Introducing Let it Simmer

Welcome to the newsletter devoted to the stories of our lives, told through food

Hello friends!

If you’re reading this, thank you for being here. I’m thrilled to begin a new chapter on Substack after a rewarding start as a writer on Medium, of which I am so grateful. This is where the next iteration of my work will live, a place dedicated to telling stories — via essays and interviews — through the lens of food to understand what they illuminate about life, on a grand scale, and ourselves, at the tender core.

Our experiences specifically around food not only shape our individual palate, but have a heavy hand in the formation of our identity and the way we think about and move through the world. This is a story everyone has, and one I am passionate about telling.

There are many exciting things in store in this publication, but as part of this introduction, I would like to start by sharing the inspiration behind the name.

“Let it Simmer” to me represents two things. First, the essence of what I hope to happen with the stories in this newsletter: Sit with you. Think of a pot of something scrumptious on the stove. After stirring the ingredients together, the dish may not be quite ready. This is what you may experience after reading a piece. Perhaps in this moment, it’s not doing much for you. That’s alright. If you are still hungry, however, I encourage you to let it simmer. Wait a few hours, days, weeks, months, and return to the piece — if you so choose — when you are ready. Open yourself to the result of the reduction, to what may have shifted or deepened over time.

Second, and likewise, I will be featuring interviews that take place under the series name Portrait of a Palate. The aim of this series is to delve into the diverse and compelling stories behind an individual’s connection with food, which is in constant evolution over the course of our lives. The stories and lessons shared here are ones that have been distilled over time but will by no means represent a fully formed fruit on the victual tendril of a life. Time wades forward and so do we; we are not immune to the changes that, out of necessity, we must make — especially the ones that alter the ways we approach food.

I hope from this newsletter the stories you encounter here will sit with you, speak to you, and leave you asking questions of your own. Let this be a place of where a deeper understanding of self is met by examining these stories, where the fire of your curiosity, culinary and otherwise, is both sparked and quenched. That is the paradoxical, but quite liberating, space that encountering the personal stories of others have held for me. I am humbled by and spirited at the opportunity to write and share them with you.

Welcome to Let it Simmer. Shall we dig in?