Accessibility – Flavors of Diaspora

Three Reflections on Modernist Cooking: Convenience Stores, the Limits of AI, and Blenders

This has been, by my math, the longest stretch I have gone without posting something here. And trust me, I have good reason: I have been launching a business! I am now the owner of Opossum House Accessibility, which is my vehicle for providing bespoke accessibility consulting services for public and private clients. Launching a business is hard, but has been supremely fun. Subscribe to the newsletter here – I plan to write something in the future about how food blogging gave me skills I applied for launch.

Besides that, I have also been traveling. My husband (love that word!) and I went to Japan and South Korea on our honeymoon in May and June, and we have also been traveling on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States.

Anyway, enough prattle from what I am doing. You are here to read about food!The travels and business startup process have given me a lot to “chew on,” metaphorically and literally, about modern food and what modernist food is and is not. So, I want to share three reflections on modernist cooking.

Japan and South Korea do modernist food really well.

Japanese convenience store aisle with a refrigerated section on the left with vegetables, fruit, pickles, and salads, and a selection of noodle cups on the right — The wondrous world of a Japanese convenience store – in this case, a SeicoMart in Sapporo. (Photo mine/May 2025)

I am very much not the first person to write about the wonders of convenience stores in Japan and Korea. In these chains, you can get simple, reasonably healthy, and traditionally-rooted dishes for very cheap. Favorites include onigiri (Japan) or samgak gimbap (Korea) – rice balls with fillings, various noodle salads, and filled buns. While we definitely had “nicer” meals too, the stores were helpful for snacks or after a long day of sightseeing.

On both this trip and a past trip to these countries in 2019, I found myself thinking about how these stores exemplify what Rachel Laudan calls for her in her seminal article about culinary modernism: that we should advocate for cheap, high-quality processed food for everyone – not to undo processing. (I have written about this at length on these pages.) While 7-Eleven is making some moves towards this in the United States, I think these Japanese and Korean stores give us in North America a lot to think about. These stores also made me wonder about how these tastes have then affected Japanese and Korean cuisine more broadly. Do the wares of konbini in Japan and pyeonuijeom in South Korea change what people seek to make when they are at home? This is something that, despite the language barrier, I want to learn more about.

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is overrated – especially in the kitchen.

A computer with an annoyed facial expression — Me, reading claims about generative AI. (Image via The Noun Project)

When you start a business nowadays, people want to talk to you about generative AI. This is especially true in accessibility, where a lot of people try to apply generative AI badly. I was already a bit suspicious of claims about generative AI, but decided to give it a little bit of a shot because it seemed money was there. After talking to Generative AI enthusiasts and my own research, I am now more skeptical than before. (As a result, I chose to ignore the misguided advice from more than one person to spend an hour a day fooling around on ChatGPT or Claude.)

Because people mean lots of things when they say “AI,” I will be more specific. I am talking about predictive large language models that generate content; for example, ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini. These are prediction-based tools that use “the most likely” thing to generate something. When you state it like that, the weird claims about generative AI sound a lot less plausible.

(I acknowledge there are some limited use cases that work well. For example: the designer I hired for my logo used AI models to replicate the beautiful logo she designed across business cards and letter heads. A friend of mine used a large language model to help people find the correct lawyer for their needs. Image description AI tools, which can come from multiple forms of AI, have been helpful for my blind friends. But the first is a talented artist using a tool to save time in applying her skills, and the second has many sources and is not usually reliant on large language models.)

I will link some great AI skepticism below. Anyway, I was originally going to write about how generative AI is actually a problem when you apply it to cooking, but Joe Ray at Wired published that article last week. He did the work of talking about the problems of asking generative AI for recipes, so I do not have to. Definitely go read it! It makes many of the points I wanted to make, and more.

A grilled fish fillet on a charcoal grill rack — Grilled fish – no AI needed. (Photo mine/May 2025)

In any case, I also spent time – especially on long flights and Amtrak rides – thinking about how people use generative AI in the kitchen. Apparently, people use it to “save time” with knowing when food is going off or to use food, plan their meals and grocery shopping, look for recipes, or figure out what to cook.

I think there are tons of problems here. Ray goes in about them in the food context, and other people – especially Ed Zitron and Baldur Bjarnason – have written about these issues in other contexts. But for cooking, I see two big problems. One is that cooking is embodied. Many of the things we do when we cook, we do through physical sense and actions that we take without describing well. How we beat an egg, see that something is browning, or how my blind friend listens to hear if a sponge cake is fully cooked. Generative AI does not have a body, much less knowledge one gains through a body. So the “advice” it spits out is already suspect.

The other is that cooking is inherently unpredictable. What happens when, as occurred to me last week, you cut into a cucumber to find a worm, and you need to rejig the salad you made? Or when you accidentally spill too much salt into your soup? AI usually looks for the “most likely” thing – but sometimes, we need to take unlikely steps in cooking. I worry about what happens to someone’s ability to cook and feed themselves when they become reliant on a tool that cannot handle the unpredicted. (And as an autistic person, I know surprises are hard! But they are part of life.)

