Michelle Obama: The Light Podcast - How Pyet Despain Won Next Level Chef By Embracing Her Roots

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

Chef, cookbook author, and winner of Next Level Chef, Pyet DeSpain, shares how her Mexican and Native American roots shaped her extraordinary culinary career. Pyet talks about growing up on the Osage Reservation in Oklahoma, debunks misconceptions about Native culture and cuisine, and pulls back the curtain on what it’s really like behind the scenes of a cooking competition show. Plus, she shares her recipe for Blue Corn Strawberry Tamales with Coconut Horchata Sauce!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

There's not really this blend of cultures. It's just my dad's side, my mom's side. And when I became a chef, I decided I want to represent myself. You're not going to choose. Yeah, I don't want to have to choose. I shouldn't have to choose. It's my own table. I built a table.

Right. You should do whatever you want to do at that table. Exactly. Welcome back to your mama's kitchen. This is a place where we explore how we are shaped as adults by the kitchen's that we grew up in as kids. Of course, the food that we ate, but so much other stuff. The laughter, the arguments, the homework at the kitchen table, the music on the radio,

I'm Michelle Norris. And I'm kind of excited to introduce you to our guest today. Piet de Spain is an award-winning chef, a private global chef, and the first ever winner of Gordon Ramsey's groundbreaking cooking competition series called Next Level Chef. kudos to her for that. She draws inspiration from her Native American and Mexican heritage, creating dishes that honor and celebrate the flavors and the stories that were passed down through generations. Very few chefs in the world focus on indigenous cuisine and even fewer focus on the fusion between indigenous Mexican cuisine. And so Piet really is a trailblazer.

It's not an overstatement to say that she's almost one of a kind. And I feel lucky to have her on the show with me today to talk about recipes, memories, ingredients, traditions, and so much more. Welcome to the program. Thank you for having me. I'm so honored to be here, Michelle. Glad to have you with us. Now, we should give you a shout out, not just for winning that competition, but also for your cookbook. It's called Ruted in Fire, a celebration of Native American and Mexican cooking. It's coming out this fall. So if you're listening to this, check mark that. Pre-order, You're always very important. I had a chance to look at an advanced copy, and it's beautiful. It's really gorgeous. Congratulations. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. I love cookbooks. I keep them

stacked next to my bed for all the dream dinner parties that I one day hope to have. And cookbooks are not just places where we explore recipes. We really explore cultures. You're educating us through this cookbook. Yeah, definitely. I really tried my best to encompass all of the things that I knew that I needed when kind of starting this journey of merging the two heritage, both Mexican and Native American, together on the dinner table. So I was really hoping that I could get my story across and let other people know that they're not on the journey of reconnecting alone. Can you tell me a little bit about your family tree, that you are, now an ambassador for this fusion of indigenous and Mexican cuisine. Is that represent the fusion in

your family tree also? Yes, absolutely. Yeah, I grew up in a multicultural home. My mom, as you know, was adopted. And so she didn't know a lot about her upbringing until she was pregnant with me. So I got to be born into this very important chapter of my family's life, of reconnecting to our indigenity and our indigenous roots. Through the connection of my mother and her biological family on her mother's side. And so I'm both Native American from my mother and from my grandfather, her biological father. He too is native and he's Spanish and Italian. And on my dad's side, I'm Mexican American. My grandmother, she comes from French, Spanish descent. And then his dad was from Mexico. So it's quite a blend. But as far as I

culturally, you know, feeling as if I, I don't know much about being Spanish or French, other than my last name is to Spain. But I know everything about being indigenous because of my upbringing of being able to be close with my biological grandmother. She really helped raise me when I was younger. And her and I had a very, very close relationship. And on my dad's side, my grandmother, although she's not Mexican, she loved Mexican food. She loved the culture. And she was raised in Texas. So she was. was kind of brought in under her neighbor's wings, you know, who were Mexican, and that's where she really developed her love for Mexican food and her just for the culture in general. So when she

got older, a lot of the partners that she gravitated to were all Mexican. And so she, she spoke fluent Spanish. She learned how to cook Mexican food. She just really made sure that we knew where our roots were. Now, my dad's father, who is, you know, the Mexican descent, he was not in the picture. We didn't have a chance to really get to know him or have that reconnection. But that was something. I know that's something that my dad struggled with a lot. So me being born into this family of all these different roots and connections, I didn't really understand the power of that until I got older.

There were a lot of insecurities for feeling like I don't quite belong here or don't quite belong there because of that mixture of cultural background and mixed, quote unquote, mixed blood. But I really found that my upbringing was very much so tied to Mexican culture and Native American culture. So as I got older, I decided, you know, I should be really proud of these upbringings and these teachings and really, you know, try to share that story with people and let them understand that it's never too late to reconnect. Can you tell us a little bit more about how your mother discovered her connection to indigenous culture? My mother's adopted mother was diagnosed a cancer and passed away of cancer when she was 15.

