June 25, 2024 • 25 mins
In this episode of the NILC Freedom to Thrive podcast, host Victoria Ballesteros delves into a heartfelt conversation with internationally acclaimed Filipinx chef and author, Chef Angel Dimayuga.
Chef Angel is a culinary trailblazer with accolades such as the James Beard Foundation Award and Zagat 30 Under 30. Chef Angel discusses discusses their journey from a young, ambitious cook to a renowned chef. Chef Angel explores the role of food in storytelling, preserving culture, and creating community, while sharing personal anecdotes and insights from their immigrant upbringing and Filipinx heritage.
Discover how Chef Angel's book, "Filipinx, Heritage Recipes from the Diaspora," brings the flavors of their homeland to kitchens everywhere, offering accessible recipes for cooks of all skill levels.
Tune in for a heartfelt conversation about the profound connection between food and heritage, and hear Chef Angel's vision for a more inclusive and joyful society, the important role of immigrants in the culinary industry, and the power of food as a universal language.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I'm the youngest of nine children, so as you might imagine, my mother always had her hands full.
She worked full-time and would come home to cook for a house full of hungry people.
There were so many of us constantly demanding her attention.
If I ever wanted alone time with her, I would hang out in the kitchen while
she cooked. She was always making something delicious.
She'd make a scaldo with homemade flour tortillas. On Sundays, we had fresh menudo.
(00:24):
There'd be pork pozole on birthdays, and Christmases were filled with tamales, so many tamales.
Cooking amazing food was how my mom showed us love. Not surprisingly,
I now make these meals for my family, although in much smaller quantities.
Food was how my mom kept her heritage alive. We never talked about it,
but I can only imagine how comforting it must have been for her to be able to
(00:46):
hold on to a little piece of her hometown in Jalisco, Mexico,
and not only hold on to it, but also to lovingly pass it down to her children, one meal at a time.
For so many of us, wherever we're from, food is love. Food is comfort. Food is community.
It's a universal language. Food knows no borders. It transcends cultures and
(01:06):
brings us together in so many ways.
And that is why I'm excited to talk today with an internationally acclaimed
chef, political activist,
author of Philippine X, Heritage Recipes from the Diaspora, And dare I say,
a culinary celebrity and just all-around incredible human being, Chef Angel DiMaiuga.
This is the NILP Freedom to Thrive podcast, powering pro-immigrant narratives, one story at a time.
(01:33):
I'm Victoria Ballesteros, Executive Vice President of Narrative at the National
Immigration Law Center.
Chef Angel, hi. It's nice to see you again. Welcome.
It's a pleasure to be here, Victoria. Thanks for inviting me. Thank you.
So I want to jump right in, if that's okay. You have accomplished so much in
(01:54):
your career, and I want to name just a few highlights because there are so many.
Zagat 30 Under 30, James Beard Foundation Award for Best Chef,
Creative Director for Standard Hotels.
You've been invited to the White House, and your career has literally taken you around the world.
That is so impressive. How did you get here? Sure.
(02:17):
Well, I was a young kid that knew that I wanted to be a chef since five.
Wow. Yeah, I always think about the privilege that I had to be supported to
do this untraditional career at that time.
There wasn't a sense of cooking as a career, but my parents trusted me that
(02:42):
I knew what I was talking about. and they are immigrants to the U.S.
And I was part of the younger set and more Americanized of all the kids in my family.
So that was supported. And I
followed my path and kept thinking
about cooking and cooking in my own way
(03:05):
because there weren't folks as a young person that was doing it in any way that
I knew was possible and learned a lot of family recipes along the way and learned
through my career to really appreciate where I come from and the flavors of my heritage.
How wonderful. And what is your heritage? Where are your parents from?
(03:27):
And so you're five years old. Most of us are learning our ABCs when we're five
years old, but you're already deciding that you want to be a chef, which is amazing.
Was cooking just a big thing in your family?
Food, was that an important feature growing Yeah, my parents are from the Philippines,
and they immigrated to the U.S. in their 20s.
(03:48):
Being first generation meant that I had to learn about where I come from at
my own pacing and through my own pacing of curiosity.
I didn't know that my mom is from a place where people are viewed as excellent
(04:09):
cooks in Pampanga in the Philippines.
And I learned that through cracking open Savior magazine and see a 10-page spread
on Pampanga. And I'm like, wait.
This is where we come from. I come from a lineage of great cooks.
And yeah, food was a big part of my upbringing.
(04:33):
There weren't celebrity chefs at that time. There was no food network.
