The Kitchen: Cody Cook-Parrott

It is spring in Minnesota! For Episode 9 (recorded 4/16/26), I crawled into my closet for better sound quality at the suggestion of UMD’s Jennifer Moore. I was happy and nervous to have Cody Cook-Parrott, writer, quilter, podcaster, teacher, dancer, and also avid eater of french toast join us. They discussed kitchens, sustenance, and: 

• The rituals of returning
• A daily commitment to tend to your body
• Finding the right dose of pleasure in food and celebrating that you care for yourself in this way
• Delight in seasonality
• Gathering, talking, plantain chips
• Prioritizing serenity, simplicity, and chillness in the kitchen and in life

Dear Cody: Thank you for being my guest. Dear listeners: Hope you have the chance to experiment with all or some of the above.  

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Suggested podcast pairings:

Baked french toast with sliced strawberries in sauce, toasted cornflakes, whipped cream, syrup, and butter. Maybe saffron, maybe cinnamon, maybe not. 

A side of bacon

Coffee with half and half

The song Return by Javi Lobe

The light fragrance of purple crocuses

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If you’d like to connect more with Cody, visit their website, pick up a copy of their new book, The Practice of Attention, or subscribe to their newsletter, Monday Monday. 

Episode artwork by Nico Sakiki. You can subscribe to their Substack “Unfinished Alchemy” here. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Hi everyone. This is Berna Greenfield, and I am so pleased to be here today with Cody Cook Parrot, who I admire greatly, and I appreciate them as a person. And I especially appreciate their great care for community and how that comes through in everything in their work. So thank you so much for being here. Would you like to introduce yourself briefly?

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Yeah, thanks so much for having me on your podcast, Brenna. It's just great to be here. I'm Cody. I'm a writer, a dancer, a quilter, a teacher, and facilitator of many things on the internet, usually having to do with writing or quilting or creative business. And I also write a weekly newsletter called Monday Monday, and I host the podcast Common Shapes.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

Thank you. I think I've really enjoyed seeing the seasonality of your work in the last year and how you really um trimmed a lot of things back at the end of 2025. And now I've enjoyed watching how so many things are springing up for you. Like a lot, it feels like.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah, I'm definitely like in the practice of paying attention to spring the season right now. And I think I definitely like did a lot of shedding in the late fall and am now kind of like re-emerging in early spring and bringing some things back and seeing seeing what wants to stick around.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

So when you look outside in nature, what is your inspiration for um how you are acting in a parallel fashion? For me, it's I see a lot of crows around and they're all carrying sticks in their mouth. They're building new nests. So for me, I've been like um reshaping my home and like what's in it and things like that. But I wonder for you, what are the what are you observing in nature that informs how you approach spring?

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Yeah, you know, the main signal that I look for every year is the first purple crocus that comes up in the yard. And sometimes there is still snow on the ground when they emerge, and there was about about a week, about a week or so ago is when I saw the first one, and I literally like knelt down and like started crying. I was just so happy, and I feel like it's that message of like resilience, like they keep coming back, even though it's still the ground is still so cold, you know, they keep blooming, and yeah, there's there's more this year than there have been in the past, so it's been special.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

That's beautiful. Yeah. So um, let's talk about your one-month-old baby. It's 31 days old now, so you can literally graph. Congratulations on your book. Um here's what I I was making little notes as I've been reading through it, and I'll just share them with you. So your voice is accepting, accessible, and radical is how it comes across. And the last chapters where you get into different things you might focus your attention on. I don't know how much spoilers I'll give for people, but I found them to be like an exhale or a soft pillow to place my head and a surprise. And those chapters, one of which is like about movement or hobby practice. I feel like those were humming with light. So that's just some of the things that struck me from your book. But I'd like to ask you, what's it been like this past month and how is your book doing today?

SPEAKER_00 3:44

Yeah, thank you for those reflections. It's so I'm so grateful to ever be on someone's podcast or be interviewed and have, you know, my own work reflected back to me is really meaningful. Um, you know, I was just talking to my agent yesterday and telling her like it feels kind of quiet. And I think that part of that is because it's my first time putting a book out with no social media. And so usually like I'm getting tagged every day from people who are opening their package or sharing the book online or seeing it in a bookstore, and without that, people have to like take the extra step to like email me or text me if they have my number or something. And so in some ways it feels a little quiet, but that doesn't feel bad. It just has it's really pushing me to be thinking about what are the ways to market a book about leaving social media without social media. You know, it's social media is just always kind of the easiest way. Um, but yeah, I'd say a month out, the book is happy. It's doing well. I'm I organized a book study that about 40 people are in, and that we just had our first meeting, and that was really, really cool just to be in the room with people who, you know, really want to restore their attention and like you said, kind of like feel that exhale. And so yeah, the book is it's making its rounds, it's finding finding the people.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

I'm glad your book's doing happy. How are how are you feeling? You know, this is you know, yes, the baby. You ask about the baby, but how's the parent doing?

