Coffee & Ketchup

A little double entendre regarding the growth of this newsletter.

This past week we had dozens upon dozens of people in our house. Ian spent a few days brining two turkeys and prepping dough for a pizza party that immediately followed our back-to-back turkey day festivities. I deep cleaned and rearranged the house, trying to figure out the best layout of the oppositely shaped tables, while still leaving an aisle of sorts to allow people to move a little more freely throughout our, what was going to become very crowded, space. And through the entire affair, we had friends and family packed into the kitchen, asking how they can help, stepping in to whisk the gravy I completely botched on the first round, pulling dishes down from our open shelves, escorting the rest of the bunch of eat, and refilling glasses of wine.

It’s a bustle that feels like home to me, coming from a family that hosted some of the biggest and most beautiful holiday parties I’ve ever seen, and there’s also something to be said about all the events we’ve collectively hosted after our decades in the industry. My favorite moment will always be the first red lip stain Ian received from a slightly tipsy and very happy Nana, that I had just introduced him to for the first time, as she made her way up from my parents basement at our Christmas party, her gold paper crown tipped ever so slightly while still hinting at her matriarchial status, and a remnant of my Uncle John’s English tradition, that shoot out of festive poppers.

All that to say, it’s been a week or two since my last newsletter, but I figured I get a pass for hosting duties, and before that I was meeting with some of my very favorite women in the industry for the relaunch of the Badass Women of Detroit’s Hospitality column. For those that don’t know, my real start in writing about food here in the city, began with this column I pitched to J’adore Detroit, who welcomed the opportunity to use their blog to highlight, well, the badass women of Detroit’s hospitality.

I started in the beer industry, since that’s where I was at the time myself, and after two profiles quickly realized the lack of diversity and expanded the column to include cocktails and eventually the industry as a whole. It’s still a dream of mine to write an article about the incredible badass women who run the dish tank, and my heart breaks knowing that for one of my very favorite women, I wasn’t able to profile her in time, as she passed away earlier last year. In addition, the building in Eastern Market that housed the loft and J’adore Detroit, a truly incredible and instrumental place for myself and many other women, was destroyed and subsequently the gathering space was forced to close. They’re currently looking for additional support and offering a discount code to help encourage sales so the team can recoup the losses they’ve faced.

And that’s not the only closure taking place in the city. Our beloved beer store 8 Degrees Plato announced their upcoming closure, and here I was thinking that their relocation from Ferndale was tough to navigate. Tim and Brigid have been instrumental to Ian, myself, and the entire beer community. There’s so much more I have to say here but I’ll hold off on that sappy post until next week, after I judge the chili cookoff with Stephen and Will, and enjoy some of my last few in their space.

In direct opposition, along with the sincere grief and confusion of watching so many doors close (because these aren’t the only ones that have and will be happening), there are subsequently many others being opened, by friends who have been talking about launching spaces of their own for years. Heck, dare I say decades at this point. It’s always a balance, the good that comes with the bad, and right now I’m working on finding solid footing to help navigate it. I think the Badass Women column will be that footing and I’m SO excited to share my first badass women with this audience.

With the humans that we bump into while stopping for bread at the local bakery, or while walking the dogs. The ones that read this newsletter with their morning coffee. Like to actively open and remember to reopen at a time that’s more convenient for you? And to then tell me about how much you love it? Please know, I have every comment screenshotted, every ounce of encouragement you’ve shared with me to keep writing, written in bold and then underlined in my journal. A reminder of hey bitch, people read your stuff!

To those of you who listened to be haphazardly try and figure out how to keep writing about what I love, while trying to avoid implementing a paywall because I want to make sure everyone is able to read about these badass women, and in an effort to get more people go to the places I love to keep them in business and around for the long haul. To those editors that have found my worked, read the undedited version, and still reached out about restaurant coverage. To those of you that pay yearly or monthly, because holy crap there are those of you that do that and honestly I couldn’t be more grateful. To Ian, who gets forced to read each of these before I hit publish. It’s my longwinded way of saying thank you.

So, here’s to the upcoming column, to more beyond that, and hell — to feeling like an insider, and actually being a part of it, in an industry that gave me so much.

xoxo