Friends have also made a point that much of the dependence on AI is a direct consequence of the parlous state – and degradation – of search platforms, something that I have seen as I have written this blog over the past decade. Google and Bing, for example, both return far less reliable results than even two years ago. People are looking for something that seems useful to them – even if, as in this case, it causes more problems than it solves.

Modernist cooking is lots of things, but this use of AI is not one of them. At best, it is gimmicky. At worst, it becomes another way to pressure people to spend more time, energy, and money cooking than they can afford. What I see most vis-a-vis AI and food is that it is papering over an unhealthy or unsustainable relationship someone has with food. The problem is not that you need to better track your produce or plan your meals – the problem is you are trying to cook or eat in such a way that is not working with the way you live your life. And there is no shame – and it is probably better for your health, the planet, your wallet, and your well-being – if you choose to eat some more processed or prepared foods, or eat that sandwich, or do something simple, because that is what you have time for. And there are many established, low-tech, and more reliable ways to do this tracking. (I use a notebook.)

And if you need recipes, why not go to the original source? Recipe writers are humans whose work deserves to be supported. The best way to get free recipes, besides food blogs, is to support your local library and check out a few cookbooks – which you can now even do online. These books’ recipes are tested with the embodied knowledge that AI can never have. Here in Greater Washington, I have immensely enjoyed the cookbook collections in both Montgomery County and Washington DC’s library systems.

The blender and food processor are modern miracles.

Salad with shredded mango, carrot, cucumber, cilantro, and fried onions in a bowl with white rice crackers — A spectacular vegetarian mango and tofu salad with rice crackers at Chay in Falls Church, VA (photo mine/August 2024)

My business startup period has coincided with a renewed love of Southeast Asian vegetable salads. These are magnificent, hearty creations that feature shredded vegetables and fruit, often with tangy dressings and tofu or even fish for heft. (Vietnamese mango salads are a particular favorite.) While traveling, I was also lucky enough to have many delicious things that prominently feature grated carrots – fritters, pickles, noodle dishes, and even desserts. Grating or julienning by hand is a slow, dangerous process – and I am slower with a knife than most people. And besides that, I do not always have the time to do such an intense chop – especially with all of the tasks of getting a business launched and starting business development. My workaday, mundane food processor and blender have been a lifesaver. I can satisfy my cravings, safely, and do it in a reasonable amount of time. This machine is a win for society, not a cop out.

I have also, after nearly 34 years on this planet, finally come to truly understand why people love smoothies. Not as a meal replacement, but it is nice to have something somewhat heartier than my typical coffee (normal or decaf), tea, or sparkling water to sip on. It is especially comforting while I am trying to learn QuickBooks Online. Now, hearty drinks have a long history – in Viking Age Scandinavia and pre-colonial Mesoamerica, hearty grain-based drinks were very common. But the smoothie as we understand it now, with pureed fruit, yogurt, and anything else, is completely enabled by modern cooking equipment such as a blender. The miracle of cooking in 2025 is not a predictive model that can tell you to combine tarragon and fennel to flavor your pasta (pro tip: do not do this), but the fact that I can plug a machine in that spins a knife and liquifies a mango for me. What a time to be alive. Baruch Hashem.

Great Books: Vietnamese Vegetarian, by Uyen Luu

My husband loves Vietnamese food. The balance of flavors speaks to him; he loves the textures and the forward tastes; and he likes lemongrass more than anyone I know. He asked me to make more Vietnamese food recently. (Reader, I lovingly cater his meals.) I decided to buy a cookbook, and chose Vietnamese Vegetarian, by Uyen Luu, because we do not eat much meat. This quick purchase was an excellent one, which I now recommend to you.

Book cover of Vietnamese Vegetarian by Uyen Luu: with stylized vegetables and the subtitle "simple vegetarian recipes from a Vietnamese home kitchen"

Vietnamese Vegetarian is an incredible book for three reasons: its approach, its flexibility, and of course, the recipes.

First – this book is a perfect example of what an accessible showcase of a cuisine can be. The recipes are rooted in what Vietnamese people eat in Vietnam and the diaspora, of course. Many common favorites are in this book – pho, sour soups, noodle salads, and summer rolls among them. However, Luu does not insist that you always find the exact ingredient someone might use in Vietnam, and offers options and substitutions, especially aimed for someone not near Vietnamese or other Southeast Asian stores. For example, she offers quite a number of potential substitutions in her noodle recipes – and explains how you may need to adjust the recipe.

Secondly – this book accounts for flexibility in recipes in a way that I will seek to emulate more on this blog, now. Many of her recipes come with a dizzying array of options: be it to bake or fry the spring rolls, which herbs to include in your banh xeo crepes, or the multiple seasoning options for simple stir-fried greens. After reading this book, I will now include more “choose your own adventure” posts here.

And, of course, the recipes are delicious. Many of these recipes are a bit complex – especially the ones involving rice flour (which is very easy to mess up!) – but well worth the time. On the simpler side, I have really enjoyed the tofu with tomato and Thai basil (called rau húng quế in Vietnamese) and the lemongrass tofu, and the cold noodle dishes are all really tasty. I also recommend the many-recipes-in-one garlicky greens close to the beginning of the book. Even with my experience in cooking, that recipe gave me many new ideas.

