Introducing: Family Friend

The inspirations behind my new recipe newsletter

Illustration by Allira Tee for Start Simple

A few times this year, I’ve taken on work assignments — new recipes, stories, or doing a cooking demonstration, for example — that had to fall into the “family friendly” food category. At first it always seemed like an easy ask, but as I started to dig in, I realized that this phrase has always flummoxed me. What does “family friendly” actually mean when it comes to food? Quick and easy? Interactive meals that involve kids? High-yield recipes? Using inexpensive, ready-made ingredients?

It brought to mind my mother-in-law, who for many years cooked for her family of eight — her family gatherings now mean cooking for 15 to 20 people — and finds recipes that only make four servings to be of little use. It also made me think of two of my close friends’ young kids, one of whom delights in the hakeuri turnips that arrive in the CSA box, the other who eats anchovies straight out of the tin; these palates are very different from my own two tween-age nieces who are still stuck on boxed mac ‘n’ cheese. And all of this puts my family of my husband and myself, and our “adult meals” for two, into stark relief. There are no kids at all.

Maybe you know “family friendly” when you see it, which is to say that it’s just as subjective, and specific to culture and circumstances, as anything else in the world of food. But turning the concept over in my mind did eventually reveal an important-to-me figure, right in the outlines of the phrase.

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Who’s a family friend?

The family friends of my life have been those who have a firsthand sense of my fuller story. They’re important; they’ve known me in my context and have witnessed some of the formative years. They were never chiefly my friends — these were friends of my mom, mostly — and they may not have even been fully aware of their influence, but they loomed large in my mind.

I think of Leslie, whose lunch many years later inspired Snacks for Dinner; she’d mail me her Playbill programs from New York when I was a teenager, stoking my interest in theater. Or Mary, whose politics leaned further left than anyone I knew and had always just read some exciting and interesting book I wanted to know about. Or Wendy, who introduced my mom and me to the whole concept of cooking without a recipe, which just wasn’t something that happened often at our house. 

Curious to know more — about art, food, books, elsewhere — these family friends simply seemed to hold a key. There are all kinds of ways we dignify the key relationships in our lives, through friendships or partners or blood relatives or chosen families. To me, to be called a “family friend” is an honor, and to have a few good ones is a great stroke of luck.

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Why a recipe newsletter?

Now such a family friend to some of the younger people in my life, I’m interested in inhabiting and stretching into this role in my newsletter. I’m thinking of it as a weekly visit, a little dispatch from somewhere that might be outside of the usual orbit, maybe a knowing recommendation.

The format will build on what I’ve been doing for the past few years — creating vegetable-centric recipes, compiling recommendations, and things I think will interest you — but the most noteworthy thing is just the option for more.

Paid subscribers will get an original new recipe every week delivered to your inbox, plus extras — opportunities to join virtual cooking classes, focused posts on techniques or ingredients, and easy-to-print recipe bundles that collect what’s been posted every three months. Paid subscribers also have a greater opportunity to connect through the Substack platform. You can share your requests and suggestions, troubleshoot any cooking questions you have, and have a direct line.

Free subscribers will continue to receive a free monthly recipe.

I’ll be curious and eager to let it evolve into what works best with the community. I’m looking forward to it, and hope you’ll join me.