Gracie Gardner: From Memory to Menu

Gracie Gardner serves an apple cake to workshop guests.

On October 5, 2022 Chef Gracie Gardner hosted a workshop on food writing, sharing her insights on how to reflect on the notion of momentum and create engaging stories around food. She emphasized the importance of treating writing like a muscle, and working through creative blocks by consistently practicing the craft.

During the workshop, Gardner encouraged participants to reflect on their relationship with food, and how it can both pull them out of and into a rut. She also prompted participants to consider the stories behind utensils and tools, and how they can be used to create engaging narratives.

Taking time to write about food is a way to give yourself utterance. To slow down and write about food, the mundane, is to make yourself real.

Gardner also discussed her process for writing menus, noting that she considers what ingredients are available and what memories they evoke. She encouraged participants to write thank-you letters related to food and to slow down and write about the mundane aspects of food, as it can serve as a way to give oneself utterance and make oneself real.

Food is the easiest way to talk about…everything.

Overall, the workshop provided valuable insights and strategies for exploring food writing. Gardner's emphasis on the importance of practicing writing and using food as a way to talk about everything offers valuable guidance for writers looking to engage with the topic of food.

Gracie Gardner is the chef and co-owner of Nellie's, an artisanal food business located on SSI. She attended Kenyon College and graduated with a degree in History. An odd choice for a chef, she figured it was the only discipline in which she could focus most of her essays around food. She taught cooking classes to children first at the Sylvia Center in New York City and then at Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in upstate New York. She began as an intern in the kitchen at Blue Hill and went on to cook there for over three years. She is in the process of writing a narrative cookbook about Nellie’s with her partner, Henry Wright.