So she was really trying to set my mother up for success in the future and knew that she was going to need her mother, a mother figure in her life as she got older and became a woman and soon probably would become a mom. And so she reconnected and she went and did the research with the adoption orphanage and said, hey, you know, I have this daughter and we're really trying to reconnect with her biological family. And so she ended up finding the phone number to my great-grandmother, which is Cecilia. And my mother found these letters and found all this information from, you know, all this work that her adopted mother had secretly been doing. And after she passed away, she thought, you know, I think it's time for me to reconnect. So she reached out to that phone number, which she wasn't even sure if the number would,

the phone number would still even work. Well, it did work. And the person I answered was my great-grandmother, Cecilia. And she says, hello, my name is Delphina. And I was adopted. And I think, you know, I think this is the phone number to my mother. And that was the beginning of those stages of the reconnection. And my mom was actually pregnant with me at that time.

She was 24 years old. Wow. And so she wound up learning more, and I hope I pronounced this correctly, the Powatamoni culture, and did she meet to the tribal elders? Was she able to go back and learn more about her people? So it's the Potawatomi tribe. Okay. So I am sorry. I was not even close. Potawatomani. Okay, I've got it now. Yeah. Potawatomi. It's a hard word. Watamie. Patowatomi. All right. Thank you. Of course. So at the time, everyone, my grandmother

lived in Kansas, which is Mayeta, Kansas, which is where our tribe's reservation is now. But my grandmother, who's my mom's biological mother, she lived on the Osage reservation in Pahaska, Oklahoma. And that's just about three and a half to four hours outside of Kansas City, which is where my mother lived at the time. And so she said, all this time was actually fairly close to her. people. Absolutely. Yes. Just hours away, if that, you know. And so she made the drive down and reconnected with her biological family and they all had a big meeting and, you know, kind of a homecoming, if you will. And my mom and her really just decided, hey, you know, in order for us to continue this relationship, you have to keep coming down and visiting and vice versa. So they were kind of making that work

until finally my mom ended up moving there to the reservation, the Ose's reservation, to live with or near my biological grandmother. So that's where I was born. I was born in Oklahoma, raised in that environment. And so although we didn't live on our tribe's land, which is the Potawatomi land, she was still learning a lot about her indigenous roots during that time frame. So she's got three boys, is that correct? And you're on the way when she first makes this discovery.

was she trying to make sure that you were able to embrace and absorb a culture that she only was able to come to later in life? Was that really important to her? Oh, absolutely. You know, my mother, the way she described it was she grew up her whole life, looking at herself in the mirror, not knowing what her parents looked like and not knowing who she looked more like her mother or her father or, you know, did she have other siblings through them or what did her grandma look like? And she grew up her whole life with those questions, and she did not want us to have that experience. She wanted us to know exactly where we came from. So for her to make that move to up and leave her whole life in Kansas City to move to the Pajasca Reservation and the Osage Reservation was a big part of her efforts to make sure that we knew exactly where we came from. Like I mentioned, although we weren't Osage, but that's where our family was.

And our roots were there with our grandmother. And, you know, we got that same teaching and value and belief system through the indigenous community that we were surrounded by. One thing I do know about tribal culture is when people come back, that it is something that is taken very, very seriously. You are welcomed informally, but also in very formal ways through ceremony. Sometimes there are naming ceremonies. Sometimes you are, you know, people call the spirits to watch over people or to recommune with people that have been taken from them or have drifted from them. Did your mother talk at all about some of that? Oh, absolutely.

We all had a naming ceremony, including my mother, at the same time. So it's a formal, as you know, as you mentioned, a formal ceremony that we do to, make sure that the people within our families take on a namesake that has lived in the lineage of our family forever. So all the names that are in our family have always been in our family. So my name, Piet Wittmokwe, was actually my great-grandmothers, the one that initially picked up the phone call to answer my mom's calling. And she passed away literally the next day after I was born. She got overly excited about, you know, hearing that I was being, you know, brought into this world and she got that phone call from my grandmother and she got really excited, had a heart attack, and she collapsed.

And my uncle went over. My grandmother had had another son and he had went over and checked on her. They rushed her to the hospital and she actually passed the next morning. So during this very, and, you know, this is such an interesting time in my family's history that, you know, I'm being born into the world and literally my great grandmother passes the next day. And so it was only right that I got her namesake. But so a year after I was born, my brothers, myself, my mother, we all had a naming ceremony. And the community came together. And it was something that was, you know, very special to my mother.

And it was her, you know, her feeling like, oh, as if like she does finally, like she has finally found her home. She's found her family and she had this new beautiful relationship with them. And she was just, you know, sulking in all of it and just like really absorbing it in and just like, you know, and even though she, you know, my mom is 58 now. She'll be 58 this year. And, you know, she still does struggle with the fact that she was adopted. And, you know, she still struggled with some of those relationship issues with her parents just because she's like, how could you not want me? And I think a lot of people have that feeling. And it doesn't matter how old you are in life or what your age is.

