Queer Kitchen Connection #17 🎃

Hey Taste Buds!

My last two months have involved a lot of changes and different experiences. I spent half of one of those months traveling (that was a lot, and still requires extra rest and recovery time). I experienced the incredible affirmation of having a correct gender marker on my license and passport…and the almost immediate removal of my access to international air travel because of that affirming gender marker. I discovered accessible ways to enjoy playing music and playing D&D, neither of which I expected to be able to access with this much depth again.

Community remains my biggest focus, whether that’s with my COVID-safe potluck fam, getting my D&D group together, or spending time with my neighbors when the timing works out. What community connections have been supporting you lately? What community connections do you wish you had more access to?

And with the breaking news that SNAP benefits and funding for Head Start will end on Nov 1st, community becomes even more important. In my county alone, more than 140,000 people will lose access to benefits that help them afford food at the end of this week. I plan to create a zine to help me reach out to my neighbors (I’ll share it when I get it done), and I’ll be taking advantage of Halloween trick-or-treating to check-in with neighbors and offer whatever support I can to prevent people in my immediate neighborhood from going without food. Please make time to talk to your own neighbors – those in close proximity to you – and see what we can accomplish together.

Take care of each other – I believe in us!

Jex

A photo of Jex, a white nonbinary person with short brown hair and wearing glasses and a black chef coat.

Send Foodz

Food pictures, stories, and connection from my kitchen (and yours)!

A bowl of diced pears, lightly coated with oats and glistening with sweetness.

We have a pear tree in the back yard, and it produced A LOT this season (most of them far out of reach). The ones we picked were underripe, and we let them ripen for 3-4 weeks! Our patience was rewarded when we realized the pears had finally ripened. While we ate some raw, the others we diced and baked into a lovely crisp!

Sometimes making good salads requires easy access to favorite ingredients. For this salad, I used pickled beets and chickpeas I had in the refrigerator, added a bit of cheese and a veggie chick’n patty for protein, on a base of lettuce and tomato. Add a tasty dressing, and this will always make a tasty salad for me.

A large blue-rimmed bowl with a mound of lettuce topped with layers of tomato, beets, chickpeas, cheese, and sliced chick’n patty with a simple vinaigrette dressing drizzled on top.

A cardboard to-go box filled with a mixture of lettuce, tomato, cheese, pickled red onion, croutons, and cucumber. The vegetables are shiny with a coating of salad dressing. A fork pokes the center of the salad, ready for the next step: eating!

Sometimes a salad from a restaurant just hits the spot too! This to-go box came filled with lettuce and topped with pickled red onions, tomato, cucumber, cubed cheese, and croutons. I added the included white balsamic vinaigrette and mixed it all up to discover one of my favorite meals of that 10-day trip.

Nacho Time happened for the first time during an Ace of Mugs stream! It was lovely, and while I didn’t get a picture of those specific nachos…I have so many pictures of nachos and these are pretty close, including the mug I was drinking from during the stream!

Layers of tortilla chips, shredded cheese, beans, salsa, lettuce, and tomato are piled on a plate, with a scoop of plain yogurt on top. A mug, spoon, and multi-colored cloth napkin are beside the plate. On the mug is a trans heart with headphones.

A crescent-shaped stromboli in a pizza box lined with red-and-white checked paper. Cuts across the top of the crust reveal a red raspberry sauce inside. Jex’s hand has fingers outstretched within the crescent for scale - it’s longer than their hand!

I got to have cheesecake stromboli for the first (and second) time - and hopefully those won’t be the last times either! A truly delicious, massive, culinary masterpiece. So nice, I ordered it twice!

Want to send foodz? Fill out this form with a photo and story, and we'll try to include it in the next Queer Kitchen Connection!

What’s Cooking?

Upcoming special events—Food Focused Nutrition-related or otherwise!

Save the Date for the annual Graham Cracker House Food-Play Adventure:

Sunday, December 14, 3-5pm EST!!

