Time for a cross-over! I had the absolute pleasure on being invited to join the Amplified network and appear on their superb podcast. Here is our episode and Amplified's show notes: "Amplified is an audio blog series about the sounds of scholarship from our team here at the Amplify Podcast Network. This month on Amplified, Stacey Copeland and Hannah McGregor are joined by Lena Mattheis to kick off a brand new series featuring the latest additions to our sustained cohort of podcasters. Lena is the creator and host of Queer Lit, a podcast about LGBTQIA2S+* literature and culture. In this conversation, we reflect on podcasting as a tool for community building and queer scholarly practice, tracing how Queer Lit emerged from Lena's teaching practice and a commitment to accessible feminist and queer knowledge creation."

What is queer food, you ask? Let’s find out! Alex Ketchum and Megan Elias tell me all about the connections between gender and food, cooking and sexuality, and recipes and community. The amazing book Queers at the Table is a product of the queer food conference Alex and Megan ran in 2024 (returning in 2026!) and consists of essays, stories, comics and endlessly inspiring reflections on queer cooking and intellectual inquiry. Lesbian chefs, feminist cafes, queer community cookouts – this episode has them all.   References: Queers at the Table (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2025) Alex Ketchum’s Ingredients for Revolution: A History of American Feminist Restaurants, Cafes, and Coffeehouses (Concordia UP, 2022) https://press.library.concordia.ca/projects/ingredients-for-revolution (open access) Megan Elias’ Food on the Page (Penn Press, 2017) Queer Food Conference https://www.queerfoodconference.com/ @queerfoodconference Alex Ketchum’s How to Organize Inclusive Events and Conferences (Microcosm, 2026) https://microcosmpublishing.com/catalog/books/63461 Alex Ketchum’s Digital Queers and High Tech Gays (MIT Press, 2027) @dr.alexketchum http://alexketchum.ca Alex Ketchum’s Engage in Public Scholarship!: A Guidebook on Feminist and Accessible Communication (Concordia Uni Press, 2022) https://press.library.concordia.ca/projects/engage-in-public-scholarship (open access) https://www.justfeministtechandscholarshiplab.com/ Greggor Mattson Prism Comics Queer Food Foundation The Female Glaze @thefemaleglaze The Nonbinarian Bookstore https://thenonbinarian.gay/ Bishakh Som’s Spellbound Cait McKinney’s Information Activism: A Queer History of Lesbian Media Technologies The Ripped Bodice Casey McQuiston’s The Pairing   Questions you should be able to respond to after listening: -      How do Megan and Alex define queer food? -      Megan thinks about what ‘not queer food’ might be and whether we would want to define this. What is your opinion? Is there ‘straight’ food? -      How is gender connected to food? Were you surprised by anything we mention? -      What connections do Megan and Alex draw between sexuality and food? -      Alex and Megan speak a lot about community. Can you name two examples of how community makes food queer? -      How might food be linked to queer knowledge production?

In school around this time every year, my teacher would r...