Cooking magazine features same-sex couple, gets flamed, responds

I'm a big fan of Penzey's Spices (good blue company too) so I subscribed to their magazine ONE when it came out.

Their first issue talked about different families in Birmingham, Alabama, and their favorite recipes and included a same-sex couple adopting triplets. Here's the lovely email they got:


Mr. Penzey,

You have done in one issue what it took Better Homes & Gardens, Sunset, Country Home, Country Living, HGTV and Food Network many issues or episodes to accomplish. You have alienated me as a frequent consumer and potential reader of your new magazine by featuring a same-sex couple in your premier issue. Congratulations. Neither your products or magazine will be welcome in my home from this point forward.

via email from Cathy.

But I LOVE their response:

The Editor responds:

Yes, I am sure this is going to happen now and again. Our desire to include everyone who goes to the effort to make the lives of those around them better through cooking is not always going to please all of our readers. My experiences in life have led me to place a greater value on including everyone than pleasing everyone. I have met so many different people growing up in the spice business, traveling the far corners of the world meeting our suppliers as well as having a business that succeeds through the efforts of hundreds of employees from very different backgrounds. Time and again over the years I have been frustrated with the way the different people I have met have been portrayed in the media. I don't want to be a part of that. It is not what group you belong to that makes you good or bad, it is how you treat others. And this magazine is going to treat everyone who cooks for those around them, with the kindness and caring that they have earned.

I must admit the tone and content of some of the negative letters did get me down a bit, but the positive letters more than made up for it, not only in quantity (almost ten times the negative) but in content as well. The letters that were against the article were all about imagining what families like this must be like. There was not one tale of actual experience. No story of, "We have a family like this at our school and they never contribute anything to the bake sale." It was the positive letters (a few of which we share here) that spoke of experience. That spoke of hearts and minds won over, of friendship and of love. It might be incremental, and at times hard to see, but the world really is becoming a better place.

I think in the long run inclusiveness will make for a better magazine. As much as we might all subscribe to YOU magazine (recipes by you and people just like you) would we re-subscribe? Our goal is to have recipes with soul. To have soul you need people. Casting a wider net to draw in a more diverse group of people does not guarantee a greater variety of recipes, but it sure seems like a great place to start. And we don't go just one direction with this approach. At a time when Hollywood seems all to happy to make yet another Dukes of Hazzard movie, I was very happy that our twenty pages of Birmingham people and recipes were able to give a glimpse of the depth, complexity and coolness of the people who live in this part of the country. There really is something in reading about the feelings of the person behind the recipe, why it means something to them and the people they care for that not only leads you to want to cook the recipe, but does a number on stereotypes as well.

And I loved it SO much that I typed the whole thing out!

It only ends up being 4 paragraphs so hopefully it's ok to put here.

Their website is http://penzeysone.com/cgi-bin/one/index.html

buy from them from now on :)

---------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

I'm all verklempt now. new topic: melt buddah in the microwave or on the stovetop, which is betta for buddah. twok amongst yaselves.



Wow! I'm subscribing right this moment.

I mean, wont somebody please think of the children?

praising them for not only including a family headed by a same-sex couple in a cooking story, but making NO SPECIAL MENTION of them being a same-sex couple (other than pronouns and pictures ). In other words -- it treated them as any other family.

I am glad that there are people willing to make what is so clearly the RIGHT choice. If the bigots do not like that, well tough shit!

I am recommending this post.

magazines if not gay men?

I love the distinction between INCLUDING everyone and PLEASING everyone.

Every time I tune in there's an interracial (of which I'm sure she also disapproves) or a same-sex couple. And I love the totally casual way they treat them, too. Although, I had to chuckle at the last show I saw there with gay guys on it, because they were both quite butch, and they had a bunch of friends over to help them build a deck, but there was no hugging or anything, they all just shook hands. Maybe even HGTV isn't quite ready for gay men hugging. :eyes:

Sounds like there are some less-than-butch men being featured? :D

article ... though I got the sinking feeling that they were going to get lambasted for doing it. I'm glad they're sticking to their guns. And FWIW, it's a good magazine, too.

I think I'm going to subscribe... sounds like they probably DO have interesting recipes, with that attitude.

<snip>There really is something in reading about the feelings of the person behind the recipe, why it means something to them and the people they care for that not only leads you to want to cook the recipe, but does a number on stereotypes as well.<snip>

:) Great, great response.

she is by writing that letter. I hope the magazine prints it.

(Home and Garden television) and the way they treat people is like balm on a wounded psyche.

When they are fixing up a room or house or preparing them to buy or sell a home you never know who they'll be helping. Whether it's Sue and Bob or Mark and Steve, whatever color they are or if their colors or genders match or different, it's all the same. They talk about them the same and treat them the same.

They'll say "Sue and Bob" have lived in their home 7 years or "Bob or Mark" have lived in this apartment for 5 years and are ready to buy their first home or Mary and Sue and their daughter ...

