The Spinning Plate

A tender cookbook and record of a woman becoming-through the meals she made, the thoughts she shared, and the life she built one dish at a time.

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Angela Mears didn't write about food to teach you how to cook. She wrote about food to remind you how to live - sometimes messy, often imperfectly, but always with hunger. Between 2010 and 2022, while building an award-winning career in

marketing, Angela kept a blog called The Spinning Plate. It wasn't just a food blog. It was a place where the slow, almost cruel caramelization of onions became a meditation on time and love, where a broken sauce turned into an unflinching look at imperfection, where simple comfort food opened doors to memory, longing, and the tricky business of nourishing ourselves and others.

Angela chased authenticity. She looked for genius in the unconventional, the deeply flavored, even the slightly weird. Her kitchen philosophy was direct: salt at every stage, soak your damn potatoes before roasting, and never apologize for rustic food that tastes like itself. "My cooking isn't meant to be pretty," she'd say, plating another meal that was honest, maybe a little flawed, but always real. This collection gathers Angela's most vital pieces from The Spinning Plate - recipes tangled with reflections. You'll find the searching vulnerability of "Hungry Heart" next to the defiant love letter in "Consider the Onion," Thomas Keller's perfect roast chicken alongside sharp musings on suburban placelessness and solitude. Each piece insists that food isn't performance - it's ritual, it's connection, sometimes it's just getting through the day.

Angela left us too soon on March 27, 2023, but her voice remains - restless, sweary, soulful, hungry, and real. Her words teach us that the best meals, like the best creative work, demand we pay attention to what *is*, not just what's expected. They remind us there's poetry, even a necessary grit, in a Sunday night egg in a basket, that butter damn well makes everything better, and that the most crucial ingredient is the story the food tells - yours, hers, ours.

This book exists because Angela's voice deserves to be heard. All proceeds support the Angela Mears Foundation, continuing her work of kicking open doors for diverse creative voices - because Angela knew the best tables, like the best ideas, have room for everyone.

Pull up a chair. Welcome to Angela's table.

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All proceeds from the sale of this book benefit the Angela Mears Foundation and support the Next Dragon Program, providing grants and mentorship to aspiring creatives from underrepresented backgrounds.

The Angela Mears Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to making creative careers accessible to all, regardless of financial means or background.