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INTRO
What if the best thing that happened to your creative life this year… happened around a kitchen counter? With people you’d never met in person. A bottle of wine open. Something bubbling on the stove. And laughter — the kind that sneaks up on you and just keeps going. That was my weekend. And I am still glowing from it.
Welcome back to The Artful Gourmet Podcast—where we blend food, storytelling, and the journey of building a creative life you truly love.
Today’s episode is personal. It’s about connection. It’s about creativity.
And it’s about something we hear all the time… but don’t always fully understand—Finding your tribe.
Because after years of feeling just slightly disconnected from that part of myself…this weekend brought me back.
And today, I want to take you somewhere with me.
A gorgeous estate in the Pocono Mountains. A long weekend. A group of food writers, chefs, photographers, and storytellers who showed up as strangers — and left as something that feels a whole lot like family.
This episode is about food, yes. But it’s also about what food does — how it opens people up, how it builds trust faster than almost anything else, how it turns a room full of strangers into a table full of friends.
So grab a coffee, and pull up a chair. This one’s a good one.
SEGMENT 1: THE RETREAT
So — Green Gables Estate. Cresco, Pennsylvania. Picture a big, beautiful property with the kind of charm that only comes with age — deep porches, wide windows, the smell of old wood and something good already cooking. The group: a wonderfully eclectic mix of food writers, bloggers, cookbook authors, chefs, photographers, and storytellers. Mostly women — and two wonderful men who absolutely held their own.
Here’s the thing that still kind of amazes me: most of us had never actually met. We knew each other through Substack — through each other’s essays, recipes, and the comments we’d been leaving like little love notes across the internet for months. But the moment we arrived? It was like no time had passed. Like we’d been friends for years.
There’s something about people who are wired the same way — who notice the same things, care about the same things, get equally emotional about a really perfect piece of bread — that just bypasses the usual getting-to-know-you awkwardness entirely. We skipped straight to the good part.
SEGMENT 2: THE COOKING
Now. Let’s talk about the food. Because a food writers retreat without extraordinary food would be a crime — and this group was not about to let that happen. From the very first evening, the kitchen became the heartbeat of the house.
The Snacks & Grazing Moments
You know how the best parties always migrate to the kitchen? That was every moment of this weekend. Someone would appear with a cheese board. Someone else would pull out a jar of something homemade. Wine would get poured — and then poured again — and suddenly it’s midnight and no one has moved and the conversation has gone from recipe testing to life philosophy without anyone noticing the shift. Those grazing moments — unhurried, unplanned, just there — were some of the most nourishing of the whole weekend. Not because of what was on the board. But because of what they made space for.
The Collaborative Cooking Sessions
There is something deeply revealing about cooking with someone. You learn things about a person at a cutting board that you’d never learn over small talk. How they hold a knife. Whether they taste as they go. Whether they’re a measurer or an intuitive cook. Whether they narrate what they’re doing — or go quiet and focused. Over the course of the weekend, we cooked together — bumping elbows, trading tips, finishing each other’s sauces, doing that thing where four people are all reaching for the same spoon and somehow it works perfectly.
The Final Dinner — An Indian Feast
And then there was Sunday. Our last dinner together. A few of us took over the kitchen with a shared intention: we were going to make an Indian feast. Something layered, vibrant, fragrant — food that feels like a celebration.
And my contribution? Mini Curried Spinach and Queso Pot Pies. I know — it sounds unexpected for an Indian feast. But hear me out. These little pies are a love letter to fusion cooking. Golden, flaky pastry — buttery and crisp — wrapped around a filling of curry-spiced wilted spinach and melted, creamy queso.
The curry brings warmth and depth — a little turmeric for that gorgeous golden color. The spinach gives it earthiness and body. And the queso? It’s the unexpected hug. That creamy, slightly tangy richness that pulls everything together and makes you go — oh. yes. that.
They’re small enough to feel elegant. Hearty enough to feel comforting. And just unusual enough to make people ask “wait, what IS this?” before reaching for a second one.
For the full recipe — every measurement, every step — it’s all on the blog and my Substack essay. Links in the description. You’re going to want to make these.
SEGMENT 3: WHAT FOOD DOES THAT NOTHING ELSE CAN
I’ve been thinking about why this weekend worked as well as it did. And I keep coming back to the food. Not just as sustenance. Not even just as pleasure. But as language. When you cook for someone, you’re saying: I thought about you. I put time into this. I want you to feel good. When you cook with someone, you’re saying: I trust you in my space. Let’s figure this out together.
