I鈥檓 sort of praying as I鈥檓 strapped inside a helicopter attempting a one-skid landing in a boulder field above treeline on Mount of the Holy Cross, the northernmost and most famous of the 15 fourteeners in central Colorado鈥檚 Sawatch range.

Jesus H. Christ, Randy, park this thing!

At the stick in the cockpit鈥檚 left seat is Randy Oates, a Helitack pilot rocking a ZZ Top beard in a flight helmet and Nomex coveralls. God, I trust, occupies the empty right-hand seat of the cockpit. Belted in on my left elbow is Jolen Anya Minetz, a fortysomething forensic anthropologist who specializes in human bone identification. Anya, also a professional snowboard instructor, must be reliving the summer she spent in Montana as a wildland firefighter with the Lolo Hotshots. Because, unlike me, she鈥檚 grinning ear-to-ear as Randy waves off and spurs 1,400 fire-breathing horses screaming from the turbine engine, sending the helicopter soaring up a 1,000-foot granite wall for another landing attempt. Sitting on the yawing deck between my knees is a black Lab named Stryker, a beauty of a scent detection beast I acquired during the pandemic. He comes from a Connecticut breeder known for producing lines of legendary cadaver dogs for FEMA and other agencies. Sweet Stryker鈥檚 gazing up at me, eyes wide with concern yet brimming with trust as if saying, 鈥淭his not fun. When we have fun, Boss?鈥�

Soon, buddy. Soon.

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Nicole McLaughlin believes anything can become a shoe.

Upcycled Patagonia fleeces work well if you’re making a slipper鈥攂ut so do tennis balls, badminton birdies, crossword puzzle booklets, balloons, golf visors, and packing peanuts. An egg carton makes an excellent sandal, and the baffles of a beach ball can quickly become a striking rainbow clog.

But why limit yourself to shoes when you can also make pants from napkins or backpacks, and bras from lemon squeezers or croissants? McLaughlin, a fashion designer, artist, and gorpcore icon based in Boulder, Colorado, has made a jacket from oven mitts鈥攁nd an oven mitt from a loaf of bread. She’s turned cereal bags (still filled with Froot Loops and corn flakes) into a vest and sewn a puffy jacket from bubble wrap. Each of her garments is quirky and evocative鈥攁nd has the power to chip away at the very foundations of the outdoor gear world.

Like any arm of the fashion universe, outdoor gear is a high-production, high-expense, high-waste kind of industry. Some brands are trying to change that, but the process has been slow and cumbersome. McLaughlin’s designs, however, cut through all the marketing chatter and straight to the core of the issue: they point out, loudly, that there’s no excuse for waste. Old or even damaged gear doesn’t have to be discarded. Instead, it can live on indefinitely through upcycling.

Upcycling is part craft, part raw imagination. It’s the practice of refurbishing an old item until it’s once again chic and useful. Over the last few years, the upcycling movement has gone mainstream鈥攁nd some of the world’s biggest companies are catching on.

Today, the 32-year-old McLaughlin has worked with brands ranging from Coach and Herm猫s to Merrell and Hoka. She’s been featured in Forbes’s Thirty Under Thirty, and is a sought-after speaker and workshop instructor. But her biggest achievement is the cultural change she’s helped affect: through her witty, tongue-in-cheek designs, she’s helped turn upcycling from a stodgy homeschoolers’ craft into an edgy and provocative response to consumerism at large.

Given McLaughlin’s r茅sum茅, I expected her to be sophisticated and reserved, in an out-of-touch, artsy sort of way. But what I found when I visited her in Boulder was an unassuming woman in plain clothing, bright-eyed and warm and ready with a smile. When she opened the door to her studio鈥攁 small warehouse space off a dirt road鈥攕he was dressed in baggy jeans and gingham sneakers, and her gray hoodie sported a fuzzy zipper charm in the shape of a cartoon character. She played with it while she talked, her fingers turning the little character this way and that.

“Come on in,” she said. “Did you have trouble finding it?” The studio is in Niwot, a one-street rural outpost well northeast of Boulder proper. So yes, I did. In fact, I’d been lost for ten full minutes before knocking on the weathered door. But I lied. And then, between spurts of showing me around the studio, McLaughlin told me about her life.

Sometimes, when you’re a young person trying to choose a career, an adult will give you this guidance: “Do the thing that would make your eight-year-old self proud.” It’s good advice鈥攖hough often impractical for those of us who dreamed of becoming race-car drivers or astronauts. Few people are able to truly self-actualize in this way. But McLaughlin, somehow, has.

Growing up, McLaughlin was an artsy kid, the daughter of a New Jersey carpenter and an interior designer. She was also a dedicated member of the early 2000s skate scene. A fan of hardcore punk music, she had an anti-authoritarian attitude toward homework, and an obsession with chunky skate shoes that would later become a hallmark of her upcycling style. Eventually, McLaughlin wandered into a four-year graphic design program at East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania. Then, after graduation, things started to get interesting.

For three years, McLaughlin lived a double life. She was just out of college and trying to prove herself at Reebok’s Massachusetts corporate office, where she’d gotten a gig as a graphic designer. During the day, she’d work long hours, shadowing other employees, placing logos, and sometimes sleeping on the office floor. During nights and weekends, she was mostly alone. Making friends in a new city takes time; McLaughlin was too focused on her career for that. But after a while, she began to realize that placing logos wasn’t exactly keeping her creative mind occupied. She felt stuck. She was approaching creative stagnation.

Then, one night, she snuck into Reebok’s recently vacated offices. There, she discovered mounds of discarded samples and fabric swatches鈥攂oxes upon boxes of really expensive trash. She filled a bag, thinking the pieces could be good inspiration for her side projects.

Soon, she was taking her pilfered samples apart, tearing out stitching and prying apart shoes on her bedroom floor. She’d mix and match soles and glue on new pull tabs, straps, and toggles. Held together by adhesive and pins, none of it was wearable; the only goal was to make something that looked cool. Eventually, she started posting photos of her designs on Instagram, a nerve-wracking experience. One鈥攁 blue sandal made from the straps of an Ikea tote鈥攔acked up several thousand views. For a burgeoning artist with zero product-design experience, it was a major confidence boost.

