The Story Behind the Food: Chef Edith

When we began working with Chef Edith a couple years ago, we were excited for her to share Michoacán-style Mexican cuisine from her original home culture. But we didn’t really know the full story behind the food and her motivations for seeking a "side hustle" business. This is true for a lot of Feast Chef partners. The Refugee and Immigrant communities and families in Spokane are varied and diverse, each with a unique story.

Often, Chef Partners are working to build a business and reinvesting their food sales revenue in these entrepreneurial ventures. But often, their hard-earned money is spent on more important and meaningful things. A few months into her journey cooking with us, Edith shared that she was thankful for the extra income because it gave her the gift of supporting her elderly mother’s expensive medical care. And not only financial support, but her hard work also helped her travel multiple times to the Midwest to be near her mother and participate in her ongoing care.

"For my siblings and me, my mother was a hero who worked hard to take care of us when we were growing up," Edith says. "I wanted to give the same gift to her."

Edith cleans houses as her day job, and has worked in restaurants for many years. For her to have her own pop-up restaurant periodically at Feast gave her the extra income that created more moments and hours with her mom.

This summer, Edith shared a heartfelt message in our Feast What's App chat. "Good morning Feast Family. My mom just passed away today. Prayers for my family. Thanks to Maisa, Ross, Tom and all Feast family, I was able to visit her for six weeks before she passed. Forever grateful."

The picture above is from a day when Feast was cooking Middle Eastern food to raise funds for humanitarian and medical aid in Gaza. Edith volunteered her time all day long, even though her heritage is from a different part of the world.

When asked why she wanted to volunteer that day, she shared that many years ago in Mexico, she had lost a family member to gun violence. "I know what it's like for violence and fighting to take innocent people away," she said.

This is who Edith is -- a Chef for peace, a mom, a wife, a daughter, and a caretaker of those who are suffering, whether it's her own aging mother or children caught in the crossfire of war thousands of miles away.

We are honored to work alongside amazing people like Edith as they share love and culture through food -- and use the funds they earn to bring comfort to others.