And if you’re looking to join us, sign up below for Group trips and supper clubs, where we actually go do the thing.

Essays, curated picks, and honest answers from your most opinionated internet friend.

Sent to your inbox Mondays.

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This one is all about Cannes Lions, what it is, the wildest moments… I asked in the chat whether you wanted to hear about it. You said yes. So here’s my take.

Press play above, then read on.

Life is simply a practice of faith.

Entrepreneurship sure as fuck is.

What do I mean by that?

After my dad died, and then after my divorce, at the lowest moments of my life, when I was struggling through therapy and feeling my feelings and trying to find a reason to keep going, all I had was the belief that it would get better.

That was the only thing that got me to do the work. I thought, well, it has to be better than this someday. And it did get better.

Investing in my health is the same. Taking months after re-injuring my knee to rest, then months after that to rebuild strength, starting back at the very beginning with things that used to be easy and were suddenly hard. That was a test of faith.

I had to believe that if I did the work, my mobility would come back, my strength would come back. It was incredibly frustrating. But I believed it, so I kept going.

I went to Oman earlier this year and spent five weeks studying Arabic, exploring, testing vendors. I was betting that refreshing my Arabic would be nourishing for my soul. It is. I was also betting I could use that experience to host a trip there one day.

And not all of our gambles work out. The war with Iran has put much of that investment, in Oman and in markets like Jordan, on hold. Tens of thousands of dollars, and months of work, waiting.

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It was a test of my belief in myself to move back to DC. To come back to the city where I used to be married, where I had a whole different life, and believe I could build something new here that actually felt good. It’s expensive, but I even see moving into my new apartment this way. Choosing, as somebody who’s self-employed, to raise my cost of living for a bigger place, and then spending the time and money to make it mine. Painting, wallpapering, hanging art, buying rugs. I’m betting that more space, and a space built for creating, will make my life better in ways I can’t fully predict.

And yes, I spent $5,000 to go to Cannes Lions on a bet that it might be good for me and my business. In six months, a year, two years. There’s no guarantee and I knew that going in.

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But if there’s one thing I’m certain of, it’s that if I bet on myself, I will figure it the fuck out. Life has a way of messing up your best-laid plans. But when I’m the one in control, I know how far I will go for myself and my dreams.

And maybe that’s really what delusional confidence is, or manifestation is, depending on your worldview and which resonates more with you. A deep-rooted knowing that you will figure it out even though so much of the world around you is out of control.

So I’ll leave you with one question. What’s one bet you can make on yourself today?

Happenings & Housekeeping

• I’m switching email providers soon, so these might start landing from a slightly different address. Nothing else changes, I still send every drop on Monday like always. If one slips into promotions or spam, drag it back so we don’t lose each other. For a few weeks after the switch, I’ll be sure to promote the new drop on Instagram and send one final wrap-up message here from the old email address (just to prompt you so you don’t miss it).

• And registration for August Supper Club will go out next Monday morning. These fill up fast, so be on the lookout when you wake up.

Everyone’s Going Through It

This morning I slept in and woke up tired. So many people in my life are going through it right now. Not just family. Friends, loved ones, my whole circle. The last month has been a season of loss: mothers, aunts, uncles, relationships, a sense of stability and security.

So I did what I do on Mondays. I checked in with myself, and I checked in with my team.

I open our group chat and see “I’m burnt out” from Cate, my editor. She’s one of the people who kept me going after my divorce, when I was really depressed. She showed up with a plan. She literally wrote me shot lists so I could film what I needed to when I wasn’t really functioning. She’s part of the reason I still had work to come back to.

Then I checked on my assistant, who, like me and like Cate, is juggling more than one job. Newsletter, trips, crowdfunding, speaking, brand partnerships…

I can’t bring her on full-time, yet, so she’s got another job too. This morning she answered “I’m dead” when I asked how she was doing. Exhausted. Overworked. That’s when I knew this week was not going to be the week I planned. That it shouldn’t be.

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What Do We Do When It’s All Too Much?

I take pride in paying people well, and I want to be the kind of boss I always wished I had. The one who says, we’re not saving lives here. We can care about the work we do and still move with intention.

So Unfiltered & Fed is taking a two-week pause, at least in your inbox. We’re using it to rest, and to build out a few things I’m genuinely excited to bring to you.

Four years ago an email like this would’ve frustrated me. People constantly told me to take more breaks, and I didn’t have the space to. Being able to say “let’s go slower for two weeks” is a privilege, and I know that well.

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So I get it. But if life has been whooping your ass too, I hope you take a few moments for yourself. Take your call on a walk and feel the sun on your face. Call your best friend and crash out while they listen. Holding all that stress inside is doing you harm. Use a sick day if you can.

What’s one selfish decision you could make for yourself this week? I urge you to make it.

Coming Soon

For three years I was consumed with my divorce and starting over, launching American Soul, getting Our Block funded and filmed. This is the first time I’ve had space to rest, strategize, and figure out how I actually want to show up for you.

And it’s you who let me do this as a job in the first place. You’re the reason I can say no to brands who want my storytelling but don’t want me in all my fullness, my Blackness, my political-ness.

So even though I’m impatient af and want to launch it all today, we’re taking the pause. But when we come back:

• Anela Unfiltered is back. The podcast was one of my most popular formats before life got in the way. It’s returning, and it’s better than ever.

• Supper club is here to stay. We’re tweaking it so it’s actually sustainable, and so I can take it beyond the DMV (occasionally, not too much bc I can only be in one place at a time).

• Virtual experiences are coming back. Cocktail and cooking sessions, live chats, the works. Wherever you are, I want you to be able to pull up and be fed.

One more thing before I go. We just updated my map of all my recommendations around the world, including more spots from Peru. So it’s the fullest it’s ever been. Save it, and go somewhere worth the memories.

Get the map

I’ll be back in your inbox July 27th. Until then, take care of yourselves.

And you know I hate sending two emails in a week because I personally hate when people email me too much, but forgive me, because this one’s a fun one.

So pull up a chair and join us at (h)ours at Manifest to celebrate Black DC food folks who deserve their flowers now.

• Chef Rock Harper, the first Black man to win Hell’s Kitchen and a 2023 James Beard semifinalist, hosts on his home turf.

• Chef Tobias Dorzon traded the NFL backfield for the pass and walked away Maryland’s Chef of the Year, bringing the bold West African and Caribbean flavors that define The Huncho Experience.

• Closing the night is Chef Kareem “Mr. Bake” Queeman, the record-making, James Beard-recognized pastry talent behind Mr. Bake Sweets.

Join us next Thursday, July 9th, at 7 p.m. for a very special five-course menu. We’ll be seated together in a small group (only 8 of us, there will be music, and it’s a fun, lively space.

It’s exactly what my soul needs right now, so I hope to see you there.

Join us for Supper Club!

So, I will be back next week with more. I’m working on a revival of the Anela Unfiltered video series that has been on hiatus. For now, I’m dropping in with three quick things.

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1. Creators For Democracy This Week In DC

You will not catch me on the National Mall this week for whatever they’re calling the sad excuse of a festival down there. However I do think it’s important to commemorate America’s birthday and history. I’m choosing to do that by participating in Creators for Democracy, a civic festival that spotlights DC-based creators across the spectrum, held at one of my favorite places, MLK Library.

So join us this Wednesday and Thursday (it’s free!), and events start at 5 p.m., so you can come after work. An incredible array of DC talent will be hosting workshops, including:

• Movement activities with Chocolate City Relay and District Running Collective

• A workshop on storytelling as care and cultural preservation

• Activations on graphic novels and building your own creative projects

• Plus, a marketplace featuring local vendors

Sign up for one day or both!

My workshop is on day two, and I will also be hosting a book signing. I’ll have some copies of American Soul: The Black History of Food in the United States available for sale. You could also bring copies that you already own, and I will happily sign them there. The signing will be at 7 p.m. as part of the marketplace on day two.

Join Us At Creators For Democracy

2. One Spot Open For Morocco South In September

We had a last-minute cancellation on our Morocco South trip this September, so there is one single room left. It’s up for grabs on a first-come, first-served basis.

All I can really say about Morocco South is that it’s the least flashy of our Morocco offerings, but it’s also the trip that’s so beautiful and culturally rich that people will sign up for it twice. People who come to Morocco with us before will sign up for this Morocco offering because they want to do it again.