After some experimentation, McLaughlin gravitated toward vintage sports equipment. There was something playful about the nostalgia of it, and the absurdity of crafting a shoe from a lacrosse stick or basketball. In 2016 she picked up rock climbing, and two years later began tinkering with chalk bags and harnesses. She saw limitless design potential in outdoor gear.

McLaughlin churned out dozens of innovative upcycled designs, one after another, on Instagram. It was a private thing鈥攂edroom projects furtively shared on a faceless page. Her bosses at Reebok had no idea she was doing it. Until one meeting in 2019.

McLaughlin was sitting in a conference room, surrounded by colleagues, kicked back in a chair, twirling a pen in her hands. It was supposed to be a routine meeting with a marketing agency, which gave Reebok ideas for upcoming campaigns and collabs. But this time, photos of McLaughlin’s Instagram creations popped up on the projector screen. McLaughlin blinked. What?

Her colleagues started glancing across the room. “Is that you?” They mouthed as the agency rambled.

“You should collaborate with this girl,” the presenter ultimately suggested. “She’s coming up with some cool ideas.” McLaughlin kept her mouth shut during the meeting but later admitted to her bosses that she was the one behind the designs.

McLaughlin was still a junior employee, so she wasn’t surprised when Reebok didn’t jump at the opportunity to fund her weird, experimental art. But the company did send her to a three-month-long program at Adidas’s Brooklyn maker space, a wonderland of sewing machines and free materials called the Creator Farm. There, McLaughlin learned how to sew and make shoes from scratch. Meanwhile, her Instagram following continued to grow, and other brands emailed her project inquiries鈥攁 video series with Depop about her work, for example, and an opportunity to teach an upcycling workshop with footwear retail giant Foot Locker. That was all the nudge she needed. In 2019, McLaughlin quit her cushy corporate Reebok job鈥攖o the chagrin of her parents鈥攁nd went full-time freelance.

“I still worry that it’s all going to stop,” she says. “Like this is a phase I’m just riding out, and one day the work is all going to disappear. But it’s funny, because I’ve been doing this full-time for six years, and it hasn’t stopped yet.”

It’s easy to see why McLaughlin and other upcycling designers have gained prominence. Designing and manufacturing apparel and footwear creates a ton of waste. That goes for fast fashion, of course. But it also goes for the outdoor industry.

Outdoor gear may appear rugged and practical, but the industry that produces and markets it is yoked to traditional fashion cycles. Yes, people want equipment that performs, but they also want to look on-trend. Most brands cash in on the appeal of new fashions by constantly changing designs and churning out new colors and cuts each season.

What’s the point of saving humanity if we can’t have a little fun in the meantime?

Creating those new styles generates lots of waste. For example: before a sneaker or hiking shoe goes to market, the factory will send a brand three or four prototypes鈥攗nwearable single shoes that get examined by the product designers, and are then thrown into the trash. Fabric swatches are much the same. It all piles up.

The constant change of seasonal colors and styles speeds up the turnover of product styles. According to a 2018 report from the EPA, American retail stores and consumers throw out about 13 million tons of clothing and footwear every year. The expense is ghastly. The waste is obscene.

Few of us are immune to this materialistic ethos. Have you ever tossed out a rain shell instead of re-waterproofing it? Gotten a new chalk bag solely because it had a cute pattern? Shelled out for a name-brand fleece with cool colorblocking, even though you’ve already got a serviceable midlayer? I know I have.

Through her work, McLaughlin forces consumers to question the outdoor industry’s process. And people are catching on. Upcycling is having a moment, and its ethos appears to have struck a chord with Gen Z consumers.

Gen Z faces more pressure from climate change鈥攁nd climate anxiety鈥攖han any generation ever. Add to that post-inflation prices and a tough job market, and DIY starts to look mighty appealing, both as a cost-saving hobby and as a revolutionary movement.

Upcycling has also amplified new voices. For decades, brands have been the arbiters and gatekeepers of style. Now, a far more grassroots group of tastemakers is rewriting the rules and deciding for themselves what gets to be considered high fashion鈥攁nd what gets dismissed as trash.

McLaughlin is one of the most prominent, but there are others. Anna Molinari, a 27-year-old designer based in New York City, makes skirts from plastic bags and decorative chain mail from soda can tabs. Rivers McCall, 23, crafts handbags and even cocktail dresses from old climbing rope. Both artists have dressed Wyn Wiley, the drag queen and environmental activist better known as Pattie Gonia. The partnerships have put cutting-edge upcycled designs in front of millions of viewers.

Upcycling鈥攁nd its close siblings, thrifting and DIY鈥攚eren’t always cool. When my parents were young, new products were synonymous with wealth and importance. Old clothes meant you were a charity case. But over the last few decades, that’s begun to change. In fact, buying new will now earn you serious backlash in some corners of the internet.

“Social media has normalized second-hand shopping to the extent that there’s this sentiment of judgment if you buy a new designer bag,” says Molinari. She doesn’t necessarily disagree. “No one needs to buy new clothes. Buying new is so unnecessary, and watching the environment decline so quickly is terrifying,” she says. “I think everybody needs to take this seriously.”

Social media isn’t just a way to spread the zero-waste gospel. It has also allowed new generations to learn the timeless arts of sewing and repair.

I, for example, learned to sew from my mother, who hand-made my dresses in grade school. She learned from her mother, who learned from her grandma鈥攖he fearsome Ma Stalvey, who lived on a farm in southern Georgia, wringing the necks of chickens, cooking cornbread, and churning out shirts and nighties for her ten children out of the fabric flour sacks the grocery truck brought once a week. If it weren’t for those women, I’d never have picked up a needle. I don’t know that I ever would have wanted to; sewing always felt like a thing grown-ups did on school nights with the middle-aged mending circle at the local JoAnn’s. The act of sewing wasn’t aesthetic. It wasn’t edgy. And it certainly wasn’t cool.

But now, somehow, it is. According to Claudia E. Henninger, a fashion researcher and professor at the University of Manchester, the pandemic accelerated an interest in crafting. Gen Z ran with it.

