Respect, Empathy, and Curiosity All Around
The Body, Brain, and Books: Eleven Questions with food writer and cookbook author Michelle Albanes-Davis
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Born and raised in the Bay Area,
has been whipping up inventive, plant-based recipes since she could reach the oven. After her food went viral in 2012, she was thrust to the forefront of digital food culture where she has remained ever since. Michelle and her recipes have become a staple in home cooking around the globe since the publication of her first book in 2014 which was an instant #1 New York Times best-seller. She has been shaping what hits plates in North America and in restaurants world-wide ever since. She now has 5 cookbooks, published in over 8 different languages, which can be found here. She headed an award winning brand, Bad Manners for 12 years as the sole recipe developer, as well as writing the brand’s popular weekly newsletter, The Broiler Room. She now writes her own weekly newsletter, Stir the Pot, full of reflections on her decade in food, personal essays, fresh, new recipes, and all the help and hot goss you can handle. When Michelle is not cooking she’s on the couch in her LA apartment with her wife Kyria, their dog Harlow, and two cats Clementine and Kamala.
What are you reading now?
I just started City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles by Mike Davis (no relation) and am loving it. I’m a native Californian but I grew up in the Bay Area. My mom, despite being born in the old Naval hospital in Oakland, grew up in Charlotte, NC and my dad is from Oklahoma. They met at a casino in Lake Tahoe where they both worked in the late 70s. It feels like we’ve all been trying to figure out California since I can remember.
People in Northern California have a very different life and history than people in the Central Valley, the Bay Area, the Sierra Nevadas- I could go on and on. That’s why I like to read books about California- and LA specifically- written by people from here, like Mike Davis. I lived in San Diego for many years but for whatever reason, I never thought I would end up living in Los Angeles. People in the Bay can be very snobby about LA, I’m sure that was part of it. But after 15 years in this city, I can say that it’s definitely a one sided rivalry. Los Angeles takes awhile to show itself to you and its charms aren’t always obvious like in San Diego or Santa Barbara. But LA gets under your skin. Its contradictions have obsessed plenty of people and Mike Davis is no exception.
What are your most beloved books from your youth? Did you ever hide any from your parents?
I loved to read growing up. I still have my first library card that I got in kindergarten tucked safely away in my jewelry box. I struggled to fall asleep as a kid but my parents told me that if I couldn’t sleep, I was allowed to stay up reading in my room as long as I didn’t wake them up. So I was always reading something. It was like this private thing that got to be just mine and I loved it.
I wasn’t allowed to watch R rated movies or certain TV shows that my mom didn’t think were appropriate, but I was allowed to read whatever I wanted. I think that’s how it should be. If I was willing to put in the time and effort to read it, then I got to read it. I read all the classics like Annie of Green Gables, Hatchet, My Side of the Mountain, lots of books about kids running around without adults. I can’t remember ever having a book taken away despite reading lots of stuff that was definitely not written for a 10-year-old year. My dad loves books, particularly sci-fi and fantasy so I grew up reading Kurt Vonnegut, Parke Godwin, and every single Ursula Le Guin book I could find. I loved Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising series which is probably tied with Le Guinn’s Earthsea Trilogy as the books I read the most growing up. This was before things like Harry Potter and Marvel comics were mainstream, so I was odd for reading outside the confines of Sweet Valley High and Goosebumps.
What’s your favorite book to reread? Any that helped you through a dark time?
I’ve reread Always Coming Home by Le Guin at different stages in my life and I take something different each time. It’s funny, I don’t remember it like a story I read but it stays with you like a dream you keep having. It’s one of my favorites. That and The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, also by Le Guin, come up again and again in my life.
I also love collections of short stories like How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer and Someone to Watch Over Me by Richard Bausch. I reread them often, just plucking stories out of the collections at random.The Crane Wife by CJ Hauser is the last piece of writing that helped pull me out of a ditch a couple years ago. I send it to anyone wondering if they should leave their romantic relationship. It’s just so good.
What’s an article of clothing that makes you feel most like you?
It might be basic as hell, but I love a giant sweatshirt. I go through phases where I wear one over and over. Right now, it’s an emerald green one from Duffy’s Tavern with a shamrock on the sleeve that I stole from my wife. I don’t know a thing about this tavern, but I wear it all the time. If you want to get real, unfiltered, goofy Michelle, I need to be in a roomy sweatshirt. If you catch me in a dress or some kind of cute outfit, it’s a performance.
What’s the best piece of wisdom you’ve encountered recently?
