{"id":225725,"date":"2026-03-18T19:54:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T19:54:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/225725\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T19:54:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T19:54:14","slug":"the-debut-cookbook-from-this-oakland-born-decorated-native-chef-centers-seasonality-and-knowing-whose-land-youre-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/225725\/","title":{"rendered":"The debut cookbook from this Oakland-born, decorated Native chef centers seasonality and knowing whose land you’re on"},"content":{"rendered":"

Crystal Wahpepah, the Oakland chef whose restaurant Wahpepah\u2019s Kitchen shines the spotlight on Indigenous cuisine, is now telling her story through her debut cookbook. A Feather and a Fork<\/a>, co-written by Amy Paige Condon, hit the shelves on March 17.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Through recipes that shaped Wahpepah\u2019s childhood and, later, her career as an award-winning chef, A Feather and a Fork brings readers along on her own journey as a pioneer in bringing Indigenous foods into the forefront. The book features 125 intertribal recipes that highlight Native producers, Indigenous ingredients and how to eat in tune with the seasons.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI love to create with Indigenous ingredients. So that was the easy part,\u201d Wahpepah said. \u201cI love to cook, I\u2019m a creator and that, but you know, writing is totally different.\u201d She enlisted the help of Condon, an experienced cookbook writer and editor, to bring her vision to life. Tommy Orange, an Oakland native and author of the 2019 American Book Award-winning novel There There, wrote the foreword.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Crystal Wahpepah is a member of the Kickapoo tribe of Oklahoma and was born in Oakland. Credit: Courtesy of Penguin Random House<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was born and raised here in Oakland, like myself, and we both grew up in the intertribal community. So, it was a no-brainer,\u201d Wahpepah said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Eating with the seasons, Wahpepah said, is a core tenet to Native health and wellness. It is to A Feather and a Fork as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so many pillars with the book,\u201d she said. \u201cOne, definitely how to eat in season. And then the other would be to know whose land you\u2019re on.\u201d The book\u2019s introduction includes a section titled Whose Land Do We Walk On?, which details Oakland\u2019s history as both traditional Ohlone territory and as a hub for intertribal Native communities who moved to the East Bay after the Indian Relocation Acts of 1952 and 1956.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cA Feather and a Fork,\u201d Wahpepah\u2019s first cookbook, includes a forward from Oakland author Tommy Orange. Credit: Courtesy of Penguin Random House<\/p>\n

Some of the ingredients featured in her recipes, Wahpepah said, have been around \u201cfor thousands of years, but we haven\u2019t seen them so much on the forefront as we do now. I wanted to share that story of how Natives eat in season. This is why we harvest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wahpepah\u2019s recipes all come with stories about where the ingredients can be sourced, and from which tribes. Take, for example, Wahpepah\u2019s maple chili oil \u2014 one of her favorites \u2014 which she uses to dress up a tepary bean dip and smoked salmon tostadas. She sources S\u00e9ka Hills olive oil from the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation, whose land is in California\u2019s Yolo Valley.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really complements the ingredients and everything all in one, but it\u2019s deeper than that. It\u2019s a story \u2014 how the Yoche Dehe utilize their land and their soil to grow olive oil. It\u2019s kind of like me honoring the California Natives with this dish,\u201d she said. Other ingredients and producers get a shoutout, too \u2014 blue corn from Bow and Arrow (Northern Ute tribe), heirloom beans from Ramona Farms (Pima-Maricopa tribe).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are the ingredients I\u2019ve been working with pretty much all my life. It doesn\u2019t matter where you are here in North America; you can access these ingredients,\u201d Wahpepah said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wahpepah is a registered member of the Kickapoo tribe of Oklahoma and the first of her family to be born in Oakland. She grew up bouncing between reservations in the U.S. and Canada but always found herself in the kitchen with her family, learning how to make jams with harvested berries and cooking her grandmother\u2019s dry corn soup.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI come from a background where my grandmother and my aunties never kicked me out of the kitchen,\u201d she said. But growing up within tight-knit Indigenous communities, she realized that the traditional foods she was familiar with were sparsely seen elsewhere.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI always wondered, where were our foods? Why were our foods never on menus or served in restaurants? How was it that a city like Oakland, home to tens of thousands of Native Americans, had no place that served my grandmother\u2019s dry corn soup?\u201d she writes in her book introduction.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cA Feather and a Fork\u201d contains sections on forged foods, game and fish, wild rice and ancient grains, and beverages. Credit: Courtesy of Penguin Random House<\/p>\n

Wahpepah decided to fill the gap herself. She worked in kitchens, went to culinary school and started a catering business before opening Wahpepah\u2019s Kitchen in 2021. Located in Oakland\u2019s Fruitvale Plaza, the restaurant offers a hearty menu of rotating dishes like hand-harvested wild rice fritters, sweet potato hibiscus taquitos and the Three Sisters veggie bowl (which you\u2019ll find the recipe for in the book). Wahpepah\u2019s Kitchen was a 2022 James Beard finalist, and the chef has brought Native cooking to shows such as Chopped and Beat Bobby Flay.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t wait for everyone to have the book in their home,\u201d Wahpepah said. \u201cI value people that are going to learn from my Indigenous foods journey. And I love to take people on journeys.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Feather and a Fork will be available in hardcover online and in-person at major booksellers. You can also pick up a copy at Omnivore Books on Food<\/a> or at the launch party at Oakland\u2019s Intertribal Friendship House<\/a>, where Wahpepah spent much of her youth, from 6 to 8:30 p.m. on March 17.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tRelated stories<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Inside\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tInside Berkeley\u2019s new restaurant devoted to the art of masa<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tMarch 11, 2026March 11, 2026, 3:57 p.m.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Smoked\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tSmoked duck sandwiches, chia seed pudding, and tater tots: Introducing the new Ohlone-crafted cafe at Lawrence Hall of Science<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tMarch 2, 2026March 2, 2026, 12:58 p.m.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Oakland\u2019s\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tOakland\u2019s famous tostada is back. Cenaduria Elvira is opening near Jack London Square<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tFebruary 10, 2026Feb. 10, 2026, 1:16 p.m.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

“*” indicates required fields<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Crystal Wahpepah, the Oakland chef whose restaurant Wahpepah\u2019s Kitchen shines the spotlight on Indigenous cuisine, is now telling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":225726,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144,2593],"class_list":["post-225725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-oakland-restaurants-and-bars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}