May Everyone Eat

I’ve been fully nomadic for 13 months now. At the beginning of this month, I sold everything that was left in one of my storage units.

At dinner in dt San Francisco a couple weeks ago, someone asked me, “What are the ways you give back to the people you stay with?”

I told them, “That’s such a beautiful question.”

It got me thinking about this beautiful sea of people stretching from Salt Spring Island to Boulder and down to LA. I said, “Well, I don’t always stay with people for free. Sometimes I sublet or rent if I’m somewhere longer. Sometimes people don’t want anything at all. I used to carry a gift box with little treasures people could choose from - but not anymore.”

Then it hit me.

Food.

“The number one thing I do is cook for people.”

Every dish in these photos was made for friends and hosts across the West Coast over the last couple of months.

Good, beautiful food is actually how I came into this world. My parents met in France at Le Cordon Bleu. They met at a dance - it’s quite a romantic story. While being the child of immigrants and genocide survivors comes with its pain and work, it also comes with infinite gifts, magic, and power. Food is one of them.

I look at much of my life like putting together a good meal. When I’m producing an event (shout out to Chavaya this summer), every moving piece is another ingredient in the pot. Or the brand process for my design firm Our Living Design Studio like a recipe, and by the end they have a website and full brand that their whole community can devour.

In life all we need are the right ingredients to make anything happen.

As someone who carries many marginalized identities and has also been blessed to have and build real privilege, I can't overstate how important it is that everyone has access to the ingredients they need to make their life.

For, when everyone has what they need to cook, the whole community gets fed.