Support Abby's Journey to Publish Food Stories

Hi! My name is Abby Houston and I’m a Brooklyn-based Creative with deep roots in the Appalachian mountains of NC. Over the last year, I've been creating a conversation card deck called Food Stories.

This conversation deck is all about – you guessed it – food! Specifically, this card deck contains around 65 food-related questions and is a tool to help yourself and others explore food narratives and origin stories. Some are silly, some are sexy, and some are deep. For example: Can you recall an enjoyable meal you ate recently and why? If you had to legally change your name to a food, what would it be? What’s your favorite childhood meal or snack, and do you still eat it today? What would you willingly eat off of someone else’s body?

My biggest hope and dream for this card deck is to find its way into your hands during a sweet dinner gathering, a lingering lunch, a picnic, a travel adventure, or anywhere something delicious is involved. This deck can be used solo or with loved ones and strangers.

The concept of this conversation deck began when I had the idea to create a monthly dinner party series. I imagined a messy table filled with imperfect ceramics made by friends, candles, a warmth in the air, and plates of food served family-style – the type of night where the food and conversation deeply nourish your soul. Scattered among the table would be little cards with questions centered around food to explore together as we ate and drank. The beginning of Food Stories was born.

This deck is important to me for many reasons, and once I raise the funds to have the deck published, a percentage of the profits will go toward Food Justice organizations working to ensure universal access to nutritious, affordable, and culturally appropriate food for all.

In addition to giving back to organizations that are doing important things in the realm of food sovereignty, here are six more reasons why getting this deck published would mean so much to me:

#1. This deck is the first big creative project I’ve ever put into the world. And if you’ve ever shared something publicly, you know how vulnerable it can be. We must support each other in our creative endeavors!

#2. There is a need for connection. As a society, we are hungry, and I don’t just mean physically. According to new, confirmatory data from Morning Consult commissioned by Cigna, more than half of U.S. adults (58%) are considered lonely. We are eager to be fed - our senses and souls nourished by storytelling, love, food, and community.

We desperately need more tools and pathways to foster connection. Small talk is hard (for me and many others I know!). Food Stories is a creative way to stop talking about the weather and bond on a deeper level by sharing our stories and thoughts honestly, vulnerably, and playfully. The questions in the deck have a wide range of variety. There’s a little something for everyone, and I’ve found food can be a great neutralizer for finding common ground with a stranger, or even someone you’ve known your whole life. As you use this card deck, you’ll find that you’re never just really talking about food.

#3. The creation of this deck marks a huge milestone in my journey with food. Food has meant so many different things to me throughout my life – comfort, love, stress, healing, shame, celebration, control – some chapters I do not wish to revisit. It’s with great privilege that I’ve had time, space, and access to tools to help me heal my relationship with food and body image. It’s an ongoing, nonlinear journey that's taught me a lot.

I will never forget the moment in Oaxaca, Mexico, at age 24 as I sat alone in the sun eating fresh figs, tamales mole, and nopales, entranced by the textures, smells, and colors of Oaxacan culture. Wandering through the small markets of Oaxaca brought me back to life, and allowed me to reclaim the title of ‘Food Person’ after shunning this part of myself for 10+ years.

As I sat on warm, sun-baked concrete steps, I traveled back in time to little Abby, the eight-year-old obsessed with Food Network. I traveled back to baking sugar cookies from scratch with my mom. I traveled back to creating a food-based sensory guessing game for my Halloween party at age 10. I traveled back to the smell of browned butter and shallots in my grandparents' kitchen and the taste of juicy, smoky barbecue from my dad’s restaurant.

I hope this deck allows you to honor and reflect on all the places food has taken you in your life, too. And know that if you’re not ready to reflect on your journey with food, that is completely ok, too! You’re not alone, and I’m here if you ever need an ear to listen.

#4. Food Stories is an ode to anyone who’s dedicated their life to food, even for a brief moment. Food Stories pays homage to everyone who’s ever worked in the service industry or put dinner on the table. My dad owned a barbecue restaurant for 45 years, meaning I quite literally grew up in a restaurant, and it made me a better person. Many weekends in the summer and fall were spent with my parents as they packed up a clunky catering van painted with dancing pigs and drove to work a wedding, funeral, birthday, polka party, family reunion, or football game. We served many presidents and famous people. One time the Venezuelan ex-dictator Hugo Chavez held me in his arms at a catering event in Hickory, NC, but that’s a weird story for another time…

Working in the food industry has taught me to be kind, tip well (in the U.S.), break bread with strangers, put love into your food, and be a creative problem solver. This Food Stories deck allows us all to reflect on how we’ve played a part in serving and receiving (with food and life).

#5. This deck is what I wish I had during all my years of traveling to 19 countries from 2018-2023. Almost all of my fondest memories of travels involve sharing meals or dancing in the kitchen and sharing an unspoken language as I’ve chopped, sautéed, and roasted alongside strangers and friends.

I’ve stayed in countless hostels, bed and breakfasts, family homes, friends of friends couches, on floors, Airbnb’s, and in tents in foreign countries. Waking up bed-headed and bleary-eyed to be offered a cup of coffee and something to eat restores my faith in humanity a little each time it happens. I believe that when we break bread with others, we heal the world a little.

This deck is a great way to inspire conversation with others and learn about peoples’ lives and our universal truths no matter the border we live within.

#6. You have important stories to tell.

You, yes you, have important stories to share with the world! It’s easy for us to discredit our lived experience. In the age of social media, we are constantly comparing. It’s easy to assume that nobody will want to hear our stories. But if we dare to share, maybe even get a little vulnerable and let someone into a little window of our world, we have no idea how much it could mean to someone. It could inspire, evoke, or maybe even help someone else feel a little (or a lot) less alone.

Shoutout to Gina Rae La Cerva for helping me remember this during her recent Food Memoir Writing workshop.

My hope for this deck is that we get to share our Food Stories. And by sharing, we get to inspire and remind each other of our universal truths and the goodness in humanity, because it’s never really just about food.

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Here is a rough breakdown of costs so you can get an idea of what I’m raising money for:

$300 Editorial & proofreading on the card deck

$500 Compensate people for administrative and communications work

$3,000 Packaging design, turning my design ideas & illustrations into print-ready design files

$3,000 Production/print management and consulting

$3,000 - $15,000 Print costs which will vary depending on how much support I can raise :-)

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Offering Tiers:

The First Course $10

The Second Course $25

The Third Course $50

The Fourth Course $200

The Fifth Course $500

The Sixth Course $1000 +

Thank you SO much for your support! Please reach out if you have any questions or just want to say hi. And if you don't have any funds to donate, please consider sharing with others who may be interested in supporting my project.

I can't wait to hear your Food Stories!

Big Love,

Abby

"I feel we have found a way through food to build a bridge for meaningful conversation. In doing so, we are creating a more peaceful world….We need an antidote to this somewhat crazy world and what better way than making and breaking bread with the light of our own smiles?"

– Peggy Markel