“Social media has been massive,” Henninger says. “People can suddenly see other people knitting or crocheting or being creative. If that person can do it, then I can do it, as well.”

TikTok quickly emerged as a massive repository of sewing and crafting inspiration, and DIY tutorials and process videos exploded on Instagram. Entire crafting communities emerged. These days, if you upcycle, you’re not just a quirky teenager tinkering in your bedroom. You’re a part of something big.

That extends to the community of outdoor enthusiasts. Secondhand gear shops are popping up across the country. And outdoor brands are increasingly offering take-back programs, upcycling workshops, and repair services. Those that already have them are seeing major gains. Take Patagonia, which has offered repairs since the seventies. Its current pre-owned gear program, called Worn Wear, launched in 2012. The brand has seen more Gen-Z customers flocking to Worn Wear鈥攏ot to mention massive viewership of its DIY repair videos on YouTube. Since 2018, The North Face, Arc’teryx, and REI (which has re-sold used gear for more than 60 years) have all launched or expanded existing used gear resale programs, as have more mainstream brands like Carhartt, Lululemon, and even Juicy Couture.

“I think it’s starting to become more culturally accepted,” Henninger says. Molinari sees long lines of customers outside of curated thrift stores in New York City on most weekends. “There’s the virality of videos about vintage clothing hauls,” she says. In the UK, Henninger often walks by protest sewing pop-ups: people set up in front of high street retailers and sew their own clothes, informing curious passersby that they don’t have to shop at big-name fashion houses to look good.

“That’s very powerful,” Henninger says. Nicole Bassett, a textile recycling expert and the co-founder of The Renewal Workshop, believes the upcycling movement could someday have a huge impact on the fashion industry. Over time, it could slow style turnover, undermine brands’ bottom lines, and finally force big companies to rewire their supply chains.

“We’re not on the precipice yet鈥攚e’re in the beginning of a very big change in our economics in general,” says Bassett.

Pockets are a common theme鈥擬cLaughlin’s way of giving the finger to the lack of functionality that’s historically plagued women’s clothing.

As with any revolution, this movement faces hurdles. Young people don’t always have the purchasing power to pass over items with lower price tags鈥攅ven if those products are less sustainable. But customer behavior indicates that Gen Z and Millennial shoppers are moving toward products that are environmentally conscious.

“Sustainability can be a very boring topic. And climate is honestly a boring, dry thing,” says Wyn Wiley, the person behind the Pattie Gonia persona. “But now there’s all this creativity and interest from Gen Z. They’re under more pressure than ever鈥攂ut they’re also getting more creative than ever.”

As for McLaughlin? Sustainability wasn’t top of mind when she first started upcycling; she was initially attracted to samples and off-cuts only because they were free fodder for low-stakes experiments.

“When I started doing this work, I didn’t even know what upcycling was. Then, during COVID, brands started cleaning out their offices and realizing just how much stuff they had. That’s when they started reaching out to me for help,” McLaughlin says. At first that gave her pause. She was at a turning point in her career, and wanted to make sure the brands she worked with weren’t just doing sustainability as a shtick.

“But then I realized, I don’t work for the brands,” she says. “I work for the people who buy from those brands. Brands make all this stuff, and the responsibility falls on the consumer to figure out how to discard an item or recycle it.” Most of the time, there’s nowhere for that stuff to go. Most gear isn’t recyclable. Thrift stores are overwhelmed. We all have too much stuff in our houses. Waste is a serious issue.

Since 2021, McLaughlin has done consulting work with big brands about how they can limit waste and creatively reuse the scraps they already have. But she admits that her work sometimes feels like it’s just making a dent in the enormous problem created by fashion’s waste.

“I think there are days that are easy and exciting, and I feel really good about everything and like I can figure it all out,” she says. “But there are a lot of other days where it’s more like, ‘Oh my god, how did we get here? What are we doing? How am I helping to contribute to this?'”

McLaughlin escapes her worries by rock climbing鈥攕he finds the creative problem-solving on the wall helps complement her problem-solving in the studio. She also finds that the full-body movement helps her think. Her other tool is humor.

“There are so many hard conversations surrounding sustainability,” she says. “I want my work to be a moment of levity.” Often, that means leaning into the absurd.

“Making a bra out of lemon squeezers is funny. Putting pockets on a shoe is funny,” she says. “Most of the time, when I talk with brands about their process or what they could do to reduce waste, they’ve so overwhelmed. So when I’m designing, I want to make a statement, but I also want it to be fun.”

It’s a unique take on climate optimism. McLaughlin’s opinion is that, the more we lead with hope and humor, the more empowered we’ll be to take on the catastrophes facing our planet. What’s the point of saving humanity if we can’t have a little fun in the meantime?

“For me, upcycling is about being creative and using what you have. But it’s also about having fun,” she says. “I mean, that’s the root of upcycling: imagination and lightheartedness. That’s what keeps me going. And I think that’s what will get brands鈥攁nd the fashion industry鈥攅xcited about making change.”

5 Questions with Nicole McLaughlin

1. Your favorite material to work with is: Bread. Any time I work with food it’s always a really insane challenge of trying to figure out how to sew it, or construct it such that I can still take it apart and eat it after.

2. If the studio was burning down and you could grab one thing it would be: My grandfather’s squash trophy. He played until he was 80 years old and was a huge inspiration to me. When he passed away, all the kids in the family each took a trophy to remember him by.

3. The sports you played as a kid were: Tennis and basketball. And skateboarding.

4. You like to listen to: Podcasts and audiobooks while I’m working. I just flew through the whole Twilight series鈥擨’d never read them, and my sister told me I needed to. If I’m listening to music, usually it’s lo-fi beats and shoegaze.

5. Right now you’re reading: Start With Why by Simon Sinek. It’s been a good reminder to define my goals and purpose. Otherwise, it can be easy to lose sight of those things.

The post All Hail Outdoor Gear鈥檚 Upcycling Queen appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

I have a confession: in the middle of my 75 Hard spiral鈥攁 social media-sanctioned self-optimization grind disguised as a fitness challenge鈥擨 made queso. Not just any queso. Cottage cheese queso. This is a sentence I never thought I鈥檇 write.

