05: Nourishing Appetites with Julia Turshen

Today I’m super pumped to be speaking with New York Times bestselling cookbook author Julia Turshen. As well as writing cookbooks Julia is the author of the Keep Calm & Cook On Substack and hosts the Keep Calm & Cook On Podcast, both of which I highly recommend. She also hosts these awesome Sunday cook along classes where you can make recipes in real-time with her from the comfort of your own kitchen. This may be my favourite conversation of the series so far. It just feels so wholesome and I know it’s going to be one I keep coming back to and sending my clients to, so I really hope you love it too. Can I Have Another Snack? is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Find out more about Julia here.Follow her work on Instagram here.Follow Laura on Instagram here. Here’s the transcript in full.Julia Turshen I think for so long, I thought having, you know, a large appetite for food or, honestly an appetite for food period. I thought that was not a good thing. And that was something I would spend my whole life working against. You know, I thought I was gonna spend a lifetime trying to diminish my appetite. And then when I kind of zoomed out and I thought about that, I thought, Wow, that's so fucking sad. And I guess my relationship to my appetite or my appetites now is one of just tremendous curiosity. I feel like I've spent so long trying to pretend I don't want things that now I am just so curious about like, what do I want and then finding moments when I want a lot of something or a lot of things like when I have like a large appetite, I am just trying to go towards that with open arms.Laura Thomas  Okay, welcome to Can I Have Another Snack podcast, where I'm asking my guests who or what they are nourishing right now and who or what is nourishing them? I'm Laura Thomas, an anti diet registered nutritionist and author of the Can I Have Another Snack newsletter? Today I’m super pumped to be speaking with New York Times bestselling cookbook author Julia Turshen. As well as writing cookbooks Julia is the author of the Keep Calm & Cook On Substack and hosts the Keep Calm & Cook On Podcast, both of which I highly recommend. She also hosts these awesome Sunday cook along classes where you can make recipes in real-time with her from the comfort of your own kitchen, so check them out if you’re looking for some kitchen and recipe inspo. Julia lives in the Hudson Valley in New York State with her spouse Grace and their pets. So as you'll hear, Julia's career started off, much more deeply rooted into wellness and diet culture, which was a reflection of her own difficult relationship with food. We talked about how she got from there to where she is now, which is a badass anti diet advocate who is vocal about anti fat bias in the food industry. And we have this really wonderful delicious conversation about how healing it can be to reclaim appetites both in terms of food and in a more generative and expansive sense. Julia talks about why this has been such a powerful tool as she divest from diet culture, and shares how she deals with those funky body image days. So, this may be my favourite conversation of the series so far. It just feels really wholesome. And I know it's going to be one I keep coming back to and sending my clients to. So I really hope you love it too. And also check out Julia's work, because she's really awesome. Before we get to the episode, I just wanted to give you a quick reminder that this is the last week where all Can I Have Another Snack content will be free. So don't sweat, you'll still get a weekly pod and twice monthly essays from me if you're free subscriber. But from the start of October, I'll be turning on the paid subscriber only features and sending out some posts to paid members only. So this is kind of a scary moment for me. It tells me whether or not this little newsletter and podcast has legs. If people are actually picking up what I'm putting down and whether or not there's a future here. To those of you who have already signed up, thank you so much. It means more than you know. And if you followed my work for a little while now, you'll know that earlier this year, I had to close my business, my entire career trajectory was uprooted. And I had to try and figure out my next moves while also trying to bring a sense of stability back to my family after an absurdly chaotic year. Actually make that two years. Anyone who has ever read one of my Instagram captions will know that I have a lot to say. But aside from my books, writing has never been part of my job. Substack offers this really neat model where I can make writing my job without having to sell out to do sponsored content or exploit my child for likes. He would get a lot of likes, by the way. But I don't want to exploit my baby. While I love my clinical work and I will always see clients I want to make my work accessible to more people. I wanted to rea...