There is no shame in it, and I wish more people would be like that.Īt first, cooking felt like a necessity because I was just so unfamiliar with it. I appreciate that she had no problem claiming that excellence. Ina just knows she's excellent and never apologizes for it, which I think is really useful for women. Food Network is actually really educational, and Ina is so confident and pretty. So I started to cook with the help of Ina Garten.
ROXANE GAY PASS OVER MY BROTHER HOW TO
I was living in rural Illinois, and I just knew that, if I didn't learn how to cook, I was going to go hungry because what people considered to be vegetarian food was French fries and iceberg lettuce. My mom is also a vegetarian and has been for a very long time. I started cooking when I became a vegetarian. She would not let me come in the kitchen or teach me how to cook, but she did with my brothers because she didn't want me to end up cooking for a man. My earliest memories of cooking are watching my mom cook because she cooked for us as a family. At home in Los Angeles, she demonstrated how to make one of her favorite Smitten Kitchen recipes, and reflected on the importance of cooking in her life. Roxane Gay is the best-selling author of Bad Feminist, Difficult Women, and Hunger, and she’s also a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times. The Great Ones is a celebration of humans we admire - and an exploration of why they cook, not just how.