I started the challenge this past February鈥攑artly to beat the winter blues in the Northeast, and partly because I needed a reset after taste-testing one too many of Santa鈥檚 cookies. I was committed to said challenge. This meant: doing two 45-minute (at least one of them outdoors), reading ten pages of a nonfiction book, and drinking a gallon of water . . . each day. Most intimidatingly, I was supposed to stick to a diet of my choosing. I went all in: HIIT training, 4.5-mile runs, Becoming Supernatural queued up on my e-reader, and a squeaky-clean keto plan that had me eating organic, grass-fed (and grass-finished) beef that I could barely afford. I tracked macros and considered electrolyte ratios. I had come to terms with the fact that I鈥檇 become someone who used the term 鈥渆lectrolyte ratios鈥� in casual conversation.

And then I burned out.

Somewhere around Day 42, I traded mountain climbers for Yin Yoga. I prioritized taking long walks, watching white-tailed rabbits hopping alongside the estuary near my home in Boston, Massachusetts, over chasing yesterday鈥檚 personal best. The diet? That crumbled when I tried to justify the cost of avocados and eggs and failed. (Within the last year, the price of a rose by 75 percent, and the usual three bucks I鈥檇 spend on a turned into five.)

Still, I wanted to eat well(ish), which for me, means protein-heavy, low-effort, and ideally not financially ruinous. So, like any overstimulated elder millennial trying to avoid decision fatigue (and wear sunscreen, and hydrate, and remember to call mom), I turned to Instagram.

Welcome to the chat. With 3.5 million followers, Rick Wiggins shares quick, high-protein recipes meant to satisfy cravings while staying protein-powered. His creations looked suspiciously easy. His voice was refreshingly monotone. I was in.

As I scrolled, one ingredient kept popping up, an ingredient I found personally affronting: cottage cheese. It was white and lumpy. It was wet. It was everywhere. Rick blended it into pizza crusts, brownies, and pancakes. And it wasn鈥檛 just on Rick鈥檚 page. TikTok, too, had fully surrendered to the curd鈥攚hich was confusing. Because for me, I never saw it in my Caribbean household growing up. My parents didn鈥檛 eat it. We didn鈥檛 cook with it. To borrow from Mariah Carey: I don鈥檛 know her.

The message? This is food you eat because it鈥檚 good for you.

So when I made queso out of it (blended with cheddar, cream, taco seasoning, and hot sauce) and served it to a friend while hanging out, I didn’t tell them what was in it. They liked it. Called it “fire.” Then I broke the news.

They looked at me like I鈥檇 confessed to putting mayonnaise in brownies: 鈥淲ait . . . like, real cottage cheese?鈥�

鈥淵es. From a tub. Bought on purpose.鈥�

I was surprised, too, because the queso was, in fact, fire. But I was also curious. Because how did goat cheese鈥檚 sad, step-cousin become America鈥檚 newest protein-packed heartthrob?

I. TikTok, but Make It Clumpy

In April 2023, holistic nutritionist Lainie Kates鈥� on TikTok and for the renewed interest in cottage cheese鈥攑osted a high-protein peanut butter cheesecake “ice cream” . In it, she blended cottage cheese, peanut butter, chocolate chips, and maple syrup. Froze it. Ate it. Her video went viral. The internet was flooded with cheesecake bowls, ranch dips, and 鈥減rotein donuts鈥濃�攎ost of which starred cottage cheese. It didn鈥檛 matter that the texture was off-putting. It blended well. It hit macros. That was enough.

Then brands caught on. In 2024, Daisy, sour cream鈥檚 shepherd, with The Bachelor鈥檚 Daisy Kent to promote the brand鈥檚 equally famous cottage cheese.

Just this month, Trader Joe鈥檚 dropped . Good Culture, a brand started in 2015, was literally to bring a revamped, better-tasting, and healthier version of cottage cheese to the public. A few weeks ago, they put out a meme-laden on Instagram saying that they can’t keep up with the demand for their iconic cottage cheese, confirming聽the cheese’s renewed popularity.

The message? This is food you eat because it鈥檚 good for you鈥攃rafted with “,鈥� made with only 鈥�,鈥� and 鈥�.鈥� That鈥檚 how the brands framed it. And if the messaging sounds familiar, that鈥檚 because we’ve heard it before.

II. A Short History of a Long Shelf Life

In the early 1900s, the U.S. had a problem: meat was scarce during World War I. To help conserve it, the U.S. Department of Agriculture promoted dairy as a substitute. Posters encouraged people to “.” It wasn鈥檛 just a suggestion; it was patriotism.

By the 1950s, cottage cheese had migrated from the war effort to weight-loss plans. It was low in fat, high in protein, and flavorless enough to avoid overindulgence. You could measure it. You (probably) wouldn鈥檛 overeat it. Thus, it was ideal for calorie counting.

That鈥檚 right around the time when the 鈥溾�� made its way to America鈥檚 diner menus鈥攗sually a scoop of cottage cheese, a ring of canned peach or sliced tomato, maybe a wedge of iceberg lettuce. It wasn鈥檛 really a meal. It was more of a performance. A way to show you were being good. These lingered well into the seventies and eighties, eventually evolving into the 鈥淟ite鈥� menu I remember seeing at Long Island diners during my childhood in the nineties. Same scoop, same canned fruit鈥攋ust rebranded for the next generation of restraint.

Cottage cheese didn鈥檛 evolve. It was just repurposed. And maybe that鈥檚 the clearest sign of its legacy: it survives not by being loved but by being useful.

By 1972, Americans were eating about of cottage cheese per person each year. Even Richard Nixon was known to . YUM. He had such a lust for lactose, in fact, that he reportedly requested cottage cheese at his 1969 inauguration dinner. And when he resigned from office in 1974? His final White House was cottage cheese with pineapple and a glass of milk. A presidency bookended by curds.

III. Who Was It Really For?

Not everyone was eating it. Rather, not everyone was meant to be eating it. Mid-twentieth-century food campaigns primarily targeted . Cottage cheese came with a message鈥攅at this, stay thin, stay beautiful, stay in control.

