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TABLE OF CONTENTS The Making of Pass The Spatula
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Food For Thought pg. 16 Student Recipies pg. 20 Bringing Creative Ideas to the Table: Inspiring Stories with Fearless Food Entrepreneurs pg. 32 From Ice Cream Date to Business Partners pg. 34 From Warm Flavors to a Warm Welcome pg. 36 50/50 - Cooking and Baking with Sohla El-Waylly pg. 38 A Journey of Sharing Culture Through Bread pg. 40 Be a Rebel pg. 42 Mom’s Basement & Michelin-Starred Restaurants pg. 44 Learning the Basics pg. 46 A Pastry Chef with a Big Heart pg. 48 Redefining Mobile Dining pg. 50 Editorials A Sweet Collaboration Part 1- The Artist pg. 22 Part 2- The Baker pg. 64 Part 3- Faith for the Future pg. 85 The Life of a Street Vendor pg. 26 We Scream for Ice Cream pg. 28 What’s Street Meat and Why is it a Lifesaver pg. 30 for Many New Yorkers? The Future of Eco-Friendly Eating pg. 55 Exploring Ghost Kitchens pg. 60 Somethin’ to Munch On pg. 68 Keep Up- Remaining Relevant pg. 76 Spilling the Tea with Yoko and Jan pg. 82 What’s it like Being a Student Entrepreneur? pg. 88 Juggling Startups, School, & Social Media pg. 89 The Rise of Non-Alcoholic Mixology pg. 90 Recipe Index pg. 94
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The Life of a Street Vendor by Aylin Sanchez New York City is a popular and diverse place filled with immigrants. While being in New York could mean that prices are high compared to suburban areas, it can also mean there are more opportunities for self-starters like fruit, tamale, street meat, and raspado vendors. The most common mode of transportation in New York City is public transit, but to pay $2.75 to take the subway or bus to Target to buy food is so much more tedious than walking down the block to pick up strawberries or latkes from food vendors! Street vendors are crucial to their communities and make our lives much easier, yet sometimes they are overlooked. When you think about street vendors, you might picture fancy food trucks or trendy dishes, but trendiness doesn’t factor into immigrant workers like paleteros, mango-sellers at the beach, ice sellers at the park, raspado vendors on the streets, or churro sellers on the train. Whether it’s tamales at 5:00 am or halal food at 10:00 pm, you can always count on food vendors to fulfill your needs. These unique entrepreneurs sacrifice a lot just to meet their needs and provide for their families. Evelia Coyotzi, an immigrant vendor and owner of Evelia’s Tamales, a Mexican restaurant in Corona, Queens, is a prime example of this hard work and dedication. After the terrorist attacks on September 11th 2001, she lost her job. Evelia has always been a self-starter, and when it came to supporting herself and her family, instead of turning to the government for help, she did what she always does best: bet on herself and rely on her natural talents. From a young age, Coyotzi had to work hard as her mother was a single mom raising four kids while being a widow in San Sebastián, Mexico. Coyotzi’s father died when she was about one. As she grew, she had to step up and help her mother by learning to cook and clean. Eventually she had to leave her only son John with her mom in Mexico so she could come to New York and sell from a shopping cart on the street corner. Over the years, she’s been arrested more than 18 times, but never gave up. Read on to learn more about a day in her life. Note: This interview was conducted in Spanish and
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translated to English. When and how did you start? It’s pretty crazy actually. When the twin towers fell, I was working at McDonald’s. Due to the attack, I was put out of a job, which is why I started selling food out of my cart. Do you have to prepare the tamales? Most of the tamales are prepared the night before. In the mornings, I really just walk out the door. I try to pack everything at night so I can get the most hours of sleep. Do you wake up with the rest of your family? Early on, it was just me and my husband, and we didn’t have to go through the hassle of getting kids ready in the morning. Although my husband had his own job at the time, because making tamales wasn’t really bringing in that much revenue. We needed another source of income to survive. What time do you usually leave? I usually leave around 4 am or 5 am in the morning,. I had to be by my spot at 6 am. So I can get the early commuters. When’s your rush hour? From about 5 am to 9 am, I was the busiest. First, the construction workers and the people with early jobs arrive, then all the kids going to school arrive, and finally the parents arrive. It was pretty much like this almost every morning. How much per customer do you make during rush hour? To be honest, you can’t really tell because some people come around for four or five tamales, even 10. If it’s a construction worker, or somebody looking for a simple breakfast, they at least buy two or three, always more than one, with a drink like atole. Is there cart rivalry? There isn’t really any rivalry, but I always notice that other vendors saw I was selling a lot. They park the cart right next to me just to sell more. It does work sometimes, because many people are not patient, and their train is right there, so they didn’t have time to wait. It doesn’t bother me, but the next day they would come and tell me, “I tried the other ladies, but they weren’t as good as yours.” Most of the time, they’d