The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect the views of her campus.
This article is written by a student writer from each campus of the Queens U chapter.
When Kerry Diamond opened a restaurant 10 years ago, she realized how few women there were in the New York City restaurant industry. As it turns out, there were very few women in the (American) restaurant industry at large. Looking for a community she couldn’t find, Diamond took steps to create her own community, launching Cherry Bombe in 2013: a print-only magazine dedicated to the stories of female chefs, chefs, and cooks. Today, Cherry Bombe is perhaps best described as a media company, publishing a weekly newsletter, and hosting a network of podcasts and extensive community events.
When I started listening to the podcast about three years ago, I was stunned by the breadth of its focus. One of my favorite things about Cherry Bombe is that it recognizes that food doesn’t exist only in restaurants and that food culture doesn’t happen in a vacuum. In addition to restaurant chefs and owners, Diamond’s guests have included everyone from home cooks, food writers and food and beverage entrepreneurs to actors and producers of food culture shows. Bear,
Yet, Cherry Bombay offers much more than ingredients for chefs and aspiring cooks. It is a leader in women-centric media, focusing on the future of agriculture, food products and food media in the broadest sense. The women she advocates are stepping up and drawing attention to the social issues that undermine their place in the food world and beyond. Cherry Bombay is detailed, offering thought-provoking insights for anyone curious about women’s changing relationships with work and media.
In a recent episode of Radio Cherry Bombe, Diamond sits down with chef Camille Becerra of As You Are at Brooklyn’s Ace Hotel. In addition to telling the story of Becerra’s dynamic career and how it shaped her food ethos, their conversation emphasizes the difficulty of balancing motherhood with work in the restaurant industry, especially the late-night hours and night care. In view of its rarity. With many new moms appearing on the magazine’s cover this year, the show has increasingly discussed the barriers to child care that disproportionately affect women.
The show also talks about the difficulties of entrepreneurship. Several guests highlighted why it is still so difficult for women to raise capital, pointing out that the majority of women-led projects are self-funded. For example, their recent 500th episode featured the work of Giada DeLaurentis (who you may know food Network, She talks about the struggle of many women to imagine their projects as businesses worthy of funding. As someone who struggles not to doubt the monetization of passion, DeLaurentis’s interview resonated with me, reminding me that creative labor is still labor. It’s okay to look at the value of your work.
In addition to compiling such strong interviews, I’m amazed at how deeply attentive Diamond is to his guests’ lives beyond his work in the industry. It is clear from their conversation that many of the guests are new and old friends. The host ends her discussions with “point-of-view questions”, often asking guests how (and if) they have been taking care of themselves lately. Although answers vary, I’m so grateful that this question has been raised, drawing attention to the importance of self-care even amidst the demands of work, entrepreneurship, and often motherhood. For me, the questions asked and stories shared on the podcast are about so much more than restaurants or various food-related industries. Instead, they are about the lives and careers of women who have created change in their communities by rethinking our relationship with food, work, and hospitality.
Despite the podcast’s success and expansion into two sister podcasts – The Future of Food & You and the baking-centric She’s My Cherry Pie – it remains Cherry Bombe’s print-only magazine that remains at the center of its orbit. Despite demand for digital copies, Diamond’s steadfast love of prints has resisted the move online. As a writer strongly invested in the art of print publishing, I think this tells me everything I need to know about their ethos. While surface-level commitments to communities and their interests often hide the company’s more sinister practices, Cherry Bombe proves itself to be the real deal time and again.
My association with Cherry Bombay over the past few years has been deeply thought-provoking, expanding my concept of what it means to be a woman in media and what it takes to balance work and life. For anyone interested in food, art, media, and entrepreneurship, Cherry Bombay is an important place for women to learn and advocate for each other.
Source: www.hercampus.com
