#3: The Wine & Spirits of Mutual Aid
Drinking energy with AMIGXS & Kia Damon's grown up grilled cheese
Hey readers, welcome back to Lunch Rush, the official newsletter of Lunch Group, highlighting some amazing folks reimagining equitable futures for F&B. For those who are new to our table, the projects we cover examine issues like identity, accessibility, and social impact, drawing on the ancestral heritage, creativity, and community inherent to the preparation and enjoyment of food and drink. Make sure to check out our first and second issues if you haven’t already! We’re also excited to announce the launch of our shop; proceeds will support our editorial work and our contributor compensation fund, and a percentage of all sales on each item will be donated directly to an impactful community initiative. Our first product, the Lunch Bag, is in fact perfect for toting your lunch, or anything else you might wanna haul around town.
Since our inception, we’ve found ourselves continually inspired by the ways communities have shown up for one another, coming together to share resources and provide support in times of uncertainty. Mutual aid groups have sprung up across the country, and that same spirit of collective care has been foundational to a wave of projects across F&B. Previously, we’ve celebrated some of the thriving community fridge networks and restaurants providing pay-what-you-can or free meals.
In this issue, we’ll look at a few interconnected projects of a similar ethos, fostering diverse, collaborative spaces to provide both equitable access and support in realms traditionally occupied by a privileged elite. We’ll hear from Zacarías González and Raquel Makler of AMIGXS, an unapologetically queer, cooperatively-run bottle shop aiming to subvert the context of retail and end the exclusive gatekeeping that plagues the wine industry. Bucking capitalist gains, the partners have developed an equitable financial model which prioritizes the lasting mental and physical health of all members of the cooperative, while also redistributing funds to to support auxilio, a non-profit intersectional, community-based and food-centered space focused on providing resources, nourishment, and support for queer, Black, trans, and/or Indigenous communities of color in New York. auxilio will also host Chef Kia Damon’s Kia Feeds the People Program, a mutual aid initiative focused on getting quality produce and pantry items to Black and QTPOC communities, while also providing cooking and nutrition classes to help recipients make the most of their goods.
Projects like these emerge from a history of community-organized care initiatives among groups that have historically been disenfranchised in the United States, particularly within the Black community. We’re reminded of figures like the women of Georgia Gilmore’s Club From Nowhere, who fed (and funded) the folks behind the Montgomery Bus Boycott, or the Black Panther Party, who offered free breakfast for school children, providing a blueprint for later government efforts to do the same. This Black History Month, we’d like to commit to celebrating and highlighting a long, often unacknowledged, history of Black-led movements of mutual aid and community support all year round.
It bears repeating that Black history is American history, and this sentiment very much rings true in the culinary realm, where leaders and creators continue to build on these traditions to innovate: historians like Michael Twitty, whose scholarship reveals the deep and often uncredited Black roots of food culture in the United States, or writers like Klancy Miller, whose new magazine For the Culture celebrates Black women and femmes in food and wine, past, present, and future. We’re honored to share suggestions from Elle Simone Scott, whose podcast The Walk-In explores the unheard stories of the food world’s difference makers to interrogate the reality of “making it.” Elle also launched SheChef Inc in 2013, but recently partnered with co-founder Chimere Ward to re-launch the community, a network organization which aims to bridge the gap of equity and diversity across F&B, media, and hospitality. Their upcoming virtual event series will create a community to provide resources, information, inspiration, and a strategic roadmap for women of color seeking to enter into and thrive within the industry. We couldn’t be more grateful to work alongside folks like these, who constantly shift the conversation to advocate for a more just future.
*Sometimes email providers will clip the end of our messages due to size; be sure to click through for the full issue!*
On Tap
Finished (2017) by Jake Troyli.