stay with me because they know that I give them quality products, and they don’t really want to experiment that early in the morning. Where do you store your car, and how much do you have to pay? When I first started off, I had a shopping cart which I just stored in my house, but now that I have a bigger and more professional cart, I have to pay for a garage. The cost really depends on how big of a space you need. Prices vary from $150 to $450, depending on your cart. What happens if you have to use the restroom on the cart? Do you have employees with you? You have to be very loving with your neighbors because if not for them, they’re wouldn’t be any restrooms. Back when it was just me, I would have to leave my cart out by itself and make a very quick bathroom run. Now I usually leave it with the employees. What time do you start to pack up? I usually stay out until 1 pm because I mostly serve
breakfast. Sometimes if all my product is gone before 1 pm, I leave around 12 pm. Has it ever gotten violent on the streets? Not that much at the start, but now for sure, there is way more violence on the streets. Before, it was really just cops arresting us, and that was it. Now I would say they’re pretty much preoccupied. How did the cops find you? I was always pretty much in the same spot at the same time. I wanted to move, but I couldn’t because I already had a set group of customers. I thought about moving many times, but the cops were the same everywhere in the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Manhattan. Plus, if I moved somewhere different, I would have had to start from zero and find new customers. Which wasn’t something I was willing to do. I felt like I had a responsibility to my regular customers. If I wasn’t there, where would they would go? Was it hard to keep your business when arrested? No. When it was just me and my husband running the cart, every time they arrested me, it was around 8 a.m. The cops knew I wasn’t doing anything bad, so they would release me before 12 p.m. While I was in jail, my husband would prep all the ingredients for the tamales, and when I got home, I would just cook them, pack them up, and get ready to head out. What really helped me was, every time I got arrested, I saw it as a motivation instead of a setback. How did the arrests affect your profit? I always say that in the face of negativity, you have to find positivity. Many people would have given up after the first arrest, but I knew I was innocent and was doing no wrong, so I kept going. I was out of a job after the twin towers fell, and instead of asking for government money, I wanted to make my own income in a wholesome way. I don’t know if you have noticed, but since the pandemic, many people have been selling on the streets just trying to make a living. How do you give back to the community and the people that are going through the same struggles you have been through? I love being involved in my community, because when I am, it’s not only for me, it’s for everybody. My husband always tells me that I like to be in the middle of things like peaceful protests and public speaking, but it’s true. It’s because I’ve always been so involved that I’ve made it so far.
prices. For instance, before, tamales used to be $1. Now, they are $1.50 at the restaurant. I used to not charge any taxes, but since January, I’ve had to start charging them. What prices and food does your menu consist of? Most of the menu consists of dough. Tamales are made out of corn dough (masa), tortillas are made out of dough, and chilaquiles are made out of dough. Everything has some sort of dough in it, but in general, we have six major sections: tamales which range from $1.50 to $2.00, tacos which range from $4 to $5, quesadillas are about $10, tortas range from $10 to $12, platillos range from $14 to $15, and drinks which range from $1.50 to $7.50. What is your most popular dish and how do you prepare it? The most sold dish is chilaquiles, which is fried corn tortillas sautéed with green or red salsa, and topped with crema, cheese, and onions. You can also pair them with many different things like eggs and chicken. If you add extras, the price will go up. What makes more money: the cart or the restaurant? The cart makes way more because it’s been there for longer, and it’s way more known. What’s the hardest part about your job? Besides the cops, the hardest part [of running the cart myself] was working at night with no sleep. What are some of your tips for upcoming entrepreneurs? If you’re in the food industry, always try to sell good food that you made same day. You don’t want to make a lot of product and then end up using it the whole week, because it won’t be fresh. It’s better to make less and be sold out in one day than to reuse products over and over. The customers will know, no matter how hard you try and cover it. Always remember, quality over quantity. For more information on how you can support street vendors, visit The Street Vendor Project at www.streetvendor.org
Was owning a restaurant always your end game? No, I never thought I would make it this far. At that moment [when she started the tamale cart], I just wanted to work and go back to Mexico because my son was over there. Do you open up the restaurant each day? In March of 2022, I opened my restaurant. My employees open it up every day because I am preoccupied with both places, the cart and the restaurant, but yes, we are open all seven days of the week at both locations. Where do you spend more time, at the restaurant or cart? Since the restaurant just opened recently, I spend more time there. On the other hand, the cart has been open for 20 years. So I’m a little bit more lenient and trust it to survive without my constant assistance. With inflation, food is getting expensive, where do you buy supplies? I buy from my surrounding delis and supermarkets. I haven’t really found a cheaper alternative... what I have done is raise
