INTERVIEW
Chef Kia Damon Is A Real-Life Anime Hero
WORDS BY SARAH COOKE
GRAPHIC BY CLARE LAGOMARSINO
PRODUCED BY VICKY GU
PHOTOS COURTESY OF KIA DAMON
JUNE 15, 2021
In “Joy,” the closing essay of Feel Free, Zadie Smith wonders about the arbitrary divide of which emotions we let touch us and which ones we avoid. “It’s not at all obvious to me how we should make an accommodation between joy and the rest of our everyday lives,” she writes. It’s simple but sad: Joy is precarious more often than it is precious.
Kia Damon holds many roles—chef, founder, co-founder, mother to Boomba, her beloved cat—but what unites them is her sense of purpose: to serve, without compromising herself. In this, she finds resonance with anime and manga, whose characters and worlds are equally powerful as they are dangerous, and in birds, and one bird (who made a surprise guest appearance) in particular.
This interview was held on March 16, 2021 and has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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I’m going to try and recap everything that you’re currently doing, because it’s superhuman—hosting Nike’s Athlete’s Cookbook; leading a mutual aid program called Kia Feeds The People, and co-founding auxilio with Zacarías González and Mohammed Fayaz.
I have two questions: 1) How are you doing all of that? and 2) How are you doing with all of that?
Wow, that’s a great question. How am I doing all of that? I do not know. [Sarah laughs.] I do not know how I am doing all of it. It might actually be bad, who knows. [Kia laughs.]
I think what helps now is having my friends, and my community, and desperately working to fold in things that have nothing to do with work, so that my personality and my whole livelihood isn’t just work, which I’m attempting to do. I really am.
And building a team that can help me, as I think one thing to note is that I’m not doing this all alone or all this stuff because I desire to do it this stuff; it’s just that as a Black queer woman, we kind of have to do it that way. And so maybe we get a team or maybe someone can come in and help, and maybe some funds come in.
And then how I’m doing with all of this...I’m in a pretty interesting spot right now. My mental health has always been something that I have battled with, you know, and the diagnosis, those diagnostic—the shit that my psychiatrist says [both laugh]—those things are only getting heavier.
I’m currently in Florida and not in New York City, if that speaks to the situation at all, because I really did just have to go physically away and return home, return to people who really really know me, so that I can just remember that I am Kia Damon, and I was Kia Damon before I was Kia Cooks. I don’t want that to absorb my entire life, you know what I mean?
It’s interesting. I’m trying to be intentional, finding other things, new things even, that pique my interest, deepen my understanding of myself, so that I can begin to live and work on the side, versus working and desperately trying to live at the same time.
You talked about finding new things to shift the balance between work and living for you. What are some of those things that you’re finding?
I am picking back up things mostly from my childhood. Stuff that I forgot I liked before the world that we live in started encroaching on my childhood and the things that I cared about. So I’ve been getting back into music, picking up instruments again; I’m going to start with the piano again. I think that’s the one I have the most muscle memory from, because I actually played the piano, the guitar, and the cello. Reading, reading anything I find interesting. Any book, just grab it. [Both laugh.]
Birdwatching. Being from Florida and living in Tallahassee for so many years, what I’ve missed the most is watching birds and being able to watch them in peace and in their habitat. I do a little bit of it on the streets in New York, but it’s just different, because I can’t stop on the sidewalk and be like, “What is that bird?” and try to look it up. [Both laugh.]
I’m also learning languages. I’ve always been interested in languages; I feel very strongly about people in the US being taught languages. Like, why aren’t we being taught languages in the school system? It’s so frustrating to me. I think about wanting to experience the world and travel the world and the privilege that I have in an American passport—and then, going to other places and not being able to communicate. Lots of folks who are coming into the US or visiting the US work really hard to learn English, to learn languages, because it’s just really harsh.
I want to show them that respect and push myself out of my culture zone, out of privilege, and learn how to communicate with other people, instead of feeling like what happens in my life is the default and that everybody else has to conform to that, which is just something that we’ve internalized to feel and believe growing up in the United States.
I’ve been learning Japanese, French, Mexican Spanish, and I’m about to pick up American Sign Language, which I find to be most important out of all of those.
So yeah, that’s what I’m doing. [Kia laughs.]
I have a note from Vicky, Currant’s founder, who spoke with Lucas Sin. He said to ask you about anime, so that’s my next question: Just, anime? [Kia bursts out laughing.] What does it mean for you?
He told you to ask me that? How embarrassing! I absolutely left that out when you were asking me what other things I was doing [Sarah laughs], because that was the first thing that came into my head, but I was like, “Kia, don’t you embarrass yourself.” But now that I know Lucas has already embarrassed me... [Kia laughs.]