Cottage cheese was sold as a democratic food: cheap, accessible, healthy. But it never belonged to everyone.

Even when it showed up in government campaigns and school lunches, it wasn鈥檛 a staple in every home. It simply didn鈥檛 catch on in many immigrant, Black, and working-class communities. Part of that was logistics. Cottage cheese requires refrigeration, fresh milk, and a cold distribution chain, not always available in rural or .

Look at the ads. White women in full makeup, smiling at tubs of cottage cheese like they鈥檇 just invented it. One Eden Vale ad shows a nuclear family floating through a suburban utopia, landing at a table set with cottage cheese salads and a big tomato. A Knudsen ad features a flawless woman offering a tub of 鈥淰ELVET creamed cottage cheese,鈥� promising sweetness, lightness, and domestic perfection. Borden鈥檚 went all in: cartoon cows, crisp lettuce, and cottage cheese rings studded with peas and carrot sticks. No spice, no mess鈥攋ust a carefully styled portrait of control, domestic order, and cultural exclusion.

These images weren鈥檛 neutral. They reinforced the message: this is who eats this, and this is how you serve it. In her 2011 book, , historian Katherine J. Parkin argues that mid-20th-century food advertising reinforced narrow ideals of femininity, pressuring women to equate thinness, domestic perfection, and family nourishment with personal value.

But the bigger issue was taste. Cottage cheese didn鈥檛 reflect the ingredients or textures of most non-white food cultures.

My Caribbean family鈥檚 fridge, for example, held sorrel, pepper sauce, and mango chutney, not clumps of dairy. So, when I brought home a container of Good Culture to recreate my (self-proclaimed) famous queso, they looked at it suspiciously. Then they聽asked what I planned to do with it. When I said 鈥渜ueso,鈥� they raised their eyebrows and sucked their teeth. They weren鈥檛 offended. Just confused. It鈥檚 understandable because the marketing never spoke to them. And it wasn鈥檛 designed to.

IV. Cottage Cheese Loses Its Steam

Even among the people it was supposedly for, cottage cheese couldn鈥檛 hold on.

By the 1980s, its popularity 鈥攓uietly edged out by a new dairy star with smoother texture, stronger marketing, and fewer identity issues: yogurt. High in protein, rich in backstory, and aggressively rebranded as a probiotic superfood, yogurt didn鈥檛 just enter the chat鈥攊t took over the conversation.

Cottage cheese didn鈥檛 know how to compete. There were no new formats, no updated flavors, no attempt to win over younger shoppers. It stayed in its big old tub, parked on the fridge shelf. Meanwhile, yogurt was out living聽its best life鈥攑opping up as Go-Gurt in school lunchboxes, and with glass jars with foil lids in meal-preps. One became a lifestyle product; the other stayed a buffet-line staple at your grandmother鈥檚 favorite salad bar.

The texture didn鈥檛 help. In a 2012 study published in the , researchers found that texture was the biggest barrier to cottage cheese acceptance, especially among younger consumers. The graininess, visual lumpiness, and curdy mouthfeel turned people off, even when the fat and protein content hit all the right numbers. Even versions labeled 鈥渓ow-fat鈥� or 鈥渉igh-protein鈥� couldn鈥檛 overcome the basic sensory mismatch. People didn鈥檛 hate what it stood for. They just didn鈥檛 want to eat it and feel it on their tongues.

At the same time, yogurt brands were investing in stories. Chobani was founded by an who turned a struggling factory into a billion-dollar company.聽Dannon built a whole campaign around Georgian and the secret to long life. Yogurt had a point of view. Cottage cheese didn鈥檛 even have a spokesperson.

By the 2010s, yogurt was 聽cottage cheese nearly eight to one. And cottage cheese wasn鈥檛 just fading in market share鈥攊t was fading in memory. It stopped being an expectation. For most people, it stopped being an option.

So when it started trending again鈥攕neaking into dips, desserts, and TikTok reels鈥攊t felt less like a comeback and more like a glitch. Cottage cheese didn鈥檛 evolve. It was just repurposed. And maybe that鈥檚 the clearest sign of its legacy: it survives not by being loved but by being useful.

V. Diet Culture, Rebranded

Today鈥檚 cottage cheese wave still centers on the same values: control, efficiency, and self-regulation. The language changed, but the pressure stayed. It鈥檚 no longer 鈥渟tay thin for your husband,鈥� it鈥檚 鈥渙ptimize your macros.鈥�

The look changed, too. It鈥檚 not a scoop on a peach slice. It鈥檚 whipped, blended, hidden in dips, ice creams, and sauces. It鈥檚 in a glass bowl, drizzled with chili crisp and tagged #highprotein on an influencer鈥檚聽 鈥淲hat I Eat in a Day鈥� reel. But the performance is the same: eat this to prove you鈥檙e doing the work.

We used to count calories (some people still do). Now we count macros. We used to tally Weight Watchers points. Now we use apps and fitness watches to track calories burned. We used to aim for thin. Now we say lean.

Blending until smooth is a requirement. The texture is still a problem, it鈥檚 just one we鈥檙e now expected to fix. And the brands know that.

Cottage聽cheese itself still needed a rebrand鈥攏ot because it was forgotten, but because it was never truly loved. It has to justify itself because it can鈥檛 rely on flavor or nostalgia.

Modern cottage cheese branding sells function first: gut health, low carb, high protein. The packaging often mirrors wellness trends鈥攃lean lines, block fonts, neutral palettes鈥攖he same aesthetic you鈥檇 find in a Scandinavian furniture showroom. Some lean into compliance culture, highlighting Whole30- or keto-friendly ingredients. Others soften the message by adding flavor cues, but even then, pleasure is usually positioned as a bonus, not the point.

Take Trader Joe鈥檚 ranch cottage cheese dip: 鈥渁 fantastically flavorful dip,鈥� yes鈥攂ut only after mentioning its protein content, versatility, and use in pancakes, pasta, and frittatas. The indulgence comes with an asterisk. It鈥檚 not just tasty鈥攊t鈥檚 functional.