Even if you've rekindled with your family, there's always still a lot of grappling with that. But the fact that I get to go out into the world and represent her and represent her story and how beautiful and important that reconnection is, she is so happy. And she's vicariously living through me through all of the things. And I'm continuously feeding her knowledge and saying, oh, this is what this means and this is what that means and this means that in our language. And so I have been that person and my family to really be the glue and that bondage between our heritage and our future generations to come, all of my brother's children and my children. And so that's something that's, you know, truly special to me. But as you are mentioning, the ceremony process is very, you know, it's very special. and it's something that, you know, my mother holds near and dear to her heart.

And something that I do, too, because my name, Piet Wemukwe, was giving to me because of the passing of my grandmother. If she didn't pass, you know, I would have took on a different name. And every day when I say, hey, my name is Piet, that is my way of keeping, you know, her legacy alive. And it's very special. You write very beautifully about your life on the reservation. You live there until you were, what, was it six, seven, eight years old? Yeah, six, seven years old. What do people not understand about living on the reservation? And when people talk about living on the res, is that something that you feel comfortable hearing someone who's not indigenous talk about that or is, you know, there's some phrases that certain, that the culture can use comfortably and that it doesn't sound as good coming out of someone else's mouth. Can you talk a little bit about that also?

Yeah, definitely. I think there's a lot of misconceptions that people think that all reservations are the same when they are not. They're very different across what we call Turtle Island across the nation. And I've been to reservations that are thriving because they're near very busy hustle and bustle cities and places that bring in a lot of tourism, which is where that that tribe and that sovereign nation can grow economically. And I've seen reservations out in the middle of, you know, Fort Peck, Montana, where there isn't a whole lot around them. And the only reason why you're going there is because you either live there or, you know, you have some sort of work there, which is, you know, it's not a place where people would go to if they didn't have to be there. And they're in

the middle of a food desert and you have places like Pine Ridge, which, you know, is, unfortunately very economically scarce and there's not a lot of resources for them there and they're also in the middle of food deserts. And so one misconception is that all reservations are the same. But I will say that there is kind of like this universal kind of culture that we have amongst indigenous people here in the U.S. is that there are a lot of the same struggles. So it's kind of that laugh at my pain kind of situation where we all kind of have similar struggles. and we can laugh about it and we can joke about it and make jokes. And so when you talk about people that are not indigenous using reservation terms and things like that,

you know, for me, I don't take offense to it, but I just know that there's areas of education that can be, can, you know, that can be used, you know, ways of educating people on that subject. And so I'm always finding myself in situations where I'm overly explaining things to people. But it's because I'm a very small percentage of enrolled tribal members that are walking the earth. And there was a very small population of us. And so I'm oftentimes being seen as the only person in the room that's native or indigenous. The other misconception would be that all native people live on reservations, which is not true. There's about, I want to say, 75 to 80% of our Native American people do not live on reservations.

They actually live in urban settings. And people don't realize that. So just because we aren't wearing our regalia and full indigenous garb doesn't mean that we're not identifying as indigenous people. Amy, I sit here with you with my Banana Republic cardigan, you know, and my, you know, so it's like just because we're not wearing what you think we should wear doesn't mean that we're not identifying as indigenous people. And so that's also another misconception. So that's a conversation that's being made. We're in all kinds of spaces. There's doctors. There's lawyers. There's fashion designers. There's musicians, chefs. We're all over the place. But people just don't realize it. You talked about being someone who is in a

position to be able to educate people. Is that something that you relish? You know, you see completely as an opportunity, or do you feel that it is also a responsibility in moving through the spaces that you travel in to make sure that you're using that as an opportunity to educate, illuminate, elevate your culture when you can? Definitely. You know, I think it's a balance of both for me. I love being able to utilize my platform and my opportunities to educate people just because I know that there aren't a lot of people in my position that have my background. And so when people look at me and they know that I'm native, they automatically say, oh, she's representing all of the native people in America. And I don't take that lightly. I take it very seriously. And the way that I conduct

myself the way that I speak, you know, and I just like I find that there is a sense of responsibility and it is very much so tied to my identity that I see that role. That is the purpose and the role that God has put me in. It does feel heavy sometimes because I'm like, you know, like I wish I didn't have to explain this every time I walked into a room. But instead of it looking, instead of me looking at it as a burden, I look at it as an opportunity because, Because the more people know and the more people see exposure to indigenous people in these spaces, the more space will be made for them. Hey, future hosts, tired of the same old routine. It's time to switch things up with Airbnb. Whether you have a cozy cabin in the woods, a chic city apartment, or a beachfront retreat, your space could be the perfect stay for travelers looking for something unique. By hosting on Airbnb, you can share your home with guests who want to live like a true. insider wherever they happen to be. Imagine helping someone wake up to the sound of waves crashing

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with my friends, serving up something delicious, saying, I love you through food. Saying that summer has officially begun, but sometimes it'll be such a gorgeous day outside that I'll at the last minute decide to have friends over. And Whole Foods Market makes pulling together a last-minute barbecue doable and delicious. I browse my options on the app, which is surprisingly easy to use. I choose a few proteins for the grill, maybe some wild-caught sustainable salmon burgers,

maybe some no antibiotics, ever chicken thighs, maybe some organic grass-fed beef burgers or some uncured hot dogs. I add a few vegetable sides, zucchini, asparagus, maybe some great corn, and boom, the ingredients are delivered directly to my door, directly to my house within an hour or two, and this idea for a backyard barbecue at the last minute suddenly becomes a reality. There are so many ways to save on summer grilling favorites at Whole Foods Market. You didn't start out on this path. You were heading in another direction. You were studying business. Yes. I went to school for business marketing. And you wound up in food. Shirk left her. I know it is. What happened? You know, much like a lot of other people, you know, you start off with this plan and Creator has another plan for you.

