 Passing through Naomi and Sarah Wilkinson’s joyful cover to the dedication, I had a sense that ‘What is Queer Food? was a love story. Then I read the last sentence of the acknowledgements, “It’s all just pork chops, baby,” and I was pretty sure it was an embrace. John Birdsall is a writer I look up to. The way he puts words to thoughts is playful, The Loneliness of Rhubarb is a chapter title. His sentences are sometimes sparse, “Blurring was survival.” He admits to resorting to “speculative reconstruction,” to great effect. There’s also the structure, like the steppingstone descent of Herman Schmidt’s travel itinerary from Shanghai to Gibraltar. The books architecture reads like a menu. What is Queer Food? is a party with a supreme host. The vignettes are a loose weave, like the yellow and terracotta background on the book cover. There’s the literati hedonism of Café Nicholson in Manhattan with Edna Lewis at the stove. The poignant story of Richard Olney’s parents showing up for him with love. And the autobiographical, The Unshown Bed, a story that has a young Birsdall catching his reflection in Craig Claiborne’s brioche. “A cryptography so effective that even a dumb virgin kid, fourteen years and a couple thousand miles away from where that photo was staged, could crack it.” Acceptance and inclusion are present in abundance, as are compassion and fierceness. And the sex is another writing skill to admire. Birdsall turns the reader outward. Reading took me to my cookbook shelves, to look at the image on page 473 of the New York Times Cookbook, and to read MFK Fisher’s Foreword to The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook, which made me burn with anger. His notes and sources are a place to hang out in—like a beloved library or bookstore. The heart of What Is Queer Food? is that lush sensation we all chase—belonging. The undercurrent of great gatherings or restaurants. A potent mix of food, people, atmosphere, and sex. It calls in a community. It's there in the second paragraph at the begiining of the journey for John and Perry, in the diner in Hudson, New York, “Lil’ Deb’s has the beat of a place where anyone who knows they belong has permission to stay.” *** I took a break from writing here from December to March to look at my childhood in group therapy. It was terrible and beautiful. It left me at 62 years old wondering what label to affix to myself. A question everyone could ask entering a new life stage. Queer feels right. My appreciation of adults is as broad as my appetite for vegetables. This celebratory book landed in my hands at a ripe moment. A friend sent this to me yesterday. *** The songs are for me, and for you, too, if you like. 20252025Comments are closed.
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