Muse: Food is LOVE

FOOD IS LOVE is a cozy, justice-minded zine about the many ways we feed ourselves and each other—with tenderness, creativity, resistance, and care. From leftovers packed with love to protest snacks and soup shared in hard times, this issue explores how food becomes more than just sustenance. It’s about comfort, community, memory, and survival. Inside you’ll find stories, reflections, recipes, journal prompts, and tiny rituals that honor the emotional and political power of meals. Whether it’s reheated pizza or a pot of stone soup, this zine reminds us: food is never just food. It’s connection. It’s love.

Errata: In the first printing, I spelled Blair Hickok’s name incorrectly when I interviewed her. It has been corrected for the second and subsequent printings.

Sources:

Protest Snacks: How Food Fuels Resistance

1. Zinn Education Project. 2020. “Greensboro, NC, Sit-Ins Begin.” Accessed May 13, 2025. https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/greensboro-sit-ins/.
2. Heynen, N. 2009. “Bending the Bars of Empire from Every Ghetto for Survival: The Black Panther Party’s Radical Antihunger Politics of Social Reproduction and Scale.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 99(2): 406–422. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00045600802683767.
3. Williams-Forson, P. 2023. Eating While Black: Food Shaming and Race in America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. https://uncpress.org/book/9781469668451/eating-while-black/.
4. https://burritobrigade.org/pantries/. 
5. Spade, D. 2020. Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next). New York: Verso Books. https://www.versobooks.com/products/1645-mutual-aid. 
6. Moskin, J. 2020. “Feeding the Movement.” The New York Times, July 22, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/22/dining/protest-food.html.

Urban Agriculture and Feeding Community in Berlin Germany

1. ~ Ambrose, Luke and Sanne Derks. The Urban Gardeners of Berlin. Imagine 5.  https://imagine5.com/articles/the-urban-gardeners-of-berlin/ . Accessed November 27 2023.
2. ~ Chomsky, Raf. Urban Farming and Sustainability. Sustainable Review. https://sustainablereview.com/urban-farming-and-sustainability Accessed 31 October 2023 .
3. ~ Segarra, Marielle. An Urban Garden in Berlin That’s About More Than Growing Vegetables. Whyy.org. https://whyy.org/articles/an-urban-garden-in-berlin-thats-about-more-than-growing-vegetables/ Accessed 31 October 2023.
4. ~ Urban Community Gardens in Berlin, Germany. European Environment Agency. https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/who-benefits-from-nature-in/urban-community-gardens-in-berlin-germany. Accessed 31 October 2023.
5. ~ Urban Gardening in Berlin. Visit Berlin.   https://www.visitberlin.de/en/urban-gardening-berlin . Accessed November 27 2023.

Books to Read

1. Feed the Resistance: Recipes + Ideas for Getting Involved by Julia Turhshen
2. Food Justice Now!: Deepening the Roots of Social Struggle
3. Edible Activism: Food and the Counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s by Sandy Johnson
4. Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen: A Memoir and Cookbook by Laurie Colwin
5. Crying in H Mart: A Memoir by Michelle Zauner
   

LOVE is Leftovers

1. U.S. Department of Agriculture. n.d. Why Should We Care About Food Waste?
   https://www.usda.gov/about-food/food-safety/food-loss-and-waste/why-should-we-care-about-food-waste
2. U.S. Department of Agriculture. n.d. Food Waste FAQs https://www.usda.gov/about-food/food-safety/food-loss-and-waste/food-waste-faqs
3. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. n.d. Food Waste and Climate Resilience https://ucanr.edu/blog/uc-anr-climate-corner/article/food-waste-and-climate-resilience
4. Why Do Leftovers Taste Better The Next Day? https://www.iflscience.com/why-do-leftovers-taste-better-the-next-day-79296

A Brief History of Stone Soup

1. Brown, M. 1947. Stone Soup. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
2. The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales, edited by J. Zipes, 2000.
3. SurLaLune Fairy Tales: https://www.surlalunefairytales.com
4. American Folklife Center, Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov/folklife
5. D. L. Ashliman, “Folklore and Mythology” at https://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type1548.html

Morning Meals Made with Love

1. Slavin, J. L. 2005. “Dietary fiber and body weight.” Nutrition 21(3): 411–418.
2. Tiwari, U., & Cummins, E. 2011. “Meta-analysis of the effect of beta-glucan intake on blood cholesterol and glucose levels.” Nutrition 27(10): 1008–1016.
3. U.S. Department of Agriculture. FoodData Central. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/
4. Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “Oats.” https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/food-features/oats/