I saw myself at a young age, like growing up into adulthood. I saw myself being like this person. You know, and you actually had an interview with Bricea Lopez, and she said the same thing. And she was like, I saw myself wearing like these fancy clothes. She wanted to be a boss. Yeah, she wanted to be a boss. And that's what I wanted to be too.

I wanted to be a boss. I wanted to like put my little pencil skirt, my pumps on and my blazer. And I think because when you grow up, up in environments of financial scarcity, that's the, that's like the way out is that like corporate route of like, oh, my parents probably, my family thinks that this is not just my family, but society thinks that this is the way for you to be successful. And this is how you reach success. And to be respected. And yes, and to be respected. And to bring pride to your family.

This is the route. And so that was very much so what I was trying to do. And on that journey, I just realized, like, this is actually not for me. And I'm very so, like, in love with art. I love art. I love painting. I love plants. I love sewing. I love jewelry making.

I love all of those things. And that's how I, you know, communicate my love and my passion is through those forms of art. And so when I decided, you know, I think I should start, you know, I've always loved cooking. Cooking was never like, oh, I have to do it. It was just something that we did. And cooking also wasn't like, oh, I know how to cook. And so this is a special skill set. It was just a form of everyday life in our household. You know, if we want to talk about mama's kitchens, you know, like my mom always cooked from scratch. My family, they always cooked from scratch. And that's how I grew up cooking is like from scratch. And even when I was given a box to follow instructions, I could never follow the instructions right and it would never turn out good. But I could intuitively. cook and figure my way out through something and through the process of something. But I could never really like read and understand like, why are they doing that on this box? So I found my way to cooking through my family and, you know, growing up, I had my grandmother who loved cooking on my dad's side and all of my dad's siblings, including my dad, they all love to cook and they got that from my

grandmother. And so they were all very competitive. And so I grew up in this environment also of like being competitive with your food and is it better than the next persons? And did your turkey turn out dry? Mine's not as dry as yours or like, you know, they were just always poking fun at each other and very passionate people. So I found my way back to food, which was just where I found my happy place when the world was crashing down on me. It was the one place that I could really focus and just like everything else kind of blurred out and drown, you know, was drowned it out by the sizzling noise in the pan or I have to watch what's, you know, boiling so I don't, you know, burn the sauce or whatever it is. And so that sense of focus really, like, did something to me internally. When families come together, you know, we talked about the fusion cuisine that you have, that you really focus on, indigenous and Mexican cuisine, sometimes that fusion is a little bit, you know, it's, it doesn't blend as easily as we might think it should because one side of the family expects, well, we're going to do it this way.

And another side of the family expects, well, it's going to taste this way. And so was that a smooth sort of process in your family, or did you find yourself having to kind of mediate that with various factions of the family who brought certain expectations to the kitchen and the table? You know, surprisingly, I haven't had. the chance to really merge these at my own table and my family. All right. That's interesting.

Because my family, my parents, are separated. They've always, they've been separated most of my life. So when I made that transition into going back to Kansas or moving to Kansas when I was in kindergarten, that was my mother and my dad coming back together and saying, we're going to try to work on this relationship for the sake of our kids because my mom, my dad had separated when she was pregnant with me. And they got back together and then they realized it just wasn't working and then they separated again. And so those two, you know, families have been split. So it's always my mom's side, my dad's side. And I was, I'm the person that's kind of merging

them together through my own cuisine, through my own table. And when I go to my dad's side, it is very like, this is the food we eat. And this is how. how we cook and we go to my aunt, my Tia's house and my uncle, he's, they're like showing me sauces and showing me this and showing me that. And there was, there's not really this blend of like cultures. It's just my dad's side, my mom's side. And when I, you know, became a chef, I decided I want to represent myself. You're not going to choose. Yeah, I don't want to have to choose. I shouldn't have to choose. It's my own table. I built this table. Right. You should do whatever you want to do at that table. Exactly. Exactly.