Here is an opportunity to be creative without negative consequences! While playing with food can sometimes be a little messy, can we all agree that tacos are messy AND delicious? Sometimes messy foods are the best foods.

Besides deliciousness, I always learn something at a food-play adventure, whether that’s something I didn’t know before about a food or about my own preferences.

Whether you decide to work with graham crackers (like me), explore gingerbread, or make something savory, I hope you’ll save the date to discover creative, communal joy at this next food-play adventure!

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We all get busy! If you’d like to get reminder emails about registration for Food Focused Nutrition events, reply to this newsletter and I’ll add you to my list for personal reminders.

I’ll send a reminder once per event, one week out from registration closing.

Hope to see you soon!

The Intersection

I'm always working on making Food Focused Nutrition more accessible with baked-in, intentional inclusion. What's the latest step in my journey?

I realized recently that I avoid giving general advice, and I wanted to think more about why that is the case. To put it plainly, I'm terrible at giving generalized advice. Why? For two reasons: first, I have more ideas than capacity to share; and second, everyone has specific dietary needs, medical needs, sensory needs, and differing access to food and prep spaces, etc., and I can't ignore that. Instead, I specialize in giving individualized support.

This individual support is one of many reasons I created my private practice, so it's possible to work with my clients in depth, one-on-one. I want more people to know that affirming, creative, and trauma-informed professional support for in-kitchen nutrition and food prep exists! I have availability for new clients, so if this support is something that will benefit you or someone you know, please reach out (and/or forward the newsletter).

Somehow I want to encapsulate this in a submission to an upcoming zine called Weird Gay Eats: it’s about neuroqueer people’s relationships with food. So much of what I do and how I work is specifically to meet people where food becomes too challenging and explore what better access to nourishment can look like.

If you might also be interested in capturing in words (or art!) something about the intersections of your own neurodivergence, queerness, and relationship with food, here is more information about the call for submissions: https://tinyurl.com/WeirdGayEats

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All contributions to the Pay It Forward Fund support folx in accessing low- or no-cost services with Food Focused Nutrition. Learn more or share my post about the fund on Instagram or Facebook!

Suggest-ipe

Because the way I see it, all recipes are merely suggestions!

Any-Fruit Crisp

Two round white baking dishes filled with apple crisp; apple chunks peek out on the edges below a top coating of oats.

I love making this with canned sliced peaches or pears, but any fruit that you have on hand will likely be delicious baked with a crumble topping!

Ingredients:

~4 c sliced/chopped fruit, fresh, frozen, or canned (2 15-oz cans, drained)
¼ c sugar (adjust to taste)
1 T cornstarch
¼ t salt
½ - 1 t cinnamon (optional)
1 c oats
½ c brown sugar
½ c flour (can replace with a gluten-free flour blend or try almond flour)
¼ t salt
⅓ c butter or non-dairy alternative, melted (~5 T)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350*F.
Chop or slice fruit into bite size pieces, or drain canned fruit. If frozen, defrost enough to be able to stir the fruit. Put fruit into a deep dish pie plate or other baking dish.
Sprinkle the sugar, cornstarch, salt, and any additional spices over the fruit, and stir until the fruit is evenly coated.
In a small bowl, combine the oats, brown sugar, flour, and salt. Stir with a fork to combine, then mix in the melted butter. (if making ahead, chill this mixture to get a bit more clumping in your crumble topping)
Spread the oat mixture evenly over the fruit mixture. Bake at 350*F for 40-45 min, or until the fruit is bubbling and cooked to desired tenderness, and the topping is golden brown.
Let cool slightly before serving so you don’t burn yourself!

That’s all for now!

Queer Kitchen Connection is an every-other-month newsletter from Food Focused Nutrition.

I want this newsletter to be an invitation for us all to foster more connection around food.

My dream is that Queer Kitchen Connection will be the start of a conversation, and I welcome you to taste, savor, and share in the creation of community with direct replies to the newsletter.

Author Jex Calvert, RDN, Food Focused Nutrition
“Edible-in-Chef” Ashley Bovin, Ease Up Consulting

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