Snag Your Spot In Morocco

3. There is still space to come with us on our Peru trip in April

If you’ve seen any of my recent Peru content, you know how fabulous this is. This is truly the best experience that I could devise, with everything from:

• Incredible hotels

• A full day focused on Afro-Peruvian history and food (most tour companies don’t give you that at all)

• Stops in small towns and villages where you may be the only tourist

• A morning yoga session inside an ancient temple

• Meals you’ll never forget.

Peru has a piece of my heart, and this trip is designed to show you why.

Join Us In Peru

If you didn’t know: museums in DC throw some great parties. NMAAHC does Juneteenth. The Smithsonian has a whole solstice slate of events. There are fabulous parties at some of the art museums too. If you love a museum, get on their email list - they’re probably doing more than you think.

That night I was at the Blacksonian to party. But I wandered into the gift shop to see if they carried my book. And there it was on the shelf. A staff member appeared with a Sharpie, and I started signing - in the same building where years before I had stood for hours on opening night, watching families and elders weep as they finally got to see our monument on the Mall, open for all of us.

That was my “I am my ancestors’ wildest dream” moment.

And that doesn’t happen often. I’m proud of my work and I have an incredible community, but this one was different. This is exactly what my dad would have been proud of. What my Granny would be bragging to her friends about.

And it struck me just how lucky I am to have a moment like that, one I never could have predicted. Not when I was starting over. Not when I was getting divorced. Not when I was crying on the internet. Not when I was deeply depressed. Not when I was a broke student who had no idea what she wanted to do with her life.

I never would have thought that making my way back to DC would lead to this - the community, twerking in the African American History Museum, dancing and signing my book at the Smithsonian.

But that’s really how you’re supposed to do Juneteenth, in my opinion. Full of Black joy as vital resistance. And we did it right this weekend.

If you haven’t bought American Soul yet - it’s in school curriculums, it’s at Obama’s Presidential Center, it’s at the Smithsonian. It should be at your house too.

Buy your copy

My first big trip after the pandemic was to Peru. Stepping out into the world after lockdown, after vaccinations, after quitting my old job and starting a new career as a creator and not really knowing what the fuck I was doing, Peru was my entree into trying to make travel content.

I went for a gig, trekked the Inca Trail as part of a project, and got to see Machu Picchu. I left wanting more and I’ve been back every year since.

There’s no way I can put everything you should know about Peru into one guide and I’m just a visitor so I truly know very little… But I’m going to give you the goods the best way I can. Enough to start building your own trip, or at least keep it in your back pocket.

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Let’s start with Lima.

Lima is the capital, nestled right along the coast of the Pacific Ocean, so you get these dramatic cliffside views of the water from the city above. A lot of people fly into Lima and barely stop. Maybe a day or two, then straight onward, because they’re going for the Inca Trail, for the picture they saw on a postcard. But skipping Lima, or shortening your time here, is a mistake.

This is a city with serious food and coffee culture. I don’t even drink coffee regularly, and I’m more particular about coffee than I am about most food, and there are coffee shops in Lima I went back to multiple days in a row because they were that good. Lima has also been home to the top restaurant in the world for two of the last three years, and it’s a place where a lot of innovation and culinary mixing has happened and keeps happening. You can have a $1,000 dinner and then walk down the street for anticuchos, an iconic street food that’s now served in sit-down restaurants too. It’s one of the most recognized Creole dishes, a culinary tradition that “flourished in the creative hands of Afro-descendant women.”

Lima also has the biggest airport, so if you’re flying in and out of Peru you’ll probably have a layover here anyway. Leave the airport. Explore.

My Lima recommendations:

• Mayta. My top for a fancy meal. It’s not in the top 10, but it’s as creative as some of the top five restaurants in the world. I went to Central a couple years back, which was the best restaurant in the world at one point, and it was wonderful, but it felt like every course was just foam. At Mayta you get more than foam. You get storytelling, and you learn about local ingredients and tradition as you eat. Reserve in advance. They’ll ask for a credit card to hold the reservation.

• Alegría Picantería Piurana. A casual Peruvian spot serving regional dishes from the North of Peru. It’s right across the street from a really popular place that usually has a line. We popped in because there was no line and ended up having one of our favorite meals of the trip. Portions in Peru are massive in general, and they’re very large here. Be prepared.

• Humano. A new Marriott Bonvoy property. Bright and cute, bold colors, nice design, comfy beds. It’s boutique but walkable to a lot, with a great location. The service was phenomenal for the price point.

• Ciclos Café. Where I went back multiple times, and I don’t even drink coffee like that. The menu is genuinely interesting, all sorts of extraction methods and a full nitro coffee bar. Get the Botanizado: a cold drip with chamomile, Andean mint, coffee husk, pineapple, ginger, and tonic water. Herbal, floral, ice-cold perfection.

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Now for Arequipa.

Arequipa is known as the White City, with buildings made from white volcanic stone. You can walk the central square and watch the sunset from a rooftop bar. You can visit the Monasterio de Santa Catalina, a colorful city within a city and take a tour to learn its history.

It’s also a hub for adventure tourism. The city is framed by three major volcanoes, so you’ve got this dramatic scenery in every direction. Mountain biking, hiking, rafting.

A lot of people use Arequipa as the jumping-off point for Colca Canyon, where you can trek and see giant Andean condors from the overlooks. Agricultural terraces are carved into sides of the canyon, which is twice as deep as the Grand Canyon. Just know visiting Colca Canyon can be physically demanding and the rim sits at 16,000 feet in some places. I’ve done it and I think it’s worth it if you’re really into the outdoors. If you’re not much of a nature person, or you’re worried about altitude, I’d skip it.

Arequipa is more than an entry point to Colca Canyon though. It's truly a food city. It’s famous for its picanterias, traditional home-style taverns, and there are a lot of unique local dishes to try.

It’s also a smart intermediate stop. If you start in Lima and you’re working your way up to Cusco, Arequipa sits at a middle elevation, so you’ll get a little out of breath and start to acclimatize before you go higher.

My Arequipa recommendations:

• Monasterio de Santa Catalina. Take a tour here if you can, because the history of the site itself is fascinating. You can book a guided tour on the website, or you can hire a guide there.

• Masamama. A bakery with the best almond croissant of my life. Shockingly good filling and topping, and the texture on the croissant is perfect.

• Roqoto Restaurante. Go for dinner. The chef-owner is really passionate about local cuisine, so you’ll get to try regional dishes like their rocoto relleno, a stuffed pepper.

• La Nueva Palomino. This picanteria gets crowded, so go early. This is a midday lunch spot and the portions are huge so you may end up napping afterward.

• Rio Chili Rafting. They’ll pick you up right from your hotel, give you all of your gear, and it’s a gorgeous, exhilarating few hours. You’ll be on the river with a guide, and yes, you will get wet, but it’s worth it.

Now let’s talk about Cusco.

Cusco is the historic capital of the Inca Empire and if you’re going to Machu Picchu, you’re flying into Cusco and passing through it.

Like Lima and Arequipa, Cusco sometimes gets treated as a stopover, not a destination. That’s a mistake. It’s a gorgeous city, full of colonial architecture built right on top of Incan temples and structures, with historical sites like the Sun Temple and Sacsayhuaman easily accessible from the city center. I’ve had some incredible meals here too, even though Cusco doesn’t get the same culinary attention as other cities. You can do everything from a chocolate-making class to sip expertly prepared single-origin Peruvian coffees.

It sits at 11,200 feet, so my recommendation is to plan for extra days there. Use them to wander and acclimatize. Plan one activity a day and give your body time to rest. That’s how you keep altitude sickness from wrecking your trip.

My Cusco recommendations:

• ChocoMuseo. They run a bar-to-bean workshop plus a few other chocolate workshops. They’re fun, and you learn a lot.

  • A note on Peruvian Chocolate: When most of us think chocolate, we think Europe. But the Amazon basin is where cacao is believed to have originated, and that extends into parts of Peru. Indigenous communities have been cultivating cacao here for thousands of years. The country has incredibly diverse native cacao varieties, and the flavors are rich and complex, almost like wine. Peru is widely recognized as having some of the best chocolate in the world.

• Three Monkeys Coffee. Single-origin Peruvian coffee, all phenomenally prepared. You walk in and it has that hypermodern design aesthetic (that I love/hate tbh), plus an interesting nitro menu, similar to Ciclos in Lima.

• Cercanía Pan y Café. I stop in here for incredible breads and pastries.

• Morena Peruvian Kitchen. Most of the restaurants around the central squares are overhyped and you’re paying for the view. This one I actually love. Excellent bar, great food, and a fried rice with cuy (guinea pig) that was phenomenal.