So now I'm in that position now where I get to bring these together. And now that my family, they eat my food, they're just like, wow, yeah, this is delicious. This actually works and this is great. And I'm introducing things to both sides of my family that they didn't even know about or kind of taking those traditional recipes and that I grew up eating and putting my own twist and spin on them. And they were like, oh, I would have never thought to do that. And so I'm introducing new things to them through my work. work. So I am betting that a lot of people who are watching or listening to this, know a fair amount about Mexican cuisine. I mean, you can find it really anywhere at America at varying,

you know, levels of quality and volume. I bet a lot of people, though, don't know much about indigenous cuisine. Can you say a few words about that? What are the sort of hallmarks of indigenous cuisine and do you hope that it will become more common? I mean, it is America's original cuisine. Absolutely. Native American food really revolved around our indigenous cuisine of America's really revolved around the seasons. Seasonality, what we had available, because you have this group of people that were stewards of the land, protectors of the land, took care of the land, had this mutual respect between the land, the animals, all elements and themselves. They were so connected to the point where they would move if, you know, there wasn't something

there for them, or if something was over, you know, picked or plucked or overforged. It's, oh, they're the problem. They need to move and find, you know, allow that to regrow. Rather than trying to change or tame the land. Exactly. Exactly. And so when you approach Native American cuisine, you have to. think of it that way. So in a lot of these, you know, now new restaurants that are opening that are indigenous and are Native American, you're not going to see the same menu served all year long.

You're going to see a change. And a lot of chefs do like to eat with the seasons. And that's great. And I love that. But when it comes to understanding Native American food, you really have to understand the core belief systems in order to understand what was available. So for instance, I just spent the last couple of days in the Anadogna Nation's farm, and they have this beautiful farm there. And we went out and we picked milkweed plants. Now, milkweed are very important to the life cycle of the monarch butterfly. And if you overpick them or if you don't pick them right, that plant's going to die and that there's no plants available for the monarch butterfly to lay their larva. You know what I mean?

Important pollinators and important to the entire ecosystem. Exactly. So when it comes to indigenous foods, it's that intentionality of, okay, when it comes to this plant, I only want to pick the first three leaves during this specific time before the flower sprouts because then that flower can still continue to grow and the flower will still sprout. Or this plant will still continue to grow and next year there'll be something to harvest. So you have things like milkweed. You have a lot of other wild greens.

There are lots of berries within our indigenous tribes because that's, you know, that was something that was kind of spread out amongst all over Turtle Island, different variations of berries all over. And lots of tree nuts, acorns. You also have things like amaranth and wild game, finison, moose, elk, bison. You also have your fish, you know, your freshwater stream fish. You also have the Pacific, North Pacific, Northwest Pacific fish as well. And so when you think of indigenous foods, also a lot of people think of the Three Sisters, beans, corn, squash, which is a huge part of our cuisine and our diet. And it's the repurposing of those ingredients in multiple ways.

And that's the same for Mexican foods. So if you think about, you know, these borders that, that, that, now cross over between United States and Mexico before that border existed, a lot of these foods were being traded between indigenous tribes and they were bartered. And that was their currency. And so you would find yourself in a different part of the United States and region with these seas that you could try to replant and hopefully hope that the climate would be able to, you know, nourish this plant. And sometimes plants and seeds, they are very specific about where they want to be. and they may not grow for you.

And so these foods were a way for them to barter and to grow their own wealth of knowledge when it come to agriculture. When you graduated from culinary school, you eventually decided to move from Kansas City further west to Los Angeles to pursue a career as a private chef. And I've read that the first few months in L.A.

were really, really difficult. What was so hard about that? Was it L.A.? itself, was it being so far away from your people? Or is the life of being a private chef a lot harder than we understand? Yeah, the first couple years were really hard. Oh, okay. I said first couple months. It sounded like it lasted longer than that. Yeah, it definitely did. I think, I mean, I went into, I was in different transitions and different chapters. The first three months for me were especially hard because it was the furthest I had ever been away from my family. I had never been more

than two hours away from my family. I went to a school that was fairly close. So my family lived in Kansas City and I went to Kansas State University. So that was just a drive back home every weekend, which is what I did. I would drive home every weekend. And I'm very close with my family. And I am someone that is, I'm actually a very important person. I play a very important role, but I'm somewhat of the backbone to my family. Anytime someone needs something or my siblings or they want to talk. Like, I'm the person that they call. You know, I am my mother's best friend. She calls me all the time. But if you're a private chef, you probably don't have a lot of private time. Exactly. So once I started this journey into being a private chef, I really dove into the nutritional side of things and really focusing on health and wellness. And the reason why I moved to California was because I was having a hard time building my business in Kansas. So in order for me to grow, you know, I had to go to a health conscious city where there was a lot of opportunity for private chefs. And that just happened to be Los Angeles.

I had a friend who did some very heavy convincing and was like, just move to L.A. You can stay with me. And she had two daughters. And I was like, no, I have to figure it out. You know, so I found a way. And I drove across the United States, moved to L.A. And the first three months, I didn't even leave my apartment. I was just so, I was so scared.

And I had this. What were you afraid of? So I grew up with the, you know, like kind of, you know, a very overprotective father. My dad was very overprotective. And so, you know, him thinking like, oh, my gosh, my daughter is going to be in Los Angeles by herself. She can get kidnapped. She can get robbed. And he's not lying.