So at five, I was waking up on Saturday mornings watching what was available
to me on public television,
which was PBS and watching actually home cooks like Julia Child and Jacques
Pepin make their own family recipes or what Julia Child learned as an adult
(04:58):
in culinary school in France.
And then I had the opportunity to do chores in my family in ways that were exciting to me.
So I was doing laundry for eight people and that was tedious,
but I also found excitement in helping out in the kitchen.
So I wanted to make my chores fun for me and sort of replicating what I saw
(05:21):
on TV or just watching what my mom and grandmother were putting together.
So I was just observing and it was supported.
My silly ideas were supported and taken seriously.
I love it. And so I want to confess to you, I have a secret obsession with ube. I will eat anything ube.
(05:42):
Ube cake, ube anything, ube ice cream. Do you have a favorite meal or comfort
food that you go to when you're feeling nostalgic?
Or maybe, I don't know, if you're traveling the world, do you ever miss home?
And is there something, a meal that you go to for comfort? Yeah,
I got to eat so much Filipino home cooking.
And that also, I believe, is
(06:04):
a privilege to have matriarchs that can do that for me as a young person.
So working on my cookbook was a time-traveling experience to just think about
things that I loved and then remember flavors and seasoning and apply that as
an adult to when I was missing home.
(06:25):
I left home at 17, so I needed to figure out ways to remember home on a budget.
And one of my favorite dishes is really...
It's not fancy. It's a one-pot dish, and it's a mung bean stew using green mung beans.
(06:46):
It's just cooked with vegetables, lots of vegetables, maybe a little meat if
you have it, but you don't need it.
Then you eat it with a bunch of rice, and it's just really nourishing and comforting.
I would add things that I didn't use growing up, but added things as an adult
to get some iron and nutrition as a young chef with no money, really.
(07:08):
So I'd add things like collard greens and try and make this for crowds,
for my friends that also were on a budget.
I could make a giant pot of stew and a bag of mung beans for about $2 and still is.
So I love those flavors. And it's just really enjoyable to replicate that for
(07:33):
folks that haven't had ingredients like that.
And in America, we have them in Chinese groceries and things like that.
So we have access, surprisingly, to these traditional ingredients to my heritage.
That sounds amazing. So where did you go when you were 17? Did you go somewhere
(07:53):
that was part of your journey as a chef, becoming a chef?
Yeah, I originally was supported in going to culinary school,
which was just a two-year program.
But I was really interested in taking courses that were things that I didn't
(08:14):
know you could really study.
I went to a private Catholic all-girls school growing up. So what we learned there was what I knew.
And so I was always eager to leave home, leave San Jose.
I had a lot of curiosity of culture outside of San Jose.
And a lot of that was through listening to punk and emo music.
(08:38):
I was a pretty angsty kid.
So I loved mixing with different crowds at these concerts.
And they, to me, feel like they were sort of like like the pre-experience of
being around queer kids and folks from other cultures.
And so moving away from San Jose to experience my own life and study different
(09:02):
subjects was really important to me.
So I'm really happy that I started my life out with getting a humanities degree
and I could make it my own and study in a really interdisciplinary way.
And I do find that being able to have agency to choose courses of my own interests
(09:23):
really applies to the way I approach my work in the culinary world.
That foundation, which I was privileged to have as a first-generation kid and.
I think that I would be a completely different person if I just jumped into
culinary school and worked straight into kitchens. It allowed me to have critical thinking.
(09:47):
And I think that's why I've always sort of challenged the status quo of what
kitchens are and what our cuisine that we're sharing could offer.
That's more than a delicious plate of food, but something that you can think
about and think about who made it and why it's here.
Yeah. I want to go into that a little bit because when I think about famous
(10:10):
chefs or even just chefs that I've read about or seen on TV,
I can't think of any others who are Filipino.
So in many ways, it seems that you are blazing a trail for your community,
no pressure, but that is not an easy thing to do.
And so I'm curious, what were some of the challenges that you encountered as
you've gone up the ranks in your career and how did you stay motivated.
(10:33):
Yeah. I mean, these environments, I was really lucky and I was a really ambitious young cook.
And I found myself in kitchens that were intimidating because people above and
around me didn't look like me. Yeah.
But as I moved through the ranks of continuing to be a serious a chef,
(10:55):
working crazy, unhealthy schedules of like 90 hours a week.
I could only think about how to make these environments more viable to me,
which meant it was more viable to people around me, diners, etc.
And so I needed it to be fun for me, intellectually stimulating.
(11:18):
And over the course of my career became more known to not just make delicious
food consistently on a plate, but thinking about the environment,
what restaurants and the dining
experience could be, not for just food journalists and food reviewers.