Vietnamese food culture is a wonderful world, and Luu’s book is a great place to start. I recommend the book and hope you enjoy it. Be sure to also explore Vietnamese eateries in your area if you are so able: this cookbook has heightened the joy of going to these businesses for me as well. I now deeply appreciate, even more, the creativity and human endeavor of this cuisine.

Vietnamese Vegetarian, by Uyen Luu

Growing Out of Taste

I do not know when I stopped liking marshmallows or cantaloupe. What I also do not know is when marshmallow then transmogrified into a food that inspires physical horror and discomfort at its mere mention. (Reader, my spine tingles in pain as I write those eleven letters.) Meringues and honeydew remain, somehow, pleasurable. What I can say is that marshmallow and cantaloupe, which were perfectly acceptable to child Jonathan, have become either an absolute aversion to me as an adult, or a strong dislike.

close up of a grilled marshmallow on a stick — Witness: my nightmare food (photo by Jack Redgate on Pexels.com)

Societally we speak often of growing into foods: strong cheeses, bitter and umami tastes, and vegetables. But what about growing out of tastes? This post is about what tastes one might grow out of, and what that looks like.

I am not writing based on any scientific research. Rather, I am communicating what I learned from asking friends and social media connections, as well as finding various articles on this topic across the internet – including from many food bloggers. Many people, it turns out, had parallel experiences to mine with marshmallows and cantaloupe, albeit with other foods.

Quite a number shared that their tolerance for sweetness had reduced. For example, one friend cannot eat candy anymore; another mentioned that a childhood favorite ice cream now inspires nausea. I have noticed that my capacity for a certain kind of saccharine sweetness is now gone, too. For a few people, a small sweet tooth disappears totally. Many other newly disliked foods were downstream of a reduced taste for sweetness: some people spoke of a newfound dislike for persimmons, juice, packaged cakes, or bananas.

This is part of a natural process: as we age, our taste buds become less attuned to sweetness. In addition, as our palates grow, we also develop new expectations that put less emphasis on sweetness. And while I cannot speak to the science of how that translates to new dislikes, I can say that it feels parallel to other types of “outgrowing” we see in our lives.

Various halloween candies in a pile — Less of this for many adults. (Photo Luke Jones via Flickr)

The conversation around sweetness reminded me of what Bee Wilson very aptly called “kid food” in her book First Bite: food that is designed, marketed, and intended for children – though enjoyed by all ages. (Think dinosaur nuggets.) So much of “kid food” around the world is eye-wateringly sweet. While others have discussed the ample impacts of this sugar consumption at length, what interests me is how this tendency can lead people to think of sweetness as something for children. Consider, for example, how less sweet desserts are often called “adult” or “for grown-ups.” Many dislikes shared with me seemed to parallel this social norm: for example, a reduced love of fast food (which can also be quite sweet).

There were other outgrown tastes too. One person noted that they could not eat excessively salty things anymore. Fellow neurodivergent people, like me, gained some aversions too: towards cold cheese, fish, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, walnuts, and tea, among other things. While we often associate aversions with autistic children, they persist – and often develop – in adulthood!

In considering this input, my friend Margaret’s comment really stuck with me: she spoke of allowing herself to dislike things that she always disliked. Indeed, that is an important lesson: it is okay to not like some things. Many adults take a whole lifetime to accept that lesson. While we often celebrate learning to like new things – which is good! – I think we need to make room for Margaret’s point here too. Being okay with not liking something is a learned skill, and one in which we can all support each other.

And that’s a form of disappointment – which is not only something one learns to accept, but also the root of the other response I found most interesting. One friend noted that she found herself not outgrowing things, but rather finding herself disappointed by certain things – and offered the example of a zebra cake. I found this observation deeply resonant, as there are many foods I would now consider not unlikeable, but disappointing. What comes to mind first for me is the granola bar, which I now generally find to be a little odd texture-wise. Beyond this, though, I think my friend did find a different type of taste and growth: because is it not true that growing, in taste and other things, includes learning how to be disappointed?

Thanks to many friends for talking to me about what you stopped liking!

How to Be A Good Colleague in the Office Kitchen

It has happened to many of us: you walk into the kitchen in your office, hoping to warm up your leftovers (perhaps from one of my recipes, I hope). And there, piled on the kitchen counter, is the orange shock of powdered cheese from mac-and-cheese.

Kitchen inconsiderateness has struck again.

Coffee maker clipart, drink illustration — Drawing from Openverse

I am lucky enough to work in an office with colleagues who keep our shared kitchen quite clean and are generally “good kitchen buddies,” so I have been insulated from kitchen problems for the past few years. I cannot say the same about some other places I have worked. In addition, many friends, have shared horror stories with me about their office kitchens, especially in the post “return to office era.” Meanwhile, a few of my colleagues (who, I repeat, are doing great!) have noted that a list of common rules would actually be helpful.

So here is my attempt to write something on being a good co-worker when you share a sink, microwave, fridge, and maybe even toaster oven, coffee maker, or kettle with dozens of other people.