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Bringing Cre to the Table
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eative Ideas Inspiring Stories e with Fearless Food Entrepreneurs
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BE A REBEL An interview with Chef Pilar Valdes about her experience becoming an entrepreneur by Gaby Fernandez
How did you know you wanted to be part of the culinary industry? That’s a really good question… I don’t think I actually ever quite knew. I was always a really good eater, ever since I was small. I love food and it brings me so much joy. But I don’t think I had really, truly considered cooking as a profession until much later in my life. I actually worked for 10 years, in a nonprofit, working with young people doing political education, collective media making… pre cell phones. I started cooking for my friends…as dinners for six people morphed into barbecues for 40. And I was doing it so much that I couldn’t afford to keep doing it. My friend was like, “Yo, you need to stop feeding us for free. Have you considered doing something in culinary?” At that point, I was probably 28 or 29. I felt a little too old to go back to school. I think culinary school offers a lot of really great things. But it’s also really expensive. I didn’t feel comfortable at that point in my life paying that much to go to school. And I was like, I’m not sure which way to go. I love food but, l didn’t feel valid. Cooking for years for friends and studying and trying to learn how to cook on my own, I was always second guessing it. However, a friend of mine reached out to me, and he was like, “hey, you know, a friend is having a baby shower, would you cater it?“ he was like, “Dude, it’s totally fine. It’s only 25 people. You have more people in your house on a regular basis, don’t sweat it, it’s going to be great.” So I gave in and did the catering for the event. People were coming up to me …asking me for my business card. I was like, “I don’t have a business card.” And they were like, “You don’t do culinary?” And I was like, “No, not really. I just do it on the side.” And they’re like, “Maybe you should consider it.” From that day I went home, I called one of my good friends that was also working in nonprofits who I knew wanted to of make the shift out of that field, and then said, “Hey, would you think about trying to start a company
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together? Would you cook with me? She was very much like me: we were always cooking, researching, eating, testing recipes, and doing all these things. We started very, very much in earnest. I started cooking out of my home; we did a lunch delivery service. We ran it like a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) where you partner with farmers and buy a share for their future season to ensure that they have customers, and then you get access to great vegetables. We used that model to do a lunch delivery service and customers would sign up, and they would pre pay us, let’s say for 15 lunches, and we would make farmers market meals, and deliver them twice a week. This was also before Uber Eats and Seamless and all that stuff. She and I would literally be on the subway, carrying bags and criss-crossing like crazy ladies in the city. Our conversations were like “how many clients can we take on and how many boxes can we carry?”. I do not recommend it. But you know, we were just learning and playing with the idea. And then we got into an incubator program at this place called Hot Bread Kitchen. They supported predominantly women and immigrant-owned small food businesses. That
was a game changer for us, because all of a sudden, we were cooking in a commercial kitchen. We had access to industrialsized stoves and ovens, and we got our food handlers license. The Department of Health would come for surpise visits. All of a sudden, we went from a very casual thing in our houses to something that was very formal, and started me on my more formal path. I ran that company basically as a catering company… for seven or eight years. Then I made the switch to becoming a private chef. Now, I’m in this interesting mix, because I do a little bit of private cheffing, I do recipe development, and then I’m the senior culinary contributor on The Drew Barrymore Show. But if you asked me 10 years ago, if I ever saw myself doing that stuff… It’s been a sort of very interesting, different ride. [It’s] completely unexpected. Absolutely. Thank you for sharing that experience with me. What was it like publishing The Rebel Homemaker with Drew Barrymore? It was an incredible experience, because Drew is someone I grew up watching on television. To be looped into that universe and have the opportunity to work iwth this book has been really tremendous. It’s undeniable that [Drew] has a certain star power and certain things that she’s able to harness in the world; it really is phenomenal to watch. But at the same time, she really wanted to keep the book very personal and very intimate. It’s a really sweet book. Totally. I