"When I'm tired, I rest. When I'm hungry, I eat. When I am ready, I lift."

I Love What Julia Turshen Is Doing

Mar 23, 2023

It’s been a wild week here in the Bay Area what with the BOMB CYCLONE and all! Holy Toledo Mudhens ya’ll, the wind this week was absolutely bonkers! I had “Wild Is the Wind” stuck in my head all day (mostly the Nina Simone and Cat Power versions, less so the Bowie version, but also did you know it was originally a drowsy Johnny Mathis joint?). Point is, I’ve never experienced gusts like we had here on Tuesday. Luckily we didn’t lose any trees or sustain any real damage, but my daughter and I did have to go full-on Auntie Em and Dorothy as we wrestled our broken gate to the ground as it threatened to fly away! The streets are strewn with branches, tons of huge trees are toppled around town, and giant glass windows are just like falling from San Francisco’s skyscrapers. Cool cool cool.

Anyway! Speaking of very strong phenomena I am so very happy to introduce you today to Julia Turshen who is literally very very physically strong (read on to hear about her powerlifting excellence! Hence the photo!) and also just STRONG in that badass queer woman author/cook/human/making shit happen kind of way.

I think I first learned about Julia via her spouse, the writer and therapist and all-around gem of a human Grace Bonney, longtime force behind design*sponge and author of beautiful books like In the Company of Women, when Grace and Julia stepped up to host meetings of Solidarity Sundays back in 2017. And then I learned about Julia’s book Feed the Resistance, a fantastic project that fused cooking and politics and community and (my favorite!) practical activism, and then I began listening to her podcast and following her on social media, and all those things we do when we are a Fan of Someone’s Good Work.

You can learn more about Julia here, which I recommend doing, because this bio is brief and very modest:

Julia Turshen is a New York Times bestselling cookbook author. She is the founder of Equity At The Table (EATT), an inclusive digital directory of women/non-binary individuals in food, and the host and producer of the podcast Keep Calm and Cook On. She lives in the Hudson Valley with her spouse Grace and their pets where she teaches live cooking classes every Sunday afternoon.

To be very clear: these Sunday cooking classes are open to all! You can just hang out with Julia and a bunch of other nice people on Zoom and learn to make delicious food. Always a vegetarian option, always a dessert, and always a cocktail! Learn more and sign up here!

What I especially love about Julia is the way she talks and writes with profound vulnerability, honesty, and integrity about BODIES. Her own body, her long history of struggles with it, and with diet culture and weight loss and disordered eating and “healthy recipes” and shame and the incredibly complex web of emotions around it all that we are so often tangled up in. To do this kind of work in general is not easy. To do it as a public-facing queer female cookbook author whose literal job is to think, talk, and write about food…really really not easy. And Julia does it with consistency, clarity, and so much grace (haha, spouse pun intended. Speaking of Grace, I highly recommend listening to this podcast episode where you’ll see just what I’m talking about).

Her most recent book, Simply Julia, is a super laid-back, friendly cookbook that you just want to kind of hang out with. My own (soon-to-be) spouse and I read cover-to-cover in one sitting, which is weird for me, because I’m really not a “cookbook person.” I’m more of a “make-shit-up-because-everyone-is-very-hungry” person—which I think Julia understands, which is maybe why I like her recipes and approach to cooking so much. BUT! My point is, that in between a recipe for Almond Chicken Cutlets (I have made this but with tofu) and Spinach and Artichoke Dip Chicken Bake (I should make this but with tofu) Julia just casually includes the most beautiful 3-page super personal essay called “On the Worthiness of Our Bodies.” You’re just flipping the pages, trying to figure out dinner, and Julia is like:

“For as long as I’ve always loved food, I’ve also been as conflicted about consuming it. A few years ago, it really hit me how much time and energy I had spend feeling bad about myself, especially about my body. And that made me feel really sad…It should not feel revolutionary to say, especially in a cookbook that’s about healthy cooking, that fat does not equal bad or unlovable. But it’s worth saying. There is noting wrong with being fat. The only thing wrong is thinking that any person, living in any type of body, is less valuable than someone else.”

