Roxane Gay

If you need some inspiration to get creative in the kitchen while under quarantine, you could peruse this fantastic (and fantastically looking) recipe from Oscar de la Renta's resident chef, or these easy and highly Instagram-able favorites from supermodel Nina Agdal. You could also look to Roxane Gay's Instagram, where she documents, usually daily, the soothing— and sometimes frustrating, as is often the case with bread—process that is cooking and baking. The latter, she tells CR, is her thing—even if her cakes or loaves turn out misshapen. Her favorite things to make right now? Oven-baked french fries, mint chocolate brownies, red velvet cookies, chicken thighs in creamy mustard sauce, and Alison Roman's trendy Caramelized Shallot Pasta. If these seem daunting, heed this nugget of wisdom from the award-winning author's 2017 memoir, Hunger: "Things often go wrong and cooking can be messy, but the act of creating something from disparate ingredients still remains satisfying. Cooking reminds me that I am capable of taking care of myself and worthy of taking care of and nourishing myself." Below, Gay chats with CR about The Great British Bake Off, donating money to strangers during the coronavirus pandemic, and the dessert she made recently that blew her mind.



Roxane Gay Roxane Gay

Roxane Gay Roxane Gay

You've been documenting your cooking and baking escapades on Instagram. Do you have any go-to chefs or cookbooks you swear by?

"I’m pretty equal opportunity in terms of chefs, but my favorite baking site is Sally’s Baking Addiction. It’s this woman who loves baking and her recipes are really, really good. I've been enjoying working my way through many of her recipes, much to my diet’s chagrin. It’s a fun thing to do. It's relaxing. It’s really good for writing because you write and then you're like, Oh, I have to get something out of the oven. I have to go fold something. I appreciate the rules of baking."

What’s something you’ve baked recently that you really loved?

"I made this cake with a brown butter buttercream frosting that was really good. I'm actually pretty good at baking, even if it looks fucked up. I’ve been really pleased with my cakes. And I have been really displeased with my breads. But I’ll get there. My breads just look deformed and weird."



What do you find most challenging about mastering breads?

"For me, it’s about timing and whether or not you have good yeast to rise. I had bought some yeast in quantity and I think it’s just a dead batch because everything I’ve baked with that yeast has not risen. So I got this new yeast—an instant yeast—and it has worked out really well. I got it from Amazon because Sally of Sally’s Baking Addiction recommended it. It turns out she was right! It's Platinum Red Star Yeast and it's fantastic. If you're looking for a high quality yeast, I recommend it."

This content is imported from Instagram. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

You just wrote about your beloved KitchenAid Stand Mixer. Is it safe to say this is your favorite kitchen appliance?

"Oh, absolutely. It’s a workhorse and it’ll last a lifetime. It gets the job done every time. It will knead your breads. It will make you pasta. It’ll make you cookies. It will make your bagels."

What's the greatest baking or cooking advice you've ever received?

"I haven't. Most of the advice I receive is unsolicited and terrible so I ignore it."

This content is imported from Instagram. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

Outside of cooking and baking, what are you reading and watching to keep you entertained while under quarantine?

"Last night we watched Uncorked on Netflix, which was really good. It’s not a perfect movie—there are some issues—but it was just a great movie to watch. We’ve also been watching a lot of The Great British Bake Off. In terms of books, I have not been reading as much as I should, but right now I'm reading a really great book called Get a Life, Chloe Brown, which is about a woman with chronic pain and fibromyalgia. It’s a romance novel, which is great because you don't often see romance novels about people in different kinds of bodies. I’m also reading The Lager Queen of Minnesota. They’re both deeply relaxing books."

This content is imported from Instagram. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

On Twitter, you have been offering to send people $100 via Venmo for groceries during the pandemic. What made you decide to do this?

"When the universities started closing, I immediately lost all my income for the year because it happened on the tail of my magazine ending, which was my other source of income. I was really freaked out. I was like, What am I going to do? How am I going to pay my bills? But I knew that if I was asking those questions, then people who are making minimum wage or anything under, say, $30 or $40 an hour, which is most people, would be in a truly dire state. I felt like I had to do something, even if it was a really small gesture, so I did."

Other people followed suit.

"Yeah. One of the great and unexpected things [that came out of this was] was the reminder that people want to be good more than they don’t. I just asked people to respond to my Tweet with their Venmo handles, and then other people took it upon themselves to send money to them. I also started getting money in my own Venmo account from people saying, 'This is to help others.' I thought it was really great that they trusted me to disseminate the money and that they were so generous as well."

There was no vetting process—you didn't ask for anyone's story.

"I actually don’t have that kind of time and nor do I have [the desire]. If someone is going to scam someone for $100, they've got some shit going on that I can't fix. That's something they need to see Jesus about. And karma's a bitch."

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io