We weren't making food just for them, but for me, it was important to bring
(11:40):
in different age groups, have different price points available.
Try to make the menu equitable.
And I was starting to think about restaurants as a place that could be a creative
hub, a place for ideas, a place for artists.
And that made it fun for me. And I think finding joy in a really...
(12:04):
Challenging work environment physically made me excited about going into work
every day and sort of transforming it into a place that felt like a fun playhouse
for me, which it could be for others.
Chef Angel, is cooking a type of storytelling?
Yes, I think about that all the time.
Getting to be an artist that creates flavor Flavor feels like such an accessible
(12:29):
opportunity to learn about a person and where they come from, what their history is,
or what their work experience is even.
I make what I call grandma food, but I also make really wacky conceptual dishes
in the fine arts setting or when I'm not only cooking Filipino food.
(12:54):
And flavor is that direct access point to a moment of wonder and curiosity of
what you even put together when you taste a medley of flavors.
You might get to know me a little bit better, but I get to know you if I get
to talk to you about it and hear what it brings up for you.
You sort of touched on this already, but one of the goals of this podcast is
(13:17):
to ensure that we We share our stories and truths and build power for our stories and truths.
And so in your experience, how does food play a role in storytelling and bridging
culture and even keeping culture alive?
I think it's an opportunity to dive deep into who you are.
If, you know, I grew up in restaurants, of course, as an American that felt
(13:44):
like I needed to learn cuisines from places like France and Italy,
because that's where there was this seriousness around a young cook.
If you learn these classical, quote unquote, cuisines.
But right there at home, you could have super technique-driven food that isn't viewed that way.
(14:08):
And there's this opportunity to really think more critically about who we are.
We don't need to put ourselves in this hierarchy that we've been told exists.
And there's a lot of opportunity to dive in deep of who you are and where you come from.
(14:31):
You get to look at, at least for me, my experience is like learning about this
ancestral trauma that's happened in my family and take agency over what there
are for me as a new generation of.
Take agency about what our stories could look like. And I'm so proud to see
(14:51):
a lot of young folks that I've either mentored or watched grow their careers in New York,
celebrating their home cuisine and do it boldly with like really loud flavors or a lot of spice,
things that people have been afraid of.
And this opens up the culinary landscape or just other folks'
(15:16):
curiosity about maybe a story of, you know, I think about some chefs that I
know in New York, their parents were Cambodian refugees,
and the flavors that you can access from what they're are proudly sharing is just so profound.
And there's just a lot of opportunity of really getting to learn about yourself
(15:38):
when you give yourself a chance to take yourself out of these structures that
we are told we belong in, and that's down and out.
And we don't need to be in that place at all.
I want to read you a quote from Anthony Bourdain.
And I wonder if you can share your reaction and your experiences in relation
to something that he said.
He said, the entire restaurant industry in America would close down overnight,
(16:04):
would never recover if current immigration laws were enforced quickly and thoroughly.
He then went on to say that immigrant labor is the backbone of the service and hospitality industry.
What's your response? What's your experience been?
It brings up a lot for me. There is opportunities to learn so much about culture
(16:25):
through cuisine. It's direct storytelling.
It's a portal into flavors and reasons why certain people can't be in America.
It's me trying to think more deeply about what my parents' experience was in
(16:47):
the Philippines, think about access, think about borders.
But it also makes me think about this type of labor that happens with immigrants
is really, I think about this a lot.
In the Philippines, 10% of the GDP comes from overseas workers.
And so that creates a whole different culture for what a Filipino in the diaspora
(17:12):
has experienced with connectivity of people like you.
We're constantly seeking each
other and I'm seeing folks like Filipino aunties working in places like.
The airport or in the hospital, nursing homes.
I'm thinking about other folks from immigrant cultures that think about hard
(17:34):
work and the power of food in a different way.
It's not just about, you know, being a well-known celebrity chef,
but it's also about hard work being something that you are, is in your blood.
It might come from ancestral trauma. It might come from your mom or dad working
a certain way and you wanting to just make them proud.
(17:58):
And people have, you know, folks from all different parts of the world,
they have their reasons of why they want to be in America, for example,
and that might mean working really hard to think about the next generation.
So there's just so much, it's just a different way to think about hard work
and the power of how you can preserve, maybe it's preserve your culture, or it's about survival.
(18:26):
There's just so many layers to what that means. And I think there's a lot of
pride that we can have in these different versions of our experiences.
100% in agreement with you on that. Thank you.
Let's shift gears for a moment. I want to talk about your book.
Tell me a little bit of what What is it about?
(18:47):
What was the genesis of that? And where can people find it?
