Nourishing Resistance

May I be so “forward” as to say how proud I am of my friend, and writer-editor-baker and caring human being extraordinaire, @wrenawry for publishing their first book—an amazing edited anthology filled with “nourishing resistance” (PM Press)! And how proud I am to be a part of it in the form of my first-ever “foreword” to a book!

So it felt deliciously nice to now get my copy in the mail and hold this beauty in my hands.

I remember taking a walk with Wren in the stunning Sonora Desert in January 2020 during which Wren dreamed of curating such a book, and then offering what encouragement and support I could during the years after that, particularly through these unappetizing pandemic times, and receiving much encouragement and support from Wren in return—and not just about books. Which is kind of a big point of this anthology: cooking up nourishing lives together.

Mazel tov to Wren and all the remarkable contributors!

I’ll end with a snippet from my foreword:

“Time and again, millions of our ancestors put up a fight in defense of their diet, which for millennia meant not some narrow, judgmental restriction of food but rather, as in the ancient Greek diaita, an expansive ‘way of living.’ This book aids us in remembering that food has played an essential part in, as the ancient Greek diaitasthai signaled, how to ‘lead one’s life,’ or what might be understood as self-governing it with others. Indeed, we will only be able to fully inhabit life if we routinely assemble (an archaic definition of the word diet) to self-determine ‘sacred and shared space,’ as contributor Cheshire Li puts it, ‘working together to create … delicious and magical’ social as well as ecological relations. We see this crucial role of food in everything from riots, uprisings, and outright revolutions, to joyous and life-giving as well as life-honoring festivals and rituals, to neighborhood gatherings and grassroots political organizing, to the humble, everyday ‘excuse’ to circle around a table or crowd a kitchen in our desire to sustain ourselves and the processes of life. … Food is not only life; it is one of the key ingredients in us cooking up lives worth living.”

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