Anime. I’ve been watching anime, oh god, since even before I knew anime was anime, you know? I actually am part of one prominent group of young Black people who enjoy anime and love the conversations that can be had around certain shows and the dialogue or sometimes the art style, the storytelling, etc. I love it, I do.
I read manga. That’s one I’ve started doing, as far as reading books. [Kia laughs.] I wasn’t trying to tell nobody, but I’m also buying manga left and right and reading it.
🎧 Listen: How Kia learned about manga
I have a whole Naruto rug in my office. My cat, before she passed, claimed it. She made sure to piss all over it. [Sarah bursts out laughing.] I was like, “Girl, what?” Literally, I was like, “Not you pooping and peeing all over my Naruto rug. You are on thin ice, honey.” [Kia laughs.]
I have a lot of things like that in my house, and I love it. I do. It’s also a main reason why I want to learn Japanese, so I can go over and visit for the food and everything, and also to show respect for that. I don’t just want to keep consuming someone’s culture without any desire to understand it or learn beyond that, or to communicate around it, because I respect it and love it, and because it was such a major part of my upbringing.
I remember having a conversation in the group chat with other Black creatives around why we like certain stories or why we gravitate towards certain genres like shounen and the main character who just worked really hard and prevailed. Someone made a good point about seeing a lot of those character traits in ourselves as Black people, and resonating with the character that was really at so many disadvantages and worked their ass off, and was blessed with supernatural powers and abilities—because anime, you know—and then prevails and makes meaningful relationships with people.
I’ve always had this spirit of figuring how to do it my own way, and that probably came from all of those years of watching anime and reading it, being like, “I’m going to do it, no matter what!”
We see that in ourselves, especially as Black folks and especially as a young Black queer girl who doesn’t understand being queer, doesn’t understand herself, is super depressed. You find yourself and comfort in these characters, and then you grow up as adults, and you got a Naruto skateboard and a Sailor Moon bucket hat. [Kia laughs.]
There’s just something about those stories that resonate. I love it. It’s something that I look forward to every week.
Do you have a specific character or series that really resonated with you?
Ooh. Good question. Damn.
Someone who’s really resonating with me right now, because I just finished reading all of Demon Slayer, is the main character, Tanjiro. He’s got the very classic going through stuff, trying to protect your family against supernatural things—you know, avenging your family and all of that—but the character itself, he is so wholesome, and so caring, and so thoughtful.
And I’m like, “Wow. I want to be like him.” He is so refreshing to read about, his character and how he interacts with others and such, because he just brings the best out of everyone around him, you know? Even though everyone around him has reason to believe that he is something other than what he is, because of experiences and their own trauma facing the same literal demons, he’s so patient with everyone, while also being firm about who he is.
He makes these connections with people who are all just like, “Whoa, I feel changed because of this individual.” Like, I’ll do anything for this little dude, you know. [Both laugh.] I was like, “I wanna be someone like that.” [Kia laughs.] He makes me want to be him, and I love it.
Tanjiro. Photo: Koyoharu Gotoge
Sailor Moon ❀◕ ‿ ◕❀
I guess as far as favorite characters that I’ve grown up with, just off of nostalgia alone, is definitely Sailor Moon. I find myself having difficulty watching it as an adult, because I’m like, “Damn, girl, like, this life, I don’t know. Crying all the time?” [Both laugh.] I really enjoyed watching Sailor Moon as I grew up, and I got all the gadgets, the small trinkets, the Moon Prism Power; like that’s still my shit to this day. But I’m just like damn, I might have outgrown you as a character. [Both laugh.]
I’m trying to revisit classics, but I’m also trying to see what else is out there. I don’t want to be that old head who’s like, “Oh, y’all watching Naruto? You all didn’t watch Yu Yu Hakusho?” Like, come on. [Both laugh.] We have to admit that in anime years, we’re old; the things that we watched ended five years ago, literally. There’s a new generation—let’s see what’s out there. That’s kind of where my head is now.
I can see a world in which baby Kia grew into adult Kia as this kick-ass anime and manga illustrator and writer. When did you realize that food was a path that you wanted to take? I know you got kickstarted into that super early, and I can imagine that being both its own opportunity, as well as a lot of pressure on somebody pretty young.
Yeah, you’re right, you’re right. I mean, I was always doing my thing food-wise before I moved out to New York City, and that kickstart definitely happened. To me, it felt like it was a chance with the universe.