• Efimero. Hands down, one of my favorite meals in Peru on all my trips. Really young team serving up creative food that will have you trying to lick the bowl clean. To me, it’s as competitive as some of the places in Lima, but you won’t have to fight as hard for a reservation.

• Art Urpi Joyeria. Cusco is also home to my favorite jeweler in Peru, a spot I always take my group when I’m hosting trips in Peru.

Now for the Sacred Valley.

If you’re worried about altitude and you don’t have time for Arequipa, another option is to fly straight into Cusco and go directly to the Sacred Valley.

The Sacred Valley of the Incas is full of pre-Hispanic sites and rich culture, from Maras, where you can see the Incan salt mines, to the ruins at Ollantaytambo. It’s strikingly beautiful, and much of it sits lower than Cusco. Ollantaytambo is around 9,100 feet.

If you’re doing it on your own, you’ll need to rent a car or hire local taxi drivers to move from town to town. That’s exactly why my recommendation here is to take a tour. Pick a hotel and let them set you up on structured tours. From the Sacred Valley, it’s also convenient to get to Machu Picchu as you’d have to take the train from there anyway.

Then after spending time in the Sacred Valley and exploring Machu Picchu you could end your trip back in Cusco. That way you finish at the highest elevation after you’ve already had some time to partially acclimatize.

My Sacred Valley recommendation:

• Tambo del Inka. This is my favorite place to stay in the Sacred Valley. It’s expensive, but it’s one of those places where you feel like you’re getting what you pay for. Lush grounds, an excellent spa, nestled along the riverside. And like a lot of Sacred Valley hotels, they can organize your tours, which is honestly the easiest way to do it (at least for me because I don’t even like driving at home, let alone driving in a foreign country if I don’t have to)

And of course, Machu Picchu.

in my humble opinion, of all the New World wonders, Machu Picchu is the most majestic. There’s something about it sitting nestled in the clouds that really truly is wondrous. And visiting Machu Picchu is highly regulated, as it should be to protect the site. There are daily capacity caps and they’re strictly enforced. Honestly, the easiest option is to take a Machu Picchu tour with a tour company. They handle booking the ticket, getting you to the site, all of it. BOOK FAR IN ADVANCE and definitely do your research for more Machu Picchu planning tips.

Logistically visiting the sites is a multi-step day that typically involves a train and a bus.

If you’re a hiker and you want to do the Inca Trail, The classic four-day trek is tough, but I’m in middling shape and I completed it without injury. The high-altitude parts and the steeper sections are more about mental fortitude than physical strength IMO. But yes, it will HURT.

My Machu Picchu recommendations:

• Intrepid Travel or Alpaca Expeditions. I’ve worked with Intrepid and I like their ethos. For a big travel company, they try to get it right, and that matters. Alpaca Expeditions is indigenous-owned, founded by a former porter from the community, and they run everything from full-day experiences to Inca Trail treks.

• Inkaterra Machu Picchu Pueblo. If you do decide you want to visit Machu Picchu more than once, the easiest thing to do is to stay a night in Aguas Calientes, the town at the base of Machu Picchu.

Heads up: If you’re leaving Cusco for Machu Picchu, it’s a long day and an early start. That’s just how it goes.

You can plan all this yourself or…

…you can come with us and have it all planned out for you.

I’ve barely scratched the surface above with my Peru recommendations. This is a place with so much to explore, where you’ll want to fly from city to city and take as many days as you can get.

With Unfiltered & Fed Experiences, all you have to do is show up. We pick you up from the airport, an expert local guide is with us 24/7, and we’ve taken the time and built the relationships so that you can truly have a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Join us in Peru

“This is my fourth trip with Anela which speaks for itself.” - from an OG U&F traveler

My map:

I save my favorite stops around the world to one big Google Map and I’ve updated it with all my recent Peru explorations and my favorite hotels.

My team and I update it every month, so once you save it, you’ll have it as it grows.

Get the map

How I’d route your trip:

Peru is a big country, and I’ve only covered a slice of it here. I’ve got a whole list of places I haven’t been yet, and adventures I didn’t have room to talk about, like the Peruvian Amazon. So instead of trying to cover everything, here’s how I’d route myself depending on how much time I have and what I’m into.

Keep in mind, I hate being rushed, so I prefer to take more time in each place, and that pace is reflected in my recommendations.

One week, food lovers

Lima, then Arequipa. Lima for the world-class dining and coffee, Arequipa for the picanterias and maybe a day rafting. In my opinion, you’re going to want at least a few days in Lima and a few days in Arequipa. It would be really hard to do three cities in one week without rushing.

One week, culture focused

I plan to spend the whole week in Cusco, knowing that the first two to three days I’d have to take it really easy to acclimatize to the altitude. While there, I could either book day trips to the Sacred Valley or take a few nights in the Sacred Valley and definitely book a Machu Picchu tour.

Two weeks, food & culture focused

Lima, Cusco, and the Sacred Valley, with enough room to eat slowly and not rush, plus, stop at ancient sites and take your time to explore local traditions.

Two weeks, nature & culture focused

Arequipa, Cusco, then the full four-day Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. With this routing, your days in Cusco do dual duty as acclimatization days before you do the Inca Trail.

Three weeks, balanced mix

Lima, Arequipa, the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu, then Cusco. With this routing, your time in Arequipa, the Sacred Valley and at Machu Picchu has been your time to slowly acclimatize. You should be able to spend two and a half weeks on that circuit and then may still have time left over to go to the Amazon.

One more thing…

This year, I took somebody’s son with me because I wanted to show him this place I’ve come to love so much. There’s always a little nervousness when you’re the one building the itinerary and showing someone around. At the end of the trip I asked him what he thought and he said:

Honestly, I don’t know why people don’t talk about Peru the way they talk about Japan.

And he’s right. For a lot of American travelers, Japan has a certain cachet. A certain reverence. And when we pour all of that attention into the destinations that are trending, we tend to ignore other gems, like Peru.

I’m 35 and I’ve just recently rediscovered my love of a good dance party. In my early 20s you would catch me at the club every weekend. Then club culture got weird. It went from “girls don’t pay cover” and a packed dance floor to 25 dudes standing behind the DJ not even dancing, just trying to flex for the male gaze while simultaneously being incredibly homophobic.

That was the last the club saw of me for a long while.

But over the past year back in DC I’ve remembered why I loved it. If you know where to look, there are spaces where people come to be social, to dance, to talk to each other, to cut up and be silly rather than to flex and be on their phones.

That’s how I ended up in the basement of Sost on Saturday night.

I have a love-hate relationship with Sost. I don’t love a club/restaurant where someone’s trying to dance right where I’m eating dinner and it’s too loud to talk. Sost can be that.

But it has three floors, each with its own vibe. And the basement is where I usually end up, where the music is bumping and hip hop, R&B, dancehall, and Afrobeats all mix together. To me it's a haven of Black joy in this city.

And that's how I ended up down there on a Saturday night, in my Birkenstocks because I definitely did not plan to be outside like that, bent over throwing ass at my man.

We left sweaty and hungry as shit. The plan was to hit Chicken & Whiskey for late night food, and then go directly to sleep.

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But the city had other plans.

As we crossed the street we saw a girl face down in the grass in front of a row house. Not moving. Next to her sat a young man

My friend Imani and I didn’t have it in us to walk by.

Next thing you know Imani is crouched down next to her, using that soothing voice that I associate with safety. Before anything else, she asked her: do you know him? Is he safe?

She told us: that’s my best friend.

The young man with her was probably 18 or 19. He didn’t know what to do but he was already doing the right thing, he had stayed with her. He told us she was too drunk to walk and he seemed overwhelmed, in that “I’ve never seen shit like this before” kind of way.

So we got to work.

Imani rolled her onto her side immediately - if you ever find someone that drunk roll them on their side, so they don’t choke if they get sick.

Spoiler: she got sick repeatedly over the next two hours.

And we made a plan together: he’d call his parents, they’d come get both of them, he’d move her car so his family could pick up her car too. And while he ran to get that done, we stood vigil. Sweaty, tired, sore, and hungry, in the wee hours of the morning, until his people arrived.

The National Guard walked by and checked on her. Then the police came - asked how old she was, if we knew her... EMS arrived, checked her, confirmed she was responsive. You may not agree with what we did next, but we closed ranks around her. We looked the cops in the eye and said: someone is on the way, she’s okay. When they tried to question her best friend, that young man said exactly what I think he should have said: I don’t know how old she is. I’m just helping her out.

What she needed in that moment was care, not a citation for minor consumption.

