"Queer Eye" Star Antoni Porowski Makes Cooking Personal

Food is a significant piece of one’s self-respect

For Antoni Porowski food is a medium to connect with others. The “food expert” On Netflix’s hit series Queer Eye just published a cookbook based on his experiences. In it, we learn Porowski never cooked with his mom and didn't get along with an older sister, and there was a lonely flurry when he and his parents moved to West Virginia while his mother commuted to Montreal to spend time with his sisters, who stayed in the city: "I didn't realize it at the time, but I longed for family," he writes.

“I'd love for people to just sort of look at their own food stories look at your history look at where your parents came from the dishes that they had. like everybody has their own version of that book And it's such a great way of connecting with like aunties and grandparents and your parents even or even friends who have like come from I don't know a country that you're not necessarily familiar with it's a good way to sort of connect to other people. It's my own version of a memoir, basically, and food for me has always been this very intimate way of showing people how I care for them it's how I say I love you it's how I say I'm sorry it's how I try to impress somebody or have them want to like me. The most interesting part is sort of the head note is that introduction to each recipe where I get to tell people like why this dish is so important to me which is deeply personal. His Polish and Belgian heritage has informed Porowski’s sense of the cultural significance of food.”

Porowski is a polarizing figure — ever since the first season of "Queer Eye" when he put Greek yogurt in guacamole and spent another cooking lesson jazzing up hot dogs. Porowski admits that in reaction to the backlash he "tried to over-complicate the recipes" in the third and fourth seasons, until a producer told him the show was not about his cooking chops, but the average people they were trying to help. Porowski considers food to be significant piece of one’s self-respect.

Brut.