By combining women’s culinary expertise, treasured recipes and storytelling, an amazing digital platform was born.
For what feels like personally endured centuries, the old sexist quip that “women belong in the kitchen,” has been used to subjugate half of the population to domestic labor. According to patriarchal societies, women are meant to be relegated to household duties, serving their husbands and children before themselves. Today, we may not be quite as literal as that (though those antiquated ideals are violently digging their claws back into our culture with help from the current administration), but the societal expectations still exist no matter how vague, implied, or quietly oppressive they may be. Simultaneously, our culture devalues this work, treating daily meal preparation as a humble chore.
That’s where companies like Story Plate (www.storyplaterecipes.com) step in to fill the gap. As a female-driven recipe sharing platform, Story Plate is changing the narrative of women and femme nonbinary folks’ roles in the kitchen by appropriately honoring the importance of women’s culinary influence from Michelin-starred restaurants to hole-in-the-wall diners to home kitchens alike. Founded in the midst of the country’s first COVID-19 lockdown, Story Plate aims to uplift women in the culinary sphere by sharing their personal journeys alongside handcrafted recipes, emphasizing the way that food is a compelling medium for storytelling and fostering interpersonal connection.
Story Plate’s founder, Fiona Chan, is a foodie and a digital storytelling specialist by trade. She was raised by parents who ran their own small restaurant while she was growing up, so food was her family’s literal lifeline. Chan combined her passions and impressive skillset with a compulsion to help struggling restaurants during the pandemic which devastated the hospitality industry. Born at these intersections, Story Plate is meant to be a community, a digital storyboard, and a bucket list of amazing restaurants to visit across the country all wrapped up into one accessible and charitable forum.
The premise is simple, yet impactful. Culinary contributors from across the world share their most delectable and significant recipes that users can download and save for just $2, and 80% of the fee gets donated to a charity of that contributor’s choosing. There is also the option to bump up that donation with an additional $5 or $10 roundup, 100% of the addition goes toward the charity. Some of the chosen charities that Story Plate contributors support via their recipe downloads include the Nashville Food Project, a non-profit that facilitates community gardens, meals, and local food access, as well as the Frankie Lemmon School & Development Center, which provides creatively engaging classrooms and inclusive community spaces for children with and without disabilities. Contributors for the site include decorated chef and Food Network star, Cat Cora – her philanthropic work has established her as a force to be reckoned with both inside the kitchen and out – and Vivian Ku – an economics-major-turned-successful-restauranteur in the cutthroat Los Angeles food scene.
The site currently has nearly one hundred different recipes available for download spanning every category: meat and seafood, vegan dishes, vegetable dishes, pasta and grains, baked goods and desserts, and even unique cocktails and beverages like the Calabrese Chocolate Liqueur shared by Managing Partner and Beverage Director of Macchialina restaurant in Miami, Jacqueline Pirolo.
Most of the contributors share recipes from their own restaurants, like James Beard award-winning chef Gabrielle Quiñónez Denton’s recipe for Roasted Cauliflower with Spicy Golden Raisin Vinaigrette, Mint & Sesame, which she refers to as a “perennial favorite” at her Portland restaurant, Ox Restaurant. Others share personal recipes, like the Lazy Peach Cobbler donated by the powerhouse culinary duo Catarah Coleman and Shoneji Robison of Southern Girl Desserts who got the original recipe from their family friend, Ms. Gale. When all is said and done, visitors of the site get access to recipes handcrafted by women, an insight into the lives and careers of the women and people behind those recipes, as well as exposure to new restaurants and charities. It’s a smorgasbord of social impact, women empowerment, and damn good food.
In a political climate that ravenously feeds on human disconnection, a shared meal can be a powerful social tool. We are having to rely on our communities and interpersonal relationships for survival today more than ever, so a meal can offer more than physical and emotional nutrition for individuals, but for society as a whole. Brunches, coffee dates and dinners are where conversations are being had about the state of our world, where people find comfort and connection with their friends and loved ones, and personal perceptions and worldviews are challenged in a loving (or not-so-loving, dealer’s choice) environment. The value of things like food and shared meals have greatly increased in a world hellbent on cultivating an “us versus them” narrative. Within this context, a woman’s role in the kitchen is certainly not inherent, but it is profoundly important.
When asked whose food they’d most like to eat, or what meals are closest to one’s heart, many people will conjure up memories near and far of their mother’s or grandmother’s cooking. Matriarchs are the people cooking the most significant, personal, and beloved meals that many people will eat in their lifetimes. It should be noted, too, that ethnic and cultural identities are powerfully linked to food. If women have been the ones preparing and shepherding traditional dishes through generations of families across the world, that directly translates into them being the cultural historians and tastemakers. Story Plate creates a safe space for recipes to be lovingly shared much like they are amongst families. It’s like a digital version of the recipe swap parties that were popular in the mid twentieth-century, or a traditional holiday cookie exchange.
That community-building is a necessary life raft for many women in the professional culinary industry, which has historically skewed male with categorically aggressive intensity. I mean, we all know the stress that simply watching an episode of The Bear induces. Now try building a career while managing all the normal microaggressions the average woman faces in a professional setting while also having to work alongside a grown man who throws dishes and yells because a teenage server forgot to put in their table’s appetizer order before the entrée. It’s not an ideal scenario for anyone, much less the gender minority.
Recruitment site Zippia reports that in 2025, 87.5% of executive chefs in the United States are men, with only 12.5% of executive chefs identifying as women. That’s a steep difference, and one that is felt by every single one of those individuals making up that minority percentage. It’s interesting that, throughout history, men have systematically kept women relegated only to home kitchens while claiming professional culinary spaces as their own. Hell, even school cafeterias are stereotypically staffed with “lunch ladies,” yet you’ll be somewhat hard pressed to find a restaurant with a woman holding the executive chef title (and, sorry, but feeding hundreds of children each day will always be objectively more impressive than running a kitchen serving foams and gelees).
Giving the women, queer and nonbinary people who have fought to earn their place in the culinary sphere their flowers is a noble cause, and one that Story Plate takes on successfully. These chefs deserve to know that their seat at the table matters and makes an impact beyond the happy “mmms” and “ahhs” of satisfied diners. Not only does Story Plate’s digital storytelling platform enable access to curated recipes, but it also connects visitors to the necessary human element behind those recipes. When you prepare one of the dishes shared by Story Plate’s nearly one hundred culinary contributors, you’re connecting yourself to a person or family you will likely never meet, or a restaurant you may never get the chance to visit, and that is a beautiful thing.
