That Brown Girl Cooks - Chef Kristi Brown

Chef Kristi Brown - Interview Transcript

One of the things I think is important is we cook because we love food and we love people. So if you're not getting paid that doesn't stop you from doing what you do. You can't just not feed the people. It doesn't make any sense in your spirit. So you're like, what do I gotta do? And you're like, okay, I'm just gonna start cooking. And for us, we, what I always tell people is that caterers got hit before restaurants ever got hit. So we were weak before everybody and so immediately a 300-person job canceled. That was about $20,000 and then we had a 400-person one that canceled. And so when that hit that was it. So we had to lay everybody off, period. They was just done. And so then right after that then the whole month of March canceled. Then two weeks, when the restaurants started, that's when everybody in April canceled and then it was just like it was done.

So it was just like we had all this food. So we had food in the freezer and it was like, well you could hold out and just, 'cause it's in the freezer, it's fine. But it's like, for what, you know what I mean? Every day would go on and you're like, there's nothing you could do. You could just sit on it and a lotta people are, right? And I just can't, I can't do that. I live here, I work here. I'm not gonna be sitting around letting people be hungry.

It's a lotta people to feed. It's really, really scary how quickly people were starving. Like for real, for real. Two days in, people were like, "Hey, I haven't eaten. "What you mean you haven't eaten?" If you were already on the fringe, you didn't have no money to begin with, this shit happens, you're fucked. Then you don't know how to cook, like you literally, literally don't know how to cook and there's a ton of people. That's why it's so much take-out, you know? 'Cause it's like, people don't know how to cook. So they eat, they cook what they can and then they're bored and they don't know what else to do, 'cause they literally just can't do it. So it's like that's a big thing that that's personally one of my bigger things is to take from this, how can we learn people, it's fine to feed 'em, but we need to teach people how to cook.

So we're working. Right now we're working with Southeast Youth and Family Services, trying to figure out how we can get on board with more seniors and then we also are doing WA-BLOC, they feed Rainier Beach community so we do lunches for them. So we'll do that tomorrow, 150 kids. And we did it last week for 100, they did 175 lunches, it was gone in 15 minutes. I don't think the average person can comprehend what that means, you know what I'm saying? Because it's like these kids was eating lunch food like that was a regular part of their diet. This shit is gone. And it's like schools are trying to, but the thing was is that they ate it 'cause they had to. And then it's like you kinda feel like you don't have to. So it's just a weird, it's a weird place right now with these kids and all of that kinda stuff. So just trying to, trying to make a way, you know?

If this stops tomorrow, people still gonna be hungry. This is not gonna stop any time soon. 'Cause this didn't start it. You know what I'm saying? So hopefully the lens of people being able to see that this was going on before, that food instability is a regular part of people's lives. This insecurity around the fact that it's like QFC, Safeway, and that's the only two options you have for food, fresh food, along this corridor until you get to Rainier Beach. This was a food desert. So it's just an interesting place that we find ourselves in. I just want people to really look at that and figure out what we're gonna do, 'cause we gotta do something.

We in this thing. This thing is not gonna be over on May the 4th, it's just not. Virginia called June two weeks ago and we're still waiting to try to decide. You know what I'm saying? I'm just like, come on, man, let's just call it and tell it what it's gonna be so people can really be for real about what they're gonna need to survive. But what you have is now. That's all you got. So you gotta be in that now moment. So right now, people can donate. We got, what do we have? That Brown Girl Cooks at Venmo, take money that way. People are sending us containers, that's super cool. It's super good. I can't buy a black-eyed pea to save my life, but Chef Tarik got me two bags of black-eyed peas, so you know I'm about to rock out some hummus next week, so you know.