We all know some tried and true rules – don’t put fish in the microwave, don’t steal other people’s food, don’t set things on fire. But I think there are some basic rules that everyone should make an effort to follow – which are followed by fewer people than we care to admit.

green leafed plants — Photo by Marc Mueller on Pexels.com

So, to start you off on being a good kitchen co-sharer and co-worker, I have five rules that I suggest you follow.

Clean your mess. If you spill it, you clean it, now. If you see that something of yours went off, you toss it, now. It does not wait. It is not a later project. This is your responsibility. If you need help, by all means, get it, but in a shared space, you do not less your mess fester.
Monitor your stuff. It is your responsibility to make sure you do not have anything rotten in the fridge or cupboards, and it is your responsibility to make sure that when you put things away, you are not causing a risk for anyone else.
Be accountable. If you break something, own up to it! If you spill something, clean it up – and own up to it! Honesty is a very important principle in any shared space.

Beyond honesty, communal duty is also important. Make sure the duty to ensure the kitchen is clean rotates among different colleagues. Put it in writing, and make sure that folks check it, and take their turns. Kindly, professionally, but firmly dismiss excuses. For example, if someone is unsure how to clean the kitchen, you can always suggest they look up one of the many excellent guides available on the internet.

If you do have trouble, I suggest making a list of tasks. As patronizing as it may sound, a list will help people remember things that are often forgotten – especially tasks like descaling the coffee maker or cleaning the microwave.

Be prepared for some juicy excuses. I have now experienced more than one autistic person who has told me – someone who very much has autism – that their autism meant that they could not clean a shared space. With all honesty, the insistence of many fellow neurodivergent people on sloughing off all communal duty under the slogan of “but, brain” enrages me in a stapler-touching way. (Enjoy the ‘90s reference.) The answer to this is to find ways to make the duty as accessible as possible, not slough it off on other colleagues who might have their own access needs. I actually made an entire site about it.
Fix what you see, when you can. This is related to #1. If you see that someone else did a bad thing – say, leaving a spill uncleaned – you should fix it. Even if it is not your fault. Saying “not me” builds bad rapport – and also, heightens the risk for everyone. The longer a mess goes unaddressed, the more likely consequences – vermin, a slip and fall, or even a nasty smell – are. Of course, there is an exception here: do not try to fix things that you cannot fix – say, a completely fried toaster oven. That could get dangerous pretty quickly.
Wash your hands early and often. I have a gut feeling that many people get food poisoning in shared work kitchens because of all the flying bacteria and varied skills with food safety. You also never know who might have an allergy, and what your hands have picked up elsewhere in your office. A hand wash rarely hurts.

And lastly, in the spirit of #3: I am sure I missed something. What else would you add?

Great Books: The Moosewood Cookbook

A few months before he passed, the late Jon Henner wrote a tweet that immediately made sense to me:

Working theory. The Moosewood Cookbook by @MollieKatzen is one of the most important mid to late 20th century Ashkenazi diaspora cookbooks. My grandma cooked Moosewood and not really cholents and stuff.
@JMHenner – February 2, 2023

This book, the first of Mollie Katzen’s twelve works, indeed had a big influence on Jewish communities. It is a very Jewish cookbook – and a great one, too.

The Moosewood Cookbook stems from the namesake restaurant which Katzen co-founded in Ithaca, NY – which still operates today. (If you are in the Finger Lakes, I recommend a visit.) Moosewood was very much a product of its time – a vegetarian, plants- and ethics-forward restaurant with a very global focus – perfect for the “People’s Republic of Ithaca.” The cookbook – and several of the following books – are hand-lettered and -illustrated by Katzen herself, and compile many of the “hit recipes” from the restaurant’s early years.

Pasta with vegetables and cheese — Farfalle primavera at Moosewood Restaurant itself! (Photo mine)

The recipes themselves are great – and very rich and hearty! Among other hits, I can highly recommend the soups and many of the casseroles in the book, as well as the pies. The Brazilian Black Bean soup is a particular favorite. Katzen writes accessibly and in a very intuitive way – the recipes are organized in a way that makes chronological sense for the recipe. Many of the portion sizes are generous.

The book is also deeply Jewish. Katzen herself credits her kosher upbringing with her interest in vegetarianism, and she included many Ashkenazi classics – such as noodle kugel, cabbage borscht and other soups like solyanka, blintzes, stuffed cabbage, and cholent-like casseroles in the book and on Moosewood’s menu. These vegetarian, well-flavored, rich renditions are exemplars of their recipes. And it is not hard to find Jewish influences elsewhere too – the pie made with a grated potato crust akin to yapchik, the zucchini pancakes akin to latkes, or the spices that pair with the many wonderful mushroom dishes.

Katzen was part of a trend, of course: many Jewish people were involved in the vegetarian, environmental, and “hippie” food movements of the 1970s and 1980s. Other non-Jewish chefs active in this time include Jewish recipes in their works too – for example, the women behind Bloodroot Restaurant in Bridgeport, CT, and Deborah Madison, the author of several authoritative cookbooks on vegetarian and plant-forward cooking. Other Moosewood co-founders – and members of the staff who took collective ownership in 1978 – were Jewish too, including Katzen’s brother.

