Moyna V. S.
“Also, it’s easy to get carried away with the health food craze, and I’m trying to ‘unpack the fatphobia’ as they say these days. But also for me it’s like, you can’t eat the same way you used to as you get older. As your body matures, you have to mature how you take care of your body so it can take care of you. ”
Writer, Artist, Brilliant
The Quad (from the left): Moyna, Mary, Margo, and Maya (2010)
As with most of my familial relationships, my sister relationships are complex. Of my three sisters, Moyna is easily the one I am the closest to since we were born 22 months apart and for a good portion of our childhood pretended we were twins. But twins we are not.
Moyna’s an Aquarius, and I don’t want to stereotype people of that sign since astrology is pretty subjective, but I think it’s fair to say that they can sometimes be a . . . quirky variety of people. My sister is no different.
Something that was reaffirmed about me and my sister during this interview is how we are total opposites in more ways than we are similar. Yet despite that we share a deep desire to continuously learn about and understand each other regardless. I was also in awe to hear her talk about food in her own words, rather than hold onto the perspectives I’ve formed based on what I’ve observed over the years as her little sister.
In other words, more often than not I don’t agree with her opinions or ways of doing a lot of things, but I love my big sis.
Note: This interview is edited for clarity and brevity, because me and Moyna cannot get through any conversation without going on tangents and having at least one argument. So I’ve spared you of those sidebars.
Princess Moyna in the far left corner, belting it out with our older brother and me and Dad.
How would you describe your relationship to food?
As a kid, my relationship to food was torture. I thought I was chubby and all the people I liked weren’t chubby. You know? Xena [Warrior Princess] wasn’t chubby. At first as a little kid I had a fun time with food, but as I got older that wasn’t enough.
When I went vegetarian [at around 11 years old] that was why, to be skinny, to lose weight. At the same time it allowed me to step away from what everyone else was eating, it made me curious about healthier foods and different food. By not having the choices that everyone was eating at the table, it forced me to get creative. And when I got older [23/24 years old] and was being vegan, and finding what food that I like, it was like “Oh this is a healthy food but it tastes nasty”, and became about figuring out how to make healthier food that I’d actually enjoy eating.
So, it started out as a quest to be skinny, but now it’s more of a life long journey to be eating food that I like. That whole “mind-body connection” people talk about. Maybe being skinny, I felt like that was something I could control, but as I was becoming an adult and could make my own choices and have control over those choices, being skinny wasn’t my goal anymore. So my relationship to food began as being insecure about how I looked and having limited control, and now it’s not so about that.
Also, it’s easy to get carried away with the health food craze, and I’m trying to “unpack the fatphobia” as they say these days. But also for me it’s like, you can’t eat the same way you used to as you get older. As your body matures, you have to mature how you take care of your body so it can take care of you.
Moyna and Mark at some point in the 90s. We were into scrapbooking as kids and at one point we put this sticker on this photo our dad owns because Moyna is not a morning girl.
From Left: Mario, Moyna, Margo, and Maya. Our grandpa apparently had no eyebrows to spare. (1999)
The gang in the Girls’ room’s closet where we kept our porcelain and collectible dolls. (2000s)
How would you describe the type of food you ate growing up? Mom’s cooking, dad’s cooking, us kids’ cooking?
Heavy. Laden. [laughs]
Food Dad likes to eat.
[Insert five minute argument about her not using complete sentences and being a troll]
I’m being serious! We ate food that would carry you over from one meal to the next. Mom was very much a city kid. Crisco in her food. Bacon fat. Lard. We ate food that would hold you over. Mom’s style of cooking was home-cooked, we rarely had freezer dinners. Except when Dad would cook mac & cheese or fried chicken. Stouffers dinners when Mom was about to deliver [a baby].
What are ingredients you think we ate often?
Meat (beef, and chicken, pork - sausage), sugar, seasoning (Old Bay, All Seasoning, etc.).
Do you cook? Do you like cooking?
I don’t like cooking, but I cook because I like food [laughs], and food is expensive. Less expensive if you make it yourself. Cooking is boring, you have to chop stuff, prep, and clean up, and do all this stuff and it’s just a lot of work. All of that just to put something into your mouth, that’s why I like snacks.
Family day at the park. (2013)
Hanging out in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. (2014)
What influences or determines what you cook?
Nowadays it depends, what are the ingredients used in it.
“Do I know how to prepare that particular ingredient?”
“Is this a skill I already know?”
“Are the ingredients in this recipe helpful to me or work well with my body?” “Does it look like it tastes good?”
I cook the same stuff over and over again, but if I’m cooking something new or a new cookbook those are the questions I ask myself.
I look for ingredients that are easy to find and get access to. Not a fancy piece of radicchio. How expensive the ingredients are. Again, does it look like it’s going to taste good? But not if it has a bunch of ingredients that I don’t have on-hand. It has to be healthy, not a ton of sugar or globs of oil. Something I like to cook is chickpea stew, and any roasted vegetable tastes good.
What kind of food do you most enjoy cooking?
Brownies, hot chocolate, cookies, brownies. Did I say brownies? [laughs] Brownies are always good. Cake is a commitment, you have to commit to making cake.
What do you aspire to do as a cook? What is realistic for you when you cook?
I would like to be able to feel comfortable making food for other people. I would like to make really good tacos, they seem really simple and I really want to eat tacos, but they’re hard to make.
I would also like to continue growing my cooking skills. I’m not going to enjoy it, but it’s good to have the skill. It’s not fun to change a baby’s diaper but it’s an important skill. It’s not fun to use the Heimlich maneuver but it’s an important skill.
People think one day everyone is going to find cooking relaxing, but for me it isn’t going to happen, and it doesn’t happen for everyone. For me cooking will always be a necessary skill, and I don’t need to enjoy something for me to know that it’s important.
How would you describe your style of cooking food?
Sloppy, messy, hoping nothing burns. Very discombobulated and disorganized. Sometimes there are preparation bowls, sometimes there are not. Sometimes things are set out, sometimes they aren’t. Sometimes there’s smoke. Sometimes you’ll have to turn on the little fan above. Whatever, gets the meal on the table. [we both laugh]
Did the meal make it to the table? Yes it did.
What are your top 5 foods?
Potatoes, popcorn, oatmeal, bread, salt.
BONUS Question
What did you think about moving to NYC, throughout childhood and once it was about to really happen?
I thought NYC was going to be a dark place with rats everywhere, and it would always be nighttime here. This was based on the polaroids Dad took of Mark in the 90s. As a teenager, I was just looking forward to not living with our grandparents and having money. It also must have been hard for Dad to go back and forth [between Baltimore and New York every weekend], and live between those two worlds.
Testing out those Sunbutter Cookies. (2020)