Cooking with Pride!

How are you going to celebrate Pride Month? This year, I am celebrating with food!

My interest in cookbooks was piqued by one of the prompts in this year’s Read Harder Challenge by Book Riot: read a cookbook cover to cover. I realized I had never even thought of reading a cookbook. I thought back to all of the food blogs I had furiously scrolled through trying desperately to find the recipe without reading about the blogger’s inspirational experience cooking the dish. But read a cookbook? Yeah, I could do that.

So, I set out to find a cookbook to read. Knowing Pride Month was near, I thought I would find a cookbook from the queer community. What I found included a wealth of resources from a wide variety of food authors. I chose specifically to read A Gay Guy’s Guide to Food: Outrageously Delicious Recipes (Plus Stories and Dating Advice) From a Food-Obsessed Gay by Khanh Ong. What a title!

Khanh takes you on a journey through his personal food history. Living in Australia with his Vietnamese parents, he got to experience recipes that had been passed down for generations. Unlike most traditional cookbooks, this one is divided into categories of “Heritage Secrets” (Vietnamese dishes from his childhood), “The Family We Choose” (cooking for and with your friends), “A Broken Heart” (food to pick you up after you’ve fallen), “Sustainable Dating” (easy meals that look impressive), and “Being Basic” (simple and healthy everyday eats). This book has been a joy to read. Between the dynamic style and personal stories and notes, you really get a good feel of what the author is trying to present.

But in my search for a Pride cookbook to read, I found so many others! Here are a couple more:

Big Gay Ice Cream: Saucy Stories & Frozen Treats: Going All the Way With Ice Cream by Bryan Petroff

Big Gay Ice Cream is no ordinary cookbook. Set up like a yearbook—complete with class signatures and local ads in the back (and even a comic book in the center)—this cookbook will take you from freshman (learning the basics of ice cream) to a graduating senior who can whip up ice cream like a champ! Whether you are looking to learn some new ways to dress up your ice cream, or you want to make your own sorbet, this book has something for you (including several Bea Arthur illustrations!).

Queer Cocktails: 50 Cocktail Recipes Celebrating Gay Icons and Queer Culture by Lewis Laney

Would you prefer a Judy or a Liza? A Donna Summer or Diana Ross? Regardless of your fave queer icon, there’s a drink for them! Personally, I’m looking forward to drinking a “silk stocking,” inspired by the one and only RuPaul! Many of these cocktails are takes on traditional cocktail recipes, but by pairing them with icons, you can learn something new. And if you just aren’t sure what to make, I recommend you try the rainbow sangria recipe this Pride.

Now that we have whetted your appetite, take a look at some of these delicious cookbooks by LGBTQ+ authors (I include my favorite recipe from each) and spend the month cooking with Pride!

Andrew M.
Library Systems