REVOLUTIONARY INDEED RIGHT?! Like, who does that in a cookbook?! Julia Turshen does, and I love it.

KATE SCHATZ: Julia! I love what you’re doing. Can you tell us about your work, and why you’re doing it?

JULIA TURSHEN: Following fifteen years of working on cookbooks, I now teach weekly online cooking classes (which I LOVE DOING) and I write a weekly newsletter. Which is all to say I am continuing my lifelong project of being a home cook in community with other home cooks. I am also weaving in a lot of body liberation stuff into this work which feels really freeing + healing.

I do this work because I get to make a living talking about, and doing, the thing that feels most fulfilling to me. I don't just make soup for myself, I teach others to make soup for themselves. Literally and figuratively. The body liberation work is important because healing cannot happen in isolation — I do it as much for myself as for anyone else who's interested.

My work is for fellow home cooks who see the value in their labor and know how vital it is — and who also know that, at the end of the day, it's just dinner. I believe that home cooks are complex human beings who love good, simple, trustworthy recipes, but also think about more than just cooking. I know this because I am a home cook myself.

KS: When and where do you do your work?

JT: On the internet! With my classes, everyone gets to be in my home kitchen without me actually needing to have anyone in my house which is just about ideal for this 50/50 introvert/extrovert. Same for my newsletter.

I teach every Sunday afternoon and typically spend Tuesday or Wednesday working on my newsletter. There's a lot of planning in between and also a lot of downtime because I am grateful to have scaled down my workload and I am very into my hobbies.

Julia is letting us see these rad pics from her competition!

KS: Speaking of your hobbies AND body liberation stuff: you recently shared a post on IG about something new that you've taken up...powerlifting! You just competed in your first powerlifting competition—and you placed first! You write that powerlifting has helped you "heal from eating disorder stuff" by making you feel “empowered and supported.” Then you add that "Being big + strong is fucking awesome." I AGREE! How long have you been powerlifting, and how did you get into it?

JT: As of April it will be one year! Long story short: I was reevaluating my relationship to exercise, something I had always used to try and shrink myself, and just wanted to try something that would remind me how strong I am and would help me discover how strong I could be. I was lucky to know a neighbor who was already into it and she connected the dots for me and I now go to the same gym she goes to and train with her coach (thank you Molly!!!!).

KS: What scared you about starting it? What excited you?

JT: Honestly, the idea of potentially staying my same size or getting even bigger scared me at the beginning, but working through those fears has been incredibly healing. I was so excited to lift a bunch of heavy stuff! I had a feeling I was stronger than I realized and it's been a true joy to confirm that.

KS: What have you learned about your body and your brain?

JT: Wow, so much. I've learned that my brain and body are actually connected! That might sound silly, but it's taken me a while to integrate the two. I have also learned that my body really feels so different if I don't get enough sleep. I have learned my brain feels so much calmer if I regularly do activities that help me feel present and embodied and powerlifting ticks all of those boxes.

KS: I can imagine many ways that powerlifting can be healing when it comes to disordered eating and body challenges, but if you'd like to share more specifically how it's helped you, please do!

JT: Powerlifting helps me feel capable, confident, and aware of exactly how I feel. All of that feels very healing. Powerlifting has also helped me realize that my body is an excellent communicator and I am learning to listen to it. I spent so much of my life ignoring what it was so clearly telling me. Now that I'm better at paying attention to it, I am better at intuitively responding to it. When I'm tired, I rest. When I'm hungry, I eat. When I am ready, I lift.

KS: Let’s briefly geek out: Favorite lifts and why?

JT: I do really love all three powerlifting lifts (squat, bench, and deadlift), but bench is my favorite. I love it! I think it's probably because I get to lay down...ha!

303lb deadlift WHAT?! I could never break 300! Bravo!

KS: Impress us with your PRs please?!

JT: I am happy to share these but I also know that numbers can be triggering in a variety of ways (they inspire me to compare myself to others when I see them), so feel free to ignore these! But I was so delighted to PR in each lift at my first meet last month — 243lb squat, 165lb bench, and 303lb deadlift and I was 9/9 (if you're not into powerlifting, that just means each of my three attempts at the three lifts qualified). It was an awesome day.