Handlettered Sweet Potato Pancakes recipe — A handlettered recipe from the Moosewood Cookbook (copyright Mollie Katzen via Glamour magazine)

Yet Katzen’s influence went back to the Jewish community in a way unparalleled by these other books. By the time I grew up in the 1990’s, many of Katzen’s recipes were in my and others’ experience frequent guests on the tables of synagogue events and Shabbat dinners. Though my own family did not cook Moosewood, many others’ did. Others have written about this experience, too. As an experiment, I asked my heavily-Jewish friends circle what they like to cook from Moosewood. Many of the recipes I mentioned appeared – alongside the pasta al cavalfiore, no-boil lasagna, and the Ukrainian poppy seed cake. I was not surprised to hear so many entries – after all, many others have been in communities heavily influenced by the cookbook too.

Pasta with cheese and cauliflower — Pasta al cavalfiore from The Moosewood Cookbook (Photo Margaret Wessel Walker, February 2024)

I have many times made a recipe from The Moosewood Cookbook or Katzen’s subsequent The Enchanted Broccoli Forest to find that I had recreated something I had eaten before, at a Jewish community event – especially in the left-leaning communities I have frequented as an adult. I think this has happened for many reasons: Katzen’s own continued links to Jewish life, the strong Jewish presence at Cornell University and in Ithaca, and in particular, the way Moosewood reflects how American Jews actually eat. The recipes were not preserved jelly-like in nostalgia, but rather in a mix alongside Indonesian salads, Brazilian soups, and an array of pastas.

And so this is why Jon’s tweet resonated with me so much. It was not just his grandmother who cooked from Moosewood – many of the people I knew in my communities, across generations, vegetarian or carnivore, left-wing or conservative, did. I do too, now – and I am grateful to this book for very much enriching Jewish tables across the country.

This post is dedicated to Dr. Jonathan Henner, z”l, who passed away in August. I knew him through this blog and our shared Jewish networks – he suggested that someday I write a post on Moosewood. In the wider world, he was known as a proud Deaf advocate and an achieved linguist who studied American Sign Language and children’s education. His work and activism have had a profound effect on many people, especially Deaf children. You can read more about him here; he will be missed.

The Moosewood Cookbook, by Mollie Katzen, is available from many wonderful independent bookstores across the world.

Thank you to my friends for contributions and particularly Margaret Wessel Walker for the photo!

Introducing Safe and Neurospicy

A smiling chili pepper on a green background — *Forgive me: I am not a graphic designer.*

After a year and a half of work, I am excited to introduce my new project: Safe and Neurospicy. This is a food safety website aimed for neurodivergent people – folks like me with cognitive disabilities like autism, ADHD, dyslexia, OCD, Tourette’s syndrome, bipolar disorder, and other “brain spiciness.” I aim to make this a comprehensive, friendly resource on all things safety in the kitchen.

Food safety is not taught well. Neurodivergent people suffer disproportionately from this problem – as do other disabled people. Many aspects of our disabilities make it harder to do things that keep food safe. Some neurodivergent people have trouble with “executive function.” Some, like me, have sensory integration issues. Some are not sure what to do. Some have all three issues. A frequent response is to use “common sense” – which is neither “common,” nor always “sense,” and not always understood by us! In addition, many neurotypical people do not understand this either – so there is always a market for more information and better resources on food safety. My aim with this site is to have a friendly resource that does not fall into these traps.

Please provide feedback and input! This site is very much a work in progress, and your insight helps – especially if you are neurodivergent. Over the next few months, I am hoping to add more pictures as well – if you have any, please feel free to contribute. And don’t worry – I will still keep posting here on Flavors of Diaspora. This site will continue to be my main site – the content on Safe and Neurospicy is designed to be a little more “static” (though it has kept me from blogging as frequently on this site over the past year and a half). In addition, if you reached this site through the multiple points I refer to it on Safe and Neurospicy – welcome!

Neurodivergent-Friendly Cookbooks and Sites

This post has two parts, but both are about resources to help neurodivergent people in the kitchen. One is a very exciting new cookbook coming out, and the other is a list of other beneficial cookbooks.

As a refresher – neurodivergent refers to a series of disabilities that comprise differences in brain structure. Neurodivergent people think and process differently from others. Some types of neurodivergence include autism, ADHD, OCD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, bipolar disorder, intellectual disabilities, and Tourette’s syndrome – among others. (I often use “neurodivergent” or the slang “neurospicy” to describe myself, since “I am autistic and have OCD” is a bit of a mouthful.) Neurodivergence is not always a disability – but it usually is, and like other disabilities, affects cooking.

A Book for Neurodivergent Folks by a Neurodivergent Author!

Cover of Color Taste Texture: Recipes for Picky Eaters, Those with Food Aversion, and Anyone Who's Ever Cringed at Food by Matthew Broberg-Moffitt. Has images of cinnamon rolls, chicken tenders, and kids at a party eating. — Broberg-Moffit’s book (Photo from Penguin Random House)

Good news: there is finally a cookbook coming out by a neurodivergent person, for neurodivergent people! Matthew Broberg-Moffitt is an autistic author who has written Color, Taste, Texture– a cookbook designed for neurodivergent and other cooks with food or texture aversions. These sensitivities are more than a dislike, and few cookbooks for adults effectively address this aspect. The recipes are varied, and meet various common aversions and sensory sensitivities. The book comes out in August; I urge you to pre-order it.