In the wee hours, his parents arrived. His mom rolled up cheerful, not frustrated, not dramatic, just with this attitude of “let’s get this girl home.” We strong-armed her into the car, wiped her mouth one more time, and off they went.

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The night restored my faith in humanity.

So many people stopped. Not just us. Young Black men repeatedly checking that she was good, in a city where it’s completely normal to put your head down and keep moving - where I have personally watched people pull down their pants and pee in the park and do drugs and deal drugs - stopped for this Black girl lying in the grass.

We’ve all been too fucked up. We’ve all made stupid choices. We still deserve to make it home safely.

That’s community. That’s DC. It has its problems. But that basement at Sost and that sidewalk at 2 am are both the city I love, full of Black joy and Black people looking out for each other.

Since we’re talking about DC:

Here’s what I’ve been loving lately that I haven’t had time to make videos about, because I cannot film everything and also sometimes I’m too outside to be filming…

Sost - if you want a night of dancing with your people, this is your spot. Go to the basement on a Friday or Saturday, and it’s going to be packed, but there’s usually empty space near the back by the bar. Somehow people don’t make it into the room that far. And that area is also directly in front of a very strong ceiling fan to cool you off when you’re throwing ass.

@Moya_AfroHouse - if Afro House is your thing, follow them on Instagram to see when and where they’re curating. The DJ is the destination, not the venue.

St. James just launched a lunch menu - Wednesday through Friday, noon to 4pm. There is a $20 oxtail bowl that I will be eating multiple times a month.

Qui Qui on Georgia Avenue in Parkview is the Puerto Rican spot that has gotten all the buzz for good reason. Reservations are hard to get. The big bar is walk-in only and it is fully worth it - the cocktails alone justify the trip. They also have brunch on the weekends.

La Shukran at Union Market is where you go when you want to feel genuinely sexy and eat some bomb ass food while your man rubs on your leg. Think fabulous cocktails and small plates from one of the best chefs in the country. Reservations are hard but use the Notify feature!

Anyway.

After hours on the sidewalk with those kids, everything was closed and I still had to get home. And since this city no longer has public bathrooms, I crouched between two cars and peed right there in the street on a dark block.

Sometimes you do what you have to do.

Each month, I’ll be sharing a hot take that’s just Between Us, something in the zeitgeist that I want to go deeper on without having fifty eleven people chime in the way they would on social media.

I’ll also be making sure you’re Plugged In, with five things that I’d send you if you were in my bff’s group chat. This isn’t an affiliate link drop, it’s real shit that I think makes my life better every day and often costs nothing.

Welcome to The Inner Circle.

Between Us:

This month I’m tackling a topic I see on Threads all the time… how it’s hard to make friends as an adult, especially in DC.

Read more

Maybe it’s something about coming back from vacation, stepping back into a faster lifestyle in general after two weeks in Peru. This morning I took an hour-and-a-half stress walk in 88% humidity while on work calls. It’s a Tuesday. Right now this mountain feels impossible to climb, but I’m going to do my best, so expect this one to be quick and accept any typos with grace.

So here are three things I’m working on now that I’m back:

1. It’s time to vote.

I’m disillusioned, not disengaged. I feel like the American political system no longer works for us, but if voting wasn’t important, they would not be trying to steal the right to vote from us. Yes, DC is not a state, so we are at a disadvantage, but local elections have a huge impact on our day-to-day lives in ways we actually feel.

Part of the reason I’m logging off early tonight is to fill out the ballot that came in the mail.

Just fucking vote.

For my ward, I’m voting Aparna Raj for DC Council. For mayor, Janeese George. The rest of my ballot, frankly, I’ll be googling my way through, and there’s no shame in that.

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2. Supper club as a practice.

I’m really excited for our Supper Club tomorrow. I’m holding onto it as a bright spot and for everyone who comes, I have goodies I brought back from Peru 👀

Supper club has been a practice for me. Showing up no matter how busy I am. Showing up even though I’m tired. Showing up with intention, with the energy to connect and be open. It’s a practice I value.

May is full, but we just opened June’s seats at a local Black woman-owned Caribbean restaurant I’ve loved for years. Join us.

Join June's Supper Club

3. Being kinder.

Coming back to the US and watching people in the airport, I noticed how stretched everyone feels right now. In any way you can show up for yourself, do so. If you can show up for your community, do so.

One way I’m doing that: I finally paid off the little bit of divorce debt I had from taking time off after I divorced, so I’m increasing my mutual aid contribution.

I travel a lot, which means I’m sometimes not the most reliable person to knock on doors or phone bank. I try to show up when I can. As an entrepreneur and a business owner, fundamentally someone who has to be a capitalist inside this system, another way I show up is financially.

I’m a member of the Community Money Moving Project (CMMP). Their spring cycle just closed, but you can fill out the form anyway and get on the list for the next one.

Sing up for CMMP

Okay, three minutes over after spellcheck and some cleanup, but we made it. I am moving this week into a new apartment in DC, so bear with me if I'm not as responsive. Send me good moving vibes, because there's nothing as dysregulating and frustrating as a move.

And every time y’all show up and tell me to shut up. Politely lol.

That’s what you did for our Peru trip next spring.

And I get it. I’m sending this from our hotel in Cusco, joyfully out of breath in the midst of showing somebody’s son exactly why this place is so special. We’ve had over a week of incredible food, joking in terrible Spanish with the people we meet, marveling at ancient architecture, and soaking in some downtime in hotels that make your shoulders drop… The same hotels we stay in on our Peru group trips. After all of that, he finally understands why I come back every year.

And since our first Peru departure sold out so fast, we’re opening a second trip!

If you’ve been eyeing Peru, this is your chance. It’s the same exact itinerary and pricing, with just one night in a different hotel (though it’s just as nice I promise).

Register here

We’ll dine next to ancient ruins and explore Afro-Peruvian history and rhythm in Lima. Lima is one of the world’s great food cities and we take time to dig into that.

We’ll dive into the Sacred Valley, taking our time to try our hand at pottery, visit a traditional chichería to learn about the ancestral fermented corn drink at the heart of Andean culture, and dive into local food and weaving traditions.

Though Machu Picchu is the draw for many, the Sacred Valley always ends up being the experience you’ll remember forever. Here’s what one of the travelers on our last trip to Peru said about it.

Her words, my voice in the video above.

But yes, we will visit Machu Picchu, with time afterwards to soak in the experience.

Finally, we’ll end in Cusco, one of my favorite cities. We’ll do morning yoga in an ancient temple, have the time to grab truly local souvenirs (like alpaca scarves and other textiles, or handmade jewelry from my fave maker) and end with a cooking class.

Join us in April

Trip FAQs

Dates

April 16 to 26, 2027. Trip starts in Lima and ends in Cusco so you can explore more on either end if you want to.

Group size

14 travelers, plus me and our local guide.

Hosting

I’ll be on this departure personally.

Solo travelers

Around 70% of our travelers come solo and room with someone they meet on the trip. We do roommate matching ahead of time around things like temperature preferences and noise sensitivity, so you’re not walking in blind. Solo is the move and these trips make sure your plans don’t get stuck in the group chat.

Physical requirements

This trip moves at a thoughtful pace with time to rest, but we’ll spend some time at higher altitudes. Cusco sits at 11,150 feet. Most days involve walking on cobblestones, uneven stairs, or moderate hiking. You should be comfortable on your feet for several hours. Machu Picchu involves steep stone steps with no railings in places. If you have specific concerns, email me before booking and we’ll talk.

Cancellation policy

• 75+ days before departure: full refund minus the $1,650 non-refundable deposit

• 75 to 50 days before departure: 50% of total trip cost is non-refundable

• 50 days or less before departure: all costs are non-refundable

What’s not included

Arrival/departure flights to and from Peru. Meals not listed in the itinerary. Tips for your primary guide. Anything personal (drinks at dinner, optional add-ons, that kind of thing). Travel insurance (required).

Just 2 Spots Left For May’s Supper Club

For May’s Unfiltered & Fed Supper Club, we’re doing it a little differently. I love building things from scratch, but I also want to make sure we’re plugging in and connecting with people who are already doing dope shit.

So we’re hopping into a series that some brilliant DC folks have put together.

On Wednesday May 27, we’re joining a seating with chef Erik Bruner-Yang (Maketto, Bar Providencia) and chef Yuan Tang (Rooster & Owl) for a five-course tasting menu that will only exist for one night. I’ve got a block of seats reserved. We’ll be seated together so we can vibe and yap.

Grab your seat here!

