June - 2020

White Male Privilege Bingo

If you’re still having trouble talking about privilege with your white male friends or family, why not invite them to play this fun Bingo game as a warm-up? This Bingo board was inspired by Asian Privilege Bingo, and the rules of engagement are very simple: tally up all the dollars you owe and donate them to an organization fighting for social justice, such as: The Okra Project @theokraproject Equal Justice Initiative @eji_org The Sentencing Project @endlifeimprisonment The B

Who Do You Center?

Too often when I create (from food writing to Instagram to developing a new dish), I find it easy to unconsciously center the white gaze. After all, I’ve been indoctrinated to this PoV since age 6. To unlearn that has been challenging and, at times, severely unpleasant because it meant admitting how deep in the system I was. It’s only been in the last 2 years or so (really since creating Studio ATAO) that I’ve found more pride & comfort in pointedly focusing on "more niche" g

Yes, Food Is Political

I spent the last few days writing and rewriting this post. It still doesn’t come close to capturing everything, but I hope it’s a start. In the last week, the Black Lives Matter movement has spurred a great deal of important (and overdue) conversations in food media about the toxic relationship between the (almost all white) individuals in power at some of our biggest outlets and their BIPOC staff. Amidst the incredible outpouring support for big changes - most notably the re