Thankfully, people can find it anywhere. I've seen it being placed in small
independent bookshops. It's in big box bookshops.
It's on the internet. It's even being sold as used book at this point. It's awesome.
(19:08):
And so you can easily access it. It's called Philippinex, Heritage Recipes from the Diaspora.
I am someone who will burn soup. So does someone need professional training
or just a major skill set to make the recipes in your book?
One of the most popular recipes in the book is called coconut milk chicken adobo.
(19:31):
And those are ingredients that you can get at your regular degular grocery store anywhere.
And it's been so exciting to see folks in the Midwest cook it.
These are accessible ingredients, coconut milk, vinegar, soy sauce,
garlic, black peppercorn.
And this is a one pot dish. fish you're
burning soup you're gonna be okay to do
(19:53):
this just make sure you put it on simmer victoria and
you're gonna be fine but it's been so great
to see people of all levels of cooking being able to have this sort of gateway
filipino food and the flavor combination of soy sauce and vinegar is one that
people may not have had so i think that's a great starter recipe so everyone out there listening,
(20:18):
you can make coconut milk chicken adobo.
I'm going to try it. I'm excited to try it. Are there any ube recipes in the
book or is that next level?
No, no. There are ube recipes. I feel like ube, I love that you love it.
There's something so enticing about this purple, grimace, barney color that we don't see in food.
(20:40):
And so it's been really fun to see it hit the mainstream. Yeah.
I think it's, I think it's a really fun, enticing flavor and you can get it,
you know, you can get ube flavored things at Trader Joe's.
It's, it's, it's been a surprise, but yeah, there's some ube dishes in there.
(21:00):
So yeah, give it a whirl, Victoria.
Oh, I love it. I can't wait to try it. So you exemplify to me,
someone who is thriving and living up to your promise and potential,
which is amazing and a great example for all of us.
And at NILC, we believe in a vision for this country where all of us can thrive
(21:20):
and where the country lives up to its promise and potential as well.
So I'm going to give you a magic wand and you get to wave your wand around and reshape this country.
What does your reimagined country look like?
Some of the reimagined country looks a little bit like the same.
There's a lot of people in my community that are applying themselves with their
(21:45):
own passions and skill set.
Being in hospitality myself, that means I know how to throw a great party. I know how to be a host.
And something that I did back in 2017 was try to create these utopias of spaces, spaces at nightlife.
And we've been able to bring together for about eight years now people that
(22:07):
are BIPOC, people that are lesbian and trans into these spaces of joy.
But that type of community building can sometimes feel like a bubble.
And so we also need to think on a larger scale of instead of individuality and
individualism, collectivity.
I'm so focused on liberation of my people, people that are overlooked.
(22:33):
You know, I come from a background of multiple times of colonization and colonization,
abolished prisons and apartheid. There's a lot of different ways that we can
think about applying ourselves in this.
We have these microcosms and little worlds that we apply ourselves,
but how do we think bigger?
(22:53):
And I think there's a lot of collectivity that's happening right now and so
exciting to see in the younger generation.
That is a powerful vision. And I love that you've included joy in that liberation
because joy can be a radical concept.
And so I appreciate you flagging that. I'm going to throw one last question
at you before we sort of start to close out.
(23:15):
And that is, I'm asking for a friend.
The friend is me. If someone wants to try your food, are you cooking somewhere
at a restaurant where someone can go and try your food?
Or are you just sort of traveling the world?
I'm bopping around at this point. You know, restaurants and I worked in restaurants for many years.
(23:38):
I worked in hospitality by way of hotels.
Right now, I've been able to enjoy this lifestyle that's.
Better for my mental health, better for my physical health, and working freelance.
And I'm so lucky to do that. But I get to bop around and do things for the public.
I'm going to be doing a small event at the ICA in LA and making little free
(24:04):
treats for people with a Taiwanese fellow artist.
And so we're going to make these almond jelly little treats.
And so I do small scale events, I do private events.
And so, you know, if you watch out, there might be something going on.
And I'm always somewhere unexpected.
But a little it's a little Carmen San Diego at this point.
(24:27):
But I try to both do things that like, you know, a large scale,
a fine dining type of cuisine, but I love cooking accessible food.
And so I really prioritize that in the type of jobs that I take.
So just give me a follow, I guess.
Are you on Instagram? How can people find you? Yeah, I mean, I'm on Instagram.
(24:52):
I post occasionally and I definitely post the events that I'm participating in.
So yeah, just Angela.Demayuga and you can find me.
But I really love this idea of being able to feel close to me and close to my
story and my family story by cracking open that book.
And tasting flavors that way, too. I love it, too.