A note on dietary restrictions: this is a fixed tasting menu, and the chefs can’t accommodate allium allergies or fully vegan diets. Other restrictions may be possible to work around. If you have allergies or restrictions, add them when you register and we’ll make sure the restaurant has that info in advance.

Bye for now, I’m off to eat until I’m stuffed, have some of the best coffee in the world, and go on an epic hike or two <3

This is our first time to really unplug this year. And his first time to Peru, a place I come back to again and again.

I’m going to keep this one light because I’m trying to be offline, baby. But before I go, a few things:

1. Tap in with a member of the community below who needs our support.

2. Join us for May’s Supper Club

3. There are just a few spots left for Spring 2027 trips.

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All We Got Is Us

Hundreds of thousands of Black women have been pushed out of the workforce during the Trump administration, and I refuse to characterize it as an accident or the result of circumstances outside of our control. We know that Black women show up. They show up for their communities, for progressive causes, in the voting booth, and that’s exactly why there’s such a push right now to disenfranchise them.

Today, I want to show up for a Black woman in our community. Cherra works in public health and is looking for a new gig. Her bio is below. If you know of a lead or have an opening, email her directly. All we got is us.

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Meet Cherra Hampton-Mitchell

I’m an epidemiologist with 5+ years of experience working in public health with a focus on infectious diseases. I’ve spent most of my time focused on disease surveillance, outbreak investigations, and data-driven public health decision-making. I enjoy work that blends data analysis with impact — responding to outbreaks, improving how health data is collected and used, and translating information into clear guidance for the communities we serve. I’m looking for my next role in public health. Having recently completed my doctorate in Healthcare Administration, I’m also open to transitioning to an administrative role. I’m especially interested in positions focused on infectious disease, surveillance, healthcare settings, administration, or program-based work. I’m open to local, state, federal, or private opportunities in the DMV area.

Email: cherra.mitchell@gmail.com

Join Us For May’s Supper Club

I’m really excited for this one because I believe in ownership, I want to build things I can control, and I’ve built this space for those reasons. I also want to make sure I’m showing up for other people in food and beverage and beyond who are doing dope shit, and that’s what we’re doing with this month’s Supper Club.

For May’s Unfiltered & Fed Supper Club, we’re hopping into a series that some brilliant DC folks have put together.

On Wednesday May 27, we’re joining a seating with chef Erik Bruner-Yang (Maketto, Bar Providencia) and chef Yuan Tang (Rooster & Owl) for a five-course tasting menu that will only exist for one night. I’ve got a block of seats reserved. We’ll be seated together so we can vibe and yap.

Grab your seat here!

A note on dietary restrictions: this is a fixed tasting menu, and the chefs can’t accommodate allium allergies or fully vegan diets. Other restrictions may be possible to work around. If you have allergies or restrictions, add them at checkout and we’ll communicate with the restaurant on your behalf.

Let’s Plan For Joy Together

You don’t have to wait for friends or for your plans to make it out of the group chat. Instead, come travel with us. Unfiltered & Fed trips are a chance to go deeper, eat well, and have the kinds of experiences you’ll talk about forever.

All single rooms for our Spring 2027 departures are sold out, but a few spots are left for Patagonia and Peru!

Join us in Peru: Eat your way through Afro-Peruvian Lima, learn from indigenous communities in the Sacred Valley, and stand at Machu Picchu with time to actually take it in.

Join us in Patagonia: Tango through Buenos Aires, sip award-winning wines in the Uco Valley, and glamp at the foot of Mt. Fitz Roy.

These two trips are the answer. I’m proud of every detail, and I’m grateful you’re still here for it.

Our 2027 spring trips are live. Both are trips of a lifetime, and I'm not exaggerating.

Peru

In Peru, we’re going far beyond Machu Picchu and into the kind of experiences that are hard to put together on your own. Hands-on pottery. A remote indigenous community where we’ll learn about their weaving traditions and share a meal cooked underground with hot stones. Yoga inside an ancient temple. The kind of trip that goes beyond look-and-see.

11 days through Lima, the Sacred Valley, Machu Picchu, and Cusco. Plus, an optional extension in the Amazon.

Register for Peru

Patagonia

Patagonia is a bucket list destination. It’s a trip people usually save for retirement.

But we could all die tomorrow. And by the time we retire, our knees may not tolerate the Patagonia adventure we always dreamed of.

This one takes us to some of the most beautiful places on earth, into a glamping setup you’ll be talking about for years, and through Mendoza wine country to try some of the most renowned wines. It’s the Patagonia trip I wish existed when I went. So I created it.

11 days from Buenos Aires through Mendoza wine country, El Chaltén, and ending in Ushuaia at the bottom of the world.

Register for Patagonia

If they fill

These will fill quickly. If you miss out, get on the waitlist. I can’t promise a second departure, but if we open one, the waitlist goes first.

FAQs

Solo travelers About 70% of our travelers come solo and room with someone they meet on the trip. We do roommate matching ahead of time around things like temperature preferences and noise sensitivity, so you’re not walking in blind. Solo is the move and these trips make sure your plans don’t get stuck in the group chat.

Rooming policy Our travelers are overwhelmingly women, and U&F trips are woman-centered by design. Travelers of all genders are welcome to register. However, we don’t pair strangers across genders. Couples, friends, or family booking together can share regardless of gender. If you’re solo and we can’t pair you with a same-gender roommate, single occupancy applies. At registration we’ll ask your gender (per your passport) for rooming purposes. If you’re non-binary, please email contact@feedthemalik.com before registering.

What if it sells out? Get on the waitlist. If we open a second departure, the waitlist goes first.

Physical requirements, dietary restrictions, deposits, and cancellation Each trip has its own specifics, though all deposits are nonrefundable. Click through to the trip pages for the full breakdown on each.

What’s not included Arrival and departure flights to and from each country. Travel insurance (required). Meals not listed in the itinerary. Tips for your primary guide. Anything personal.

These two trips are the answer. I’m proud of every detail, and I’m grateful you’re still here for it.

Our 2027 spring trips are live. Both are trips of a lifetime, and I'm not exaggerating.

Peru

In Peru, we’re going far beyond Machu Picchu and into the kind of experiences that are hard to put together on your own. Hands-on pottery. A remote indigenous community where we’ll learn about their weaving traditions and share a meal cooked underground with hot stones. Yoga inside an ancient temple. The kind of trip that goes beyond look-and-see.

11 days through Lima, the Sacred Valley, Machu Picchu, and Cusco. Plus, an optional extension in the Amazon.

Register for Peru

Patagonia

Patagonia is a bucket list destination. It’s a trip people usually save for retirement.

But we could all die tomorrow. And by the time we retire, our knees may not tolerate the Patagonia adventure we always dreamed of.

This one takes us to some of the most beautiful places on earth, into a glamping setup you’ll be talking about for years, and through Mendoza wine country to try some of the most renowned wines. It’s the Patagonia trip I wish existed when I went. So I created it.

11 days from Buenos Aires through Mendoza wine country, El Chaltén, and ending in Ushuaia at the bottom of the world.

Register for Patagonia

If they fill

These will fill quickly. If you miss out, get on the waitlist. I can’t promise a second departure, but if we open one, the waitlist goes first.

FAQs

Solo travelers About 70% of our travelers come solo and room with someone they meet on the trip. We do roommate matching ahead of time around things like temperature preferences and noise sensitivity, so you’re not walking in blind. Solo is the move and these trips make sure your plans don’t get stuck in the group chat.

Rooming policy Our travelers are overwhelmingly women, and U&F trips are woman-centered by design. Travelers of all genders are welcome to register. However, we don’t pair strangers across genders. Couples, friends, or family booking together can share regardless of gender. If you’re solo and we can’t pair you with a same-gender roommate, single occupancy applies. At registration we’ll ask your gender (per your passport) for rooming purposes. If you’re non-binary, please email contact@feedthemalik.com before registering.

What if it sells out? Get on the waitlist. If we open a second departure, the waitlist goes first.

Physical requirements, dietary restrictions, deposits, and cancellation Each trip has its own specifics, though all deposits are nonrefundable. Click through to the trip pages for the full breakdown on each.

What’s not included Arrival and departure flights to and from each country. Travel insurance (required). Meals not listed in the itinerary. Tips for your primary guide. Anything personal.

Your exclusive discount: use code FED at checkout for $300 off your registration.

Your referral code: share the code REFER with a friend. They’ll get $250 off when they register through it.

Don’t…

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The older I get, the more I do.

