"When the pandemic hit we stopped traveling. Minneapolis has been my home base for the last decade, and I wanted to help my community. So I called Ben Shendo, a friend of mine who was the executive chef of Gatherings Cafe inside the Minneapolis American Indian Center, asking him what I could do. Two days later we cleared the café’s pantry and began cooking 250 hot meals a day for elders, using 50 percent native ingredients. In September, Ben left the cafe and I got the opportunity to take it over. Now I’m reimagining what Gatherings Cafe can be. I’ve prioritized not just hiring Indigenous womxn as cooks but having a gender- and nonbinary-balanced atmosphere to dismantle the patriarchy of the kitchen. We also started an internship program, run by our business manager Vanessa Casillas who is a citizen of Ho-Chunk Nation. It teaches Indigenous community members the basics of cooking as well as the fundamental Indigenous foods." - ByBrian Yazzie
