A recipe for giving back
Without combing the archives, I’m not sure how explicit I’ve been about this, but my father grew up poor. Born in a small town in Iowa in the early 40s, one of the last of 15 children, his family history is more than I would want to attempt to sum up here, and has been written about better than I ever could by him and his other siblings (I hope his writings about his life will eventually get out there to the greater public, because he had an amazing storytelling voice and they are stories worth telling). It was always made clear to me that the life I was living was very different than the life he lived, right down to the food we were eating, and that it was my job to never forget that. Of the many things he taught me, his lesson about food was not "that there are starving children in Africa," as the cavalier phrase goes, but that there are starving children everywhere, that anyone could very easily become one of them, and that some people are much more likely to be.
An email from my Dad from 2008
If Favorite Chicken is simple in conceit, and complicated in the memories it brings up for me, it's more the former with what I can do with it. We have all seen over a whole lifetime how much power individuals have to spur others to put their money where the fork is going, but among the many epiphanies white Americans are having lately, one tiny one I had a few weeks ago was that, like those around me have, this could actually be a way to do something too. So going forward, I'll be switching this newsletter over to Substack, not because The New York Times says that all writers are getting paid to write personal newsletters and that it's New York's hottest club, but because it's a way for me to monetize it and then donate those proceeds to people who can use that money to do what this project is all about: eat, and live.
Far more people have written more eloquently than I have or can about the disproportionate weight of food in the fabric of our lives—here are just a couple such pieces from just the past few weeks that I've enjoyed—and in keeping with my ethos, I don't intend to try to beat them. But starting Sunday, which is, fittingly, Father's Day, and just a few days after Juneteenth, I'll be donating all proceeds from this newsletter to different food-centric organizations. (I'll be considering this a pretty broad edict, but will always disclose which organization is getting the money each month, why, and how much has been donated.) And to inspire you to sign up for the $5 a month or $30 a year optional cost—the Substack minimum—I'll be matching the first monthly payment for the 100 people who do. (I'll also cover all processing fees charged by Substack; those won't be deducted from donations.) Either price will get you at least one newsletter a month, plus you'll get an extra monthly "good things I ate recently" email, with links and recipes. The base newsletter will remain free if you'd like it to be (if you're already subscribed, you don't need to do a thing to keep reading it; your subscription will transfer over), but if you're new or you'd like to donate, you can do so here. The first month's proceeds will go to Bed-Stuy Strong, a mutual aid group that sprang up in response to COVID-19, and is deeply important to my community right now. And if you have suggestions of places that could use some cash, I welcome them.
Food is the thing that gives us joy, sustains us, and breaks our hearts. Writing about food can do the same. Let's build a tiny bridge between the two.
KATE