Queer Kitchen Connection #11 🎃

Hey Taste Buds!

My sadness has been pretty overwhelming lately. I don’t want to start a newsletter this way, but this is my reality–and it likely will be for a while. Sadness isn’t fun or enjoyable. It sucks a lot. And…it’s a reminder that I care deeply. About my chosen family. About my communities. About the whole world. I would very much like to feel other feelings for longer than a few moments, and this is where I am for now.

But y’know what? I had about a week or two of severe anxiety in the midst of this related to traveling to Minneapolis, and I actually prefer sadness a lot more. There’s something I didn’t think I’d ever say.

Allow me to offer a little reminder for us all, when things feel overwhelming and awful as they tend to these days…focus on something small. What is one small thing that can make your immediate surroundings or community a little better?

Maybe it’s picking up a piece of trash in the neighborhood. Maybe it’s smiling and waving to someone. Maybe it’s stocking your local community fridge or pantry with a favorite food you want to share. Maybe it’s making art with sidewalk chalk or yarn-bombing or building a miniature thing for squirrels and/or fairies. Maybe it’s having cute Halloween decorations that brighten your day (and maybe your neighbors’ day too).

Right in our community is where we have the most ability to make an impact, and each of us can make the world a better place—one small thing at a time.

Be well,

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)!

Three rectangular pan-pizzas in 9x13” metal pans on a stove top. The cheese has crusted and browned around the edges. One is mushroom, one is pepperoni, and one has mushroom, pepperoni, and black olives.

The ongoing saga of my hand pain continues…but I can make this pan pizza without aggravating my hands too much because there’s no kneading! In retrospect, I shouldn’t have made three of them at once. But I can make one, for sure! Two is maybe pushing it, but still doable. Yay, pizza!

After some delicious Greek take-out, I’d already finished the spanakopita and tabbouleh and pita…but I didn’t want to waste the last little bit of hummus. So I chopped up some bread into chunks, added some leftover chickpeas to stretch the hummus, added a bit of cheese, and stirred za’atar into some olive oil for additional yumminess. These were my favorite leftovers in the last few months!

An open clear plastic to-go container with sections. The large section on the left has chunks of bread and sliced cheese. The lower right section has hummus with chickpeas on top. The upper right section has a bowl of herbed-oil for dipping.

A plate filled with dill potato salad, saucy baked beans, and a veggie dog in a bun with a stripe of ketchup then a zigzag of mustard on top.

Veggie dogs have become a new safe food for me: they are easy to prepare, can have varied toppings depending on what I want at the moment, and they generally have what I need to get enough nourishment for a meal or snack. I don’t always get to have them with potato salad and baked beans, but if those foods could become just as easy to prepare, keep in the house, and I’d know they’ll be well-tolerated every time–that would be pretty amazing!

Taste Bud Contribution

A dish holds a canal diorama made of food. Blue frosting bordered by cracker walls is the canal, with a canal lock. On either side are crushed cookies, green coconut, and gummy bears. A cookie boat sits above the lock; two animal crackers "pull" it.

“James made this dessert to celebrate the Erie Canal's 200th birthday. They said: ‘It's worms in dirt but with bears because it needed to be vegan and gluten free, and no one makes vegan gummy worms.’”

~Taste Bud Coral

Keep an eye out for the next food-play adventure coming up in December…this picture is making me excited for it already!

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!

FNCE Panel Update

The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics’ Food & Nutrition Conference & Expo (FNCE) remains one of my least favorite places to be: a place where I feel socially excluded that is also inaccessible in countless ways. I struggled with everything leading up to the panel I was on, including being awake for 24 hours the day before (due to travel and anxiety) and only getting 2 hours of sleep despite successfully being in a bed for a full 8 hours.

But for about 90-100 minutes on a Sunday morning at the biggest conference for nutrition professionals in the world, I was in a room full of people ready to become active disruptors. The Academy has changed in the last 5 years. Not enough for me to feel welcome and included, but enough that there are folx desperate to have conversations about changing the performative way our profession approaches accessibility, inclusion, diversity, and equity (can we call it AIDE? We should call it AIDE) to build a culture of accountability and restorative justice.

We had folx really moved by the panel, excited and ready to join the conversation, and talking about taking action as they left. Some said it was the best session they had attended at FNCE. I heard about unsolicited rave reviews that were shared with colleagues all week. Hopefully the Academy will support these changemakers going forward, and this momentum can build into active (and ongoing) discussion groups that turn individual actions into collective action!

There’s still a lot of work to be done. The Academy still insists on being “non-political” (the panel I spoke on about “Reclaiming DEI” was listed as “politically unbiased”, possibly because that was the only way it could be approved), and I believe that is the biggest detriment to efforts to create change. Without the ability to have conversations across differences, the stodgy parts of the Academy will remain unchanged and unwelcoming. The problem with saying a space is “non-political” is that it NEVER is. It’s like saying you “don’t see color.”

Probably the best metaphor for my experience at FNCE is this water bottle given out to all attendees that I had to adjust to meet my own needs. First of all, it doesn’t have the kind of top I can drink from, so I almost didn’t take one. But then I realized I could stock up on cereal from hotel breakfast to have an easy snack (it’s an awesome Froot Loop dispenser!). When I got home, I added a sticker from my favorite book shop to give me more joy, and now I’m glad I have it. It will help me remember the seeds I tried to plant despite all the inaccessible and exclusionary shit. Shit is fertile, after all, so I trust those seeds will grow.