When I moved to be the sous chef and then became the executive chef, in a very weird series of events, I did get catapulted very quickly into the limelight. Granted, there are people who already knew who I was and supported me before I got in that space, but that really just put me in the slingshot straight into the sun. It burned me a lot. [Kia laughs.]
And it was a lot. There was a lot of pressure, there was a lot of pressure. And even after that time in my life, I don’t think I’ve ever truly come down from it. I feel like I’m desperately trying to come down from it, to find some kind of relief from it all.
But I never expected this to be my life when I was back home and I was like, “I wanna cook, I wanna go to culinary school.” The realities of culinary school are pretty harsh, just because financially it’s not sustainable. It’s school, period. Education costs money, period, in the United States. It’s not sustainable. And that really does blow my mind, in a country where it’s all about going to school, it’s all about education—like, you don’t make it sustainable to do so?
🎧 Listen: A bird appears
I’ve always had this spirit of figuring how to do it my own way, and that probably came from all of those years of watching anime and reading it, being like, “I’m going to do it, no matter what!” [Both laugh.] That’s literally been my thing. But even then I didn’t expect it to be this large.
I knew I didn’t want to live a life that was mediocre. I remember telling my friends that live in Tallahassee: I was like, whatever that means to you, whatever mediocrity means to you, whatever it means to you to be unfulfilled—I don’t want to live a life like that. And I don’t know what it’s going to be, but I just don’t want that.
And now I am where I am, and I’m like, “Whoa, wait a minute, I did not quite expect all of this.” You know?
It just seems—from my perspective as a total stranger—that you’re moving into a phase of your life where you’re reconnecting with some core parts of yourself and using that to fuel a career that is more aligned with who you are as a person. I don’t know. I could be totally projecting, but that’s my read.
No, you are reading it like a book, girl, because that’s exactly how I feel about this chapter, what we would call a story arc, right. [Both laugh.] This is what this story arc is: I am finding myself disenchanted with everything, doing work that pays the bills, of course, that was really fueled by being seen and in the limelight and all that.
I just don’t have the same desire. I don’t think there was really a desire, but I was willing to do it, and now, I don’t feel like I’m in a place where I can continue to do it, because it’s like, who am I doing it for? Before, I was doing it for other companies, for a restaurant. I was doing it for PR, for the benefit of others.
I wanna do things that feel like they truly benefit me, and what’s most beneficial to me is feeding those core feelings and values that stuff that I really care about. That’s what’s most fulfilling to me: being in service to others. So yeah, no, you’re spot on. You’re spot on.
🎧 Listen: The bird returns
I want to do things that feel more aligned with who I am. Things that feel mutually beneficial, you know? I feel good, I feel wholesome, and I know that it’s providing those same feelings for other people. I feel like a lot of work was feeling super one-sided and in the benefit of other people and in the benefit of other people’s businesses and what not, but at my expense, cause I’m the one that’s exhausted.
🎧 Listen: The bird sublimates
I think about now, for me, how vulnerable joy feels. Other emotions, I’m okay with— anger, I can live in; shame, really good at it. But joy? I don’t want to let people see me in my joy, because I just feel so defenseless in it.
Wow. That was so honest and real, and I resonate with that so deeply. Behind closed doors, I’m just trying to find that unbounded joy again, you know. Like, what makes me happy? What makes me just giggle senselessly? What makes me feel truly liberated?
I want to truly feel liberated in every part of my life. Especially after coming off of what had to be the most traumatic year that I’ve ever experienced, and then to experience it so collectively—and then to be like, “Wow, everything that makes me happy, a great future, all of that could be just snatched away at any moment.” I already have so many anxieties due to losing people from death and moving away and all that; that’s a very traumatic place for me, just having been snatched away and completely out of your control. You know? So I’m like, “Fuck.” [Both laugh.]
I really need to find a little bit of joy in my life, because I cannot afford to continue to feel overworked and undervalued. I can’t afford to trade having possible long-term liberation for just short-term spurts of discomfort because I don’t want to advocate for myself. I can’t do that anymore, and I have to figure out what that is, what that looks like, what that feels like.
And it’s a battle. Every day. It’s little choices every day. It’s going to be a lifelong thing. But I’d rather do that. I’d rather go on this lifelong journey of finding liberation in these little moments than just continue to be as exhausted and as bound up as I am right now in my life at this point.
I joke about this, but I mean it 100 percent: I think my cat’s the most self-actualized creature that I’ve ever met. Because she knows what her needs are, and she just radically attends to them. You know?
