February 9th, 2024

Hi friends,

While indulging in any kind of solo-fem (aka girl) dinner can be a seemingly lonely experience, I take solace in the fact that we’re never really dining alone. Kept company from any number of microbial kin in my pickle platter, there truly is community in our food. An abstract approach to eating, I’m looking more closely at our literal relationships with the things we eat. Finding symbiotic balance in sustainably cultivating food is a shared responsibility. One where we know, understand, and support the origins of what we eat and in turn share in that abundance. 

…said from my couch eating solo salt + vinegar chips, but the aspiration and intent for a locally-sourced snack alternative is there.

This week I’m excited to share some fantastic insights from Portland, OR based artist, creative, fermenter, forager, and so much more–Meech Boakye. Scroll on for more.

And a very happy Lunar New Year this weekend! If you’re celebrating, share back what you’re enjoying.

Stay hungry,Hawnuh Lee | Founder, Closed Loop Cooking

Supporting plastic bans!

The dish >>

• The benefits of a sustainable food system.

• Love this communal reminder.

• Staying tuned for the Year of the Dragon inspired video series from cult fav Omsom.

• Hannah Che is sharing how tofu is made.

• Keeping both eyes on this plastic pod ban bill from Blueland x NYC.

• You could make this cinnamon apple spelt cake for your Galentine’s gathering.

• Or add in these strawberry ice cubes for a festive cheers.

• You should know these Black environmental justice leaders + orgs.

Community + microbial kin with Meech Boakye

Interview by Hawnuh Lee. All images by Meech Boakye.

Meech Boakye is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Portland, OR. Their work elevates natural relationships with floral, fungal, and microbial kin to better understand community.

Hi Meech, can you introduce yourself for the CLC audience?

I am an artist, writer and arts worker currently based in Portland, Oregon. My practice is primarily research-based, and I find joy in learning about new materials, mediums and different kinds of collaborations.

Your work is heavily rooted in community. Would you speak to the floral, fungal, and microbial kin that facilitate your relationships?Several years ago, I began to observe my environment differently. I think many artists are collectors and archivists and foraging fits right into that mode of being. I love the documentation, the categorization, or the joy when you spot something you've been searching for. Naturally, as I started growing and collecting perishables, I needed to learn how to preserve them. Learning about microbiology through fermentation opened me up to deeper thoughts about community. The word had been thrown around plenty — I had even used it myself to describe work I was doing in my local arts scene — but I didn't really know what it meant to be in community with others. Holding this jar of vegetables and salt, bubbling away, I realized I had a clear example of what it could be. If I could care for and provide a nourishing environment for these microbes to thrive in, they would, in turn, provide me with delicious, healthy, and preserved food. We each gave what we could, living and working together.

I loved your latest comic for The Globe and prints for Garlic Fest, you are quite the multi-disciplinary. How do all your varying mediums support your vision?

Thank you! I am always interested in practicing new mediums, especially when it's something that feels challenging. As a former illustrator, I have always been adjacent to comics and printmaking but had only dipped my toes into both. In both cases, I was given the opportunity to learn something on a short deadline which is helpful motivation. I've also found that most of what I do is relational, which means that the majority of what I share is documentation. The work, for me, is the simmering pot of broth on the stove, the pickle workshop, or the agar bioplastic decomposing in the garden.

So much of what I've learned about making things has come from trying something, observing what happens, adjusting, and trying again.

When did you become interested in food as a platform for storytelling? Did you have any guiding mentors in this practice?

In late 2019, and very much so during quarantine, I became interested in the life of everything I was eating before it got to my plate. This mapping is inherently a kind of story. Around this time I was reading Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass, Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing's The Mushroom at the End of the World and Donna Haraway's Staying with the Trouble. These books were foundational for me for approaching and embracing kinship within ecological crises. I also came across Tiare Ribeaux's Bioplastics Cookbook for Ritual Healing from Petrochemical Landscapes, a virtual cookbook that I share with others often.

What are you experimenting with lately?

I've been very interested in cheese and citrus (separately). I just finished a project called Research Poems where I experimented with different plants as milk coagulants and I'm currently in the process of fermenting (preserving) lemons.

Favorite recent dish?

In winter, my partner and I eat some combination of beans and greens every week. One of my favourite ways to prepare them is this recipe by Sohla El-Waylly.

Any advice for others getting started in a mindful food journey and / or relationship with nature?

I am not saying anything new but we know, and can learn, so much about the world by experiencing it with curiosity. I was very intimidated by cooking, baking, fermenting, etc. because I thought I had to learn all of the rules and get all of the equipment first. While I would recommend having a baseline of food safety knowledge, so much of what I've learned about making things has come from trying something, observing what happens, adjusting, and trying again. It really is that simple. 

Thank you so much Meech! Your work is incredibly inspiring and we will be following along.Find more of Meech's work here and on Instagram.

Can’t stop watching vintage cake looping.

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