There are parts of this world that are so beautiful they rewire something in you. They change your sense of what is possible. They remind you that you are very small and somehow still connected to everything around you.

Antarctica did that for me. The Hunza Valley in northern Pakistan did that for me. And Patagonia has done that for me.

Patagonia gets called a lot of things. The last truly wild place on earth. The end of the world. The bottom of the map. Much of it is protected national park, and I’ve been lucky enough to spend multiple weeks soaking it in.

I’ve read ebooks next to a glacier-fed river in Chilean Patagonia and felt more fulfilled than I’ve ever felt in any city. I have sipped some of the richest, most surprising red wines I’ve ever tasted in Argentinian Patagonia while crisp mountain air swept across the hillside. I realized how much I love the outdoors. And I began to really understand why my parents dragged me out all those weekends.

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What I didn’t understand then but I do now

Time in nature lowers your blood pressure. It changes your nervous system. And then there’s that feeling of awe when you stand at the foot of a mountain.

And because of how systemic racism works, green spaces in the West have been coded as being for white people. I go hiking, I go camping, I go trekking, and I get comments. “Oh, that’s not for us.”

I don’t know who “us” is supposed to be, but my people worked the land. My ancestors had a deeper relationship with the earth than most of the people writing those comments will ever have. There is nothing in me that accepts that nature is not for me.

And I truly don’t believe that rich white people should get to claim all of the most pristine, most untouched, most awe-inspiring, most healing parts of this world.

So we’re going to Patagonia.

Register for Patagonia

I’ll be honest with you

This trip is a risk. Patagonia is expensive af. It’s remote, you have to fly between segments, and the hotels charge what they charge because they can. I’ve been wanting to build this trip for years and I’ve held back because the price point felt just too high.

I’m running it now because I know it’s worth it. Gloria, our lead with the agency we work with on the ground, has gone back and forth with hotels and operators for months on this. She has negotiated the hell out of this trip to make it possible for us to offer this.

Where we’re going

Buenos Aires. We start in the city with a night of Argentine asado on a gorgeous patio, paired with Argentinian wines. The next day, we go on a walking tour of Afro-Argentine history, exploring a part of history Argentina tried to erase. They couldn’t. We’ll close the day with a tango class.

Mendoza. I didn't realize how much I love Argentinian wine until I'd been to Patagonia. On this trip, we'll make sure we have time in wine country. We'll spend a day in the Uco Valley, and we'll do a hands-on cooking class at a working estate where we make empanadas in a traditional clay oven.

El Chaltén. People come here to lace up their boots and climb mountains. We’re staying at Chaltén Camp, glamping in eco-domes with views of Mount Fitz Roy that will prove to you everything I’ve said about nature rewiring your brain. We’ll have time to decompress and to hike. But don’t worry, our guided hike will allow us to take it slow and soak it in.

Ushuaia. The city at the end of the world. We’ll spend a day hiking up to the Emerald Lagoon, through gorgeous landscapes that are hard to describe. This is a hike designed to let us go slow, to take our time. We’ll close out our time in Ushuaia with a tasting menu and wine pairing at one of my favorite restaurants in the world.

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About the hikes

You can’t go to Patagonia and not hike. We’ve kept it to two hikes across the whole eleven days, and we’ve chosen the gentler versions of both.

The first is at Chaltén Camp, where the trail winds through a private nature reserve with views of Mount Fitz Roy and access to glacial lakes. The second is in Ushuaia, to get to Emerald Lagoon. Both are guided. Both have box lunches built in. Both have steep sections, but they’re short, and we go slow.

If you can do a half day of walking carrying a light bag (for water), you can do these hikes.

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The details:

Dates: March 15 to 25, 2027. Trip starts in Buenos Aires and ends in Ushuaia so you can explore more on either end. ALSO, if you have a flexible schedule you can pop around operators in Ushuaia and try to snag last minute tickets for Antarctica (those cruises leave from Ushuaia). They’re often available at significant discount but must be purchased in person.

Group size: 14 travelers, plus me and our local guide.

Hosting: I’ll be on this departure personally.

What’s included:

• An expert English-speaking local guide, plus me as your Unfiltered & Fed host

• All domestic flights within the itinerary (Buenos Aires to Mendoza, Mendoza to El Calafate, El Calafate to Ushuaia, roughly $1,000 in value)

• Airport arrival and departure transfers

• All activities and entry fees

• All meals as listed in the itinerary

• 4 and 5-star hotels and a glamping camp chosen for serenity and views, including the Park Hyatt Mendoza and Chaltén Camp

• All tips except for your primary guide

What it costs and why

This trip has three room tiers because Chaltén Camp has limited space and we’ll be taking over most of the camp.

• Double throughout: $10,800

• Single in cities, share at Chaltén Camp: $11,500

• Single throughout: $12,500

A comparable 11-day Patagonia trip with similar hotels and inclusions runs around $17,000 per person with another operator, based on double occupancy at the lowest tier. Some of them go up to $20,000 and beyond.

I keep these trips intentionally accessible, and part of how I do that is we don’t pay for ads. Because you all show up, I’m able to pass the savings right back to you.

To hold your spot: a $3,000 non-refundable deposit is due at registration. Interest-free payment plans are available at checkout.

Register for Patagonia

Trip FAQs

How do I register?

All Unfiltered & Fed subscribers will get an email with the registration link and the full itinerary once trips open.

What if it sells out?

Get on the waitlist. If we hit enough names, we’ll explore opening a second departure. The waitlist is the first place we go when a spot opens up.

Solo travelers

Around 70% of our travelers come solo and room with someone they meet on the trip. We do roommate matching ahead of time around things like temperature preferences and noise sensitivity, so you’re not walking in blind. Solo is the move and these trips make sure your plans don’t get stuck in the group chat.

Physical requirements

This trip involves hiking, but the hikes are moderate, not extreme. There are two hikes total across eleven days, and both are guided. You should be comfortable on your feet for several hours, walking on uneven terrain with some elevation. None of this is technical. If you have specific concerns, email me before booking and we’ll talk.

Cancellation policy

• 75+ days before departure: full refund minus the $3,000 non-refundable deposit

• 75 to 50 days before departure: 50% of total trip cost is non-refundable

• 50 days or less before departure: all costs are non-refundable

What’s not included

Arrival/departure flights to and from Argentina. Travel insurance (required). Meals not listed in the itinerary. Tips for your primary guide. Anything personal (drinks at dinner, optional add-ons, that kind of thing).

One more thing

For May’s Unfiltered & Fed Supper Club, we’re doing it a little differently. I love building things from scratch, but I also want to make sure we’re plugging in and connecting with people who are already doing dope shit.

So we’re hopping into a series that some brilliant DC folks have put together.

On Wednesday May 27, we’re joining a seating with chef Erik Bruner-Yang (Maketto, Bar Providencia) and chef Yuan Tang (Rooster & Owl) for a five-course tasting menu that will only exist for one night. I’ve got a block of seats reserved. We’ll be seated together so we can vibe and yap.

Grab your seat here!

A note on dietary restrictions: this is a fixed tasting menu, and the chefs can’t accommodate allium allergies or fully vegan diets. Other restrictions may be possible to work around. If you have allergies or restrictions, add them at checkout and we’ll communicate with the restaurant on your behalf.

I remember feeling trapped. First in an apartment, then a house, neither of which I was particularly happy in. I had just quit my job. I didn’t know how entrepreneurship was going to work out. I didn’t know how the world was going to work out.

What I knew was that I’d been a diplomat before I was a creator, and a traveler before I was a diplomat, and somehow none of that was showing up in what I was making online. Feed the Malik (now @theanelamalik) didn’t even exist yet, it was all food and restaurants. There was a whole part of me that was going unused, and lockdown made the absence of it feel unbearable.

So I waited until I was vaccinated, and I started pitching. Eventually I landed my first travel partnership.

It took me to Peru.

I trekked the Inca Trail in 2022. There were moments on that trail where I thought, girl, look what you got yourself into. Clambering over steep stone steps at altitude, listening to the most upbeat album I could find downloaded on my phone to get me through. But I made it. I want to do it again one day, but that’s a different post.

What got me wasn’t the trail. It was Peru.

The cobblestones in Cusco. The way music drifts out of doorways. The colors of the markets. Ceviche every single day. The chocolate. The coffee. The soft knit sweaters and the warmth of the people. I left saying I have to come back here.

I’ve come back every year since.

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Bae and Peru, finally.

