creating a story
At La Cocina, the narrative reigns supreme—and each woman has a different story to tell. The women here come to the organization from a myriad of backgrounds, representing many different cultures, with the intention of starting all varieties of businesses: from catering, to producing packaged products, to weekly pop-up dinners and brick-and mortar restaurants. In chapter five of Ethnic and Regional Foodways in the United States, anthropologist Brett Williams suggests that migrant Tijano women prepare tamales for their husbands as a way to reaffirm their dignity and celebrate family tradition. The tamale, symbolic of “women’s routine nurturance of men” (Williams, 1984, 113), illustrates that “women’s influence is even greater when they are not isolated from their kinswomen.” In the same way that these Tijano women find solidarity in their kinfolk, La Cocina provides a solid foundation for the women who participate in the incubator program. Building from this mutual support, each woman is able to figure out what kind of story they want to tell about their lives and their businesses.
The potential I believe resides in the narrative is also the reason I chose to format the project as it is. I have gathered the content on these pages through several observations and emails; by attending events throughout San Francisco; and in nearly five hours of recorded and transcribed interviews. The selected pieces of their stories, written below, were what I felt gave the most accurate image of what mattered most in the creation of their businesses.
CRISTINA
Technically speaking, Cristina was a part of one of the first “cohorts” of the incubator program at La Cocina. The term cohort now refers to a group of women who apply and enroll at La Cocina during the same application period. In 2012, La Cocina accepts applications three times a year, but when Cristina began, the program was not yet regimented into these set enrollment periods. Examining her story, starting with the three years that she spent at La Cocina, and then moving both backward to her life in Sao Paolo and forward to the expansion of Kika’s Treats in 2012, it became apparent that Cristina has always valued and relied on her community of friends, family, and business associates. The importance she continues to place on community strongly influences the way that she tells her own story.
My conversations with Cristina frequently began with her reflecting, to some degree, on her involvement with La Cocina. But Cristina’s positive relationship with food began at a much earlier age—even back to her first realm of collaboration in the kitchen, baking with her mother in Brazil. Together, they would make all sorts of cakes, cookies, and desserts for family and friends. When it came to sweets in her mothers’ kitchen, food was to be celebrated, and was closely associated with “moments of creativity.” Even though there was a significant amount of time between these early years in the kitchen and when she would return to baking as “Kika” in San Francisco, it was this creative space that sparked the idea for her business. Just before submitting her application to La Cocina in 2005, Cristina traveled home to visit her family in Brazil. She recalls that this trip was the reason she switched her business plan from making pot du crèmes to Brazilian honey cakes—and even though she is no longer baking her honey cakes alongside her mother, the choice to make and sell them in the United States is a way for Cristina to pay tribute to her mom.
As a young adult in Sao Paolo, Cristina worked for several years in the private sector. After deciding to switch careers, she moved to San Francisco on sabbatical to study non-profit administration. At this moment in her life, Cristina’s decisions about food took her in a new direction: actually working in the industry. Her first job at a Mediterranean restaurant opened the door to becoming a pastry chef, and in turn, a fellow pastry chef later would later open the door to La Cocina. These culinary professionals became her early support system in the United States, ultimately leading her to the start of Kika’s Treats.
When La Cocina opened in October of 2005, Cristina walked in. Although she did not know it at the time, this fledgling organization was to become one of the most influential families she would be a part of. For almost three years, Cristina participated in the incubator program at 2948 Folsom Street, slowly growing and developing her line of Kika’s Treats. All the while, she relied on staff, volunteers, and follow program participants to give her the feedback and advice she needed to move forward. As her line of treats grew, a distinct “Brazilian aspect” began to appear in the desserts. Now, Cristina believes that the use of “exotic ingredients” like palm sugar and coconut oil, even in American treats like the graham cracker, is part of what makes her product unique.
In 2012, Cristina has many different hopes for what Kika’s Treats will become. For now, she will continue to rely on the support of her La Cocina family, the advice of fellow chocolatiers, and the passion she inherited from her mother to guide her forward.
AZALINA
Like Cristina, so much of the way that Azalina promotes her business relates to her childhood. Her story has a greater importance for the success of her business than it does for Cristina, however, because as a native of Penang, Malaysia, Azalina’s food is still somewhat unfamiliar to residents of the Bay Area. So even though telling her story is a way for Azalina to bridge this gap of unfamiliarity between her customer and her food, sifting through these childhood memories is sometimes a painful experience for Azalina.
Some of the challenge that Azalina has encountered in her past is reflected in her struggle to name her business. In total, she has switched the name of her business four times before finally being able to come to terms with her identity as a Malaysian chef. In 2011, she decided to change her business name to Azalina’s. “I had a strong feeling I have to name my business on my name, because it’s me that’s making the food, and I’m giving people an experience through how I grew up, and what I ate when I was growing up.” Making that decision has had a positive affect on her business, as well: “…telling stories about who I am, about the business, while they’re eating especially—gets people more excited.”