Jake Troyli (he/his) received his BFA from Lincoln Memorial University (2013) and his MFA from the University of South Florida (2019). He attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in the summer of 2019. His solo exhibitions include Don’t forget to pack a lunch! at Monique Meloche Gallery (Chicago), Awkward Handshake at Tempus Projects (Tampa), and Always leave them wanting more! at ArtsXchange (Saint Petersburg). Troyli was a Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center fellow for the 2019-2020 season, a 2018 ACRE resident, and the recipient of a Creative Pinellas Emerging Artist Grant in 2017. His work has been in numerous group exhibitions, including Show Me Yours at Monique Meloche Gallery, Coco Hunday Presents at Atlanta Contemporary, Malmö Sessions at Carl Kostyál Gallery, and Extra Butter at USF Contemporary Art Museum. Jake has been featured in New American Paintings issue 142 and as the cover artist in issue 141. Jake is represented by Monique Meloche Gallery.
Something to Chew On
Raquel Makler, Zacarías González, & Rosa Shipley on the Beautiful and Systemically-Charged Nature of Wine
Rosa Shipley (she/her) is a cook, wine person, food creative, and writer. From working the vines at small vineyards to sweaty line cooking, her work centers on both participating in and processing the dynamics of consumption. Her work is a celebration of the ephemeral, as well as an acknowledgment of the industry’s inherent flaws.
Raquel Makler (they/she) is a genderqueer sommelier, wine consultant, and partner at AMIGXS, a cooperative wine retail concept, and auxilio, a mutual aid driven non-profit. Their work centers around education and access, taste and divulging in the senses – a practice that doesn’t end with just wine. Raquel can also be found at Forthave Spirits playing with botanicals, a further delve into fermentation and craft.
Zacarías González (they/he) is a queer artist with a background as a commercial art director turned chef/somm. They founded ediciones projects in 2020, a creative studio focused on collaborative projects that intersect and explore food, wine, hospitality, media, consulting and design specifically through a queer-centric lens as a Cuban-American.
AMIGXS is a queer, cooperatively run wine concept which focuses on sharing libations through a bottle shop and auxilio beverage programming.
*this interview has been edited for clarity*
RS: Will you paint me your perfect wine moment?
ZG: I miss drinking wine with people, so it would definitely revolve around that... having a dinner party and being able to open a bunch of bottles that I really want to share with people to see their reactions and talk about it and just… that joy of sharing.
RS: On that note, will you tell me a little bit more about your project, AMIGXS, where that was born and where you’re hoping that it goes?
RM: It started with us just dreaming of a wine space that we and our friends could feel comfortable in – not just for that group of people that we now associate with wine.
ZG: I don’t really feel like there are wine spaces that exist in a way that we would like them to. That leaves the majority of people, especially people that we identify with, out of the equation.
RS: Wine is so imbued with intimidation and cultural capital, if not holistic exclusivity. What do you say to someone new coming into the wine world to welcome them and contextualize all of those feelings that come with the novelty of the experience?
ZG: I pretty much have tried to divorce myself from whatever I feel like is ‘normal’, instead wanting to embrace people to feel more comfortable, because it is such an intimidating field. And at the end of the day, it’s something that people want to enjoy. A lot of times initial experiences can really predicate how comfortable you feel to pursue enjoying it.
So with the retail space, if somebody comes in and they’re a little bit uncomfortable or curious, I automatically am like ‘Well, tell me a little bit about what you like’, and that immediately puts them in a situation of ‘Ah, but I don’t know the right words!’ So I tell them, ‘There are no right words, just talk about what you like and then I can figure it out.’ Usually, I end up just opening a few things and social distance tasting across the store. That has been such a barrier-breaking experience, I do it almost weekly with somebody new. It’s very simply just being kind and listening.
RM: Listening to people and what their palates are – because every palate is valid. We both come from that world, the very elite, in terms of jobs we’ve worked. And we’ve felt not welcomed in that community.