In two weeks, I’m going again. This time it’s a vacation with bae, not work. 2026 has been a year. We’re tired. Neither of us has 25 hours of trip-planning in us right now, and we both know what happens when two tired people try to plan a vacation from scratch. It’s a fight in a hotel lobby in a country neither of you really wanted to be in.

So I said: let’s go somewhere I already know. He’s never been to Peru. I’m taking him.

The funny thing is, I’m taking him on a lighter version of the trip I’ve built for you for spring 2027. Same starting hotel in Lima. Same food tour, which is the best food tour in one of the best food cities in the world. Same restaurants in Cusco. Same favorite spots.

But the trip I built for you goes deeper.

And we going together. Yes you and me.

I am so, so excited to announce that Peru is one of our destinations for our 2027 group trips. It’s one of my favorite places in the world, and this itinerary is the best of my experiences in Peru all put together, with time to rest and moments of luxury and all the things I think we need and deserve in our lives.

Reserve your spot now

Where we’re going

Lima. We start in the best food city in the world and we take full advantage. One day is dedicated entirely to Afro-Peruvian heritage. A guided walk through the history. Lunch at El Rincón que no Conoces, a famed example of Afro-Peruvian food tradition. An afternoon dance class, because you don’t really understand a culture until you’ve felt the rhythm of it. We also do my absolute favorite food tour in Lima, which is saying something.

The Sacred Valley. We have lunch and a chocolate-making workshop at a local NGO. We spend three nights at a five-star resort right on the Urubamba River with views of the mountains that make it hard to go inside. We do a hands-on ceramics workshop, visit remote villages, and meet the community to learn about weaving traditions that have been passed down for generations. We sit down together for Pachamanca - a meal slow-cooked underground with hot stones for incredible flavor. We even visit a traditional chichería to learn about chicha de jora, the ancestral fermented corn drink at the heart of Andean culture.

Machu Picchu. Of course we’ll visit Machu Picchu and tour it with an expert guide. But we’re not being marched back onto a train half dead afterward. Instead, we have an afternoon and evening in a beautiful mountain town afterward, with time to actually process what you just saw.

Cusco. Think cobblestones and color and music coming from the plaza. One morning we do yoga inside an ancient temple before the crowds arrive. We’ll eat at my favorite restaurants and yes I’ll take everyone to the jeweler who makes custom gold and silver pieces that you’ll wear forever. We visit a local market and then cook together - a three-course farewell dinner guided by a professional Peruvian chef

I’m proud of this trip. It’s not a look-and-see experience. We’ll be doing, trying, getting ourselves in the mix. I built it with a partner on the ground I trust, who has negotiated the hell out of this to get the best value for us even as prices rise everywhere.

Reserve your spot now

The details:

Dates: April 1 to 11, 2027. Trip starts in Lima and ends in Cusco so you can explore more on either end if you want to.

Group size: 14 travelers, plus me and our local guide.

Hosting: I’ll be on this departure personally.

What’s included:

• An expert English-speaking local guide who knows Peru inside out, plus me as your Unfiltered & Fed host

• All domestic flights within the itinerary (roughly $600 in value)

• Airport pickup and departure transfers

• All activities and entry fees

• All meals listed in the itinerary

• 4 and 5-star hotels chosen deliberately for that touch of luxury, including this stay in the Sacred Valley and this centrally located 5-star hotel in Cusco in a 17th century mansion.

• All tips except for your primary guide

What it costs and why

This trip is $6,500 for double occupancy, $7,800 for single.

A similar 11-day Peru group trip with the same caliber of hotels and inclusions will run you $14,000 to $16,000 per person with another operator. With the Amazon, theirs is closer to $16,000 minimum.

I keep these trips intentionally accessible, and part of how I do that is we don't pay for ads. Because you all show up, I'm able to pass the savings right back to you.

To hold your spot: a $1,650 non-refundable deposit is due at registration. Interest-free payment plans are available at checkout.

One note: if you’re both a prior traveler and a founding member, you can only use one discount. The larger one applies. Please don’t try to stack them.

Reserve your spot now

Going further: the Amazon extension

For travelers who want to go further, end your trip with a 4-day, 3-night extension to the Peruvian Amazon rainforest. We’ll stay at an ecolodge inside a locally owned reserve.

The extension includes transfer from Cusco to Puerto Maldonado, all meals, guided wildlife walks, a 40-meter canopy tower with views over the rainforest, an oxbow lake catamaran ride looking for the resident family of giant river otters, and a sunrise visit to a parrot clay lick.

$3,200 per person. All rooms are single occupancy. Couples who want to book the extension together, please email contact@feedthemalik.com first so we can sort the rooming.

The extension runs April 11 to 14, picking up the day the main trip ends.

Trip FAQs

How do I register?

All Unfiltered & Fed subscribers will get an email with the registration link and the full itinerary once trips open.

What if it sells out?

Get on the waitlist! For Peru we can open a second April departure if there’s enough demand. The waitlist is the first place we go when a spot opens up.

Solo travelers

Around 70% of our travelers come solo and room with someone they meet on the trip. We do roommate matching ahead of time around things like temperature preferences and noise sensitivity, so you’re not walking in blind. Solo is the move and these trips make sure your plans don’t get stuck in the group chat.

Physical requirements

This trip moves at a thoughtful pace with time to rest, but we’ll spend some time at higher altitudes. Cusco sits at 11,150 feet. Most days involve walking on cobblestones, uneven stairs, or moderate hiking. You should be comfortable on your feet for several hours. Machu Picchu involves steep stone steps with no railings in places. If you have specific concerns, email me before booking and we’ll talk.

Cancellation policy

• 75+ days before departure: full refund minus the $1,650 non-refundable deposit

• 75 to 50 days before departure: 50% of total trip cost is non-refundable

• 50 days or less before departure: all costs are non-refundable

What’s not included

Arrival/departure flights to and from Peru. Meals not listed in the itinerary. Tips for your primary guide. Anything personal (drinks at dinner, optional add-ons, that kind of thing). Travel insurance (required).

One more thing

For May’s Unfiltered & Fed Supper Club, we’re doing it a little differently. I love building things from scratch, but I also want to make sure we’re plugging in and connecting with people who are already doing dope shit.

So we’re hopping into a series that some brilliant DC folks have put together.

On Wednesday May 27, we’re joining a seating with chef Erik Bruner-Yang (Maketto, Bar Providencia) and chef Yuan Tang (Rooster & Owl) for a five-course tasting menu that will only exist for one night. I’ve got a block of seats reserved. We’ll be seated together so we can vibe and yap.

Grab your seat here!

A note on dietary restrictions: this is a fixed tasting menu, and the chefs can’t accommodate allium allergies or fully vegan diets. Other restrictions may be possible to work around. If you have allergies or restrictions, add them when you register and we’ll make sure the restaurant has that info in advance.

I’ve been getting tattooed since I was 18. Seventeen years. My back is tattooed from top to bottom. Both of my butt cheeks. My stomach, my sides, even my breasts. I have a half sleeve that is one of the most important pieces of my life story. I am a heavily tattooed person.

And yet for years I held a line. Nothing too big or too visible that couldn’t be covered. In my own head, a little sticker there was cute, anything else too in your face not so much.

Why I Held The Line

Not because I judged it on anyone else - I’ve always been attracted to visible tattoos on other people. But for myself, visible meant risk. Corporate jobs. Some restaurants. The State Department, where the environment was male, pale, and Yale enough that even my nose piercing was one of the few visible body modifications. I learned early that certain bodies - specifically mine - had to work harder to be taken seriously, and visible tattoos felt like a variable I could control.

Then I woke up a few weeks ago and couldn’t remember why I still cared.

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Why I Stopped

There are National Guardsmen outside my house every time I go for a walk. People are still being disappeared. The world is violent in a way that is completely precedented - we’ve been here before - and I firmly believe it doesn’t have to be. Maybe it was that. Or maybe it’s that I’m six years into working for myself and finally accepted I’d never go back to an office that told me how I had to look.

The Session

So I emailed my favorite artist in DC and said: hey, you got space for me?

He’s usually booked months out. But there had been a cancellation.

Last Tuesday I walked in with a scan of one of my grandmother’s paintings of an Ensō, a circular form, a Zen circle. In Buddhism it represents enlightenment, strength, the universe. But I didn’t choose it for the symbolism. I chose it because when my mom sent me a folder of my grandmother’s black and white works - she painted in vivid color for most of her life, but I wanted black and white - I opened the email and immediately knew this was the one.

My granny, Teruko Yokoi, was an unknown painter living in the Hotel Chelsea in 1959 with a new baby. In 2025, they named a restaurant after her in that same building. Today, my apartment looks like an art museum because I am the child and grandchild of artists. And now her hand is on my arm.

