<\/p>\n
Anthony Two Moons<\/p>\n
Crystal Wahpepah believes in telling stories through her food. Now, the Oakland chef is sharing\u00a0tales of Indigenous cuisine in her new cookbook, A Feather and a Fork: 125 Intertribal Dishes from an Indigenous Food Warrior<\/a>. A member of the Kickapoo Nation in Oklahoma (among other tribes), Wahpepah has turned an early love of cooking into a barrier-breaking career, opening Wahpepah\u2019s Kitchen<\/a>\u2014the first Native woman\u2013owned restaurant in Northern California\u2014in 2021. Named a finalist for Emerging Chef at the 2022 James Beard Awards, she also appeared on Chopped and Beat Bobby Flay. Most recently, she joined the First Americans Museum in Oklahoma City as a consulting chef.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI believe that you can tell a story on a plate [through] how you cook it, where you source ingredients, and how you plate it.\u201d\u2014Crystal WahpepahQ: What are some of your career highlights to date?\u00a0<\/p>\n A: The James Beard Awards. They embraced who I am as a woman and as a Native chef. I didn\u2019t see that one coming, but it was nice to be recognized, especially after the many years I\u2019ve been doing this. Another highlight is that I am going to be breaking ground soon with my new restaurant, which is part of the Village SF. It\u2019s a collaboration with Friendship House and different Native-led farms. I\u2019m going to have a restaurant and also a teaching kitchen. It\u2019s all of my visions in one.\u00a0<\/p>\n Q: You have referred to food as medicine. Can you elaborate?\u00a0<\/p>\n A: It\u2019s how you approach food and where it comes from. If we eat in season, according to how Mother Nature moves, that\u2019s where the medicine really comes from. \u2026 People come to Wahpepah\u2019s Kitchen from all over, and they sit in solitude, look at the food, and have this beautiful connection with it before they eat. Food brings you home and inspires beautiful memories. To me, that is healing.\u00a0<\/p>\n Q: What went into the development of your cookbook?\u00a0<\/p>\n A: I started with recipes, but in looking at other cookbooks, what I really saw missing was a connection with the chefs. I wanted to take people on my journey as an Indigenous chef and share who I am as a mother, as a daughter, and how these recipes came about.\u00a0<\/p>\n Q: What is at the root of your work?\u00a0<\/p>\n A: My main mission is to get our foods recognized \u2026 to move with the times, embrace them, but also educate and nourish people in our community. \u2026 Our foods need to be visible for the next generation.\u00a0<\/p>\n Q: What is your perfect day in the East Bay?\u00a0<\/p>\n A: Going to the farmers markets. I love the Oakland community vibe. But when it comes to connecting with the land, I go to the redwoods. How fortunate we are to live here, especially in the East Bay. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anthony Two Moons Crystal Wahpepah believes in telling stories through her food. Now, the Oakland chef is sharing\u00a0tales…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375560,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[152135,152136,152137,143,145,144,152138],"class_list":["post-375559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-crystal-wahpepah","tag-indigenous-cuisine","tag-kickapoo-nation","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-wahpepah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375559","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=375559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}