(25:14):
And I'm going to follow you on Instagram, and I promise not to stalk you.
I know the line. You're welcome, too.
Thank you, Chef Angel, for being here with me today. And I wish you continued success.
I'm really excited to see what you do next. And I want to thank everyone for
listening and taking time out of your day.
It is so important that we keep telling our immigrant stories and our truths.
(25:38):
For more immigration truths, visit us at nilk.org and freedomtothrive.com.
And make sure you subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes.
I look forward to continuing this conversation with all of you.
I'm the youngest of nine children, so as you might imagine, my mother always had her hands full.
She worked full-time and would come home to cook for a house full of hungry people.
There were so many of us constantly demanding her attention.
If I ever wanted alone time with her, I would hang out in the kitchen while
she cooked. She was always making something delicious.
She'd make a scaldo with homemade flour tortillas. On Sundays, we had fresh menudo.
(00:24):
There'd be pork pozole on birthdays, and Christmases were filled with tamales, so many tamales.
Cooking amazing food was how my mom showed us love. Not surprisingly,
I now make these meals for my family, although in much smaller quantities.
Food was how my mom kept her heritage alive. We never talked about it,
but I can only imagine how comforting it must have been for her to be able to
(00:46):
hold on to a little piece of her hometown in Jalisco, Mexico,
and not only hold on to it, but also to lovingly pass it down to her children, one meal at a time.
For so many of us, wherever we're from, food is love. Food is comfort. Food is community.
It's a universal language. Food knows no borders. It transcends cultures and
(01:06):
brings us together in so many ways.
And that is why I'm excited to talk today with an internationally acclaimed
chef, political activist,
author of Philippine X, Heritage Recipes from the Diaspora, And dare I say,
a culinary celebrity and just all-around incredible human being, Chef Angel DiMaiuga.
This is the NILP Freedom to Thrive podcast, powering pro-immigrant narratives, one story at a time.
(01:33):
I'm Victoria Ballesteros, Executive Vice President of Narrative at the National
Immigration Law Center.
Chef Angel, hi. It's nice to see you again. Welcome.
It's a pleasure to be here, Victoria. Thanks for inviting me. Thank you.
So I want to jump right in, if that's okay. You have accomplished so much in
(01:54):
your career, and I want to name just a few highlights because there are so many.
Zagat 30 Under 30, James Beard Foundation Award for Best Chef,
Creative Director for Standard Hotels.
You've been invited to the White House, and your career has literally taken you around the world.
That is so impressive. How did you get here? Sure.
(02:17):
Well, I was a young kid that knew that I wanted to be a chef since five.
Wow. Yeah, I always think about the privilege that I had to be supported to
do this untraditional career at that time.
There wasn't a sense of cooking as a career, but my parents trusted me that
(02:42):
I knew what I was talking about. and they are immigrants to the U.S.
And I was part of the younger set and more Americanized of all the kids in my family.
So that was supported. And I
followed my path and kept thinking
about cooking and cooking in my own way
(03:05):
because there weren't folks as a young person that was doing it in any way that
I knew was possible and learned a lot of family recipes along the way and learned
through my career to really appreciate where I come from and the flavors of my heritage.
How wonderful. And what is your heritage? Where are your parents from?
(03:27):
And so you're five years old. Most of us are learning our ABCs when we're five
years old, but you're already deciding that you want to be a chef, which is amazing.
Was cooking just a big thing in your family?
Food, was that an important feature growing Yeah, my parents are from the Philippines,
and they immigrated to the U.S. in their 20s.
(03:48):
Being first generation meant that I had to learn about where I come from at
my own pacing and through my own pacing of curiosity.
I didn't know that my mom is from a place where people are viewed as excellent
(04:09):
cooks in Pampanga in the Philippines.
And I learned that through cracking open Savior magazine and see a 10-page spread
on Pampanga. And I'm like, wait.
This is where we come from. I come from a lineage of great cooks.
And yeah, food was a big part of my upbringing.
(04:33):
There weren't celebrity chefs at that time. There was no food network.
So at five, I was waking up on Saturday mornings watching what was available
to me on public television,
which was PBS and watching actually home cooks like Julia Child and Jacques
Pepin make their own family recipes or what Julia Child learned as an adult
(04:58):
in culinary school in France.
And then I had the opportunity to do chores in my family in ways that were exciting to me.
So I was doing laundry for eight people and that was tedious,
but I also found excitement in helping out in the kitchen.
So I wanted to make my chores fun for me and sort of replicating what I saw
(05:21):
on TV or just watching what my mom and grandmother were putting together.
So I was just observing and it was supported.
