Ginger Minj Shows Us Her Southern-Fried Sass

You may have seen alums of RuPaul’s Drag Race at some of Nashville’s larger venues, like TPAC or Play. But Wednesday’s event is something special — Ginger Minj, whose book Southern Fried Sass: A Queen’s Guide to Cooking, Decorating, and Living Just a Little Bit Extra drops Nov. 7, will make an appearance at Parnassus Books. Ahead of her book event, we spoke on Zoom about the book’s origins, Southern grandmas, Florida politics and Minj’s own philosophy for how to get through the fear and hate surrounding the LGBTQ and drag communities.

Did you ever think you would write a book?

I imagined my life story told in a Lifetime movie, or on Jerry Springer. But as I got older, I've been traveling the world and I've met people that are like, “This piece of your story really resonates with me,” or, “This thing that you said about your childhood really helps me put mine into perspective.” There is power in communication. So I thought, “What's the best way to do that? I'll write a book.” Because I'm not just one thing. I'm a little bit of everything shoved into one great big glittery ball.

What did you think the book would be?

I thought it would be a straightforward memoir, but I wanted something special and different that more people could connect with. It was after my grandmother passed away and left me her recipe box that I wondered if anybody had ever done a memoir-slash-cookbook. Everything from the chicken to the gossip is going to be juicy in this book!

Which part was the most fun to write — the memoir part, the recipes or the advice?

The recipe part was not fun to write because my Grammy, as most Southern cooks, wasn't, “Measure out a quarter-teaspoon of this and two tablespoons of that.” It was like, “You're gonna do a pinch of this. You can do this to taste. And as soon as it can come up out of that bowl and slap you in the face, it's ready.” In my head, this was going to be easy. All the recipes are done. All I have to do is type them out. Then I sent them to the publisher and they were like, “No, you cannot tell Peggy Sue from Chicago that she has to put a pinch of this, a dash of that, and flavor until it slaps you in the face.” So it took me, my mom, my sister and my aunt to really hunker down with those recipes and cook them until we got them exactly like we remembered.

Is it strange to go from performing on stages all over the world to reading at a podium in a bookstore?

No. The strange part for me is in these arenas where we've got between 5,000 to 10,000 people, and there's such a disconnect from the audience. There's so many people and we're so far away, that whenever I am able to bring it down and be in a small room of people who are there for one particular reason, and that reason is me, it's much easier to connect and share stories. That's what I prefer. That's why I'm really excited about the book tour.

You’re from Florida, and I’m wondering how it feels to watch things like the ‘'Don't Say Gay” bill and other anti-LGBTQ legislation get proposed and passed.

I'm conflicted on this, because on the surface level, yes, I am pissed-off. I'm angry at all this. I have worked at Hamburger Mary's in downtown Orlando for the last 16 years. I have never had an issue there. When this started popping up, we got bricks through the windows, we got actual Nazis protesting us in the streets, we got news crews bursting into the dressing room and trying to do an ambush. That all is so frustrating, but I try to filter things through the brighter future of it all. One takeaway is that we have finally made enough impact culturally, particularly with drag, and we are so mainstream that we're scary.

I think people wouldn't push back if they didn't feel — I don't want to say threatened, because I don't think any of them truly feel threatened, but I do think they feel like we're taking over, and it makes them very uncomfortable. Because it means things are changing. And once things are changing, you either jump onboard, or you get left behind. Eventually the people that are being the loudest, protesting the loudest, being the most harmful and making the most noise, they're getting left behind. And I find that unfortunate, because I want everybody to get on the train and have a nice, smooth ride.

You started your career performing at Pulse Nightclub and live with a lot of fear and hate surrounding what you do. How does that feel?

Right after the Pulse [nightclub shooting] happened, it was so jarring. I don't even know that I had time to be sad about it because it was so shocking. I was numb for a couple of days. Then something beautiful happened. The entire community — not just the LGBTQIA+ community — showed up to protect the town. We had the Westboro Baptist Church show up. We had a bunch of protesters show up, and none of them were from Orlando. The entire community, I will never forget, they made these giant angel wings, that — oh God, I'm going to get emotional talking about it, because it was just so beautiful in that moment. They made these giant wings, and they all stood side by side so that they blocked out the protesters from the people who were mourning.

It gave me such a different feeling for my town and my community, and it made me proud to be in Orlando. I have been here for so long and I have seen this community come together to protect each other, even when we didn't agree. I always go back to that moment. That is what Orlando is. That's why I'm proud to be a part of this.

When I recently talked to John Waters, he said the drag ban is too late — that because of RuPaul, people in Middle America love drag.

It's exactly right. We owe a lot to Ru, but we owe so much to John and Divine. Divine was the first one. She did not walk through the door. She kicked it off the hinges. One of the saddest things to me is that I will never get to meet Divine and say, “Thank you for everything you did, particularly for weird little queer fat kids like me.” When I was growing up, all I had was John Waters, Divine and RuPaul in The Brady Bunch Movie. That's what I had for queer representation.

How important is it to be there for the queer community coming up behind you?

It took me 40 years to become an overnight sensation. We all tend to look at other people and think they have it so easy. They must have had a wonderful life, and things must be great for them, because they have this amazing thing that I would give anything for. That's something everybody needs to learn: You're going to get wherever you need to be. The Wizard of Oz is my favorite story. They had to walk through that awful dark forest full of all those awful scary things in order to get what they wanted. That's something everybody can take with them. You can say, “I'm in the trees right now. Let me continue on my path.” And you'll get there. That's what my whole life has been. A lot of awful, terrible shit has happened. And I had to find the light in those puddles of darkness.

Do you have a go-to Nashville food stop?

I love barbecue. I was born and raised on it. My grandparents owned a barbecue restaurant. So I'm a barbecue snob. But I have found that every barbecue restaurant that I have been forcibly taken to in Nashville has exceeded my expectations. So I never go with an agenda. I just show up and go, “All right, take me to your favorite.”