But what I always go back to is my very first job, before I got into fine dining, before New York. I worked in a 24-hour diner. I worked there for four years, the graveyard shift, and I served truly the best customers. There’s this immediate comfortability that comes with the diner experience. You come in at 2 am and have a coffee, you have your regular. You get to know people in that way. I’ve kind of taken that comfortability with my guests to all the jobs I’ve had since. I think it’s really important to make people feel comfortable, to make them feel welcomed, like they belong in a space.
RS: Yeah! Yes. I used to sell wine at a farmer’s market every week —
RM: Oh fun!
RS: Yeah it was very… performative (laughs). I’d frequently give people a little taste and there would be so much tension between what they thought I wanted to hear and what they wanted to say. So they would just say ‘this tastes like grapes.’ And I totally understood why. It made me wonder why that space is so charged. So what do you think it is between a somm, or someone offering wine, and the person tasting it? What is that essence that makes someone comfortable, that opens up a space to exchange?
RM: I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately. I started a little side project consulting to empower people that want to learn about wine with the verbiage to do so. When I was getting into wine, I was scared to say anything cause I didn’t know the right words. Then you’d get chastised for it by someone who is higher up – usually a white man, et cetera, et cetera. So what I really wanted to do was talk to people and listen to what they want and then transfer that into wine words so they feel comfortable going into a store, talking to somms, and owning their palate. I think a lot of it is just that people aren’t equipped with the right tools. And if you give them the tools, they usually know what to say and do.
RS: Coming of age, I heard a lot that you have to learn tradition before you can explore creatively – you have to read the canon before you engage with experimental works. I heard it especially when I lived in Bordeaux, learning wine from bored white men who loved teaching me. What is your take on this philosophy? Do I have to understand the nine primary styles of wine in order to fully appreciate a 2019 dark orange?
RM: I thought before I got into wine that I was going to be a musician. I was always taught that you need a strong foundation of theory to understand music, or play it for that matter. When I first got into wine, I was fortunate enough to learn from some of the best the wine world has to offer. I was met with the same sort of mentality: you have to understand tradition in order to make a newer style of wine. The ‘natty’ and the ‘glou glou’ are all derived from original theory. I adopted these opinions early on and believed that in order to succeed in natural wine I must be classically trained and educated.
My thoughts have shifted as I’ve progressed – I noticed a rigidity in the more traditional ways of teaching, an othering. I remember from one of my CMS classes, we were blind tasting as a group. One person was struggling with determining if the wine was New or Old World and the MS said, ‘if it finishes bitter? Old World. If it finishes with fruit? New World.’ This stuck with me mostly because she grossly condensed the spectrum of wine. I knew at that moment that traditional wine education systems weren’t for me.
I think it’s important to educate yourself on wine law, history, etc. As a wine professional, it’s helpful to have that knowledge in your arsenal. But by no means does memorizing facts dictate palate, innate artistry, or genius. The average consumer shouldn’t have to be wine educated, nor should every natural wine enthusiast have to dedicate themselves to studying styles of wine they aren’t interested in drinking.
ZG: I think it’s dualistic. If it’s just for your personal enjoyment, absolutely no. You do not need to have an encyclopedic knowledge or taste through all these classics to appreciate anything. But if you’re wanting to further educate yourself or work in wine, I don’t think it hurts. It’s the same as I look at cooking or baking: it is kind of important to learn the fundamentals if you want to experiment because if you know those, as boring as they may be, you can branch off and do so much else.
I think the dominant culture wants everybody to know those things, but then it revolves around access to education, time, and money. I never could have afforded to get where I am if I hadn’t been working in positions where I had access to wines. So now, with the access that I have, I tend to give away every sample bottle to people that want to learn more because that’s one of the biggest differentiations between expanding a palate or understanding more: access to bottles. Not necessarily to drink them but just to taste! But not everyone wants or needs that, so again, it goes back to what someone wants out of it.
RS: Wine’s been drunk since 6000 BC– so basically forever. Since its beginnings, the state of altered consciousness that wine can induce has been considered spiritual, religious, numinous. What are the sacred places that wine can take us?