You know, things, you know, the world can be a scary place. And so him thinking, you know, the worst would then like tell me these things. And then I'm in my head thinking like watching my back every five seconds. But I kind of had to just, you know, I was just like, you know what? I just need to like bite the bullet and get out of this apartment and explore. And I lived right across the street from a very popular canyon, hiking canyon. And I was so scared that I wouldn't even go there by myself. And then one day I was like, you know what, I'm going to, I'm going to go.

I'm going to put on my tennis shoes and I'm going to go do that hike. And that was the most liberating thing I ever did at as an adult was just to go and step outside of my comfort zone. and just go do something that was scary and was different. But after I started doing little things like that, kind of going out and exploring on my own, I really gained a lot of independence. And yeah, and my grounding got a little better. The more networking I did with other people,

I walked around to all these different gyms in my area and just took meal preps in there and said, hey, I'm a private chef, and I do customized meal preps for people that are interested in. So you were just handing out cards to people. Yeah. I was just put myself out there handing out cards, handing out meals, like trying to just get people to eat the food. And finally it took one person. And he's actually still a really good friend of mine. It took one person to say, hey, I'll, I'll hire you to

cook meals for me. And that one client, that one person then started recommending other people and then it became a snowball effect. Next thing you know it, I went from one client to 17 clients and just based on one person taking your card at the gym. That's incredible. Yes. Yes. So yeah, the journey has been built brick by brick. You know what I mean? Card by card, meal by meal. It had to happen. And at some point you got involved in competitive cooking, which is its whole thing. I mean, I wonder if you could just share a few behind the scene secrets of these competitive cooking shows. Is it as frantic as it looks, you know, when they're all yelling three seconds and you're

plating the food and you're trying to like make it look good and you're wiping the edges of the plate? I mean, how much of that is for drama or dramatic effect and how much of it is real? And I'm asking someone who won, so you, you know. Yes, all of it is 100% real. Really? Yes. Of course, like, they do some editing and producing to like really build.

the suspense for things, but like all of it really happens. None of it is scripted. The countdown is real. The food grab is real. The burning your sauce. Because that was the thing I wondered, that's real or that you run and you have to like just grab things off the shelf. Yeah. That's all real. Wow. That's real. And you, and it happens so fast. If you, if you're like, okay, I have this challenge and I need to like pick up all of these ingredients to make this dish and you're just looking at this thing and you know you only have 30 seconds. And you see something you want. And as you're grabbing it, someone else takes it. And it's like, okay, well, that plan went out the door.

And so you're at the point where you're just grabbing for the sake of grabbing. And I remember at the end of filming, I was like, I don't want to look at a sweet potato or a corn on the cob for the next five months. Why is that? Every single grab, I was grabbing sweet potatoes and corn. And because I was like, these are the most like identifiable things that I know. Okay, they were things that you felt comfortable with. Exactly. And so I was like having to reinvent the wheel every time with this corn on the cob. And I was like, bless, Piet, do not pick up another piece of corn.

Well, when you're coming up with the menus, are you thinking, okay, I need to impress them? I need to show range. Or are you thinking, I need to do something like fry bread to rep my people and, you know, and show America a cuisine that maybe they don't really understand? Yeah, I took every competition as once I got my grounding, the first three, I felt like I was just floating. I was just floating. I was just, trying to find my legs. I was like, where am I? What am I doing here? This is insane. But once I kind of got my grounding, it was like, okay, this is real. We made it past, you know, the third, the third challenge. Okay, now I have to really start to shine and I have to show, show who I am and be here. Something very tragic happened at the beginning of filming for this show. I ended up losing a friend, literally the first day that we filmed. And it was a friend that was a friend that. And it was a friend that was someone that was very close to me.

And her and I spent a couple days leading up to the filming for the show together because she was helping me prepare my outfit and stuff. And she was a very big supporter. And so we had lost her literally the day that I started filming Next Level Chef. And I almost didn't stay. I almost left. I almost was like, I don't know how I'm going to deal with this. And my mother, you know, she had to talk with me.

And, you know, she convinced me to stay. And after that, I was like, you know, if I'm going to be here, I have to, like, be here for a purpose and for a reason. And that's when everything, like, switched from, like, oh, I'm just going to be here for the clout. I'm just going to be here for the sake of saying I'm on this show with Gordon Ramsey, you know. And that's when, like, the mindset shifted for me. And I was just like, no, like, life is fragile. And these opportunities do not come easily. So use this as your platform and opportunity to speak about what you're most passionate about.

And that is your people, your family, your community. And so I got a lot of backlash from people in the comments section after Next Level Chef happened. Like, oh, she does a talk about being native. And she just wants everyone to feel sorry for her. And it's like, you know, I'll take it because it's not every day that people like me get to be in these situations. And so I'm going to take this as an opportunity to be shameless. and to be proud of where I come from. And so that's really what drove me on each competition of like, what am I going to cook?

