Kat Kinsman and the Feelings Behind the Food

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John and I first met Kat Kinsman at an IACP conference (that’s the International Association of Culinary Professionals, not The International Association of Chiefs of Police, which is the first Google result that pops up when you search for “IACP”). I can’t remember what precipitated our conversation; why we wanted to speak with her exactly. I mostly remember being overwhelmed, hungry (why is the food at these conferences always so abysmal?), and emotionally a bit spent.

I have what I call a “people quota.” I am a proud introvert, though I put on a good front. I am not shy, and I can shine brightly when I put my mind to it. But there’s a cost to so much extroversion, especially with people I barely know: once I hit my people quota, I am done. Done done. As in, can’t fake another smile, can’t manage another round of small talk, can’t even. It’s like a door in my brain closes—the door behind which I keep my social graces—and no matter how desperately I pound on it, it won’t open again until I’ve gone to a quiet place and let the people quota reset.

Conferences test the limits of the people quota. My limits were severely tested the day we introduced ourselves to Kat. But I think John and I recognized Kat as a “safe” person to talk to. You see, Kat is the kind of person who really puts herself out there so that others can feel a little safer putting themselves out there. She wrote a book called Hi, Anxiety: Life With a Bad Case of Nerves, she specializes in the personal essay (a genre that trafficks in feelings), and she’s long been a vocal supporter of initiatives to address mental health in restaurants.

Some people you meet are hard: you poke at the exterior but that’s as far as you get (hard doesn’t mean rude or mean—just guarded and impersonal at times). Kat is squishy soft—she’s unafraid to get into the sticky, gooey business of feelings. And I think we needed to talk to someone like that on that particular day.

We ended up sitting on the floor inside a huge, almost empty ballroom, pouring out the story of Joy and our own personal stories. Kat followed up and eventually wrote a profile of us and of Joy for Food & Wine. The three of us have stayed in touch for all these years, sharing encouragement and advice through Covid, John’s cancer diagnosis, and Kat’s husband’s heart attack. Everyone needs at least one person in their life who doesn’t mind getting down with the scary, hard bits, the little bone shards that crack between your teeth in the grand feast of life.

Our recent podcast episode with Kat has the feel of a group of friends chatting intimately because that’s exactly what we are! We talk cornbread, collard greens, and smoked meat (Kat and I share Southern heritage, as well as complicated feelings about that heritage), but we also talk feelings, mental health, and Twin Peaks. Listen to this episode for a little taste of Kat’s delightful personality and her impeccable podcast voice (for more of that podcast voice, check out her podcast for Food & Wine, Tinfoil Swans).

Episode Highlights

• Our shared love of Cincinnati chili (Kat’s order is a four-way with onions).

• Making salsa with canned tomatoes.

• Spotting copies of Joy in television shows.

• My not-so-secret plot to get Kyle MacLachlan on the podcast.

• How you can support better working conditions in restaurants.

• How to use a huge quantity of maple syrup (what a life!).

Joy Scouts Recipe of the Week

You might remember the salty honey pie craze of the early 2010s, thanks to Four & Twenty Blackbirds Bakery in Brooklyn. Well, honey pie is just a variation on transparent pie using honey as the sweetener, and if you consider that transparent pie is an easily customizable template, you may be able to imagine other pies made with other sweeteners, maple syrup for one.

Maple syrup pie harnesses the syrup’s sweetening power of course, but the syrup also flavors the pie. It’s the purest expression of the flavor of maple syrup that I can think of, short of dumping the stuff on a stack of fluffy pancakes. Serve it with whipped cream for a dessert that tastes at once nostalgic (even if you’ve never had the pie before) and sophisticated.

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