We neurodivergent folks often cook differently, as I have discussed in the past on this site. We experience the senses differently – and aversions and sensitivities often have a greater impact on us. In addition, we often cook with this sensory experience as front-and-center as taste, health, or craving. Yet few books and blogs address this reality – so Broberg-Moffitt’s book is very exciting. It will also be good to see both the way the recipes are presented, and what recipes are in the book. I am looking forward to seeing the book, and I expect to learn myself from this work.

Other Neurodivergent-Friendly Cookbooks

books file on book shelves — Photo by Gül Işık on Pexels.com

In addition, I wanted to highlight some additional cookbooks that I find to be particularly friendly for neurodivergent folks. Though they are not necessarily designed specifically for someone who is neurodivergent, they do offer things that are helpful – such as substitutions, clear directions, and recipes that do not depend on doing a certain thing a certain way. Note that you will need to read carefully to figure out what things you need for recipes.

Many of the recipes in these books are personal favorites. I hope you enjoy.

Books

Ruby Tandoh’s Cook As You Are is one of the most neurodivergent-friendly cookbooks out there. She includes very detailed, clear directions and offers options if you have trouble with chopping, or standing, or a host of other things. She actively consulted neurodivergent people while creating the book. Her chili-stewed greens with black eyed peas are now a regular thing for me.

Leanne Brown’s Good Enough is a really good book on imperfect, do what you can cooking with some great ideas and suggestions – including a really great “assembly” bit that guides you through making food out of whatever you find around. I love the “TL;DR” summaries of recipes – but I recommend only using those if you have prior cooking experience.

Gwyn Novak’s How to Cook for Beginners is an excellent book for those of you just starting out in the kitchen. Even though I’ve been cooking almost my whole life, I myself found the book to have some good recipes.

Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything: The Basicshas lots of really wonderful, direct illustrations and directions and some good recipes as well. This book is a good resource, especially if you eat a lot of vegetables.

Tanorria Askew’s Staples+5 is an excellent cookbook filled with simple recipes, and has one of the best pantry-stocking lists I have seen.

Megan and Jill Carle’s College Cooking: Feed Yourself and Your Friends is a very neurodivergent-friendly guide for beginner cooks.

Sites

Woks of Life is a lovely site run by a Chinese-American family that has many delicious recipes, and teaches you the basic “building blocks” of traditional Chinese cooking. If you want detailed instructions on how to prepare a new ingredient, this site is a good place to check.

Just One Cookbook, by Namiko Chen, is an excellent and simple resource for all things Japanese cooking. The directions are straightforward, and she provides excellent advice on techniques – especially for basic things. I use this site all the time.

Jessica in the Kitchen, by Jessica Hylton,is an excellent vegan food blog with excellently explained recipes. This blog has some really wonderful recipes.

My Forking Life is an excellent blog with many quick recipes, including those that use air fryers and pressure cookers. Tanya, the author, also includes many of the Jamaican recipes she grew up with.

Laura Mauldin, a professor at the University of Connecticut, has a great website called Disability at Homethat catalogues all sorts of things disabled folks, including neurodivergent people, do to make life more accessible at home. Many of the kitchen things may help you – they have helped me!

Neurodivergent Cooking Crew is an excellent, very helpful Facebook group for neurodivergent cooks from all backgrounds.

Autistic readers, I encourage you to join Autism Meals, a food group on Facebook for autistic folks. NOTE: You do need to be autistic to join.

Shows

Nadiya Hussain’s Time to Eat has lots of simple, straightforward recipes – many of which use prepared food products such as pre-peeled garlic or packaged cooked beets. The accompanying book is great too.

It’s a bit dated, but Alton Brown’s Good Eats is a really fun show where you can learn about the science of food. My sister and I watched it a lot as kids.

A Second Brownie Recipe – Gluten-Free, Vegan Brownies with Walnuts

I have been trying to improve my repertoire of vegan, gluten-free desserts for a while now – partly to have more dairy-free and gluten-free desserts in my back pocket, and partly because it seems like a good idea.

Brownie on a plate — A vegan, gluten-free walnut brownie. (Photo mine / March 2023)

Hence these brownies. I based them on an excellent recipe by Arman Liew, but made enough adjustments that I decided to write up my version separately. This recipe is more like a bar, and thus is very different from my cakey Shabbat brownies.

brownie on parchment paper with brownies behind — Stock photo brownies that look a lot like my other brownies (Photo Pixabay/CC)

I added walnuts, which I crushed with a rolling pin. The walnuts not only complement the chocolate and temper the sweetness, but also add oil and density to the brownie. You could probably use any tree nut; a nut-free version would probably require some additional tweaks.