How can I represent me in this competition? And could I have leaned into like the more bougie fancier things? Absolutely. But I decided, you know. But you won. Yeah, but I was like, I got to stay true to what's in my heart. And that's what I did. And that is ultimately what won the competition.

And I know that they felt all. Every person on that set felt it. It felt Piet in the building. And that's something I'm super proud of. Gordon Ramsey, if you're listening, just know that there's a seat for you here at this podcast. Any time you want to come and talk about your mama's kitchen. Can you tell us a little bit about working with Gordon Ramsey up close?

Is he as much of a curmudgeon as he looks like? Or is there beneath that soul of someone who really is a teacher at heart and a cheerleader. Gordon is amazing. Gordon is, I call him Uncle Gordon, because that's like the essence of who he is. He wants to teach people. He wants to give, he's genuinely passionate about giving people opportunities to build their life. But he believes in you. He believes in you. He will open any door that you need. And although, yes, like he can be this like really like rough, you know, mean, kind of person on TV and insults people, calls them idiot sandwiches and all of that. That is very much so a part of him.

Don't get me wrong. But there's also this very- Did he yell at you? He did, but not, he didn't call me an idiot sandwich. He was just like yelling at me in a very like teacher kind of way of like, you know. And I mean, I cried. I cried. I was like, no, don't yell at me.

And, you know, I grew up with thick skin because I, As I mentioned, I have a father who was very protective, and he was, like, very much machismo guy. Like, rarely, like, rarely, I would, I never saw my dad cry, never saw him break, you know. And he was always just macho guy. And so I grew up with that type of, you know, father figure. And so when I was going into next level chef, I was like, oh, Gordon doesn't have anything on my dad. But it's a different kind of, like, disappointment when it's your, someone that you idolize, you know? Yeah.

A hero. Yeah. And a hero. Can you yell back when he yells at you or do you just have to like? Oh, I just take it. You just take it. Yes, chef. It's that ultimate respect that yes, chef, yes, I'll listen to you.

Like, yes. And he does know more, way more. He's very knowledgeable. So, of course, I respect his opinions. But yeah, he did yell at me a few times. There's a quote from you that I love. And I'm going to see if I can get this, get this right. I want indigenous food.

to be part of the conversation in the culinary world. There's no other people on earth that respect food more than indigenous people. How can you have a sense of respect for food and not have a sense of respect for the people that care for the earth in the way that indigenous people do? It's easy for us to separate ourselves from where food actually comes from in our modern world, where we go to the grocery store to get food. We order it on our devices. What do you hope to teach people about the decisions that they make around food

and how food ultimately should be that thing that connects us back to Mother Earth? So I do a lot of teachings to our use, and so I will share something with you that I often tell them when it comes to living in the modern day world, and we walk into a grocery store, And 20%, we'll say 30% of that grocery store is our produce section. And the other 40 to, you know, 80% of it, or not 40, but 70 to 80% of it is all boxed and canned goods. And that's our separation to us and food, real food.

And I try to encourage people to stay in that 20 to 30% of the grocery store if you can. because that's where you regain your relationship by looking at the produce, what's browning, what's not browning. You can see where it's grown, grown in Mexico, grown in California. You can see exactly where those come from. And although we don't live in the same landscapes that our ancestors did, we're not all going to go out and forage and hunt and gather and pick berries. Like that's just not realistic.

But what I do try to encourage folks to do is if you have the operative, you have the opportunity to go into that section and get familiar with it and try your best to understand the connection that you should be having with your food. And, you know, I always tell people just as you and I, Michelle, we have our stories. We have our lifelong stories and our ancestors' connections and where they come from. So does our food. Our food has that same story. And, you know, if you come from an environment that is not uplifting you and not watering you and, it's going to be harder for you to see that value in yourself. And that's the same with like vegetables.

If you're coming from, you know, bad soil, you're not going to have a whole lot of nutrients to share with the world. So it's a metaphor for who we are as people. 100%. And when it comes to respecting the people that have that relationship, that want, you know, that want to revitalize their ancestral foods, they are doing everything and their power and their power to tend to the land because it starts with the soil.

It starts with your connection with the land with the soil. And it's all sounds good and dandy to say, oh, you know, just start your own garden in the backyard. Like, you know how much work a garden? Yeah. Is, you know, how much space you need for a garden to actually, like, fulfill the needs of you and your family?

It takes a lot and not all parents or family members or not a lot of people have that time, that extra time to spend curating, gardens. And so I say if it's, if it speaks to you to do that, then start small. Start with herbs. Start with something small. But right on the window sill. 100%. Yeah, it's doable. And now they have these things called lettuce towers or lettuce growers in your house. Plug one of those in. They kind of do their own thing anyways, you know. And it's really easy to come up with this idea. And you don't have to worry about the deer coming and nibbling all of your. Exactly. But I always, I always encourage

