Who
I am a 25-year-old bisexual/queer writer living with my boyfriend in a one-bedroom apartment in Ottawa.
What
A group chat for LGBTQ2S+ millennials who love to cook.
Why
In the middle of the first lockdown last spring, my friend Stephanie started a group chat on Instagram called “Bon Appétit Test Bitchin’.” The group connected queer friends from Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal who watched Bon Appétit’s YouTube channel. After the food media empire exploded, the group chat renamed itself “Wet Beans Soup Group” for reasons all of us have long since forgotten, and the discussion expanded more broadly to cooking and recipes of all kinds.
While I initially joined for the media gossip, I stayed for the endless string of food puns and enviable pictures of the ambitious culinary projects my internet friends were taking on to pass the time in isolation. Also, despite being a queer millennial, I have never been in a group chat before, and being invited to join one made me feel very special and loved.
Making connections
Before the pandemic, nothing delighted me more than making a large batch of soup and inviting a friend over to help me eat it. During lockdown, however, this simply wasn’t an option. With the group chat, I still get all of the joy of showing off a homemade meal to friends and chatting about it, even if we can’t eat it together in person. It’s also helped me connect more with friends who have moved away from Ottawa to larger cities, who I wouldn’t get to see in person very often regardless of the pandemic.
While the Wet Beans Soup Group has kept me in touch with old friends, it’s also helped me form new virtual friendships. While it seems like every queer person in a relatively small city like Ottawa already knows each other, I’ve become connected to new friends who share my passion for cooking who I wouldn’t have otherwise met.
One person from the group chat and I even got to meet each other for the first time over the summer at a mutual friend’s physically distant birthday picnic. They brought homemade bread, along with pickled radishes and roasted grape tomatoes. The meal tasted so divine that I still think about it more than six months later. Moral of the story: Get friends who bake.
How queer is it?
I don’t know how queer eating is—everyone has to do it, after all. But there is a long line of LGBTQ2S+ people—lovers, friends, chosen family—who connect with each other over cooking and homemade food. Queer potlucks are basically an LGBTQ2S+ institution, first used as a way to gather safely in private before becoming important public events for local communities to connect. There is also something about taking time to prepare a dish and share it with the people you love that strikes me as analogous to a queer ethic of care.
In regards to the group chat: While there are a lot of discussions about recipes and meal prep, there are almost an equal amount of discussions about astrology and gossip, which are two of the most sacred queer pastimes. There is a lot of Virgo/Taurus energy in the group chat—two earth signs that relish the sensual bliss of domestic comfort.
Surprise!
My most surprising discovery has been learning about how other people make food at home. I’ve always been a weekly meal planner and prepper, so I have been downright shocked that some people are much more spontaneous with their cooking. I plan so that I know what I’m cooking for the entire week, but a lot of people often don’t know what they’ll have for dinner until they start making it that night. While I’ve always used a list at the grocery store, some of my group chat friends appear to… not do this.
I do think that planning meals ahead can be really important, especially if you’re grocery shopping and want to get in and out fast or are trying to stick to a budget. Still, watching others in the group chat be more flexible with their cooking has inspired me to deviate from my meal plan when necessary. For instance, if I’m in an awful mood and planned to make something elaborate for dinner, I’ll swap it out for an easier recipe instead in order to avoid an emotional culinary meltdown. Likewise, I’m a bit more experimental when it comes to leftovers now, and I will often transform last night’s dinner into something different the next day. Pro tip: You can put a fried egg on anything and it WILL be delicious.
Favourite recipe
One of the group’s (and one of the world’s) favourite recipes is the Shockingly Easy No-Knead Focaccia from Bon Appétit. It’s a really satisfying and versatile recipe. You can add vegetables and herbs to it, or just leave it as is—it will taste amazing no matter what.
Personally, one of my favourite recipes over the past few months has been the Oven Roasted Autumn Medley from Budget Bytes. It’s a great low-budget and riffable meal that lets you use up whatever leftover produce is in your fridge. You can also easily make it meat-free with vegetarian sausages.
Most embarrassing shares
I think, in the beginning, the members of the group chat were somewhat reluctant to admit when they weren’t cooking, or if they’d eaten something already prepared, store-bought or frozen. However, as the pandemic has progressed, even those of us who love cooking have gotten a little tired of making three meals a day. Even though I adore a fancy recipe, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with eating instant ramen, store-bought burritos or frozen dumplings. Sometimes you have absolutely no energy. Eating a bag of chips for dinner happens—and it can be great, too.
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