The top 10 Substack stories I wrote this year
The top 10 Substack stories I wrote this year
The Feminist Kitchen got a new look this year, and I'm so glad I made the leap from blog to newsletter.
I first launched The Feminist Kitchen in 2010, when I had a newborn and a newly found desire to write outside the scope of my newspaper and freelance work.
I wanted to write about travel, feminism and being a millennial mom, and over the next decade, this blog-turned-newsletter became a place where I could write about divorce, co-parenting, death of a grandparent and then death of a parent.
I wrote about dating, discovering new parts of myself in Sweden, Mexico and Spain and integrating new ideas around emergent strategy and healing from codependency into my life at home.
In 2021, I decided to take that blog and turn it into a Substack newsletter, where I could invite readers to support my work and my transition away from a traditional news outlet.
This wasn’t an easy decision, as you can imagine. Only a fraction of the people who read my work in the Statesman have found their way to Substack, but that number grows each month.
Most important to me as I look back on the year: I’m happy that I found a new way to continue writing stories, essays and articles that felt important and interesting to me. (Plus, I followed my podcast dreams of making a show about my high school experience to celebrate our 20th reunion! “Class Reunion: The Podcast” wrapped up in November.)
Putting words to lived experiences has soothed my soul since I was a teenager, and it is my great honor to continue to do that.
What will 2022 hold? I have some interesting non-writing opportunities that have popped up on my radar in the past few weeks, but The Feminist Kitchen isn’t going anywhere. I published more than 50 posts in the 10 months since launching, so look for new posts each week in the year to come.
I’m thrilled to have you with me on this creative, cathartic journey, and I hope you’ll tell your friends that “Addie is your last name Broyles?” is still putting her work out in the world. (That’s a response I often get/got when people have been reading my stuff for years but haven’t met me in person.)
So, without further ado, here are the top 10 posts from The Feminist Kitchen this year, as determined by page views and percentage of subscribers who read the post.
A profile of my new favorite bookstore:
An interview with the cookbook authors who published my favorite new food book of the year:
Some reflections on the unseen burdens of motherhood:
The February freeze left us stunned. I wrote this piece the week that followed:
My exploration of ancestry and ancestral healing boomed in 2021:
Frank and I went to Costa Rica in June to celebrate his birthday and the end of my tenure at the Statesman:
An ode to my mighty grief healer friend, the ukulele:
More ancestral healing work, this time over coffee cake:
A profile of the Central Texas Mycological Society:
A story about the history of Clarksville and some of the people who are trying to preserve it:
As promised, thanks to your paid Substack subscriptions, I’ve been making donations to nonprofits that support BIPOC and queer folks all year long. Between these donations and the donations I made on behalf of the students of the Class of 2001 for my 15-episode podcast, “Class Reunion,” I’ve made more charitable contributions during my first year of self-employment than any during my time as a paid staffer.
That wasn’t because I was making more money, but because I felt like it was more important than ever — because of both karma and the pandemic — to consistently contribute to organizations that are doing good work in the community. This final donation of the year is going to the Austin Diaper Bank. Thanks for your support, and I look forward to continuing this practice in the year to come.
Happy New Year!
Here’s to looking back without staring and looking ahead without missing out of the gift of the present. 🥂 ❤️
Addie
P.S. Yes, I’m still doing tarot readings and working with people on their own ancestral healing journeys! Don’t Fear the Death Card is perhaps the most surprising new thing of 2021, and I’m looking forward to seeing how it evolves in 2022. Book a session with me if you’re curious to unlearn everything you thought you knew about tarot. (Booo, fortune telling. Yay, self-reflection!)
THIS. Is amazing. I am so proud of you! Proud of ALL that you do!
“I’ve made more charitable contributions during my first year of self-employment than any during my time as a paid staffer.
That wasn’t because I was making more money, but because I felt like it was more important than ever — because of both karma and the pandemic — to consistently contribute to organizations that are doing good work in the community.”
Wow! What an inspiration!