SPEAKER_00 5:33

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 5:34

Um after the birds.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Yeah, I'm good. I feel, you know, it's such a I mean, I've never been, you know, pregnant with a human, but I assume similar in that like you have the gestation period of like it's cooking in there, and like, you know, by the time the book came out, I it wasn't that I was like over it or anything, but I really feel already like, you know, I'm working on my thesis in grad school right now, which is a book length project, and I'm thinking about what my next nonfiction book might be. And so I'm I'm already kind of like thinking ahead of what will come next. But I'm good. I'm I'm really being careful not to burn out. I think putting a book out and promoting it on top of just running a business and being in grad school can be a little overwhelming. So I'm trying to just take it easy and get a lot of rest.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

I'm happy to hear that. Yeah, the practice of not burning out is such an important one and hard. Super hard. Yeah. So you talked about um babies and books cooking during pregnancy. And um, so let's switch gears because this podcast, this season, is about the kitchen. And what especially delights me about talking about this with you is that I know nothing about you in the kitchen or your relationship to food, although in some of your work you've hinted that it might be akin to other um things that can be challenging to have a good relationship with. So um where should we start? Uh what was your childhood kitchen like, and what do you miss about it? What's a comfort food you remember?

SPEAKER_00 7:28

Yeah, a comfort food I remember is either my dad making amazing French toast or my mom making her amazing pancakes. We were definitely like on holidays, we were a house that really did brunch right. Like my mom has this amazing souffle recipe that was her mom's, my grandmother Alice. And but the kitchen was not like it was a pretty simple place growing up. Like it wasn't my my dad did most of the cooking and he didn't really get experimental until me and my brother both were vegetarian for many years in our 20s, and then he like had to kind of start thinking out of the box a little bit. He couldn't just make us pork chops and um green beans, and so yeah, the kitchen was a simple place. Not we gathered there a lot, though. We had a TV in the kitchen, um, and we would like watch shows while we like ate dinner, and not always, but we would have dinner around the dining room table too. But at some point, yeah, there was definitely like a casualness to like eating and dinner and just like chilling while we ate.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

Did you all eat together or was it kind of come and go?

SPEAKER_00 8:46

We would usually eat together, yeah. The four of us.

unknown 8:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

Um, so before I going into this, I've been thinking about the titles of the episodes, and yours is The Kitchen as Necessity, is just what I felt like it was. And I'm like, okay, this is kind of fitting. Um in your quilt show catalog, the quilt is archive, you talk about your work as follows. Um, their work often investigates this domestic as a site of both utility and poetics, treating everyday objects and rituals as living records of care, grief, devotion, and experiment. So, how has your kitchen been a site of care, grief, devotion, or experiment?

SPEAKER_00 9:36

Yeah, you know, the kitchen is in my home right now is one of the biggest rooms in the house. When you when you walk into my house, the first door that you come through, you immediately are in the kitchen. And it's this beautiful, I painted it this mustard yellow. The name of the paint color was Plantain Chips, and it's just really bright, and yeah, it's a place that I've really learned to cook in. Like, I lived alone when I lived in California and did some cooking when I lived alone, but in this season of my life, I feel like is the most like cooking I've really done, where I actually like figured out how to like cook meat and season it and you know, make more than just a rice bowl with chicken sausage or something, which I'm also very proud of. But uh yeah, it's it's definitely been a space I think about my current partnership also, um, you know, the first time I I Katie and I dated when we were twenty and then remet in our late 30s now, and the evening that we remet, we like sat in on the stools that are in my kitchen next to each other all night, like talking, getting to know each other. So I feel like the kitchen in my house really is a place that like people gather and come together, and yeah, it's special.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

Yeah, thanks for sharing that. Um, so it's a place where you're starting to get to know cooking a little bit more. It sounds like it's not been something where you've been like, I love cooking. Cooking is the joy of my life. How about food? Like, how do you relate to food? What's your relationship with food?