And when you sit down and eat together — really eat, slowly, with the wine and the candles and nowhere else to be — something softens. Guards come down. Stories come out. The real conversations start. Food writers understand this in their bones. It’s why we do what we do — because we know that a recipe is never just a recipe. It’s a memory. A relationship. A little piece of someone’s story passed from their hands into yours. This weekend was that, multiplied by twenty remarkable people, over three extraordinary days.
SEGMENT 4: THE PROFESSIONAL BOND
Here’s something I didn’t fully anticipate: how professionally nourishing this weekend would be. Not in a networking way — not in the business-card, elevator-pitch way. But in the deeper sense of feeling genuinely seen in your work. When you’re surrounded by people who understand the craft — who know how hard it is to find the right word for a flavor, who have spent hours trying to photograph a dish in natural light, who have rewritten a recipe introduction four times because it just wasn’t right yet — the isolation of creative work quietly dissolves.
You remember that what you do matters. That the care you put into it is worth it. That there are people out there who get it — who are doing it alongside you, in their own kitchens, in their own voices. And that sense of shared purpose? That’s not just community. That’s fuel.
SEGMENT 5: FINDING YOUR PEOPLE
I talk a lot on this podcast about building a creative life you love. And I’ve come to believe that you cannot do it alone. Not because you’re not capable — but because we are simply not meant to. The right people don’t just support your work. They change how you see it. They ask questions that unlock something. They say something offhand that you end up thinking about for weeks.
At this retreat, I experienced that over and over. A conversation over breakfast that shifted how I’m thinking about my Substack. A comment someone made during the cooking session that reframed something I’d been stuck on for months. An evening on the porch, wine in hand, talking about where we each want our work to go — and walking away feeling not just inspired, but certain. Like yes. This is right. This is the direction. That’s what your tribe does. They don’t just cheer you on. They help you find your way back to your own true north.
SEGMENT 6: THE REAWAKENING
I’ll be honest with you. I didn’t realize how much I needed this weekend until I was in the middle of it. After more than four years away from New York City, I had quietly, gradually, let go of a version of myself that was built there. Creative, connected, energized by people and ideas and the particular aliveness of that city. And somewhere in that farmhouse in Pennsylvania — between the cooking and the laughing and the late-night conversations —
I felt her again. That version of me. The one who is lit up by all of this. Who wants to be in rooms where ideas are flying and something is always on the stove and everyone is too excited about what they’re making to worry about anything else.
This weekend reminded me: that part of me isn’t gone. She just needed the right room to come back to life. And now I know — more clearly than I have in years — I want to find my way back home. To New York. To this energy. To this version of my life.
SEGMENT 7: FINAL MESSAGE
So here’s what I want to leave you with today — and it’s simple, really: Find your people. Your Tribe. Not online, not theoretically — actually find them. Go to the retreat. Say yes to the weekend away. Follow the writers who make you feel less alone. Show up to the thing that scares you a little because you care about it so much. And when you get there — cook together. Share a cocktail together. A meal together. Because there is no faster way to know someone, no more honest expression of who you are, than the food you make and the table you set and the way you show up in a shared kitchen. Your people are out there. And the table is already set.
CLOSING
📣 The biggest, warmest thank you to our incredible host and organizer Jenn Sharp — for dreaming this up, pulling it off, and creating something none of us will forget.
And to every single person at that table — you are my people, my new food tribe. And I’m so glad we found each other.
Debbie Dale Blackwell, Mindy Crosato, Anne-Marie Pietersma, Betty Williams, Kerry Faber, CulinUrsa — Elizabeth Baer, Annada D. Rathi (& her husband Dinesh), Lori Olson White, Janet Mary Cobb, Elizabeth Pizzinato, Rebecca Blackwell, Kristen Hess, Marjory Pilley, Sarah Pilley, Emily Pilley, Anne Blackwell, Alex_Sharp, Dianne Jacob, Colton Sharp
So if you’d like to read the full essay about this magical weekend — photos, videos, my recipe - all of it, just head to The Artful Gourmet blog and my Substack page. Links are in the description.
You can also find every member of this incredible tribe on my posts — so follow them, read them, cook their recipes. You will not be sorry.
And one more thing before I go - I’d love to know -
Have you found your tribe yet?
Or are you still searching?
I’d love to hear your story in the comments below.
And if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend, and hit ‘subscribe’ so you never miss an episode.
Until next time —
Keep cooking.
Keep connecting.
And keep finding your people. ✨
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Keywords
finding your tribe, creative community, food writers retreat, food blogging, food photography, women in food, creative entrepreneurship, personal growth podcast, storytelling podcast, how to find your tribe, collaboration over competition, creative lifestyle