And it's all the same. It just isn't an issue. It isn't played up or down. It is just people fixing or finding their homes. Just people, all treated with friendliness and respect.

Imagine that.

raised by ignorant hateful parents. She is a product of christian zealot upbringing. Please someone take exception to my description.

I like both two-legged and four-legged bitches. Cathy is a waste of oxygen ... a semi-human maggot.

I love dogs as well. I was going to call her a c**t in the subject line, but the moderators would have kicked my ass. The ignorance on the right is overwhelming. As an old shipmate described another old shipmte of mine, and this too applies to cathy, the best part of her ran down her daddy's leg.

Maggots? They have feelings, too! Cathy is her own insult. :-)

First, how do we know she actually does fu*k? Such homophobia often hides a repression of homosexual urges, so she may be so screwed up in her physical and emotional urges that she is quite frigid.

Second, I have three female dogs, and all three of those bitches are sweet, giving creatures.

Third, her parents may or may not be hateful or ignorant, but if they are, it in no way reduces Cathy's fault for being a bigot. Her mom may at this very moment be regretting not taking enough folic acid while she was pregnant.

Fourth, I'm the product of a Christian zealot upbringing which somehow led me to understand the actual message of love that the real Jesus of the Gospels preached. I've since rejected every supernatural aspect to the story, but even so, I'm unwilling to blame religion for Cathy's failings as a human being.

In short, the bigotry is all Cathy's fault, and the sins of her parents and the shortcomings of her religiosity don't excuse her.

But you know, I don't disagree in essence with your take. :-)

a gift subscription for my partner, the World Famous Chef (not really, but he's damn good). He loooooves cooking magazines--I hope their's is good.

The cooking group is the friendliest on DU

:)

I'd love to check out the cooking group. What is it listed under? I could not find it in the list of groups. I'm rather a bull in a china kitchen but I do like dabbling in the culinary arts. And I promise to behave myself.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=236

It's under DU Groups -> Personal Interests -> Cooking & Baking

A wonderful group of people! :)

I look forward to perusing and maybe contributing. Every group needs a dummy to chuck in his two cents worth.

There are some very knowledgeable folks there who are more than willing to share their expertise with the rest of us.

It's very relaxing - especially if the political news is all bad!

Bigotted B*tch!

She is a product of a christian zealot upbringing, where the bible was nitpicked like a buffet to justify the hate her and her kind spew.

I buy all my spices from penzeys. I look foreward to their catalog. Most of my christmas gifts for others came from Penzeys. Simply put I LOVE PENZEYS, and now I love them even more.

Their stuff is so fresh that nothing in the supermarket comes close. Just last night I got some Hungarian Paprika from them. When you open the bag and smell, it makes your mouth water.

I've been buying from them for years...and now I am doubly glad I do!

just makes me want to buy more from them. They are DA BOMB.

I'm checking into it now!

What the hell do they think??? :wtf:

First, find out if there's a store in your area. They have samples out for sniffing--something not yet available over the Internet.

www.penzeys.com/cgi-bin/penzeys/shophome.html

I'm going to have to buy my Repuke MIL and sister in law their spice boxes. LOL.

too? And that's just counting lifestyle/cooking/home entities. She must have a VERY long list.

Of course, even with this kind of evidence, it never occurs to bigoted people like this that they are in the wrong OR that their opinions are in the minority.

And don't forget Robert on HGTV...

So where do you get Penzey's? Are they regional?

we need good news now and then. Always good to see public displays of courage.

cigarette lighter for me.
And I just went to your link and subscribed to that magazine because of that letter.

Think I'll stop by Costco on the way home and pick up some (gulp) raw ingredients....

Merry Christmas everyone! Happy holla-days too.

It is not what group you belong to that makes you good or bad, it is how you treat others. And this magazine is going to treat everyone who cooks for those around them, with the kindness and caring that they have earned.

Wow!

that a Penzey's just recently opened in my Town!

Fantastic response.

Well got to go out to get things to fill up my spice rack. ;)

don't get those colored folks out of your articles and pictures...

:eyes:

That's what that FReeper rant makes me think of...

"As much as we might all subscribe to YOU magazine (recipes by you and people just like you) would we re-subscribe? "

I also just set up a subscription for my sister.

I like their slogan, given the context here: the food magazine by and for everyone. (Apparently the hatemailers missed that.)

My experiences in life have led me to place a greater value on including everyone than pleasing everyone.

But it's all great!

What a nice way to say "fuck you!" Ford could learn from them.

...when I first read this! Except I said, "now THAT is what Ford should have done in the first place."

I did subscribe to the magazine and bought two gift subscriptions as well. :-)

I made those Buck-eye candies years ago from a recipe my aunt gave me. I'd forgotten all about them. They're really good, but they're right when they say it makes a gazillion of them -*that* part was memorable. Now I KNOW to halve the recipe ;)

(on this page)
http://www.penzeysone.com/cgi-bin/one/cookies.html?id=9dbYbxiH