have recently seen the recipe book and I truly love it. It’s so very comforting and warming, just an incredible book. Are there any other cookbooks that inspired its development? Drew and I poured over lots of cookbooks together for research: Where Cooking Begins by Carla Lalli Music; Solo by Anita Lo; Senegal by Pierre Thiam and Jennifer Sit; L.A. Son by Tien Nguyen, Natasha Phan, and Roy Choi; My Mexico City Kitchen by Gabriela Cámara and Malena Watrous; The Flavor Bible by Karen A. Page, Andrew Dornenburg, and lots of books by Jamie Oliver and Ina Garten. So what is the most difficult part of your job as an entrepreneur? That’s a good one. You never feel like you have enough time. I am essentially like a freelance chef. I work on the show, I am a private chef here and there, I do a little catering, so there’s a lot of hats that I end up having to wear. Everyone always asks me “Do you still cook on your days off?” Absolutely, and it’s really something that gives me joy. That being said, you’re always feeling like you’re being pulled in so many different directions, and I think sometimes you start harping on yourself, you start beating up on yourself. Try and be more gentle on yourself; it is definitely a challenge to be more understanding. To say, “Yes, there are all these priorities, you know, and just because you didn’t tick off every single thing on that list, that doesn’t make you a failure.” You just need to be realistic, because there’s so many things that you have to juggle when you’re an entrepreneur. How do you cope with the stress? I take a couple of deep breaths. I like to write things out. I have a little notebook and write down the task. Re-center. Sometimes I just need to stop everything I’m doing and take a walk with my husband, even if it’s five minutes just to reset and re-ground. Definitely. That is all very good advice. Has becoming an entrepreneur changed who you were before your journey or after your journey? That’s a good question. I wasn’t out there to be an entrepreneur, you know? I hadn’t planned it that way. For me, it was really about considering opportunities as they came up, and then doing a
gut check. Before I started down this entrepreneurial path, I was safe, more cautious. [ I wanted] regularity and stability. And being an entrepreneur doesn’t mean I’m reckless in any way, but, it’s more about finding the spaces to say yes. Take a little bit of risk and know that being nervous about something or being scared about something is completely part of the process. Embrace that fully. “Where’s the opportunity? How can I say yes?” It’s also completely okay to fail at something and I think we don’t talk about that enough. I feel like the kitchen is a microcosm for life at large. You come up with an idea. You try and test it out. And a lot of times that recipe failed and then it’s how you respond to that failure. What’s my sense of curiosity? Why did that not work? How can I tweak it? Then have a little bit of tenacity to keep trying and working it. I feel like we, as a society, sometimes don’t really talk about the failure aspect when you see someone succeeding How is your catering business going? It was going really great. And then the pandemic hit. And I really put that on pause … mostly because there weren’t any events going on in New York for at least the first year and a half… I put my blood, sweat, and tears into starting that company and doing all these crazy events all around New York City, and then the pandemic happens. It was a really nerve wracking time because … that’s my livelihood, right? I need to earn money somehow… I remembered being very nervous, very afraid, very unsure about how to move forward. And then, you know, realizing that working one-on-one with certain clients I was filling in [the gaps], and then I was able to be on the show for Drew Barrymore. That opened a whole different set of opportunities... So the catering right now is on hold. I’m still trying to figure out how to kind of start it up again. So what is your go-to fast food restaurant? Jollibee, because I’m Filipino. I grew up eating that stuff. It’s it’s so, so good. They have fried chicken that I love. They also have Filipino party-style spaghetti, I think it has hot dogs in it, with a very sweet sauce. Those are the flavors of my childhood. Yeah, it’s great that you can find a fast food place where you could find comfort. Is there anything else you want to touch on? Leaning in on your community is so important. I think sometimes when we think of the word “entrepreneur”, it feels so individualized. At least, that hasn’t been my experience. Really, lean on your community and find people that will be in your corner, because ultimately your success is never your own. There’s always people involved somehow and to embrace that…I think it’s so much healthier. It’s so much stronger. And I feel like itis so much more successful that way. You can follow Chef Pilar at @chefpilarvaldes @kickshawcookery
Pilar Valdes is a private celebrity chef (including for the Drew Barrymore Show) and owner of Kickshaw Cookery, a New York City-based catering company. She is from tropical Manila, Philippines. Valdes graduated with a BA from Sarah Lawrence College. Instead of attending culinary school, she pushed through and learned from the culinary industry through restaurants and influencers. Chef Pilar and Drew Barrymore co-wrote a cookbook called Rebel Homemaker, which was published in 2021.
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