Queer Kitchen Connection #14 💜

Hey Taste Buds!

I’m glad we’ve made it to this moment, the point where what I’m writing becomes what you’re reading. It is a truly beautiful thing to be able to create and share with you all, and I appreciate that time you take to receive and reflect.

I’ve struggled to write this little intro, I think because my capacity for looking at the big picture has been a bit overwhelmed by the state of the world. So I’d like to take this space to remind us all that connection to one another is a very strong way to maintain perspective. There will be many things that wear on us, and there are a lot of uncomfortable conversations and actions ahead as we continue to challenge the ways in which the world is burning.

I find comfort in nourishing foods, in my new neighbors who invited us to spend time with them in their backyard last weekend, in the connections I keep building in this community and beyond.

I’m glad you’re here,

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 large scoop of cookies and cream ice cream in a pastel blue bowl, nearly buried under 5-color crunch berry cereal.

Cereal with ice cream instead of milk was a go-to breakfast I used to enjoy in college. I recently rediscovered it for dessert! My favorite part is that the cereal doesn’t get soggy, so it adds a very nice crunch without being too hard (like frozen chocolate chips can be sometimes).

Comfort foods can help make a terrible day more bearable—at least they can for me. I swear, these vegan BBQ ribs paired with any kind of potato gain super powers that make whatever day I’m having much, much better. It’s not surprising to me that I’m leaning into comfort foods more right now; what foods do you find comforting?

A top-down view of a round plate with three or four vegan BBQ ribs piled in the upper left. The remainder of the plate is filled with french fries and steamed broccoli in roughly equal proportion.

A dark-rimmed blue bowl contains ramen noodles in a creamy peanut sauce with cubed tofu, shredded carrots, broccoli, corn, and topped with snipped scallions.

This was one of my favorite breakfasts recently. I’d really wanted ramen noodles, so I mixed up a spicy peanut sauce and warmed the tofu, shredded carrots, and leftover broccoli and corn while the instant noodles cooked. Top with some scallions, and it was truly a delight for me.

Ever since I moved to WNY and discovered the “garbage plate”, I’ve learned that any meal that layers multiple components is my favorite. If you’ve been reading along, you already know how I feel about nachos—I feel the same way about samosa chaat! Leftover samosas topped with curry and chutneys and yogurt and fresh salad vegetables…YES PLEASE!

A dark-rimmed blue bowl of samosa chaat. The chopped samosa are not visible, but bits of each layer can be seen at the edges: leftover curry, basmati rice, shredded lettuce, mint chutney, tamarind chutney, yogurt sauce, bell peppers, and tomato.

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!

Quantity Cooking for Solidarity

The next Quantity Cooking for Solidarity workshop could be scheduled around your availability!

I started Food Focused Nutrition because I believe that health and connection happen in our kitchens—and I want to help my community be well nourished. I dream of a world where more people feel like they are able to make a little extra food when they cook, and they know their community well enough to know where and with whom to share that food.

If you want to be a part of this world, please join the waitlist for the next Quantity Cooking for Solidarity workshop! This workshop gives us the opportunity to get to know our individual communities a bit better by searching for connections to build on as we go (and grow), PLUS we’ll make some tasty food while discussing considerations when cooking for people you don’t know. I’ll be emailing the waitlist in May to pick a workshop date for June.

Pride Celebration Food-Play Adventure

Save the Date!

Sunday, June 29
3-5pm EDT
on Google Meet

Coming up in a couple months is the next food-play group adventure, an opportunity to explore foods and creativity in different ways. This event is always Pride themed, so start looking for your favorite rainbow of foods now!

If you want to go with fresh foods, maybe sweet peppers of various colors, broccoli, blueberries, and purple cauliflower will make up a rainbow produce display (green and purple trees lining a blueberry river, with pepper boats floating along?).

Maybe you’ll lean more into constructing something, like a float in a parade, or a U-Haul, or a pride Jeep…

A Jeep constructed from graham crackers, waffle pretzels, and chocolate-covered donuts, decorated with Fruit Loops, color-blast Goldfish, and Skittles. A Pride flag constructed with rainbow candy and a toothpick sits beside the Jeep.

