my copy of The Cooking Gene. Because I have no chill around people I admire, especially food writers, I think all my starstruck ass managed to say was “I’m a queer food blogger and your work is really cool” (“really cool” doesn’t even cover it!! 😭) and he said that sometimes people ask him “what does food has to do with being gay?” and vice versa. I’m paraphrasing here, but he told me that every LGBTQ+ person has a personal relationship to food informed by their identities. (The Cooking Gene and his other writing about food and identity covers his relationship to food and foodways through being Black, being Southern, being Jewish, being gay.) Now y’all’ve got it on good authority that food is queer. 🌈 And then he told me two important things: first, that we have to keep fighting (as queer folks against injustice and for our lives), and second, that he and his friends used to host a Rainbow Thanksgiving where everyone had to bring a dish that was rainbow-colored or the colors of one of the pride flags. Both messages were equally important. Thank you from the bottom of my bisexual nonbinary food-obsessed Midwestern-transplant heart. 🌈🌈💖💜💙 . . . . #thecookinggene #michaeltwitty #lhpac #blackfoodwriters #queerfoodwriters #jewishfoodwriters #southernfood #gobuythisbook #seattlepubliclibrary (at Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute) https://www.instagram.com/p/BqLSs-zHrrF/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=l244de39hq5z