Dinner Party Stories: On Food, Friendship, and Finding Your Way

Vibe with these laugh-out-loud and heartful essays about falling in love with the messiness of life and with yourself from a chef and community organizer who’s going through it too

“Well, so, I’m gay.” Chef, writer, and community organizer Garrett Schlichte suspected his mom probably already knew this, but this cannon event—coming out!—was still a really big deal. He grew up in the south, in a bedroom decorated purple and silver, spending most of his time in his mom’s hair salon—he almost had to be gay. And still, it was almost too hard to say. As a chronic people pleaser and two-time Homecoming King (almost), Garrett worried that this announcement would change his relationship with his parents forever—and he found that it did, but not in the ways he feared.

In Dinner Party Stories, Garrett shares the stories that have helped him find connection with friends, lovers, and with himself. From coming out in his sister’s bedroom to stumbling onto reality TV and opening a restaurant in the woods of Northen California, he doesn’t hold back when it comes to finding the beauty in the messiness of life. Armed with humor, rose colored glasses, and a dirty martini, Garrett takes readers on a journey of self-discovery, breakups on public transit, experimentation, and bisexual rock-climbing heartthrobs. Throughout it all, Garrett uses food to gather the people we love most and celebrate together. This book is for people who are unabashedly in love with everything that comes with being fully alive in a world that is trying to keep us quiet.