Vegan Butter Chicken
Since Tender Leaves of Hope: Finding Belonging as LGBTQ Latter-day Saint Women became available, I’ve received multiple requests for the Vegan Butter Chicken recipe, which I talk about in the beginning of Chapter Four. Here’s the story and the link for the recipe follows. This lunch took place a few years before I came out publicly; most of these women I was friends with for years, but I didn’t give them the opportunity to know me in ways that would have brought us closer and relieved my feelings of disconnect. When I finally talked to them, they met me with compassion and empathy.
Excerpt from Chapter Four: A Delicate Balancing Act
When you try a great recipe for Vegan Butter Chicken, the first impulse is to tell your friends! I did, and one of them suggested getting together to make an Indian lunch. The news spread, and soon we had a whole group of women who were going to bring Indian dishes, with the Butter Chicken as the main attraction. (In case you can’t make sense of the paradoxical “Vegan Butter Chicken,” it uses cauliflower instead of chicken and cashew cream instead of butter. It’s amazing.)
We all gathered one day with friends bringing homemade naan, chana masala, palak paneer, and other favorites. The star of the show was the butter chicken, which I was demonstrating (there were a couple of tricky techniques involved). Everyone there was a friend, and most came from the institute class I taught Tuesday mornings for young moms—women who spent most of Sunday services out in the hall, in the nursery, or in the mother’s lounge. Our institute class met in the Primary room with toys, so the small children could play, and the sisters didn’t need to leave to nurse a baby or to take out a noisy child. We just talked a little louder while children played around us, and we could spend time with friends pondering the things of eternity. It was a safe space for discussing hard questions and a good spiritual and intellectual respite for these stressed-out young mothers. We formed close bonds of trust and friendship with each other. I felt so safe with them, yet I never shared my hidden secret of attraction to women.
Now I was in the kitchen with friends, sharing something I knew they would love, and yet as the minutes ticked past, I felt more and more isolated. When the food was prepared and we sat down to eat, I didn’t know how to sit, or what to do with my hands. I felt out of place in my body, and I desperately wanted to leave. I didn’t belong there. They were all good, righteous women. I felt broken in ways they couldn’t understand, and I could never share. I was out of place with them and myself, and all I wanted to do was exit as quickly as possible. I felt comfortable in class every week because I could talk of the Atonement and testify of Christ. But here, alone, unprotected by that role as a witness of Jesus, I had to flee because I couldn’t find my place. I felt the truth of Ann Morrow Lindbergh’s observation that “if one is a stranger to oneself then one is estranged from others, too.”1
Most LGBTQ women report feeling different as a child, even before puberty when their friends all started to like boys. They may have noticed they had different interests from other girls, or they just didn’t feel at ease with the roles or expectations of a little girl—for dress, for behavior, or for relationships. It could have been hard for them to relate to friends who became focused on liking boys, dating, and dreaming of marriage to a man. Their attraction to some of those friends may have created shame and isolation. As adults, they may love the Lord and His gospel but have difficulty feeling that they fit into the Church roles and social framework that is expected of them. They often don’t feel they really belong.
That experience might sound familiar. Many of us, gay or straight, are fragmented, teaching and testifying of truth, leading a consecrated life, while struggling with feelings of disconnection from ourselves as well as others. When I was still in denial, I lived with clashing personal tensions that created unhealthy internal and interpersonal dynamics. I was open and vulnerable one day and closed off and protective the next. I had everything most Latter-day Saint women want, and yet I was crippled by suicidal depression. I could be viewed as a role model and at the same time feel so broken and unworthy that I wanted to crawl away from interaction with any of the women in my ward. I inhabited a space in life that I valued, but I couldn’t feel that I fit in it or deserved it.
I’ve written about the healing that I experienced when I came out; today I share this recipe with friends who see me and love me as I am, and it is so much better—my life, my friendships, and the food. Being seen and accepted changes the world from darkness and despair to light and hope.