I鈥檝e tried the Good Culture stuff. It鈥檚 fine. It blends well. But cottage cheese itself still needed a rebrand鈥攏ot because it was forgotten, but because it was never truly loved. It has to justify itself because it can鈥檛 rely on flavor or nostalgia.

Maybe that鈥檚 why it fits so well into modern wellness culture. We鈥檝e replaced calorie charts with meal-prep hacks. But the goal remains: Build a better body. Be a better person. Stay in control.

Cottage cheese still fits that mold. Just like it always has.

VI. Reflection: The Cheese That Refused to Quit

I didn鈥檛 expect to end up here鈥攚ith a half-used container of cottage cheese in my fridge and a short list of recipes I鈥檓 not embarrassed to share. I still don鈥檛 love it. I don鈥檛 crave it. But I鈥檝e learned to respect it.

That respect came from looking back. Cottage cheese didn鈥檛 trend because a TikToker froze it into a dessert. It鈥檚 been around for over a century, always showing up when we decide food should prove something. War, weight loss, wellness鈥攃ottage cheese shows up to work. (FYI: I explain some even more extraordinary uses for cottage cheese in the video below.)

Once it was about thrift. Then self-denial. Now it鈥檚 optimization. But the message doesn鈥檛 change: If聽you eat this, you鈥檙e trying. You鈥檙e disciplined. You鈥檙e doing it right.

And that鈥檚 why it still makes people uncomfortable.

You don鈥檛 have to explain why you like donuts. But cottage cheese? You need a reason. High protein. Gut-friendly. You don鈥檛 just eat it, you earn it.

Whether I鈥檝e earned it or not,听 I鈥檝e blended it into queso. Stirred it into pancakes. Eaten it鈥攙ery reluctantly鈥攂y the spoonful. Once. I鈥檓 not a fan.

But I鈥檓 not against it anymore, either.

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Just past midnight somewhere along the long road between Darwin and Lone Pine, California, driving a car littered with Cheez-It boxes, baby wipes, and crushed cans of energy drinks and coffee, Andrew Boyd tried to decide if he should tell Kaylee Frederick something important. As the crew chief of Frederick鈥檚 third consecutive Badwater 135 run, Boyd was the keeper of the pace secrets. Not even Frederick knew whether she was on pace to achieve her goal of besting the 20 to 29 female age group record of 32 hours and 31 minutes. She had spent the previous day listening to Boyd鈥檚 encouragement, and now, in the darkness outside of Death Valley, she was just hours away from breaking 32. She would need, however, to dig deep鈥攖o run most of the way up Mount Whitney鈥檚 Portal Road. The margins were too close; she didn鈥檛 have time to take a break or a quick nap. Every step, truly, had to count.

Boyd knew this. I noticed the mischievous, whimsical shift in his tone that I had come to recognize over the past two days. He turned to the other two members of Frederick鈥檚 crew: Liz Myers and Marissa Sisson, his thought-partners in crime.

鈥淪hould I tell her?鈥� he said.

鈥淚t鈥檚 time,鈥� Myers said.

Two years ago, Frederick became, at 18 years old, the youngest ever Badwater 135 finisher. Since then, Frederick, who is sponsored by the performance running brand , has amassed an impressive resume of ultramarathon finishes, including a second-place, 136-mile total at the USA Track & Field 24-hour championship in 2024. But it is Badwater that holds her gaze. She has returned annually since that initial finish, each year improving on her time from the year before. She holds the age group record for females under 20 years old, and, at 20 years old this year, was targeting the next female age group record. She is half the age of the current female record holder, Ashley Paulson. Andrew Boyd has been there for each of Frederick鈥檚 Badwater races, encouraging her from the support vehicle, running alongside her as a pacer.

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The Friday morning after Kevin Underhill crashed, I returned to the Driveway auto racetrack around 7 A.M. The track鈥檚 owner, Bill Dollahite, greeted me. How was I doing, he asked.

I had already told Bill that we鈥檇 had to transport Underhill to the hospital the previous night. It was important for the venue owner to know that there had been a serious crash, because he might need to speak with local media outlets about the incident. But Bill had already seen the blood on the race course. A car club would be using the track at 9 A.M., Bill reminded me. We needed to have the venue cleaned up and prepared for their arrival.

It was August 14, 2009, near the end of my first full eight-month season as the promoter and race director of the Driveway Series, a Thursday night road bike race at the far end of east Austin. I dumped PA cables, extension cords, and other equipment out of five-gallon buckets I’d been using as storage. I found a scrub brush and some Dawn dish soap, and went down to the tree-lined section of the track. I carried one bucket of clean water, one of soapy water.

I scrubbed the track for the next hour and a half, trying to get the blood stain out. I understood that the group of people Bill was hosting were paying for a premium experience. One of the members in the car club was a doctor from Austin鈥檚 Brackenridge Hospital, where we鈥檇 transported Underhill the previous evening. The doctor had finished a long overnight shift. We began to talk.

鈥淚s Kevin going to be okay?鈥� I asked. Because of medical privacy rules, the doctor couldn鈥檛 say much. He just told me, 鈥淚 know you probably want to go home, but you should really go back to the hospital.鈥�

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When Ben Weissenbach first landed in Anchorage in the summer of 2018, he considered himself pretty much invincible. Nothing could touch him; there was no situation he couldn鈥檛 charm, reason, or muscle his way out of. Looking back now, Weissenbach calls that feeling 鈥減ure hubris,鈥� the kind of confidence that shows up in your swagger when you鈥檙e a 20-something kid from Los Angeles for whom everything just seems to go right. That was before Alaska got ahold of him鈥攁nd turned his worldview upside-down.

This odyssey is the subject of Weissenbach鈥檚 new book: . It鈥檚 a spirited adventure tale complete with hair-raising bear encounters, weeks-long expeditions alongside grizzled ecologists, and late nights spent weighing the fate of the world around a guttering fire. But it鈥檚 also a profoundly thoughtful look at the way we all live our day-to-day lives鈥攁nd what our tech-saturated world could leave us missing.

The Allure of Alaska

When Weissenbach first planned his trip to Alaska in 2018, he never intended to get a book deal out of it. Mostly, he was just looking for an excuse to travel.