Since Azalina has been away from her family in Penang longer than she actually lived there, it is clear to see why her memories are so invaluable to her. Cooking has become the primary way for her to remember that part of her life, and the best way for her to share her past with her children. “I think because I grew up despising… I don’t want to be part of my family, I didn’t want people to call me Mamak, and now—after being away from it, and after realizing it, it’s the most wonderful thing the Mamak people have given me. It influences the way I make food for my children, it evokes the most memories for me, it makes me happy!” In many ways, her recollections do not just uncover the details of her life as a Mamak, they demonstrate her pervasive positivity.
As a single mother, Azalina’s first priority is always her children. She made it clear that she hoped her attitude would affect them. “When I’m happy I’m channeling it to my children.” But the reverse is true as well, and her children inspire her to keep things going. “They are the one to sit me down and make me a cup of tea, take me to the couch and say, momma, you’re going to be just fine. I think that I am blessed to have my children. I think my kids really shape me, who I am as a business woman.” As long as she is able to teach them that they are not entitled to anything, then she is doing her part. “I don’t only want to be a role model for my children, I want them to be inspired by what I do.”
Cooking has also become a way for Azalina to channel her positivity to her customers when she shares Malaysian food with them. In fact, one of the dishes from her childhood has become her best seller for Azalina’s: the chai banana fritter. “I think the chai banana fritters, that was an influence a lot of me growing up, going to the street and getting it—banana fritters from street vendors, or my uncles or cousins that are selling it—and I wanted to do that back here. Only Mamak people do the banana fritters.” This March, when Off the Grid at Fort Mason Center reopens, people will visit her stand just to have a taste of the fritters. Clearly, Azalina’s story and food combine to a very memorable experience.
Even though Azalina’s time at La Cocina has not yet come to a close, her gratitude for the work that the organization has done for her has fostered a sort of “pay it forward” attitude that she hopes will materialize in a future business some day. “Sometimes people have to open their eyes. Some people have more than others, so the one that has more has to open their eyes and be much more observant around themself to be able to give the opportunity back to people that do not have it. I want to give people a chance to be who they are, working for me.”
CHIEFO
Chiefo and Azalina both have a large educational component to tackle in the promotion of their businesses. Chiefo’s primary goal with her business, Chiefo’s Kitchen, is to make Nigerian and West African food more popular in the Bay Area. A second goal, which closely coincides, is her desire to “change… or tweak the view of how people see Africa.” As a culinary professional, attempting to sell food in a city where knowledge of Nigerian cuisine is relatively limited, she must face this challenge before she is able to change her customers’ view of Africa. One advantage that Chiefo has as a small business owner is that her food literally is her life—figuring out just how much of her life to share is part of the learning process. “I don’t want people to immediately put me in this box of what they view of Africa. Generally people see Africa as one state, or one country—they see Africa as everybody being poor, as everybody being uneducated, and I kind of shy away from that. I am very careful about what I say.”
The best way that Chiefo can find to pave the way for other Nigerian chefs in the Bay Area is to share her personal experiences with food—which have been always been marked by a sense of audaciousness. As a girl in Nigeria, Chiefo cooked with her brother and sister when her parents were away from home. “It was something that we weren’t meant to do… we used the gas [stove] and all of this other stuff when they weren’t around.” With a Nigerian father and Texan mother, Chiefo grew up eating all sorts of dishes. One of her favorites as a child was her mothers’ okra soup. “She’s a great cook, she grew up cooking… but once she learned that we could cook, she retired. So now she cooks on the holidays, basically.” For her love of experimentation with cooking, she credits her father. He would routinely pass her different foods that he grew on the farm and orchard, and let her test things out. Whether or not the end result was edible, they always had fun together.
When she pursued cooking as a career later in life, Chiefo continued to experiment with her ingredients and recipes, changing them until she felt she had created the best possible dish; and when it comes to her food, she is always working to create a memorable experience for the people around her. For her family, that means making healthy food choices. For her business, that means that she lives by the slogan for Chiefo’s Kitchen, “everybody sits at the high table.” Chiefo explained that in Nigeria, parties are much more extravagant than they are in the United States. At events, there is a high table where all of the distinguished guests sit—chefs, or our equivalent to “stars”—“back home, they like to show off in a way.” With her business, she wants to make everyone feel like they are sitting at the high table.
When it comes to bringing Nigerian cuisine to the Bay Area, Chiefo is one of the sole advocates. The care and attention given to her food is the primary way in which Chiefo has already begun to bridge the gap of unfamiliarity with Nigerian food in the Bay Area. While San Franciscans are learning to accept an alternate image of an African businesswoman, Chiefo will continue to promote and sell her chin-chin to whomever will take the time to listen to her story.
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