“Just because it hurts doesn’t mean it’s true.” My wife has spent countless hours trying to teach me this. I will take one negative comment to heart and ignore the ten positive things that went along with it. I have one of those brains that believes all criticism is honest- no matter how hurtful- and all praise is a lie. Compliments are clearly just people trying to manipulate you. Obviously, none of that is true but as much as I try to reason with my brain, it won’t believe it. I need that constant reminder. Practicing discernment towards other people’s perceptions of you is hard as hell. I’m working on it.
Tell me about any special relationship you’ve had with an animal, domestic or wild?
I’ve been vegan for 21 years and vegetarian since I was a kid. My whole family eats meat, I was the oddball for sure. I just connected with animals right away and growing up I couldn’t understand why we ate some of them and not others. Charlotte’s Web ruined my mother’s pork chops. I assumed all animals had rich interior lives just like Wilbur, Charlotte, and Templeton. Some kids grow out of it, but I never did.
There’s an early interaction I had with an animal that always just stands out in my memory. I visited Woolaroc, this museum and ranch in Oklahoma. My dad is from Bartlesville, and we were back there visiting family. Woolaroc had ostriches on the property, and I’d never seen one in real life. It was like seeing a unicorn. One of them and I just clicked; we were instant BFFs. I couldn’t have been older than 6 but I was certain that this ostrich loved me and needed my help. I hung out with it through the fence and felt so much love toward this animal that I had just met.
When it was eventually time for my family to leave, it ran along the fence line keeping pace with our car and I cried. I didn’t cry a lot as a kid so a big display of emotion like this was unusual for me. It sounds so silly, but my heart was really breaking. I tried to convince my parents to let it come back with us to our home in California but, obviously, that didn’t happen. My cat Flash would not have been into it. Also, it was an ostrich! I was just so damn certain about that bird. I can’t explain it. I’ve thought about that ostrich at least once a year. If that’s not some kind of love, I don’t know what is. They can live up to 70 years in captivity so there’s a chance it’s still alive out there somewhere, thinking of me too.
What’s one thing you are happy worked out differently than you expected?
Compulsory heterosexuality had me in its grips for a while. Despite dating some women over the years, I didn’t take my queerness very seriously. It felt like I was never quite gay enough for it to matter. Despite covering my childhood room in all of Georgia O’Keefe’s paintings and majoring in Women’s Studies in college, I just couldn’t see my life unfolding as a queer woman. The pandemic gave me the opportunity to reconsider lots of things in my life, including my identity moving forward. I needed that quiet time and space outside the male gaze to hear what I really wanted. It was lifechanging to tune-in to myself like that. I am now happily married to my wife Kyria and I can’t imagine my life any other way.
Singing in the shower or dancing in the kitchen? Or another favorite way your body expresses itself?
I spend lots of time dancing around in the kitchen while I develop all my recipes but as a Californian, I do my best singing in the car. If you see me in traffic, I am belting out something at the top of my lungs. I don’t even have my windows tinted; I don’t care. If you’re giving me a ride and a banger comes on, I will sing in your car too. What I lack in talent I make up for in enthusiasm.
What are your hopes for yourself?
I am naturally an anxious and depressed person. I hope that I’m able to build a life for myself where those things can pass through like weather, and I still feel grounded and safe. It would be great if I had the opportunity to grow old too. I feel like my personality would make much more sense if I were several decades older.
What’s a kindness that changed your life?
I had a Tumblr in 2012 and Gwyneth Paltrow mentioned it in her GOOP newsletter as just a little thing that was making her laugh. I was working at a grocery store and had absolutely no connection to her whatsoever. It was a SHOCKING turn of events. That little comment from her made my work go viral and it changed my entire life. I got a book deal and so many amazing things followed from there. If she hadn’t shared my work like that, I have no idea what I would be doing right now. I feel like I owe her so much despite never having met in real life. So yeah, I’d take a bullet for her in a second.
What’s a guiding force in your life?
I wasn’t raised in any faith tradition, but my parents really instilled in me the value of curiosity. A closed mind was nothing to be proud of. I think this is part of the reason that while I’m vegan and so are all my recipes, my audience is full of lots of omnivores. I like a conversation and would rather expand someone’s mind than change it. That’s what I want for myself too. I’m comfortable if we don’t all agree, as long as there is respect, empathy, and curiosity all around. I feel like the world would be a better place if we all tried to be a little more open and curious about all the ways we can live a life. And anyone who tells you there’s only one right way to live is absolutely full of shit. I know that in my bones.
If you enjoyed Michelle’s questionnaire, you may also like Amy Scher’s:
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My favorite quote: And anyone who tells you there’s only one right way to live is absolutely full of shit. I know that in my bones.