...choose foods that bring you joy!

I might have to get more crunch berry cereal because as rainbow foods go…it’s only missing the orange!

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?

In mid-February, I ran a zine workshop as part of the World Critical Dietetics virtual conference. The theme of the conference was disruption, and zines are a great way to stretch people’s minds around what are “acceptable” information formats in academic settings.

Feedback from the workshop was overwhelmingly positive, and participants remained excited to share the zines they had made at the day-end wrap up 4 hours later. It was truly a delight to share my vision of a world where we can present dense information in more digestible formats, challenging the status quo that insists that using jargon and big words proves how smart we are.

What if all poster sessions were enhanced by a zine exchange? What if each day of a conference offered an opportunity to make a zine about what you’ve learned thus far, making it easier to start internalizing the knowledge and to share reflections with other participants? I’ve added such a zine workshop to my speaking page…maybe you know of a conference that would be open to adding some on-site processing time to make the information provided have more impact?

I returned to Buffalo State University this month to collaborate with one of the librarians, Dr. Julie Setele, and help students make zines to complement the posters they’re designing for the Student Research and Creativity Celebration. I’m blown away just thinking about how valuable these zines will be as a resource!!

A slide with graphics mimicking colorful paper cutouts around the edges. Large text in the center reads: "Spread the Word: A Zine for Every Poster". Small text to the bottom right reads: "Julie Setele, PhD, MLIS", "Jex Calvert, RDN", "17 April 2025".

Here’s a link to the slides, and here’s a link to the accompanying mini-zine that’s a guide for planning and creating your own zine!

One of the things I’m still grappling with is the process of making zines more visually accessible. I think I’ve determined that the “best” way would be to digitize the zines with descriptive text for each individual page (or spread…many of my zines have images or text across two pages that face one another). If one of you Taste Buds has skills with screen-readers and creating documents with these accessibility features (or knows someone else who does), would you like to set up a barter and exchange skills?

In the meantime, I’ve added more zines to my zine shop, including the one I drafted during my World Critical Dietetics zine workshop! I hope you’ll check it out, or share with others who could use some zines like this at a time like now.

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!

2-Minute Marinated Tofu

Photo + original recipe from daywithmei.com

This recipe has become a new staple food in my home because it’s a) shelf stable, b) easily modified to taste, and c) it requires minimal or no cooking.

This recipe can be as simple as opening a box of silken tofu, draining excess water, and then topping the block of tofu with a sauce you like (whether you assemble that sauce according to the recipe, or have one ready-made to use is entirely up to you).

When I make this on a struggle night, I start making rice, open and marinate the tofu, and then microwave a bag of frozen broccoli. In the time it takes to make a pot of rice, we’ll have a full meal that feels like we put all the effort of making an entire stirfry with only the stress of making sure the rice doesn’t boil over.

If we have them, I’ll also microwave some frozen veggie potstickers or other dumplings so we can feel full and satisfied using only 1 block of tofu (otherwise, I’d use 2 blocks of tofu for two people, and have a little leftover).

Steps to Make:

Open a block of silken tofu, drain excess water, and empty the package onto a plate or shallow bowl. Sprinkle the following over the top:
- 1 T brown sugar, 1 T soy sauce or tamari, ½ T rice vinegar, ½ T sesame oil, 1 T chili oil (I use less, because I don’t handle spicy very well), 1 t ground szechuan peppercorn (optional), 1 scallion, washed and snipped with scissors (optional)
- OR 4 T of your favorite sauce or sauce ingredients with an optional garnish of choice. This could be a salad dressing or marinade you already know and love—which is great because then you don’t have to use multiple ingredients!
Leave the tofu alone to soak in the flavors while you assemble any other components of your meal, at least 2 min.
- If you choose more of an Italian dressing-like marinade, maybe you choose pasta and red sauce to accompany it.
- What’s your favorite sauce or marinade? Would you try it with a creamy, custardy texture?

As always, I’d love to hear how you end up adapting this Suggest-ipe!

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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