Like many young people, Weissenbach had been drawn to the far north by the romance of classic adventure tales鈥攕tories by the likes of Jack London, John Krakauer, and John McPhee. And though he鈥檇 only ever spent a handful of days in a tent, he managed to convince his school, Princeton University, to send him to Alaska for a research project on climate change. It was a trip for which he was entirely unprepared.

鈥淚n a lot of ways I had grown up experiencing the world through a screen. I think that鈥檚 true of a lot of kids my age,鈥� Weissenbach told 国产吃瓜黑料. 鈥淚 was part of the first generation to go through adolescence with front-facing cameras and social media. What was going on online often felt as real鈥攊f not more real鈥攖han whatever social interactions we were having in person.鈥� He grew up with the sense that the 鈥渞eal world鈥� was always somewhere else, a glossy, glowing image just out of reach. Weissenbach hopped on that plane to Alaska in part hoping to find it.

Unplugging鈥擝ig Time

What he discovered was a land that鈥檚 at once as raw and wild as it鈥檚 ever been鈥攁nd more impacted by human activity than any other corner of the planet. Despite its remoteness, Alaska faces some of the worst effects of climate change on earth. The experience opened Weissenbach鈥檚 eyes to both the harsh reality of a warming world and the inexorable joy that comes from unplugging, slowing down, and paying attention to the rhythms of the earth.

鈥淚 realized I had let technology invade my life so entirely that I didn鈥檛 know how to experience the world without it,鈥� he says. During his first days off-grid, he felt out of place and disoriented. But as the weeks ticked by, he sank into a deeper presence鈥攁nd discovered he was able to pay attention and see the world in ways he never imagined possible.

鈥淚t鈥檚 really hard to understand how different your mind can be when you鈥檙e off your phone and away from the internet for eleven weeks at a time,鈥� Weissenbach says. 鈥淢ost of us haven鈥檛 experienced that since we were toddlers. I was amazed at how different the texture of my mind was.鈥�

The experience changed the way Weissenbach sees our planet, and the way he sees his own habits. Of course, none of that wisdom was easily won.聽

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There are times, more than I鈥檇 care to admit, an hour and a half into a trainer ride in my freezing garage, staring at my bike avatar move through virtual landscapes of Zwift, when my gear is growing moss and the walls are closing in the way do at Disney鈥檚 Haunted Mansion ride, that I suddenly feel the urge to shed the cloying comforts of home and go for some long trek through a foreign landscape.

If only, I鈥檝e often thought, I had an 国产吃瓜黑料 Buddy鈥攕omeone who would always be there, nodding along as I detailed my latest hazily conceptualized scheme: I just read about the most remote pub in the UK. They鈥檒l buy you a beer if you hike in. It takes a few days. You up for it? To complicate things, my mind never seems to drift to the local, the achievable (say, a day-hike in the Poconos) for which I might actually drum up a companion. I generate quixotic ideas that call for veritable Sancho Panzas.

The trusty companion of trail and tent is an idea鈥攁lmost a romantic longing鈥攖hat haunts the world of outdoor exploits. You think of famous climbing partnerships like Conrad Anker and Jimmy Chin, or Tommy Caldwell and Alex Honnold. If you鈥檙e me, you think of writers like William Finnegan, in his surfing memoir Barbarian Days, cavorting around the globe with his buddy Bryan Di Salvatore. Finnegan once evinced the bromance aspect of the whole thing. 鈥淵ou go to extreme lengths, and you do it together, so these friendships really get tested,鈥� he told Alta Journal. 鈥淵ou want that great wave, but it鈥檚 much greater if your friend sees you get that great wave. It鈥檚 a dense sort of homoerotic world you live in.鈥� The same, of course, can be true of female adventure friendships.

I鈥檓 not alone in my hunger for shared adventure. You see it on the partner boards at shops like Denver鈥檚 Wilderness Exchange, where people put up cards listing their preferred pursuit and available dates (鈥淎lways,鈥� being my favorite). You see it in endless online queries from people new to a town who don鈥檛 have anyone to join them in the outdoors. The URL will take you to a site, based in Alaska, looking to pair people up. 鈥淲hat a great idea!鈥� one commenter wrote. 鈥淛ust what Alaska needs … So many things to do, but not always easy to find the people to go with.鈥�

Indeed.

As it turns out, I actually do have an ideal adventure buddy in mind: my friend Wayne Chambliss. Wayne鈥攃urrently doing post-graduate work in London on geography, part of which involves him being 鈥渋nhumed,鈥� or buried underground鈥攊s pretty much up for anything, no matter how grueling, how ill-advised, how quasi-legal. He鈥檚 got an outdoor CV that is impressively outlandish.

All this raises a question: What, in fact, makes for a good adventure buddy?

There was the time near Utqiagvik, Alaska, that he had to outsprint a polar bear鈥攖his just after he鈥檇 taken bolt cutters to his wedding ring, chucking half of it, in some Tolkienesque rite, onto the frozen Beaufort Sea. Or the time, for lack of planning, he was forced to do a fifty-one-mile single-push circumambulation of Oregon鈥檚 Three Sisters volcanic peaks. He鈥檚 been submerged in a homemade submarine, along with its maker, off the coast of Honduras; he鈥檚 been airlifted into the wilds of Canada for a kayaking trip, without much knowing how to kayak. He鈥檚 crossed the Grand Canyon from rim to rim to rim, walked through Chernobyl鈥檚 zone of exclusion, and traversed Death Valley on foot (twice). Wayne is also a ferocious magpie of information, an endless spinner of theories and weaver of connections, a writer of feverish, private dispatches. Once, when I was asked him for any off-the-cuff thoughts for a potential story on treasure, he responded immediately:

鈥淗ey, Tom. An interesting question. I鈥檒l give it some thought. In the meantime, are you considering botanical rarities like ghost orchids or Pennantia baylisiana, or last surviving speakers of languages, or the gold that Rumi帽ahui ordered hidden in the Llanganates Mountains, or the Nazi gold hidden in Lower Silesia, or the one viable REE mine in the U.S. (now owned by a Chinese concern), or how antimatter (of which less than twenty nanograms have been produced thus far, I believe) costs ~$62.5 trillion per gram, or the lone copy of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin (which would be a great opportunity to interview the Wu-Tang Clan, and maybe Bill Murray), the disassembly of the Codex Leicester鈥︹��

I will cut it off there. But it went on. And it was the first of three emails. Suffice it to say, we could spend weeks on an outing without running out of things to talk about. There is just one problem in all of this: Wayne and I have never actually done any adventures together. Our failure to connect can be explained away by that tangled alchemy of time pressure, work commitments, having a family, and the general financial state of the creative precariat. Call it real life.

