Cooking Is Taking Control - with Julia Turshen

Cooking Up Consciousness Podcast

Zoe speaks with New York Times bestselling cookbook author Julia Turshen about her childhood, the impact of diet culture and media culture growing up, her lifelong work in food, her latest cookbook, her current farm job, her work with Equity At The Table (EATT) and God’s Love we Deliver

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Food is the pathway into the heritage of other cultures. By experiencing new taste sensations, we develop the desire to learn more about where they came from.
• In the media, and especially the magazine industry, there is a tendency to promote the idea that thin is beautiful - but healthy is even more beautiful.
• We reduce anxiety and doubt about sexuality when we bring our children up with acceptance. Julia's own upbringing was one of diversity and inclusivity, which made the process of coming out so much more easy.
• Cooking provides us with a sense of agency, and allows us to be in complete control of a part of our lives, which is rare in this world.

BEST MOMENTS

'I grew up in a place where there was a lot of diversity. So I grew up eating a big range of things'

'I think it's incredibly common that a lot of us come from a history of disordered eating or eating disorders because there is an obsessiveness with food'

'Reading can be fun! Reading doesn't always have to be serious'

'When we cook, we have control over what we're doing, which is a nice feeling in a world where we actually have no control over anything'

VALUABLE RESOURCES

Julia Turshen Twitter - https://twitter.com/turshen

Julia Turshen Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/turshen/

Julia Turshen - https://www.juliaturshen.com

ABOUT THE HOST

Zoe Adjonyoh is a writer, chef, and food justice activist from South-East London on a mission to bring African food to the masses. As a mixed-race, Black queer woman born to a Ghanaian father and Irish mother from a working-class background who works at the intersections of food, culture, identity, and politics, Zoe Adjonyoh is driven to create change in the food landscape. Zoe has taken her fresh interpretation of classic Ghananian flavours to venues across London, Berlin, Accra, and New York and become a leader in the new African cuisine revolution. Through her supper clubs, kitchen residencies, mobile catering, a former restaurant space in Brixton, her highly successful cookbook, Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen: An Introduction to New African Cuisine - from Ghana With Love, and a thriving e-commerce spice business, Zoe has sought to inspire African food entrepreneurs, cooks, and chefs from the continent and the diaspora across the world. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Zoe has held events, demonstrations, and talks in addition to launching a crowdfunding campaign to support some of the most vulnerable in her community. In 2020, Zoe founded the thought leadership platform Black Book for Black and non-white people working within hospitality and food media. Join Zoe as she dismantles, disrupts, and decolonises the food industry while supporting marginalised communities and building a more equitable food system.

NOTES

Thank you for cooking up consciousness with me! Love & light- Zoe Adjonyoh

Follow Cooking Up Consciousness on Clubhouse for conversations and community and visit www.zoeadjonyoh.com to subscribe to all of Zoe’s consciousness-raising projects including Black Book and Ghana Kitchen. For more about Zoe and her work, follow @zoeadjonyoh on IG and on Clubhouse. Please visit Patreon to support this self-funded podcast from as little as $4 per month.

CREDITS

Executive Producer, Creator, and Host- Zoe Adjonyoh

Producer- Dani Dillon of Lunch Group

Graphic & Website Design- Sara Held

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zoeadjonyoh/?hl=en

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