people to, obviously, if you can, shop at a farmer's market, get to know your farmers, talk to them, have conversations. Farmers love talking to people about their food. Let me tell you. You should never feel shy about talking to a farmer about their potatoes or about their carrots. They will tell you. They take a lot of pride in the work that they do. The more you know about yourself and about where you come from and that food connection, the more that you feel whole and you feel whole and you feel a sense of purpose. And then you put that and instill that into the next generation, your kids, your neighbors, your friends. But it's the intentionality that goes a long way that I try to teach people. So I'm going to add one thing to that if I can, if you don't mind, is also bringing

gratitude to the process. Being grateful that you have food. Grateful for the people who cultivated it and harvested it and put the seeds into the soil or did whatever they needed to do to make sure that you can feed your family. I have got to let you go, but I have two things that I want to ask you about. Okay. You mentioned something in your writing that I think is worth just telling folks a little bit about the tradition of a spirit plate. Could you just quickly explain that? The spirit plate is a collection of all of the different items that you have prepared. It's on your table, and you're taking a little bits and pieces of that, and you're putting it on the plate and you're saying a prayer. And that prayer is dedicated to those that came before you

who passed down the knowledge to you, whether that be your immediate family or your ancestors. So it's always a thanks to them. It's a thanks to all the elements of life that we need, the sun, the moon, the sky, the ocean, mother earth, and which provide all the nutrients that are on the plate. And then it's also a prayer to the next seven generations that come after you, that the hope that they will also spread this good intention and prayer into the next generations to come. And so the spirit plate really represents that sense of gratitude of having gratitude for what's on the plate, having gratitude for where you are in your life in that moment with your friends, your family, having gratitude for the knowledge that was passed down to you from generations or just that love and that prayer.

And then also the prayer to those that come after you, which we always have to be thinking about the future. When would you do something like that? Anyone can honestly do this at any point of the day if they want. They can do it in the beginning of the day. They can do it every meal. That's completely up to them. But typically the spirit play is done during ceremony. And I'm a firm believer in, you know, ceremony is sacred to anyone that sees value in it.

And it should be shared. And it should be something that we all do more than just on special occasions. So I got to let you go, but you know before we ever let anybody go, we always ask them about a recipe that means something special to them, something that connects them to the kitchens of their youth that helps explain how they came to be the person they are today. And you provided a recipe for blue corn, strawberry tamales. Yes. Can you say a little bit about that? Absolutely. So the tamale was the first, the first food that really made. me feel included in the kitchen. Every Christmas, we would have a group of family at someone's house gathered around making tamales. So it would be like an assembly line of my grandma, my aunts, my cousins, my uncles, and we would all be sitting there making tamales. But before I was invited into the equation, I would just be watching them. And of course, I always got to eat them

afterwards. And we would make huge pots, like tons and tons, like dozens because everyone wanted to go home with tamales. And my dad, my father, he's one of eight kids. So you can only imagine how many households, lots of tamales. And so one Christmas, I remember we were at my uncle's house and we all gathered there and they were doing the tamale making. And I kind of squeezed in there and I was asking my grandmother if I could help. And she was like, she kind of just looked at me and she was like, well, of course, Mihal like come in here and you can help. And so that was like the first dish that I really felt included in and made with all the other adults, you know? And even though I was still young, I just like I was so interested. You usually have savory. When you think of the malays,

you don't normally think of dessert. But my grandmother would make some that had raisins in them or would put, you know, strawberry jam or something in there just to make them sweet. And so that was something that I wanted to make sure I incorporated in my cookbook for my grandmother. And in this case, it has a horchata. sauce on the top? And I don't eat dairy and a lot of indigenous folks don't because it was never introduced to, it was introduced through, you know, Europeans. But dairy was not something that we had. And so I tried to do as much as I can in my own cuisine to like find substitutions. So the coconut cream is in place of what would normally be, you know, milk or cream. And so there's a nice little coconut or chate that cream that goes on those letters just chef's kiss.

And there's a picture in the cookbook that makes them look so delicious. So we try to road test the recipes. I look forward to trying that one. I look forward to this conversation because I knew it would be special. And it indeed was. Thank you so much for being with us. Of course. Thank you so much for having me and allowing me to use your platform to speak about my story and represent all of the many things that I love to represent. Thank you. Thank you for sharing your recipes and your history. It's so rich and layered. And I love the way that it finds its way into your food, into your life, helps us understand where we come from, where our food comes from on a very deep level. So thanks for being with us. Of course. Thank you so much. Now, a reminder to everybody that our inbox is always, always, always open. And we want you to share maybe some of your own recipes, your stories, your memories, your memories. maybe your thoughts on some of the previous episodes that you've heard on your mama's kitchen, you can send either a voice memo or a video to YMK at higher ground productions.com for a chance for your voice or maybe your video to be featured in one of our episodes, either on the podcast or now that we're on YouTube, perhaps one of your videos might be featured there.

And if you want to try making these strawberry tamales, make sure to check out that recipe at our website. That's at your mom's kitchen.com. Why you're there, you can see all the recipes from all the previous episodes. Thanks so much for being with us today. Please come back next week and the week after that and every week because here at your mom's kitchen, we are always, always, always, always, always serving up something delicious. Glad you're with us today. Please be bountiful.