The closest we got was when I randomly discovered we were both in Quito, Ecuador, at the same time. I was working on a magazine piece about a spate of new luxury high-rises built by big-name architects. He was , the active volcano that shimmers distantly over the city. Flopping on my bed at night after another lavish, wine-heavy dinner, I felt a bit trapped, like Martin Sheen鈥檚 character in Apocalypse Now, stewing in Saigon: 鈥淓very minute I stay in this room, I get weaker.鈥� Wayne was out there in the bush, getting stronger.

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The helipad at the northern end of Mount Everest Base Camp was buzzing with energy when I arrived on a sunny Monday afternoon in mid-May. Men clad in DayGlo vests and hardhats chatted as the whine of a flying cargo drone echoed through the valley. A few hundred meters beyond, the massive Khumbu Icefall cascaded from the flanks of Mount Everest聽like a powerful waterfall, frozen in time.

This area is the staging zone for the drone operations of the so-called 鈥淚cefall Doctors,鈥� a team of mountain workers that build and maintain the route through the shifting Khumbu Icefall, the most dangerous section of the Everest climb. Before any climbers can venture onto the peak, these workers must ascend frozen cliffs and navigate a labyrinthian and alien landscape made of ice. They lay ladders across deep crevasses and place them on the sides of skyscraper-sized frozen blocks. They twist titanium ice screws into the frozen environment and string safety ropes through the glacier, up 1,300 vertical feet.

Their work creates the key artery that climbers and guides use to access the higher camps on the mountain. Perhaps no job on the mountain is more important鈥攜et more wrapped in paradox. On one hand, the job of the Icefall Doctors is changing with the influx of new technology and the swelling crowds on Mount Everest. On the other hand, perhaps no job on Mount Everest is as irreplaceable. The work they do must be done by hand, and with patience and attention to detail.

鈥淲ithout the Icefall Doctors, Everest is impossible,鈥� Jangbu Sherpa, whose official Icefall Doctor title is Second Leader, told聽国产吃瓜黑料. 鈥淭he routes we open through the icefall, no other mountain guides can. They don鈥檛 have the courage.鈥�

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With all the expeditions he鈥檚 been a part of, all the technology he鈥檚 developed, all the discoveries he鈥檚 covered, I鈥檓 used to Albert Lin being one of the more interesting people in a room鈥攐r even the most well-known. But walking down the street in Quito, Ecuador, I didn鈥檛 realize he was this famous.

We are headed to a coffee shop when a woman with her son recognizes him and hollers out the window of her car.

鈥淓xcuse me!鈥� she says. 鈥淲e know you!鈥�

She barely comes to a stop before getting out to take a picture, but in her hurry forgets to take the car out of gear. It lurches forward, and she dives back in to put it in park.

Fifteen minutes later, a young woman approaches to ask for a picture and tell Lin how much she loves his National Geographic TV show, Lost Cities, in which he goes looking for archaeological evidence of vanished civilizations. In fact, she wants to show him exactly which episode she just watched.

This happens pretty often in Central and South America. Lin has done a lot of work here. Unlike the programs that dominate cable TV by rehashing tired mysteries or paranormal encounters, Lin鈥檚 show lives in the freshly turned soil of archaeological inquiry. He鈥檚 usually sharing new findings during an episode about, say, the empires that once encompassed Guatemala, Ecuador, and Peru. Often, those findings show that ancient civilizations were a lot more sophisticated than we thought. His work helps dignify Indigenous history. But it鈥檚 not just that.

He played the part of a motivational icon, because being inspirational was how he moved through the world.

Before getting coffee, Lin toured the (ROMP) building, a converted split-level with balance bars in the living room and plaster dust floating out of a backyard workshop. That鈥檚 where a team of prosthetists uses recycled parts to design and build custom devices for amputees all over South America. Lin is himself an amputee and came to Ecuador as part of clothing brand Cotopaxi鈥檚 sponsorship of ROMP鈥檚 annual mountain climb fundraiser.

He shook a lot of hands at ROMP. He jogged with people testing out their聽 carbon fiber running blades. He played the part of a motivational icon, because being inspirational was how he moved through the world. Sometimes, it could be a little much.

鈥淵ou know how some people lose their shit when they meet Taylor Swift?鈥� sobbed L茅a Richer, a United States鈥揵ased prosthetist, when she met him. 鈥淵ou鈥檝e been my Taylor Swift for years.鈥�

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Mike de la Rocha is a difficult man to define. He’s an artist and an advocate. He’s the voice of a generation and a bit of a beach bum. He’s an award-winning change-maker and the co-founder of two businesses: a that provides work for formerly incarcerated people, and an internationally renowned that connects celebrities with social change movements. And now, he’s an author, too.

De la Rocha鈥檚 forthcoming book is an ode to his profound and emotionally complicated relationship with his late father. The man, Ismael “Mayo” de la Rocha, could be an enigma. He was at once a professor who mentored thousands of students over the course of his long career, and a closed-off figure who struggled to teach his own sons emotional intimacy. The tale de la Rocha weaves is an intimately vulnerable story about culture, the trappings of masculinity, and the capacity we all have for change. In ,听de la Rocha reflects on the enduring lessons of the ocean and how surfing and the natural world helped him break through the layers of conditioning and forge a deeper relationship with his father鈥攁nd with himself.聽聽

In the below excerpt, de la Rocha stands on the beach with his toes in the sand, looking out at the ocean and back into the past. As he reflects, he reveals some of the lessons his father did teach him鈥攅verything from how to whittle down your belongings (including toys) to the bare essentials, to how to withstand the shock of freezing water, even when your body begs you to flee.

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