ZG: It can be such a transformative experience, in the sense of time and place. Sometimes, if my bandwidth is really low (like in this past year), wine seems really trivial. [But] I’ll taste something that’s just really magical and I’ll be like ‘as much as I want to hate on this right now, this is really special.’
I can’t think of something else that gives so much. In this great and simplistic way, I can taste so many different things. So on this silly esoteric level, it can be really enjoyable. Especially when shared in company, or even sometimes when it’s not, just that moment of ‘Wow, this really gave me comfort or inspired me, or made me think.’
RM: For me, it’s transporting. Both of us work a lot. I don’t have the luxury of traveling as much as I’d like to and when you open a bottle of wine from a new place, or from a place you haven’t been to in a long time, it really brings you right back. That sense of terroir. You can close your eyes and think about everything the winemaker did. It’s a nice escape – one of those simple pleasures where you can feel like you’re somewhere else. Which, for now, is all you can really ask for.
RS: I’ve been thinking about pleasure activism (which I learned about in adrienne marie brown’s book), a practice in which pleasure serves as a means of awakening, to decolonize bodies, heal, and live. How does pleasure activism play into your own work?
RM: I’ve always had a little bit of trouble connecting to my body, really feeling grounded to it. But little exercises, like thinking about wine, putting all your focus into something and thinking about your senses – how it feels in the body, that’s very pleasurable. It is empowering.
ZG: For the past few years, I had some health issues – two years ago with cancer – and I couldn’t drink for quite a while. That whole experience just made me feel like every day claiming some sort of personal joy time. It’s become part of my routine. I’m a big proponent of making sure that you take time for yourself, from an act of food or wine, or indulging in something you want, to just being still. Life is short and everything we’re going through, regardless of this pandemic, is challenging and it’s hard, you should enjoy life as much as you can.
RS: What do you hope for in the future of wine?
RM: Our joke dream is for a lot of people across the country to copy what we’re doing. We’re like ‘Oh, that would be so funny.’ But truly, it’s what the wine world needs. It needs more outside thinking. It needs way more people of color. It needs way more queer people. It needs everything that we want to do.
ZG: Abandonment of needing to fit parameters of where it has been. Bring it back to the simplicity of like, ‘it is fermented juice!’ (laughs)
RM: There’s so many people that want to make wine and want to be in this sphere, and they just can’t. I’d really like to see everyone that wants to be a part of it, be a part of it. I’m sick of people getting cut out of this thing.
RS:Will you tell me a bit about how you’re developing an ethical code for vetting your makers and what you feature?
ZG: I had been writing about wine labor, talking to individuals in the industry about how we could come up with better checks and balances. Then we started working on AMIGXS, where we’re extremely committed to not carrying anything that doesn’t fit the parameters that we’ve established together. It’s definitely not just about environmental practices, it’s equally important how people are treated.
Thankfully, there are a lot of winemakers, vendors, and individuals that we believe in, trust, or feel good about. What we’re focusing on with AMIGXS is not capitalist-centric, it’s a major departure from that. We’ve figured out a way that we can do this 100% the way we want to, without making compromises. But that comes with not really caring about how much money we make, as long as we make enough.
RM: Specifically, we’re looking at our wines to be more holistic, more than just environmental. You see certifications like biodynamic, organic, etc., that are just focusing on the environmental aspect. But there’s so much more to that. We want to look at labor practices.
ZG: And if you wanted to delve into this in an esoteric sense –
RS: Let’s go! Take us.
ZG: For me, good wine is like drinking energy. I don’t want to consume, if I have the option not to, things that are representing an energy I don’t want.
It’s about finding winemakers that we really philosophically agree with. Winemaking is hard. The winemakers I want to support are ones taking risks who are like ‘I’m committed to doing this.’ It’s not really about money for them either. If I were to take a moment to really just talk about how fucked up the commerce of wine is: the winemaker makes the least amount of money in the prism of how it exchanges.