My silly ideas were supported and taken seriously.
I love it. And so I want to confess to you, I have a secret obsession with ube. I will eat anything ube.
(05:42):
Ube cake, ube anything, ube ice cream. Do you have a favorite meal or comfort
food that you go to when you're feeling nostalgic?
Or maybe, I don't know, if you're traveling the world, do you ever miss home?
And is there something, a meal that you go to for comfort? Yeah,
I got to eat so much Filipino home cooking.
And that also, I believe, is
(06:04):
a privilege to have matriarchs that can do that for me as a young person.
So working on my cookbook was a time-traveling experience to just think about
things that I loved and then remember flavors and seasoning and apply that as
an adult to when I was missing home.
(06:25):
I left home at 17, so I needed to figure out ways to remember home on a budget.
And one of my favorite dishes is really...
It's not fancy. It's a one-pot dish, and it's a mung bean stew using green mung beans.
(06:46):
It's just cooked with vegetables, lots of vegetables, maybe a little meat if
you have it, but you don't need it.
Then you eat it with a bunch of rice, and it's just really nourishing and comforting.
I would add things that I didn't use growing up, but added things as an adult
to get some iron and nutrition as a young chef with no money, really.
(07:08):
So I'd add things like collard greens and try and make this for crowds,
for my friends that also were on a budget.
I could make a giant pot of stew and a bag of mung beans for about $2 and still is.
So I love those flavors. And it's just really enjoyable to replicate that for
(07:33):
folks that haven't had ingredients like that.
And in America, we have them in Chinese groceries and things like that.
So we have access, surprisingly, to these traditional ingredients to my heritage.
That sounds amazing. So where did you go when you were 17? Did you go somewhere
(07:53):
that was part of your journey as a chef, becoming a chef?
Yeah, I originally was supported in going to culinary school,
which was just a two-year program.
But I was really interested in taking courses that were things that I didn't
(08:14):
know you could really study.
I went to a private Catholic all-girls school growing up. So what we learned there was what I knew.
And so I was always eager to leave home, leave San Jose.
I had a lot of curiosity of culture outside of San Jose.
And a lot of that was through listening to punk and emo music.
(08:38):
I was a pretty angsty kid.
So I loved mixing with different crowds at these concerts.
And they, to me, feel like they were sort of like like the pre-experience of
being around queer kids and folks from other cultures.
And so moving away from San Jose to experience my own life and study different
(09:02):
subjects was really important to me.
So I'm really happy that I started my life out with getting a humanities degree
and I could make it my own and study in a really interdisciplinary way.
And I do find that being able to have agency to choose courses of my own interests
(09:23):
really applies to the way I approach my work in the culinary world.
That foundation, which I was privileged to have as a first-generation kid and.
I think that I would be a completely different person if I just jumped into
culinary school and worked straight into kitchens. It allowed me to have critical thinking.
(09:47):
And I think that's why I've always sort of challenged the status quo of what
kitchens are and what our cuisine that we're sharing could offer.
That's more than a delicious plate of food, but something that you can think
about and think about who made it and why it's here.
Yeah. I want to go into that a little bit because when I think about famous
(10:10):
chefs or even just chefs that I've read about or seen on TV,
I can't think of any others who are Filipino.
So in many ways, it seems that you are blazing a trail for your community,
no pressure, but that is not an easy thing to do.
And so I'm curious, what were some of the challenges that you encountered as
you've gone up the ranks in your career and how did you stay motivated.
(10:33):
Yeah. I mean, these environments, I was really lucky and I was a really ambitious young cook.
And I found myself in kitchens that were intimidating because people above and
around me didn't look like me. Yeah.
But as I moved through the ranks of continuing to be a serious a chef,
(10:55):
working crazy, unhealthy schedules of like 90 hours a week.
I could only think about how to make these environments more viable to me,
which meant it was more viable to people around me, diners, etc.
And so I needed it to be fun for me, intellectually stimulating.
(11:18):
And over the course of my career became more known to not just make delicious
food consistently on a plate, but thinking about the environment,
what restaurants and the dining
experience could be, not for just food journalists and food reviewers.
We weren't making food just for them, but for me, it was important to bring
(11:40):
in different age groups, have different price points available.
Try to make the menu equitable.
And I was starting to think about restaurants as a place that could be a creative
hub, a place for ideas, a place for artists.
And that made it fun for me. And I think finding joy in a really...
(12:04):
Challenging work environment physically made me excited about going into work
every day and sort of transforming it into a place that felt like a fun playhouse
for me, which it could be for others.
Chef Angel, is cooking a type of storytelling?
Yes, I think about that all the time.
