✨The Year of Gastronomical Thinking ✨

Happy Anniversary to Food For Thought.! Also, this is a long one 🙃

November 3rd will mark a year since I started Food For Thought. I started this newsletter as an outlet to ramble about food, culture, and food culture. I never set out to write anything that could possibly fit in the glossy pages of Bon Appetit or Food & Wine magazines because I never saw myself reflected in those pages. Most of those pages are filled with celeb chefs, food influencers, or “food experts”. When I talk about “myself” I mean an Afro-Dominican woman who has many years in the industry, but not in the conventional way that most people do in the food industry. 

Who is Natalie Cruz?

I’ve never worked the line of a restaurant or really any back-of-house positions for that matter. I once worked as a waitress when I was a teenager and that lasted several weeks because I honestly sucked at it. I tried to start several different blogs like a decade ago in the heyday of the food blogosphere but as we all now know I SUCK at documenting myself cooking. I have been an avid home baker for most of my life and an equally talented cook (some people say you can’t be both, but I disagree). So I started a culinary instruction company for children many moons ago called Coolinary Kitchen where I could showcase my self-taught talents.

I taught private cooking classes to kids in the comfort of their homes and had satellite after-school programs in private schools across New York City. I enjoyed that for some years but found myself questioning the future. I wanted to be taken more seriously (whatever that meant) so I figured why not do away working with kids and solely work with adults as a certified health coach? I could incorporate some culinary instruction with my coaching and could blow other coaches out of the water. Oh man, was I wrong.

Just like waitressing and being a food blogger all those years ago, I sucked at it too. Health coaching felt like a multi-level marketing scheme which left me down in the dumps looking for clients. I jumped ship and took a full-time job working as a culinary educator for young adults who aged out of foster care. Foster care youth are one of the most vulnerable people in society and it was my job to teach them basic life skills like using a knife properly, cooking, food shopping, + budgeting. The job was probably one of the hardest things I’ve done in my whole adult life. Working with an underserved community that readily comes with a host of traumas is not for the faint of heart, but is one that I found exceptionally rewarding. 

I went to Paris in the Fall of 2019 which was around the time of my two-year anniversary in that position. We spent a week gorging ourselves on all the food France has to offer. I had been to Paris before so I had no need to do the touristy stuff. I just wanted to eat, eat, shop, and eat some more. My husband convinced me to take a cooking class while we were out there so I took a croissant baking intensive with a French chef and that was the end for me. The end of working at my job. I came out of the class with a bag of the freshest, warmest croissants and a face full of tears. I hadn’t known that joy in such a long time. Cooking for pleasure + enjoyment. I was able to be creative and playful in the kitchen again and I didn’t want to look back. 

Tears already welled up in my eyes.

February 2020 I quit my full-time job so I could focus on freelance recipe development, catering gigs, and preparing myself for a Mexican cookery intensive at Le Cordon Bleu in Mexico City that Fall. March 2020 the world stopped and so did my plans. Catering gigs dried up. Recipe development jobs fell through. International travel to Mexico City was a bust. Suddenly I had a lot of time on my hands like most of the world.

A Cookbook + A Newsletter 

Last year I had the brilliant idea (and I mean that with the utmost sarcasm) to start researching and writing a cookbook on the African Diaspora in Latin America. There are so many cookbooks written about Latin American cuisine, but none that examine the contributions of the Afro-Latinx population. 

I delved deep into my research and even wrote a nearly 30-page book proposal which I sent out to a very long list of literary agents. I received lots of praise for the topic and the research I had already done, but the two questions that came back to me over and over again with the rejection letters were “where has your work been published and how many followers do you have?”. 

Unfortunately to get a book deal you have to have an obscene amount of followers and a couple of bylines written in places. I didn’t have a huge platform of followers and barely had any bylines written, but figured I could start a newsletter where all my writing would be when literary agents asked where I’d been published. 

Here + Now

Food For Thought. has evolved into more than just a weekly newsletter. It’s become a community that is honestly better than I could have imagined or wished for. You guys are funny, engaging and haven’t found me to be annoying yet (or maybe you have which is totally okay too!). 

This newsletter started with an average of 20 views per newsletter and has grown to nearly 300 views per newsletter. I know a good chunk of you subscribed due to my profile in Substack’s What To Read series and I thank you for sticking around since then. 

That being said I have so much good stuff in store for your inbox! I am already eating through the “B” countries and cannot wait to share my stories, photos + recipes with you all. 

Today I am opening up paid subscriptions + enticing you all to join the paid subbies club with an awesome box of goodies! In the box, you will find some of my favorite obscure snacks, tasty spices, + food products that I cook with frequently. Anyone who subscribes between Monday, November 1st - Sunday, November 7th is automatically entered at a chance to win this fab raffle prize!*

I honestly had such a hard time shopping for these goodies because I wanted to keep a lot of them for myself. I may have bought doubles of many of these things…oops!

Subscription Breakdown

Paid Subbies ($5/a month or $35/a year) - EVERY MONDAY + FRIDAY

What paid subscriptions will include:

• Every Eating A-Z in NYC newsletter [Every single cuisine + restaurant!]

• New updates on my cookbook [Things are coming together!]

• Think pieces on food, culture, + food culture

• More recipes [I cook A LOT + have so many to share!]

• Exclusive giveaways [Monthly giveaways of goodies!]

• Meet + Eat with me [If you live in NYC let’s all Meet + Eat! A fun way to meet new folks + eat good food]

• My new Burnt Podcast [A mini podcast where food folks + the like discuss their epic failures + mess-ups in the kitchen. Let’s normalize non-perfection in the kitchen + in life!]

Free Subbies ($0, Zilch, Nada) - EVERY MONDAY

What free subscriptions will include:

• Every other  Eating A-Z in NYC newsletter

• Occasional recipes and think pieces on food, culture, + food culture

This Friday’s first paid newsletter will feature the first Burnt podcast episode. I get to chat with my dear friend Marguerite Botorff who is an awesome chef that has worked for Chef Jose Andres + many D.C. embassies. She tells us her epic kitchen failure + how she learned from her mistakes along the way. Also, you get to hear my voice for the 1st time! 

*Winner of the raffle prize will be announced Monday, November 8th! Good Luck!

Cook. Eat. Repeat. Subscribe.

Natalie