SPEAKER_00 11:31

Yeah, my relationship with food is always ebbs and flows. It's definitely it feels pretty good right now, which is nice to reflect on. Um I, you know, as an addict, it's just really easy for me with sugar to go, I would say go overboard for myself, like in maybe past the point of intuitive eating to a point of, you know, overconsuming, and and signs of that to me don't have to do with what my body looks like, but have to do with just how I feel if I get a migraine or I feel kind of like hung over in the morning. Those are usually signs that I like went past my own threshold with sugar. And so that's something I've had a hard time with in the past, but the thing that kind of healed me was finding um was getting into popsicles, and they're just like a low sugar, you know, not I'm not a calorie counter, so I don't even want to say low calorie, but like they're just a light snack that like really does it for me. Like I don't have to have that half pint of ice cream or full pint of ice cream or like binge a bunch of cookies or something if I just can have my one little popsicle. And so yeah, finding like a treat that like gives me the same like ritual and pleasure, but doesn't exceed what I want to experience has been really cool.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

That was kind of like a harm reduction relationship, too.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

Um, so you talked about the physical pieces of overconsuming food, sugar that you don't like and you notice as a sign of it not being what you want. And then I think there's also a piece that always comes up for people, and me included, where you feel like shame or like anger at yourself when you have too much sugar.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:25

Um, and also I just want to say like no judgment on anyone on how much sugar they want to eat. But for yourself, um, how have you worked with, if there is any anger or shame that you felt around eating a lot of sugar, um, how what's been your practice with that over time?

SPEAKER_00 13:43

Yeah, you know, I really feel the like one day at a time mentality that I use with my sobriety from alcohol, that applies to sugar or food or just anything that feels like it's getting in the way of my serenity. You know, I can really be like, okay, today I ate a lot of sugar. Tomorrow I have a chance to try again. Or later today, I have a chance to try again. You know, I can start my day over at any time. That always feels important to me. So yeah, I feel like just offering myself gentleness and knowing that it's a daily commitment to, you know, tend to my body the way that feels right to me. And yeah, to to be like, well, at least it for for me, I often say like, at least it's not like drugs, alcohol, or cigarettes, you know, because those are three things that I, you know, try to stay up or stay abstinent of. And so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

Yeah, tomorrow I can try again. I like that. Yeah. Okay, let me see what what else I have here for you. Um, I have two questions left. Um Tell me about one of your favorite memories involving food.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

You know, it's actually really recent, but we went to this new brunch spot in the town next to ours, and I I mentioned my dad's French toast. I'm obsessed with French toast. It's French toast is my favorite food. And like I've eaten French toasts all around this country and will continue to. I I just I love French toast. And I had this French toast that was like baked French toast with like um strawberries on it and like toasted cornflakes, and it was just amazing. It was beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 16:02

How eggy do you like your French toast to be?

SPEAKER_00 16:05

Um, egggy. I like it to be like I like it to be eggy and doughy.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

Yeah, same. I like the egg. You can just like taste the eggs. Were the strawberries whole or sliced? How were they?

SPEAKER_00 16:16

The strawberries were uh sliced and kind of like cooked in a sauce.

SPEAKER_01 16:25

Oh yeah. Do you what are your thoughts on uh whipped cream, butter, and syrup?

SPEAKER_00 16:30

I feel very good about all three.

unknown 16:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

And then what are we having uh with our French toast? Like what do you drink?

SPEAKER_00 16:39

Usually coffee with half and half and side bacon.

SPEAKER_01 16:43

Delicious. That sounds great.

SPEAKER_00 16:45

Um I know, I'm I I really want to know.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

So who makes the best French toast, restaurant or person, living or dead?

SPEAKER_00 16:54

Uh a restaurant, probably. Yeah. Okay.

unknown 16:56

All right.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

My my mom works at a restaurant, the Cherry Inn in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and they have some of the greatest cinnamon French toast of all time.

SPEAKER_01 17:05

That's amazing. Cinnamon, like I love when people put different spices on French toasts, too. In in the egg batter. That's really good. So do you French toast as well, or do you just enjoy consuming it most of the time?

SPEAKER_00 17:16

I just enjoy consuming it. You think I would make it for myself since I love it so much, but I don't.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

I think everything you love, you don't have to like prepare for yourself. It can be really nice to receive sometimes too. Yes, yes. We do one more question, Cody. Yes, of course. Okay. Um, what possibilities are there for you in the kitchen and with food that you have yet to explore? Either you creating or you just receiving the creation of others.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

Yeah, I feel like uh this isn't maybe that exciting of an answer, but I feel like I want to get more into like food prepping, like prepping like for the week, to like look ahead and be like, okay, this day I have meetings all day, so I'm not gonna want to cook, probably, but this day I have really free, so I could make like a big tub of chicken salad or like a big thing of rice and chickpeas, and you know, like make some dishes that kind of last me throughout the week, I think is something I really want to explore in the kitchen.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

I th I think that's very exciting. I'm where I I want to explore that as well. I've one of my friends taught me how to make overnight oats. So I'll make like two or three little containers of them just with oats, and it saves you dishes too, because then it's just all percolating in there.

SPEAKER_00 18:41

So that sounds great.

SPEAKER_01 18:43

Um, well, thank you so much for coming to my podcast.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

Thank you so much for having me on your podcast.

SPEAKER_01 18:50

This was fun, and I enjoyed learning something about you, some things about you that I haven't yet. So thanks for taking the time. I'm gonna turn off the recording now.