Getting to be an artist that creates flavor Flavor feels like such an accessible
(12:29):
opportunity to learn about a person and where they come from, what their history is,
or what their work experience is even.
I make what I call grandma food, but I also make really wacky conceptual dishes
in the fine arts setting or when I'm not only cooking Filipino food.
(12:54):
And flavor is that direct access point to a moment of wonder and curiosity of
what you even put together when you taste a medley of flavors.
You might get to know me a little bit better, but I get to know you if I get
to talk to you about it and hear what it brings up for you.
You sort of touched on this already, but one of the goals of this podcast is
(13:17):
to ensure that we We share our stories and truths and build power for our stories and truths.
And so in your experience, how does food play a role in storytelling and bridging
culture and even keeping culture alive?
I think it's an opportunity to dive deep into who you are.
If, you know, I grew up in restaurants, of course, as an American that felt
(13:44):
like I needed to learn cuisines from places like France and Italy,
because that's where there was this seriousness around a young cook.
If you learn these classical, quote unquote, cuisines.
But right there at home, you could have super technique-driven food that isn't viewed that way.
(14:08):
And there's this opportunity to really think more critically about who we are.
We don't need to put ourselves in this hierarchy that we've been told exists.
And there's a lot of opportunity to dive in deep of who you are and where you come from.
(14:31):
You get to look at, at least for me, my experience is like learning about this
ancestral trauma that's happened in my family and take agency over what there
are for me as a new generation of.
Take agency about what our stories could look like. And I'm so proud to see
(14:51):
a lot of young folks that I've either mentored or watched grow their careers in New York,
celebrating their home cuisine and do it boldly with like really loud flavors or a lot of spice,
things that people have been afraid of.
And this opens up the culinary landscape or just other folks'
(15:16):
curiosity about maybe a story of, you know, I think about some chefs that I
know in New York, their parents were Cambodian refugees,
and the flavors that you can access from what they're are proudly sharing is just so profound.
And there's just a lot of opportunity of really getting to learn about yourself
(15:38):
when you give yourself a chance to take yourself out of these structures that
we are told we belong in, and that's down and out.
And we don't need to be in that place at all.
I want to read you a quote from Anthony Bourdain.
And I wonder if you can share your reaction and your experiences in relation
to something that he said.
He said, the entire restaurant industry in America would close down overnight,
(16:04):
would never recover if current immigration laws were enforced quickly and thoroughly.
He then went on to say that immigrant labor is the backbone of the service and hospitality industry.
What's your response? What's your experience been?
It brings up a lot for me. There is opportunities to learn so much about culture
(16:25):
through cuisine. It's direct storytelling.
It's a portal into flavors and reasons why certain people can't be in America.
It's me trying to think more deeply about what my parents' experience was in
(16:47):
the Philippines, think about access, think about borders.
But it also makes me think about this type of labor that happens with immigrants
is really, I think about this a lot.
In the Philippines, 10% of the GDP comes from overseas workers.
And so that creates a whole different culture for what a Filipino in the diaspora
(17:12):
has experienced with connectivity of people like you.
We're constantly seeking each
other and I'm seeing folks like Filipino aunties working in places like.
The airport or in the hospital, nursing homes.
I'm thinking about other folks from immigrant cultures that think about hard
(17:34):
work and the power of food in a different way.
It's not just about, you know, being a well-known celebrity chef,
but it's also about hard work being something that you are, is in your blood.
It might come from ancestral trauma. It might come from your mom or dad working
a certain way and you wanting to just make them proud.
(17:58):
And people have, you know, folks from all different parts of the world,
they have their reasons of why they want to be in America, for example,
and that might mean working really hard to think about the next generation.
So there's just so much, it's just a different way to think about hard work
and the power of how you can preserve, maybe it's preserve your culture, or it's about survival.
(18:26):
There's just so many layers to what that means. And I think there's a lot of
pride that we can have in these different versions of our experiences.
100% in agreement with you on that. Thank you.
Let's shift gears for a moment. I want to talk about your book.
Tell me a little bit of what What is it about?
(18:47):
What was the genesis of that? And where can people find it?
Thankfully, people can find it anywhere. I've seen it being placed in small
independent bookshops. It's in big box bookshops.
It's on the internet. It's even being sold as used book at this point. It's awesome.
(19:08):
And so you can easily access it. It's called Philippinex, Heritage Recipes from the Diaspora.
I am someone who will burn soup. So does someone need professional training
or just a major skill set to make the recipes in your book?
One of the most popular recipes in the book is called coconut milk chicken adobo.
(19:31):
And those are ingredients that you can get at your regular degular grocery store anywhere.
