Gentle Foods is becoming a cookbook!
And I'm obviously having feelings about it
In March of 2020, back when we all thought we would be working from home for “just a few weeks,” I wrote a newsletter while I was still working at Bon Appétit titled “When I’m Feeling Chaotic, Gentle Food Is There for Me.” I didn’t quite know what “gentle foods” meant, but I knew that the concept seemed to resonate with other people too, especially during a time of high anxiety, stress, deep uncertainty, and tragedy.
Nearly four years later, I am so proud to announce that Gentle Foods is going to be a cookbook! It’s going to come out sometime in 2026 (which seems an eternity away but is really, scarily not) and will be published by Simon Element, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. There will be dozens of comforting, nourishing recipes, essays on all the topics you already love to read about here (mental health, anti-diet culture stuff, musings on why “healthy” is a tricky term, and more), and plenty of useful advice and tips and such.
When I sold the book last summer, I subconsciously tried really hard not to tell anyone about it, lest I had to feign the excitement that everyone expected. I spent six months spinning in my metaphorical chair, the space in my heart reserved for pride instead filling with dread. One of my best friends told me she didn’t sense “external pride from me about it” and I replied, “That’s because I don’t feel internal pride about it.” I avoided dealing with the book for months, though whenever people would ask what I was up to recently I would carefully make sure to chirpily reply, “Oh, you know, working on the book!”
During those few months, I was ported back to memories of feeling aimless and afraid during most of my teens and twenties. Plagued by fear that my parents wouldn’t love me if I wasn’t high-achieving (because if I wasn’t high-achieving, what else did I have to offer?), I pursued and pursued and accomplished the highest level