Happy Half-Birthday to Gay Takeaway 🍰!

Connect me with. Gay.

Hi everyone! It’s been six-ish months since the first Gay Takeaway Q&A hit the stands. Time flies while you’re eating cake!

So many thanks to everyone who has read, liked, commented, and subscribed to this gay-tastic food newsletter. It’s been a sincere delight to see what people have connected with. I love talking with queer folks about food, and in many ways this newsletter has exceeded my expectations. Truthfully my only real goal was: queer joy. I grew up and came out in an era where I rarely saw any depictions of queer joy - the only one I can think of that left a beautiful mark was Ricky dancing in My So-Called Life. Food was also not a joy for me in the 90s. The diet culture of that era was (and remains) fucked beyond belief. This project is truly a labor of love and a celebration for the things I think we need more of. Joy and community on all fucking levels.

It’s been a blast to work on a project where I get to connect with actual-factual people and talk to them in real time (albeit over Google Meet for the most part). Some of the folks I have talked to are dear friends I have known for 20+ years, others are artists and writers I admire and I craftily slid into their DMs and asked if they might want to chat about butter or Whatchamacallit’s.

In celebration I thought I would share six of my favorite food-related treasures from the last six months.

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Favorites from the last six months

1. Best Iced coffee

Frozen tahini cold brew from Bakery by Textbook.

Good god this was one of the best things I’ve ever drunk/drank/drinked.

I have been traveling for the last month+ and am currently in BedStuy in Brooklyn. I had the absolute pleasure of interviewing Maddie Lesperance last week and she recommended this spot. The cold brew is frozen in a slushie machine which already makes it perfect, but then it has these ribbons of tahini throughout, which lend the cold brew a subtle sweetness and creaminess that is absolutely perfect. I will be going back and ordering at least 13 more before I head to Rhode Island next.

2. Best coffee mug

I love to love a mug (which is evident in the MUG BREAK portion of the Q&As). I think everyone’s choice in a daily drinking vessel is endlessly fascinating and almost always adorable. I also love a random mug experience! Enter the best mug I have encountered for quite awhile while at my current Airbnb.

we amtrans always cares from all her beautiful angles

This mug is a delight and an enigma for a few reasons:

1. You can’t read the whole thing while drinking it. You have to turn it multiple times to be awed by the full impact of the message.

2. The message is “we amtrans always care.” I love the sentiment even though I have no idea who amtrans is/are or what they always care about. Lately I find myself muttering “we amtrans always care” every time I open a door for someone or refill a water glass. This amtrans is indeed always caring!

3. There is a “constellation” of stars splattered about. Is the always caring specific to constellations? Are they mapping a new pointillism-inspired universe for us to all care about? Or is it just a 3D mesh rendering engine gone awry at the coffee mug plant? In any case, I believe in the stars. And they believe in me.

4. The handle is a deranged and melted McDonald’s arch. I really thought it might mirror the `w` in the typography, but nope. In practice it ends up being a strangely hilarious way to hold the mug, kind of like those silly straws that wiggle for no apparent reason other than to delight or a way to show off. Look at this straw I have! Look at this mug! Well color me delighted!

I love this mug. It has made me a better person. I could google “amtrans” aka the corporation that appears trademarked on the mug, but I refuse to. I don’t need to know more. A beloved mug to me is one that is a daily comfort and always contains lessons about the multitudes to be found in a given day.

3. Best “food” related ad

Yes my dudes. A traveling gluten-free chalice! Let’s celebrate spring by gay-christening each other under the full moon/in our local creek! This also reminded me of the excellent essay in Cake Zine which begs the question “Can Jesus be gluten-free?”

4. Best Meal

Mamnoon in Seattle! Mamnoon has the most luxurious hummus (which has been around in Seattle supermarkets for the last year or so now). I had high hopes for the restaurant but the food truly blew me away. Like best meal of my life good. Everything is fantastic but I highly recommend the Mamnoon mashaw which is “a chef's choice of skewers over house made arabic bread, with sumac onions, a vegetable salad, variety of sauces, and herbs.” Ahhhhh. I can’t say more. I might pass out.

5. Best Ice Cream

Helenika ube coconut. This ice cream is made by the folks at Elleno’s and is 100% the lovechild of greek yogurt and gelato in ice cream form. JUST EAT IT AS SOON AS YOU CAN IF YOU CAN. (It’s at PCC in Seattle and at Pike Place Market)

6. Best random food-related note I just found

I sincerely don’t remember writing this but I stand by it. An excellent 90s band name would indeed be Baby Dorrito.

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Also! I love tracking and data so here’s a bit about that.

The newsletter really took off three months ago thanks to a Substack Note I posted:

It was especially awesome this note went tiny-viral because so many queer folks subscribed, and I got connected to so many other queer newsletters as a result.

Below is a graph of subscribers starting in October and through to this week:

Fancy! You can see the growth and bump from the Note I posted above.

For the past two months or so subscribers have really plateaued and I’m not exactly sure why. I would love to cook up more readership or expand what I’ve already been doing. So this leads me to ask you, my amazing readers, is there anything you might like to read more of? Specific food-themed posts for example? Reviews? Any people I should try to interview in particular? Please comment below or send me a message if you feel so moved. Would love to keep evolving as I go and also would love to hear more about the things that people like that I’m already doing.

Thanks again for all the support! Gay Takeaway couldn’t do it without you.

Happy weekend my loves. Cheers!🥤