Vegan and Gluten-Free Walnut Brownies

Based on a recipe by Arman Liew

Makes 24 brownies

4 tablespoons ground flaxseed

¾ cup water

2 scant cups vegan chocolate chips – semi-sweet or dark chocolate

12 tablespoons (1 ½ sticks) vegan butter – Earth Balance works well

¾ cup granulated sugar

½ cup maple syrup

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 ½ cups gluten-free flour

2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking powder (make sure it’s gluten-free)

1 cup walnuts, crushed

Preheat the oven to 350F/175C, and line a 9”x13” (23cm x 33cm) pan with parchment paper.
Mix the flaxseed and water and let sit for a few minutes, or until it gels up. Set aside.
Melt the chocolate chips and vegan butter in a large bowl. I usually do 30 second spurts in the microwave on high, mixing in between, until melted. You could use a double boiler if you like.
Add the sugar, maple syrup, and vanilla extract to the chocolate mixture and mix in thoroughly.
Add the flaxseed mixture to the chocolate mixture and mix in thoroughly.
Sift together the gluten-free flour, cocoa powder, salt, and baking powder.
Fold the dry mixture into the chocolate mixture until just combined. The texture should be consistent and no dry spots should be apparent.
Fold in the walnuts until evenly distributed.
Pour the mixture into the pan and use your spatula to spread around evenly. Note that this will be a thick mixture – much thicker than a traditional brownie batter.
Bake for 30 minutes, or until the top has solidified.
Remove from the oven and let sit in the pan for at least 30 minutes.
Remove the mega-brownie from the pan and slice into squares. I usually measure mine to be about 2 inches on each side.
Keep in a sealed container for up to four days, separating layers of brownie with parchment paper.

Thank you to my colleagues for providing User Acceptance Testing for this recipe.

Climate Mitigation and Adaptation in the Kitchen

White beads of pearl millet on a stalk — Millet – a crop we may see more of in coming years. (Photo Kurt Steuber via Creative Commons)

To combat climate change, we will need to both reduce emissions, but also adapt. Why is this? Well, even if we turned off all carbon emissions off today, a certain amount of climate change is still “baked in.” You can read about that science here. This means that, unfortunately, some human-caused climate change will continue to happen. And that climate shift will affect everything that we do – and to “weather the storm,” (pun intended) we will need to mitigate its effects in our daily lives.

Some of this adaptation will occur in the kitchen. There has been a lot of writing about the way we cook and what we cook as it relates to carbon emissions. I discussed this topic in the context of electric and gas cooking in a recent article for Greater Greater Washington. However, our surrounding climate affects how we do everything from certain cooking tasks to food storage to what we are able to realistically grow and eat.

Sejal Sukhadwala, a London-based food writer (and author of an excellent book, The Philosophy of Curry), recently asked a question on Twitter on this topic. Her tweet proposed a few things, rooted especially in the British experience and the recent heatwave there – for example, weather-dependent baking. I wanted to take the topic further. Hence, this post.

This topic could cover books and doctoral theses. However, I decided to think of a few things I could identify for a brief blog post. These are all predictions – or things that will be more common as climate change continues to affect our lives. (The science is, of course, continuously evolving on this urgent issue.)

Better ventilation and cooling in kitchens. We are going to be dealing with more heat – and that also means that buildings will be hotter – sometimes to the point where air conditioning alone (separately complicated) is not going to cut it. Kitchens, already hot, can become dangerously so – especially for people who work in kitchens. In addition, many major food groups will be in demand, and I do not foresee weather-dependent menus becoming too common. Hence, we will need more and better ventilation and cooling to keep the temperature down in the kitchen. I imagine that this problem will get a lot of architectural and engineering attention over the coming years. But – also – we will need to consider what kind of changes we make in order to make that efficiency possible. Some things – like a wood-fired oven – will need a lot more surrounding infrastructure to be usable. I think a lot of these lessons can be learned from the past and from existing practices –many cultures have done some pretty neat things to ensure ventilation and cooling in hot climates.
Changes to processed foods. Some ingredients will be harder to come by, and others will be more problematic to grow as the climate changes (which I cover below). This situation will happen with the climate change that is already locked in. One way that this shift will affect our food is what goes into the processed ingredients that most of us rely on to some extent – everything from the flour that gets milled to what happens in frozen meals to the components of spice blends and preservatives in canned vegetables. These changes will affect how we cook with the ingredients, what they taste like, and how available they are. For example, I imagine that we may see a shift to more amaranth showing up in processed goods as it is a fairly drought-resistant crop. Meanwhile, I suspect that we will start to see fewer things with apple products, including widely-used juice and vinegar, given the effects of the changing climate on apple production. Most of all, I think we need to be prepared for different tastes – which have varied throughout history! As sympathetic as I am when people are upset when preferred products change, this is something we should all be prepared for – and address when we cook and eat.
Fewer water-intensive ingredients. Unfortunately, the amount of climate change that has been “locked in” will continue to affect rainfall – and not just in traditionally dry places. In many places, water-intensive ingredients like almonds and walnuts will go from just being environmentally awkward to economically and scientifically unfeasible. I expect, over the coming years, that many water-intensive ingredients will become scarcer and more expensive. There will also be pressure to use fewer of these ingredients, similar to the way that there is already pressure to consume less meat and dairy. (Though there is more scientific pushback there than with almonds or certain water-intensive plants.) Some common recipes will become less so – for example, the breadth of Jewish recipes that include almonds. Other times, substitutions will be quite common – for example, oat milk rather than almond milk.