So the people that are trying to do something really good, and they’re not making a lot of money from it, they’re the ones I want to invest in. Following a trend or standards has no interest to me at this point. It’s in the same spirit of mutual aid: who you’re investing energy, time and money to is what matters to me every day.
RM: We’re just excited. We’ve been working really hard towards this goal and every day we get a little bit closer. It’s just great to watch. I’ve never been at the ground level of something before and it’s cool.
RS: Totally. And getting to make decisions is really underrated.
RM: Tell me about it!
What’s Cooking?
Kia Damon’s Kimchi Grilled Cheese
Kia Damon (she/her) is a self-taught chef and proud Floridan woman. While paving her way through kitchens, she launched The Supper Club From Nowhere as a response to the lack of visible Black women in her culinary community. She soon became known as Kia Cooks as she spent her time doing pop up dinners, private cooking and cooking demos. After moving to New York , she took over as an Executive Chef in Manhattan at 24 years old. Soon after, she became Cherry Bombe Magazine’s first Culinary Director. Her approach to food is influenced by her personal exploration into her roots and her desire to find the threads that tie cultures together. She is the founder of the Kia Feeds The People program and cofounder of auxilio, two non profit organizations dedicated to combating food apartheid. Kia has made appearances in Vogue, Grubstreet and Munchies. She has been named one of 16 Black Chefs Changing Food In America by The New York Times and Forbes 30 Under 30 in Food and Beverage for 2021. You can follow her on Instagram at @kiacooks and @kiafeedsthepeople.
*10% of all proceeds from our “Lunch Bag” tote will go directly to the Kia Feeds the People program
“Pre-pandemic, I became accustomed to not thinking about lunch. Yes, I was eating lunch but I wasn’t putting any thought or care into it. With all the moving around I was doing I would just hit the take out or a bagel and keep it moving until I got home 8 hours later ready to pass out. Now that I’ve been getting a handle on WFH life, I've been spending time remembering what I enjoyed about lunch time, especially as a kid. That’s where the Kimchi Grilled Cheese comes in.
“I love grilled cheese. Period. Now I’m older, I’m a chef, and I’ve learned great things about the world and cultures around me. I can say that my inner child is very pleased with this version of lunch.” – Kia Damon
KIMCHI GRILLED CHEESE
2 slices of crusty bread like a sourdough or rye about ½ inch thick
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
2 tablespoons Kewpie mayo
2 slices American cheese or cheddar
½ cup grated mozzarella
Fresh ground black pepper
¼ cup kimchi, drained
Spread the mayonnaise evenly on one side of each slice of bread.
Bring a large nonstick pan to medium heat and place half of the butter in the pan. Let the butter melt then place the two pieces of bread in the pan mayo side down. On one slice add the American cheese, mozzarella on the other. Add a few cracks of ground pepper over one slice of bread. The cheese should begin to melt as the mayo sides become golden, crispy brown.
Once the cheese is melty, add the drained kimchi and flip the kimchi-less bread on top of the other. Add the remaining butter to the pan and flip the sandwich over. Give it a few light presses to bring the sandwich together and help the cheese melt.
Remove your grilled cheese, cut it diagonally, enjoy!
Lunch Break
A dedicated section to boost suggestions from friends and collaborators.
Elle Simone Scott (co-founder of SheChef Inc & executive editor/ inclusion leader at America’s Test Kitchen): As a teen in the 90’s, reading mags was my favorite pastime. Kinda still is so I’m deeply enjoying Klancy Miller’s For The Culture Mag and While Entertaining. 2020 could be considered a dumpster fire, but it also put a fire under me & in my activism with Studio ATAO, they would appreciate your donations. BIG SPOILER: SheChef Inc is back in your digital face space & Zoe Adjonyoh is coming to talk about Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen and #Fufu.
