Skip to main content
Notebook

What’s a Food Activist Anyway?

By September 13, 2017No Comments

Some of Julia Turshen's cookbooks

This is a shelfie – a shelf selfie, featuring just a few of Julia Turshen’s cookbooks. Some she has co-authored; Small Victories is all her own.

Julia Turshen is my guest on the latest episode of The Food Podcast. I asked her to come on for many reasons – she’s a food journalist, a cookbook author, a recipe developer, a writer, a past podcast host, and most of all, she’s a Food Activist. I knew we’d have lots to talk about.

So what’s a food activist? It’s someone who fights injustice by bringing people together through food. A food Activist knits communities together so tightly that the disenfranchised can’t fall through the cracks. It’s a social food safety net of sorts, woven together by people. And casseroles.

If we can cook, says Julia, we can help.

Julia and I spoke in May. I didn’t realize it at the time, but she had another book in the works – Feed The Resistance  – coming out next month. It’s a natural fit; Julia and her wife Grace volunteer as cooks at a community kitchen in Upstate New York. In doing so they feed those in need. They’ve made friends in their community. The book, I’ve read, hopes to inspire and teach us do the same.

I’m giving away too much. I’d love you to listen to the episode. It kicks off with my most embarrassing culinary moment, and ends with Julia admiting she was skyping me from her bed, with dogs at her feet.

It’s real, it’s honest, and hopefully it’ll inspire you to channel your inner food activist.

Take a listen here.

PS – Yes, you might remember me writing about Julia before, just after she said yes to coming on The Food Podcast. I called that essay Girl Crushes… naturally.