If you’ve followed our #FeedMeFriday posts for a while, you know I love Bon Appetit Magazine. I love their recipes and videos and how they embrace a diverse range of topics. They even published articles about menstruation, endometriosis, and PCOS! I loved them even more! In my opinion, BA contributors come across as diverse, woke, and inspired. Apparently, that’s not true for their leadership.
After a picture of (now, former) editor in chief Adam Rapaport in brown face surfaced this week, some very brave BA staffers and contributors called him out for racism. This wasn’t just about a picture. It was about Rapaport’s role in the systemic mistreatment of BIPOC contributors at BA, including but not limited to undervaluing, underpaying, and underpromoting these staffers. It must be scary and challenging to put your income and reputation on the line – especially for women of color in the male dominated food/media industry. Nonetheless, Sohla El-Waylly, Priya Krishna, Christina Chaey, and more took a stand against racial injustice. Adam Rapaport stepped down, but I hope it doesn’t stop there. Conde Nast, BA’s parent company, needs to do more to create a more inclusive culture that appropriately compensates its BIPOC employees rather than tokenizing them.
For today’s recipe, we are showcasing one of Sohla El-Waylly’s amazing recipes. I love this recipe for so many reasons. It’s versatile. It’s creamy without the heaviness of cheese and cream. It’s pasta! Most importantly, this recipe--and Sohla--inspires me.
Sohla’s recipe is based on a dumpling dish from the Levant called shish barak. Instead of the time-consuming process of dumpling-making, she re-imagines it as a simplified pasta dish with all the same flavors.
No matter the culture or cuisine, dumplings are my favorite dish. What can be better than little pockets of food? Guess what is difficult to replicate in a gluten free diet. Dumplings. But I can eat gluten free pasta!
This recipe concept made me think of my favorite food, probably of all time, mantoo. Afghan dumplings. A food I thought I would no longer eat on a gluten free diet. So far, I’ve worked on a couple versions of mantoo based on Sohla’s idea of converting shish barak from dumplings into (gluten free) pasta. It’s a work in progress that I’m not quite ready to share. I planned to talk about Sohla once I finished tweaking the recipe, but right now feels like the time to show some #sohladarity.
Sohla El-Waylly helps me rethink food. She has helped me to be creative in the kitchen and to rethink the limitations of an endo diet. BA needs to rethink the limitations they have placed on Sohla and other black, indigenous, and people of color in the Test Kitchen. Bon Appetit, you can do better.
Recipe notes:
Substitute regular pasta with a gluten free brand. I like Andean Dreams quinoa/rice blend pasta. Rice noodles work, too.
You can use beef instead of lamb. Grass fed and organic is best.
Kefir is a fermented, low-lactose dairy that is great for gut health. You can use yogurt instead, or labneh if you’re feeling fancy.
Sohla talks more about switching ingredients up, here.
Alison Landolt is an EFHou cofounder.
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