How an Awkward House Party Set The Food Gays on a Delicious Path Forward

Photos courtesy of Adrian Harris and Jeremy Inglett

Six years ago at a house party in Vancouver, Adrian Harris and Jeremy Inglett found themselves in a room of strangers. Neither of them knew the host particularly well, nor anyone else in attendance. It was awkward. “We kind of gravitated toward each other,” Harris told Yahoo Food. “And we haven’t stopped hanging out.”

Before long, Harris and Inglett were a couple. Soon they were cooking dinner together most nights, and when they weren’t, they had a blast sniffing out new and exciting restaurants around the city. It was an escape, Harris explained, from their “boring retail jobs.” But then, in 2012, the couple had an epiphany: Why not start a food blog?

Harris and Inglett dubbed their site The Food Gays, and it quickly took over their lives. For Inglett in particular, becoming more involved in the kitchen was a throwback to childhood. “My grandma was the big baker in the family,” he recalled. “I have memories of her in the kitchen at 5 a.m. with a big bowl of bread dough. She’d make bread 10 to 12 hours out of the day, just to provide something homemade for the family, which could be 20 to 30 different people. I have a lot of cousins and a lot of aunts!”

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Stinging nettle, basil and hemp seed pesto.

Inspired by his heritage, Inglett began baking more at home — anything from bread to pizza dough to cakes and pies. Harris quickly realized that his partner’s baking was more than just a hobby, and encouraged him to do something about it. Finally, after weighing the pros and cons, Inglett quit the job he’d held for eight years — assistant store manager at a Starbucks — to pursue something more meaningful: the pastry arts.

“Basically, I just decided that I need to enlighten myself and move forward and not feel so stuck in my everyday life,” Inglett said. He enrolled in an 11-month baking a pastry arts degree program at Vancouver Community College, during which he competed in a grueling professional pastry competition. He took home a silver medal.

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Fennel and blood orange tortilla pizza.

Harris is nothing but proud of his partner’s success. The child of a single mother who often didn’t have time to whip up anything flashy for dinner, Harris cherishes the new role food plays in his home. “The baking, for sure that’s that Jeremy is meant to do,” Harris said, proudly.

Through it all, Harris and Inglett have lovingly toiled away on The Food Gays, documenting visits to favorite restaurants and developing recipes at home. Their cuisine is a mishmash of different cuisines and styles — a reflection of how Harris and Inglett like to eat, not to mention the diverse city of Vancouver itself. One week on The Food Gays, Harris and Inglett might feature a recipe for hot and sticky chicken drumsticks with Thai basil and lime, and the next, a chorizo mushroom and herb pilaf. Of course, Inglett’s pastry creations — anything from roasted plum ice cream to lime and coconut bundt cake — make numerous appearances.

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Snowball cookies.

These days, Inglett works full-time churning out croissants, cookies, cakes, and more at Vancouver’s Uprising Breads Bakery, and contributes to The Food Gays in his off-time. Harris, on the other hand, recently left the retail space to concentrate on the blog and various social media projects.

“We definitely are really happy with how things are going,” Harris said, adding that he and Inglett have begun contributing recipes to Martha Stewart’s website — a personal dream come true. “Our blog is still very small compared to a lot of others, but we’re just constantly trying to make it better. There’s so much still to learn.”