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If you want to know who she was, watch the below.

If you need captions, watch this video on YouTube instead.

The session felt destined. Sunny day. Lauryn Hill on the Spotify playlist. My artist has a fine arts background and a genuine reverence for the piece we were working on. When the lines of ink move with my muscle it looks like it was always there. My grandma would be shaking her fucking head at her wild child of a granddaughter - tattoos were not her thing. But to me this piece is freedom. A nudge from someone who figured out how to live fully even when the world was on fire.

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If You’re Next

If a tattoo is on your list this summer, I want you to have the best experience you can. Here’s my advice.

Find your artist like you’d find a collaborator, not a vendor. Experience matters - the more years the better - but so does style. Fine line artists, traditional artists, illustrative artists are not interchangeable. Look for someone whose existing work looks like the thing living in your head. Then do a vibe check. If it’s a thirty minute flash piece, the vibe is less critical. If you’re sitting with someone all day while they carve you up, you need to actually like them. My favorite studio in DC is Crybaby in Dupont (I go to Dr. Z for my work). Their artists are strong, with a variety of different styles, and the space is bright, stocked with snacks and juice for when your blood sugar bottoms out, and built around clear policies. You’ll be treated with respect.

The only person your tattoos need to make sense to is you. They can be whimsical, silly, deeply meaningful, or all three. That’s entirely up to you. What you should know is that they’re permanent and they will change as your body changes - the softer parts of you will move and stretch and tattoos move with them. I have tattoos that are soft around the edges now because my body has gotten softer. I take that as a point of pride. I have truly lived.

Aftercare is not optional. Tattoos heal best when kept clean and moisturized - which means you’ll probably be a little greasy for a few days. There may be some minor bleeding and leakage, especially in the first 24 hours. Come prepared. I like a thick tattoo cream or Aquaphor. I also wear a rotation of old black sweatpants and faded black t-shirts for the first few days so I’m not worried about stains. Dress comfortably for the session itself and have your aftercare supplies ready.

The First One

This is my first side quest of the summer.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to say yes to the thing that doesn’t make sense on paper, that you’ve been talking yourself out of, that exists purely because you want it. This summer I want more of that. More whimsy.

So tell me: what’s one side quest you want to get into this summer? What’s a thing you want to do just for you, just because, just for the joy of it?

Drop it in the comments.

Each month, I’ll be sharing a hot take that’s just Between Us, something in the zeitgeist that I want to go deeper on without having fifty eleven people chime in, the way they would on social media.

I’ll also be making sure you’re Plugged In, with five things that I’d send you if you were in my bff’s group chat. This isn’t an affiliate link drop, it’s real shit that I think makes my life better every day and often costs nothing.

Welcome to The Inner Circle.

Between Us: Dating Sucks But Also You’re The Problem

A few days ago on IG stories I asked: What’s one thing you’re pretending is fine but is actually not, that you want an honest take on. Unexpectedly, the most common responses I got were all related to dating. So play my unfiltered take below…

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Then, on a sunny Wednesday last week, a friend sent it to me and said: “I think this is BS, but I want your take - you’re the food person.” That’s how it came back into my orbit. I’m the food person in my friend group. What follows is what I said to her, just in many more words.

The Video

So for some reason, I can’t embed the video, but I’ll describe it to you. A chef with 330,000 followers on Instagram posted a video saying:

On the surface, it sounds like a reasonable take. He misses an era when food critics had more credentials, more expertise, more genuine understanding of what they were eating. I get the argument. I don’t agree with it, but I’ve heard it a million times.

But look a bit deeper at the video itself and it becomes clear, the distinction he’s drawing isn’t so clear or impartial.

The golden age he’s mourning is illustrated with photos of only old white people. Anthony Bourdain. Ruth Reichl. Mimi Sheraton.

The current era, the era of decline, the era of people who “went from eating McDonald’s to being able to afford a good restaurant” is illustrated with a grid of young, diverse faces. Black creators. Asian creators. Hispanic creators. Women. You know, the poor people who don’t know about food because they have only eaten McDonald’s.

It doesn’t even matter if he’s conscious of it or not. He didn’t have to say “I miss when food media was whiter. and richer” He just showed us using nostalgia.

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Nostalgia Is A Tool

Not just a feeling - a tool. It sells. It moves people. It taps into something emotional and primal: the sense that things were once better, simpler, safer, and that someone is responsible for why they aren’t anymore. The food and beverage industry has known this for years. Super Bowl ads use it to sell you phones and Wi-Fi. Politicians use it to win elections.

“Make America Great Again” is, in and of itself, a nostalgic slogan.

That is the entire mechanism. You don’t have to name a specific era. You just imply that one existed - that somewhere back there, things were great - and let each person fill in their own version of what great looked like. That flexibility is what makes it powerful. Different generations, different losses, same sentiment driving them to action.

What Are We Nostalgic For?

When my dad was a kid, in the middle of a life-threatening asthma attack, he was turned away from a segregated hospital. He almost died.

When my dad traveled as a child, they relied on tools like the Green Book - a travel guide that existed because this country was hostile enough to Black people that you needed a directory just to find places that would serve you and not get you killed.

Early food writing in the United States was “the work of the highly educated, largely white elite” that “often left out any mention of Black contributions” (from my book, American Soul). In a segregated country, where were those respected critics eating? Not at the restaurants listed in the Green Book. Not at the places my dad stopped at on road trips through an unsafe America.

The coverage felt authoritative. It felt knowledgeable. But it was covering a slim slice of what dining in America actually looked like. That was by design.

We know how the media machine works. Chefs who get write-ups are more likely to win awards. Those write-ups and awards beget more write-ups and awards, and it becomes a self-serving, closed-loop system.

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Social Media Threatens That System

I’ve said this for years, and I’ll never stop saying it: if the vast majority of creators were men instead of women, we would never have made it socially acceptable to talk about them the way that we do now, with this sense of disdain and disgust.

But that’s not our reality.

Instead, we’re in the midst of a rapidly changing media landscape where legacy institutions have withered in the face of decentralized media. Social media and influencing are a threat to that closed-loop, self-serving media machine.

The same machine that made Noma the most famous restaurant in the world, despite relying on unpaid labor for years and alleged abuse of its staff.

The same machine that saw awards ceremonies cancelled after 2020 when they realized they had not a single Black winner.

The good old days didn’t have better food writing. They had more effective gatekeeping.

KJ Kearney founded Black Food Fridays in 2020 to get people to support Black-owned businesses. Then he picked up his iPhone and made a TikTok series called Black Food Facts. In a few weeks he had 20 videos and 3.8 million views - all focused on Black food history. He won a James Beard Award for his work.

The good old days crowd would have given him no platform and no prize.

Incomplete Progress

Yes, the world has changed. But saying things are better than they were feels like bullshit, when rent is up and people are being fired and we wake up wondering what level of international crisis we’ll face today.

But whether it feels true or not, it is true.

Black creators still face a racial pay gap reported to be as high as 35% compared to their white peers. Algorithmic bias is real and documented. The fight over who gets to be recognized, who gets to misbehave, who gets to be called an expert is still being fought.

But we are further along than we were. I for one can go to any hospital in DC, though who knows what level of care I may receive.

And nostalgia is asking us to forget that in favor of a world that was great, but only for some people.

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So Who Do We Listen To?

I have always believed in curating your media inputs - and that means more than blocking or picking apart a video made by some man I’ve never met. It means choosing carefully who and what you bring into your awareness, your feed, your thinking.

So here are some of my faves, in food and beyond, for conversations that don’t center old white men.

• I have to plug my book, which dives into the future of food media in much greater detail. Get American Soul here.

• KJ Kearney, who takes on everything from new models for food reviewers to a political action party model featuring pizza.

• Afia, who I ALWAYS learn something new from and somehow weaves together food and history seamlessly.

• Nasim Lahbichi, who cooks with flavors old white chefs could only dream of. I know I’m being petty, I’ll stop someday.

• Wickd Confections for everything Black, historic, and delicious.

Happenings & Housekeeping

• There are only 2 spots left for our April Supper Club at Nue: Vietnamese in Falls, Church VA. Join us on April 29th.

• For the creatives curious about my writing process, how I make writing my job, and more, I take a deep dive here in this interview.

I had promised myself this week that I was going to write about something light, something fluffy, something easy. I felt like we needed some ease. But alas, that’s not how my brain works at the moment. Maybe next time.