Introducing…The Invisible Thread

It’s time for a change around here that has been cooking for a little while.

The Feminist Kitchen is becoming The Invisible Thread. 

I’m not changing the focus of the newsletter, but I’ve giving it a new name and saying farewell to a brand I’ve had going since 2010.

I came up with the name “The Feminist Kitchen” 14 years ago, when I started writing a side blog about women and food. I had a full-time job as a food writer at the Austin American-Statesman, so The Feminist Kitchen was a way to express myself in ways I couldn’t at the paper.

In 2021, when I left the newspaper, I relaunched the website on Substack, where I continue to write today. 

But for the past 10 years or so, I haven’t really written about the intersection of women and food. In 2015, I expanded my writing as my life changed after I got divorced. In the years that followed, I bought a house, started a new career, lost a parent, became a granddaughter without a grandmother, and got remarried.

I loved putting everything under The Feminist Kitchen umbrella, as if I was inviting y’all over to my intersectional hangout space to share stories that move us.

Sometimes these were little profiles about people or places that spark my curiosity, or essays about how I was exploring the world through the lens of ancestry.

I know very well that my ancestry is not your ancestry; my grief is not your grief; my bewildering joy is not your bewildering joy; and yet, I know you have bewildering joy. You have grief. You have an ancestral healing journey that you are on, too.

This newsletter helps me find the line from me to you and from you to everybody else.

The invisible thread. 

That’s how this new name came to be. The things that connect us that we cannot see. For years now, I’ve been writing about the world with a curiosity about what’s underneath the surface: What do we long for? What parts of our past made our present possible? What happens when we let traditions go? What can we learn about our deepest grief through seeing new places? Where is the universal in the individual?

I know this is an out-there niche, but with these threads of stories — and the support of so many wonderful subscribers, who cover my time to do this work — I’ve built a nest for myself and my writing, and it’s quite a wonderful place to be. 

Thank you so much to all of you who have been with me on this writing journey, some for a very long time. 

Here’s to the next chapter.

Addie

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Some practical questions:

What will happen to the zine? 

It will become The Invisible Thread zine. Same style, new name. The zine is on track for publication later this month, and I’ll be mailing those to paid subscribers within a few weeks. The first and second editions of the zine are available here. Questions? Send me an email at broylesa@gmail.com. 

What about the archive?

I’m going to maintain The Feminist Kitchen archive. Just changing the name of the site going forward. There are more than 180 archived posts to explore, all of which become free for everyone to read after they’ve been up for a year. Here are some of my favorites:

25,000 Alhambra tours and counting

Maybe that wasn't the last letter home

How ‘the weird New Yorkers’ won over (and helped incorporate) one small Texas town

Buttermilk and Crackers: Catching Riders in the Sky and Ricky Skaggs at the Grand Ole Opry

Are you still a feminist?

One-thousand percent yes.

Are you still a food writer?

I’ll always be a food writer, but I don’t call myself one anymore. I’m a person who writes about the intersection of our selves, our interests and our communities.

I’ve wanted to subscribe, but I don’t have the funds. 

A paid subscription costs $45 a year. I know there are a lot of great paid newsletters out there, and I want to try to have one lower-priced option so that you can support even more of us. Most people have the $6/month subscription, but there are also people who become founding members at $250 a year because they want to offer that extra bit of encouragement.

That’s what each and every paid subscription is. 

A recurring “hey, you’ve got this.” I appreciate each and every one.

So, thanks. To all of you. For stopping by and showing up. I’m so grateful to explore these stories with you.

❤️🧵