Reclaim
“To retrieve or recover (something previously lost, given or paid) obtain the return of.”
It started with the soil.
The kitchens at home.
The hearts and minds.
It started there.
The stirring that led to these five women reclaiming their time, their narrative and their crops.
Reem and the power of holding your own story
For years, Reem Kassis avoided the kitchen. As a Palestinian woman she had heard the condescending remarks made to her father, “Why bother paying for such an expensive education for your daughter? Don’t you know, like all Arab women, she is going to end up in the kitchen?” She was determined to prove the naysayers wrong. She lived abroad, both in England and the U.S., and graduated with degrees from Wharton and the London School of Economics. She was, by all accounts, a successful businesswoman. But after the birth of her second daughter, an aching feeling crept in. It was a longing to preserve their beautiful Palestinian heritage, to capture the flavors, the stories and the identity that now felt so distant all the way back in Jerusalem.
“It took many years of experience,” Reem said, “living abroad, marriage and the birth of my daughters to finally realize just how meaningful and powerful food can be, to finally understand that the kitchen need not be a life sentence for women and could instead be a way to write the future for our children and reclaim the narrative of our people and culture.”
Reem began compiling stories and recipes for a book proposal, etching stories of her family’s history alongside a framework for a collective Palestinian history. She recalled memories of going to the mountains in the spring to collect za’atar leaves or in the fall going to the groves to harvest olives, as well as giving context and telling history with depth and nuance. It all turned into the James Beard-nominated cookbook called The Palestinian Table.
“When people hear the word ‘Palestinian,’ thoughts immediately go to war, aggression and violence. The only way to overcome these tropes is to really get to know Palestinians as people—people who love life, who want to live, who want to give their children a decent childhood and an even brighter future, who love to eat and share.”
Whitney Otawka and sustainability of the land
The swampy air hangs thick under the Spanish moss, but Cumberland Island, a tough little barrier island off the coast of Georgia and can take the heat. Under the brutal sun, Chef Whitney Otawka is knee-deep in the ocean collecting water to dry and turn into crunchy sea salt. Dirt gathered under her nails provide evidence of her picking zipper peas from the garden behind the Greenfield Inn, which will be cooked for dinner. She’s maintained friendships with her seafood purveyors who dolly up to the dock with buckets of fresh shrimp.
Otawka takes the task of sustainability seriously and works diligently to use the land around her respectfully. In her cookbook, The Saltwater Table, her recipes serve as a love letter to the coastal south.
“One of the key elements of cooking is an understanding of the environment around you,” Otawka says, “seasonality, history and social awareness all play into a larger network of what defines sustainability. Without an understanding that we have choices to make as cooks leaves us blind to the larger impact and consequences these choices have.”
Betty Tovar and cultivating beauty
While many people flock to Napa for wines outside of Europe, there is a lush and bountiful region about 600 miles south: Thriving vineyards dot the desert landscape growing in the Valle de Guadalupe in Mexico. The Baja region produces 90% of Mexico's wine, and Betty Tovar was determined to be a part of this movement. At Casa Frida, Tovar is the art and marketing director, she’s in charge of cultivating the experiences that tourists and customers will enjoy. In a time when such ugly rhetoric fills our airwaves and news streams she is in charge of reclaiming beauty. Tovar sees food as a conduit for connection, “I feel that with a glass of wine or sharing a table with someone, the conversation can deepen and be more interesting. You can know a little more of the soul of the person you're talking with.”
At this Mexican vineyard there is an open air restaurant adjacent to the vineyards and tasting rooms, tables are set up under a canopy of trees. For Day of the Dead and other big holidays, Tovar will collaborate with the chef to pair appetizers with Frida’s line of tequilas, “an experience led by a traditional ‘catrina’ with candles on the table and marigolds hanging from the ceiling.” Sometimes a simple act of cultivating beauty is an act of resistance.
Jeong Kwan and tenacity
Jeong Kwan was only a teenager when she lost her mother. Little did she know that the solace she sought at a Buddhist hermitage in her home of South Korea would lead to her international recognition and status as a nun and cook on Netflix’s show Chef’s Table.
Tucked beneath the mountains is the Chunjinam Hermitage, at the Baegyangsa temple, Jeong Kwan was taking turns cooking as all the nuns do. A lucky meeting with French chef and fellow Buddhist Eric Ripert connected her to a world of cameras, reporters and fancy restaurants in big cities. Even though Jeong Kwan has no formal training in cooking, her spunk and talent have taken her far. Jeong Kwan is a formidable force who can command the attention of a room.
“I have tried to follow the specific Buddhist teaching,” she says. “‘If we can live detached from fear of failure, it will not only give great freedom to our lives, but also bring out the best in our individualities.’ I was inspired by the teaching and wanted to embrace wholly the mindfulness of Buddha’s walks of life.”
She does not consider herself a chef but hopes to use food as a way to help others nurture their bodies and protect the environment.
“If people around the world can eat and do things step by step, in the Buddhist way, the utmost serious problem we are facing today, such as environmental damage along with climate change, may be resolved in the substantial level. We human beings should live together with all other beings harmoniously in order to protect the environment.”
Lucia and the distribution of knowledge
Montevideo is an uncanny mix of a tropical beach town and European city. The winds whip up off the water and down the cobblestone streets, rushing into open storefront doors. Chef Lucia Soria has her longstanding restaurant Jacinto proudly perched on one of these Uruguayan streets. Along with her more recent project, Pizzeria Rosa, each display her penchant for beauty and quality ingredients.
Soria operates out of a desire to share knowledge with her team at her restaurants. “We all know about different things, and if I know something that can help you eat a little bit better, I have to say it.”
This colors how she runs her team, encouraging her employees to learn as much as they can at her establishments and then leave when they feel the time is right to pursue their next dreams. She is an avid learner, constantly picking up new skills (the watercolors lining the walls of the restaurant are hers), educating people in Uruguay about the benefits of local produce (she has built relationships with the farmers markets) and accepting the mentorship of others (she worked for years with famed Argentinian chef Francis Mallmann). “I like to teach what I know,” she says.
