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Welcome to Clearing the Table: Food, Friends, & Feminism. We’ll be clearing the table in two senses: 1) Eating delicious food and making sure not a bite goes to waste! and 2) Taking this opportunity to examine the many intersections of power and identity that take place at each part of the processes of cooking and eating.

Visit our About page for more information on US, the four friends who will be taking you through this tasty, radical journey. To get to the meat of it, head to the Blog for posts about our visits to women-owned/operated restaurants, cafes, and breweries in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Chicago. We promise pictures, insightful questions, and maybe even tips on what to order.

If you have any comments/suggestions for our project, for a women-owned/operated foodery/drinkery in one of these cities, or if you have questions for us, please don’t hesitate to head to the Contact page, where you can find us in many ways via the internet. Ooooh, and follow us on Instagram @clearingthetable for minute by minute updates!

About

We are four friends who found each other at a small school in rural Minnesota called Carleton College. We soon became close over many, many dining hall meals paired with discussions about feminism, about race, and, eventually, about how food intersects with these issues. We devised Clearing the Table: Food, Friends, & Feminism to explore these intersections–and how… Continue reading About

were we MAD for ordering this much food? maybe!

Listen, I love shared plates. Love to surprise my tastebuds with all different kinds of flavors, love to reach over with my fork to a friend’s plate and grab a tasty bite, love it all. But the main trap that you can fall into with shared plates is ordering too much food! Sure, we’re… Continue reading were we MAD for ordering this much food? maybe!

The Goddess & Her Beer

Mabel: Earlier this week, we got to talk to Mary Bauer, who has recently been promoted from head brewer to head of everything (aka operations manager)!! Yas kween! She was super cool! Really fun to talk to! Nice! Approachable! Mary built the Chicago branch from the ground up, picking whoever and whatever she wanted to… Continue reading The Goddess & Her Beer

Have the Gays Taken over Brunch?

It’s seriously a tragedy that we didn’t have the chance to interview Michelle Fire, the famed owner of Big Chicks bar and its sister diner, Tweet. I mean, we’d of course heard about Big Chicks before, because if you know a queer person who lives in the midwest and has a car and a fake,… Continue reading Have the Gays Taken over Brunch?

Is the glass half-empty or half-full or neither?!

Located in a “hip” (what does this even MEAN? is this codification of gentrification? probably tbh) Fjallraven-Kanken-body-butter-selling part of town, Presidio is tucked into a corner on N. Damen Ave and brands itself as “San Francisco influenced.” After a day out and about, and after Mabel and Lynn were kind of wasted due to their… Continue reading Is the glass half-empty or half-full or neither?!

Did You Really Just Get Money to Eat?

Almost exactly a year ago, 3 of these 4 friends (3/4 of the friends, if you’re a fraction person) were actually together in Chicago for a few days–and Mabel actually wrote up an itinerary that we stuck to, to make sure that we got everything out of this city that we possibly could. It’s a little different… Continue reading Did You Really Just Get Money to Eat?

Contact

Are you following us on Instagram? Why the heck not! Check us out @clearingthetable! Also, you can fill out this form with suggestions/comments/questions for us. We promise we’ll get back to you ASAP!