Alana Dao

Profile picture of Dilettante Army Author Alana Dao

Alana Dao is a writer and observer interested in cultural criticism related to food and whiteness. She received a MA in Visual and Critical Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BA in Latin American Studies and Spanish at Smith College, thereby rendering her completely and utterly unable to “get a real job.” Born and raised in Texas and Hong Kong, she currently lives in Portland, Maine with her hairdresser/art educator boyfriend and their infant daughter, who is named after a cocktail. She is the Executive Director of CSArt Maine, a community art share program she co-founded upon realizing, as mentioned above, that she was wholly unemployable. When not bossing people around under the guise of organizations she’s made up herself, she enjoys reading The New Yorker restaurant reviews aloud to her baby, evening walks to peek into other people’s homes, and plotting a return to her native Texas.

Instagram and Protest: Cake in the Imaginary Economy

Baking for a political Instagram archive raises the question: can protest, like cake, be generous?

Bake Sales: Domestic Labor and Julia Turshen’s Feeding the Resistance

Does the bake sale have a place in contemporary activism?

Cooking with Class: A Little French

The spectacle of transparency and authenticity in food, plus how to chop celeriac.

Cooking with Class: Relational Recipes

a prescriptive cookbook and a descriptive experience

Huang’s Web

caught up in whiteness

Postpartum Document(s)

archiving through soup

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