I’m thinking of the character that you talked about: that fundamental groundedness within yourself that’s also paired with a certain kind of softness. To me, that’s the dream. That would be my bird feeling, being able to say, “I know myself, I am my own keeper, I am my own caregiver,” and to walk from a space of that, where I’m not wrapping my wings ferociously around myself and my heart.
I feel like we could be great friends, because this is the stuff that I discuss with my friends and even with myself all the time. Now I think about my cat, Boomba—wait, did you ask me a question before I started talking about my cat?
No no no, but my last question was actually “Tell me everything about your cat,” so this is the dream. [Both laugh.]
Good, cause Boomba is a bad bitch, I love her. But yeah, now that you say that, yeah: cats radically attend to their needs. Radically. And we’re so used to not doing that, being taught that. You attending to your needs is an inconvenience to others, you know? Especially as women, especially as femmes, we’re taught that you need to constantly be in service to others, and your needs need to be minimized. That is the way you serve others: to minimize yourself.
So then I think about my cat, who, I’ll be doing something, and she’ll be hollering [Sarah laughs], and I’m like, “Damn, what? Get down! What do you want?” And eventually I get up and I look, and I’m like, “Aw, fuck. I forgot to put her lunch in there.” And then I sit there and I do feel like an asshole, and I go find her and I’m like, “Boomba, I’m so sorry.”
My first thought should have been to get up and be like, she’s obviously needing something, she’s obviously telling me something. She is trusting me—all she knows is me—to be the one to give her what she needs. And I should have done that, you know? It sounds dramatic to say out loud or whatever, but I feel like we should think like that for all of us [Kia laughs], because that is what I would want others to think for me and vice versa.
She radically asks for what she needs and attends to those needs in this world, and I’m like, how can I do that too, in a society, in a world, where you’re still not allowed to be all these things? It’s foolish or seems impossible to think of doing the large work that I’m doing while also being selfish and tending to myself. Being soft and needing to go somewhere, but also exploring power dynamics in my life. It’s like whoa, what are you doing? You gotta stick to one, and one thing, and the others are just gonna have to fall second or to be neglected. And I’m like, “Fuck.”
Maybe that’s why I do everything that I do, because I really feel in my mind like, why can’t I have all that I want and be all that I desire to be? I feel like as I’ve grown and experienced life and relationships and work and people, that thought has matured a lot, because before, it was very childish, and then it was very harmful and narrow-minded. That thought and those feelings have really remained consistent in my life.
And now I’m at a place where I’m like, okay, what is it that I want to be? What is it that I want to do? What is actually helpful to me right now, and what is harmful? Where can I give and where can I take? How can I advocate for myself, how can I communicate around that? So that I can truly feel that I’m tending radically to all of my needs and then be able to be the best that I can be, so that I can continue to give to the world in the way that I want to.
And it looks like we could just learn something from our cats. [Both laugh.] Whenever my girlfriend’s over and Boomba’s trying to sleep, and my girlfriend’s like “Boomba, Boomba,” I’m like, “Hush, she’s sleeping.” She has her nap time. You know how she gets: she needs to nap from here to here, otherwise she’s not going to be ready for family time. Like: Stop. [Both laugh.] We can learn from our cats to tend to ourselves, to be radical.
Boomba is my baby. I miss her dearly, even in this moment. She’s my best friend. [Kia laughs.] And I really do see her lounging, stretched out on my bed, and I’m like, you know what? I’ll do that too. And I lie right next to her, and she’ll stretch her little paw on me, and we just sit there. She’ll just purr while we both just take a nap. I love this cat. This cat, I have a lot to learn from her.
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Bios
Sarah Cooke is a freelance writer and reporter based in Washington, D.C. Her reporting, which explores the intersection of food, culture, and power, has appeared in DCist, Eater DC, and Washington City Paper.
Kia Damon is a self-taught chef and proud Floridan woman. While paving her way through kitchens, she launched The Supper Club From Nowhere as a response to the lack of visible Black women in her culinary community. She soon became known as Kia Cooks as she spent her time doing pop up dinners, private cooking and cooking demos. After moving to New York, she took over as an Executive Chef in Manhattan at 24 years old. Soon after, she became Cherry Bombe’s first Culinary Director. Her approach to food is influenced by her personal exploration into her roots and her desire to find the threads that tie cultures together.
She is the founder of the Kia Feeds The People program and co-founder of Auxilio, two nonprofit organizations dedicated to combating food apartheid. She has been named one of 16 Black Chefs Changing Food In America by The New York Times and Forbes 30 Under 30 in Food and Beverage for 2021.
Sign up for Currantly, our monthlyish newsletter delivering original food stories and news analysis, plus fresh curations of recipes and product drops.