Side-by-side photos of a blue water bottle. In the left photo, it stands on a table, mostly full with Froot Loops. In the right photo, it is in Jex’s hand. A greyscale sticker with a flaming book and “burningbooks.com” covers text on the bottle.

Quantity Cooking for Solidarity

I came across a social media post months ago, talking about making an extra pot of food to support neighbors who may be struggling. It was a suggest-ipe for a rice-and-beans type meal, with ideas for other ingredients and seasoning options that would be flavorful but generally easy to digest for the majority of folx. It also included a few ideas about packaging, though limited ideas for distribution.

I immediately thought, “This is a way I can help. Maybe with body doubling to actually Make The Thing, or as a teach-in to help people find and navigate the barriers that come up in their own community. This is a way I can help people do a small thing that makes a big difference.”

As I struggled with mental health, grief, and stress through a very difficult summer, I lost track of time, lost track of the original post (even though I’m certain I saved it), but I still wanted to put together a workshop based on this idea. On my last visit to Burning Books, a favorite local bookstore here in Buffalo, I picked up Feeding the Masses: A Guide to Vegan Mass Catering by the Anarchist Teapot Mobile Kitchen—and the spark to do this thing was rekindled.

So I’m pleased to announce that a trial workshop of Quantity Cooking for Solidarity is in planning phases, and I will hopefully have the completed workshop available for folx to schedule with their own private group by late November!

I will have an option for folx to add their name to a waiting list if you don’t have your own group. As soon as I have a list of people in 4 different kitchens, we’ll find a time together and put out a public call for more to join as available. (Virtual group sizes of up to 20 screens can be accommodated). Cost will be $25 per participating screen, plus individual ingredient cost.

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?

Disrupting FNCE with a Zine!

I made a zine to accompany my portion of the panel presentation, and during the whole creative process it felt like contraband because I knew it wouldn’t be “approved” by a committee to be an official handout. The others on my panel reacted very positively, so I passed them around much more openly than I’d anticipated. It was my first big printing of a zine, and I’m so proud of how it came out!

Side-by-side photos of the Take Action zine. In the left photo is a stack of printed, unfolded zines with scissors resting on top. In the right photo is Jex’s hand holding multiple folded zines, with the inside endnotes page visible behind.

Shout out to Petra for some Feel Good Feedback that helped me more confidently be my authentic self with this zine. She always makes me want to show up as my most disruptive self in situations where I feel safe to do so (and recognize the difference between being uncomfortable and unsafe, because my own whiteness can protect me more than I think sometimes). If that resonates with you, go collaborate with her on something. You will not regret it!

I’ve included the zine here if you’d like to print it out, and please feel welcome to share it around in the places you think it will help people practice making change.

Zine file (print double-sided)

Video link for how to fold a zine

If you need this document to be more accessible, please reach out and I will work with you to make it as accessible as possible. I’m still navigating how to make zines accessible for blind and low-vision folx.

On a green background is a red starburst "bang" shape, as in a comic book, with lines and stars emitting from it. Within the shape is text that reads, "Support the Pay It Forward fund!"

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!

A top-down view of a pot of red chili. The pot has red handles, and a spoon is resting in the pot. Surrounding the pot are loose tortilla chips; cheese and green onions in pinch bowls; a kitchen towel; and pine cones.

Photo from budgetbytes.com

Pumpkin Chili

Here’s a place to start: https://www.budgetbytes.com/easy-pumpkin-chili/

As we get into autumn and the crisp, cool breeze rustles colorful leaves to the ground, it’s a good time to bring out the chili recipes to warm us inside and out— and a big pot of chili is a great way to feed a crowd.

Ingredients:

2+ cloves garlic
1 onion
1 lb ground meat or ⅓ lb TVP rehydrated in broth or more beans
2 15-oz cans beans of choice (drained)
1 15-oz can diced tomatoes
1 15-oz can pumpkin puree
½ 6-oz can tomato paste
2 c water
2 T chili seasoning (chili powder, paprika, cumin, garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper, salt, or other spices you like–sometimes I add a little cinnamon)

Instructions:

Use a large pot on the stove top, or a slow cooker, or an instant pot (see additional notes below).
It helps build flavor to saute the onion and garlic in a bit of oil, then add and brown the meat (if using).
Combine all remaining ingredients and simmer for 30 min; stir when you think of it.
Taste and adjust flavors as needed, then serve with your favorite toppings or sides: cheese, sour cream, corn chips, avocado, corn bread, potatoes, etc.

Notes:

If you like more meat, more beans, more tomatoes, or a full mirepoix (add celery, carrot and/or bell pepper to the onion and garlic), these are easy to add without changing how the recipe cooks up. Be sure to add additional seasonings to taste!
The pumpkin puree acts as a thickener in this recipe more than a flavor. If you don’t like pumpkin or squash, you can leave it out without any trouble.
This can be a great slow-cooker recipe! Just combine all the ingredients in a crock pot and cook for 4 hours on high, or 6-8 hours on low. You could still saute the onion and garlic, but it’s not essential—these will soften as everything cooks.
I would not recommend using the instant pot to pressure cook this recipe (using the saute and slow cooker functions would probably be fine). This chili is too thick, even with additional water, so I got a burn error every time the pot almost got up to pressure. It did cook enough and was tasty in the end, but it was frustrating that it needed so much attention, and it did stick a little to the bottom.

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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