Julia Turshen

For Julia Turshen, cookbooks are an education. She used them to teach herself how to cook, which led her to a career working on them as a co-author with several big-name chefs—and Gwyneth Paltrow, too. She’s also written three of her own guides to home cooking in as many years, the most recent of which, “Now & Again,” was named the Best Cookbook of 2018 by Amazon and an NPR “Great Read.” With her own books, she is educating others on more than food. The most rewarding aspect of her work, she says, is “connecting with younger queer women about what it means to them to see the word ‘wife’ written over and over by another woman in something as familiar and accepted as a cookbook.” Turshen hosts the IACP-nominated podcast “Keep Calm and Cook On;” writes a monthly column for Food & Wine called “The Interview;” and has written for the New York Times, Vogue, Saveur, and more. As the founder of Equity At The Table (EATT), a directory of LGBTQ and POC women and gender non-conforming food professionals, Turshen is ensuring more voices like hers are brought to the (kitchen) table in a field long dominated by men. It’s an essential part of her philosophy: “No one of us speaks for all of us and all of our stories are worth sharing and hearing.” —SEJ