And it's been so exciting to see folks in the Midwest cook it.
These are accessible ingredients, coconut milk, vinegar, soy sauce,
garlic, black peppercorn.
And this is a one pot dish. fish you're
burning soup you're gonna be okay to do
(19:53):
this just make sure you put it on simmer victoria and
you're gonna be fine but it's been so great
to see people of all levels of cooking being able to have this sort of gateway
filipino food and the flavor combination of soy sauce and vinegar is one that
people may not have had so i think that's a great starter recipe so everyone out there listening,
(20:18):
you can make coconut milk chicken adobo.
I'm going to try it. I'm excited to try it. Are there any ube recipes in the
book or is that next level?
No, no. There are ube recipes. I feel like ube, I love that you love it.
There's something so enticing about this purple, grimace, barney color that we don't see in food.
(20:40):
And so it's been really fun to see it hit the mainstream. Yeah.
I think it's, I think it's a really fun, enticing flavor and you can get it,
you know, you can get ube flavored things at Trader Joe's.
It's, it's, it's been a surprise, but yeah, there's some ube dishes in there.
(21:00):
So yeah, give it a whirl, Victoria.
Oh, I love it. I can't wait to try it. So you exemplify to me,
someone who is thriving and living up to your promise and potential,
which is amazing and a great example for all of us.
And at NILC, we believe in a vision for this country where all of us can thrive
(21:20):
and where the country lives up to its promise and potential as well.
So I'm going to give you a magic wand and you get to wave your wand around and reshape this country.
What does your reimagined country look like?
Some of the reimagined country looks a little bit like the same.
There's a lot of people in my community that are applying themselves with their
(21:45):
own passions and skill set.
Being in hospitality myself, that means I know how to throw a great party. I know how to be a host.
And something that I did back in 2017 was try to create these utopias of spaces, spaces at nightlife.
And we've been able to bring together for about eight years now people that
(22:07):
are BIPOC, people that are lesbian and trans into these spaces of joy.
But that type of community building can sometimes feel like a bubble.
And so we also need to think on a larger scale of instead of individuality and
individualism, collectivity.
I'm so focused on liberation of my people, people that are overlooked.
(22:33):
You know, I come from a background of multiple times of colonization and colonization,
abolished prisons and apartheid. There's a lot of different ways that we can
think about applying ourselves in this.
We have these microcosms and little worlds that we apply ourselves,
but how do we think bigger?
(22:53):
And I think there's a lot of collectivity that's happening right now and so
exciting to see in the younger generation.
That is a powerful vision. And I love that you've included joy in that liberation
because joy can be a radical concept.
And so I appreciate you flagging that. I'm going to throw one last question
at you before we sort of start to close out.
(23:15):
And that is, I'm asking for a friend.
The friend is me. If someone wants to try your food, are you cooking somewhere
at a restaurant where someone can go and try your food?
Or are you just sort of traveling the world?
I'm bopping around at this point. You know, restaurants and I worked in restaurants for many years.
(23:38):
I worked in hospitality by way of hotels.
Right now, I've been able to enjoy this lifestyle that's.
Better for my mental health, better for my physical health, and working freelance.
And I'm so lucky to do that. But I get to bop around and do things for the public.
I'm going to be doing a small event at the ICA in LA and making little free
(24:04):
treats for people with a Taiwanese fellow artist.
And so we're going to make these almond jelly little treats.
And so I do small scale events, I do private events.
And so, you know, if you watch out, there might be something going on.
And I'm always somewhere unexpected.
But a little it's a little Carmen San Diego at this point.
(24:27):
But I try to both do things that like, you know, a large scale,
a fine dining type of cuisine, but I love cooking accessible food.
And so I really prioritize that in the type of jobs that I take.
So just give me a follow, I guess.
Are you on Instagram? How can people find you? Yeah, I mean, I'm on Instagram.
(24:52):
I post occasionally and I definitely post the events that I'm participating in.
So yeah, just Angela.Demayuga and you can find me.
But I really love this idea of being able to feel close to me and close to my
story and my family story by cracking open that book.
And tasting flavors that way, too. I love it, too.
(25:14):
And I'm going to follow you on Instagram, and I promise not to stalk you.
I know the line. You're welcome, too.
Thank you, Chef Angel, for being here with me today. And I wish you continued success.
I'm really excited to see what you do next. And I want to thank everyone for
listening and taking time out of your day.
It is so important that we keep telling our immigrant stories and our truths.
(25:38):
For more immigration truths, visit us at nilk.org and freedomtothrive.com.
And make sure you subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes.
I look forward to continuing this conversation with all of you.
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