Tavo Dam (he/they; freelance food & bev publicist, co-founder of nonperishables zine): As part of my bid to practice more mindful drinking (in lieu of Dry January), I dove into the locally brewed Unified Ferments kombucha, they're the absolute closest I've felt to drinking natural wine (sans alcohol) and show off tea in a way I’ve never tasted before. Meanwhile, I've been scrolling through the greatest take-out menu of all time (Instagram) to order crazy good Khmer dishes from Kreung Cambodia and pastries from FoxBread Bakery, reading Pandemic Post Issue 4 (and eagerly awaiting Issue 5!), and have recently started following along as “Free Stores” pop up across BK, providing mutual aid.
Monice Small (founder of Goodform Studios, Rockaway Beach): Here’s some Rockaway recs that I tell EVERYONE anytime they come to the beach. The Cradle is one of my staples, Jide and Pesy have curated a menu filled with amazing West African dishes that I cannot get enough of! They’re so thoughtful when it comes to their food, everything is made fresh and they locally source all their produce from their garden plot at Edgemere Farm. Another big favorite of mine would have to be SUPER BURRITO. Sam and Eugene are from San Francisco so you can trust that they know what they’re doing, and when I tell you they don’t miss, I’m not playing. Comfort food is the way to my heart and these guys have one me over as a lifetime customer.
Daisy Zeijlon (she/her; creative consultant and food studies graduate student at NYU): After completing Phase 1 of pandemic baking (banana bread) and moving through Phase 2 (sourdough), I'm now in Phase 3: croissants. There's something supremely comforting about tending to a finicky laminated dough all day. It's perhaps not as comforting, though, as shoving my hand into a bag of chips, as Sam Anderson discusses in his deeply sensorial ode to Cool Ranch Doritos. I've also been focusing on taking some deep breaths outside everyday, walking around my neighborhood, and listening to I Weigh, a podcast by actor and mental health advocate Jameela Jamil. Each episode is funny and poignant and informative and a welcome antidote to the frenetic "new me, new diet" energy that often characterizes the start of a new year.
Joy Norton (pilates instructor, dance, and social media manager @GoodMoveNY and marketing director for @VanHooseHempCo): I recently moved to Rockaway and one of the most exciting things about living out here is summer concessions from Rippers, Low Tide Bar, and Caracas. The fate of these spots is at risk at the moment so you can support them here. We just harvested our first round of CBD over at VanHoose Hemp Co., a small Black-owned licensed organic hemp farm, so I’ve been cooking with CBD-infused coconut oil made with my Levo Oil.
Dora Grossman-Weir (content/brand lead @ Parcelle Wine, Writer @ freelance, Best Friend @ my dog): I have been thinking a lot about the resilience of restaurants – both longtime neighborhood spots figuring out new ways to function, and places that opened at the dawn of the pandemic. Some recently-born faves include: Ras Plant Based, an Ethiopian place in Crown Heights (which I also wrote about for Full Time Travel); Guevara’s, a Cuban coffee shop/bakery/grocery/plant store/sells puzzles? and everything else you could want, from the team that brought you Mekelburgs; Radicle Wine, offering natural wines and regional spirits with a killer under $20 rack and great recommendations; and the highly popular Winner in Park Slope that, in addition to selling wildly popular sourdough-based bread and pastries, features a weekly “Family and Friends meal” (a three course set, usually with a vegetarian option for under $20) from chefs they love to help spread both the love and the business. Recently, they have featured Nom Wah Tea Parlor, Connie Chung of Milu, Will Burgess of Duck Duck Goat, and Eugenio Plaja of the now closed Barbuto.
Until next month, sweet readers: stay warm if it’s cold where you are, stay hydrated regardless, and follow us on Instagram for more lunch bag content! We’ve just launched our weekly “Call to Action” story series, highlighting innovative and inspiring projects that resonate with our mission and could use your help, as well as “Week in Review” stories, collating recent articles and media we’ve especially enjoyed. Got a project or some content you think we should know about? Send us a DM or write to us at hello@lunch-group.com!