A part of me also hopes that we will see more cooking with some truly wonderful drought-resistant ingredients. Tepary beans, nopal cacti, lentils, millet, corn and black eyed peas all come to mind.

Of course, there are many more mitigation techniques that I could discuss here – I have not even scratched meat-eating or adjustments to when we do certain tasks. And, of course, we need to cut emissions, and that comes through the food system too, as well as how we cook. Mitigation is still a key part of our response though – and I hope that this post highlighted for you how kaleidoscopic, how varied this response will be.

Ten Things to Check When Reading A Recipe

This post is based on several reader requests. A number of folks have told me that they, or their partners or roommates, have trouble with reading recipes and end up with kitchen disasters, bizarre results, or taking an extremely long time to make something.

I should begin by noting that this is not their fault. To begin, many recipes are badly written. Even the good ones can have problems though. Most recipes are written with lots of assumptions around knowledge, that you can reorder steps in your head, and that you have a given amount of cooking experience. They also assume the same set of sensory and bodily characteristics of everyone, and ways of thinking. (Recipes, as traditionally written, are horribly inaccessible.)

Kitchen with an open window — Photo by Charlotte May on Pexels.com

I’m working on a longer-term project to address some of these issues from a neurodivergent lens (more coming soon!). That said, I want to share a checklist on what to check before you make a recipe, so that you are prepared for the recipe and what it entails, and make the recipe in a way that works for you. (Or not! Sometimes you might realize that a recipe isn’t for you. I’ve been cooking since I was six, and even I have that realization sometimes.)

This list has ten questions that I ask myself when I read a recipe. The answers to this question inform not just whether I make a recipe, but what I do before I make it, and how I make sure that I do all the steps to make it. I hope that this helps you, too.

Bags of frozen vegetables — (Photo public domain)

Before I begin: whenever I make a new recipe, I always read over the entire recipe at least twice (and usually many more times. Recipes are often complicated little beasts, and you should have a general idea of the shape of the recipe, even before you start asking these questions, and certainly before cooking.

Now, the checklist itself.

How much time do I have to cook? This is important to know. If you have 45 minutes, for example, you probably do not want to do a very complicated recipe. If you have a whole afternoon, then obviously you have more options. I ask myself this question, especially given that recipe preparation times in cookbooks are often wildly off (and vary from person to person which is why I do not give them). To be safe, I tend to multiply any prep time by 1 ½.
What ingredients do I need, and in what forms do I need them? The first reason I ask this of myself is to know what I need to buy, if I am going shopping, and to make sure I did not miss anything. Pay special attention to the forms of the ingredients since oftentimes, they are not interchangeable (for example, tomato paste versus fresh tomatoes). When you do substitute them, you will need to take special care – which brings me to my next question.
What substitutions do I need to make? You might not have an ingredient, you might have an allergy or aversion, or you might have another reason you need to swap something out. Always start with any substitute the author suggests, and then go to the internet and do some searches if there are no suggestions. Only trust your guess with a substitution if you have done it before – for example, I can usually substitute eggs in baked goods because I have done so dozens of times. I have a common substitutions list.
Do I have to prepare ingredients first or is that in the recipe? Most recipes are written with some directions as to how an ingredient should be prepared – a chopped onion, a drained can of beans, and so on. Often this makes sense, because the recipe itself quickly assembles and changes these prepared items. That said, preparation takes time (and is never properly reflected in time estimates). Check to see what things you need to do there – such as chopping vegetables. Account for that in your time if you can. If you’re new at cooking, or haven’t cooked for a while, I recommend observing and noting how much time it takes for you to do things like chopping, and how much energy. Factor these things in when reading a recipe – you may want to avoid a recipe for which the preparation is particularly intense. (Confession: my knife skills are still slower than average even though I’ve cooked for over 20 years now. I sometimes skip recipes that require tons of chopping as a result.)
What equipment do I need? Always good to check – not just to make sure you have it in your kitchen. Chopping and prepping your ingredients only to find that your pot needs washing is a frustrating experience.
What are the steps? I read this in advance to know how much energy it will take to make a recipe, and also how much I will need to concentrate, or if I can cook other things during parts or take it a bit easy. For example: a stew that cooks for an hour with only some stirring leaves a lot more room than, say, a stir-fry with lots of quick motions.
What steps might I need time or help with? Some things can be tricky – it is good to know if, say, a long kneading process is involved. If you live with someone else who can help you, you can also check if you can get their help with a particularly tricky step – for example, draining pasta from a large pot.
Have I made recipes like this before? What did I learn then that can help me now? This is always good to ask yourself, so that you can both apply new skills and remember from past mistakes. For example, I remembered from making a miso eggplant that extra miso burns in the oven really easily, so I made extra sure to make sure not too much miso dripped off when making miso-glazed salmon.
What do I need to do before I start cooking? For example, do you need to go shopping – or wash a lot of things you’re bringing out from the closet? Or are you ready to go? This process takes energy and time.
Do I have the time, energy, and things I need to cook this recipe? Consider the answers to questions 1-9. No shame if the answer to number 10 is no.

I hope this helps you as you go forth, explore recipes, and make great and delicious things in your kitchen.

Category Archives: Accessibility