CELEBRATING DIA DE LOS MUERTOS SUSTAINABLY: ALIGNING TRADITION WITH KITCHEN ACTIVISM

As I woke this morning, the aroma of my grandmother's signature lentil stew filled the air, at least in my memory. It is Dia de los Muertos—the day we honor our deceased loved ones by preparing their favorite meals. It got me thinking about the power of food, not only as a means of remembrance but also as a tool to impact our planet positively. I invite you to join me as we journey into the world of Kitchen Activism, where our meals become intentional acts of respect for our ancestors, our environment, and ourselves.

Beneath the surface of every bite are stories of how our food choices impact the world. As I reminisced about my grandmothers, I realized the best way to honor them is through food, but not at the expense of the environment. How can we align our culinary traditions with our values of protecting Mother Earth? The answer lies in cooking with purpose, shopping with intention, and supporting sustainable farming practices. Together, we can transform our kitchens into powerful platforms for environmental change while carrying forward the legacy of our loved ones. So here's to a feast of activism, purpose, and memory, one meal at a time!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome. I'm glad you're here. Together, we will turn our shared concern about the state of our environment into a force for change. It will require you to reimagine the role of your home kitchen as more than a warehouse of food or a room where we cook and gather to eat. The time has come to enter your kitchen with eyes open to the transformative power it harnesses for the planet and you. The home kitchen has always been ground zero for positive environmental and social change. Waiting for you to take your position as a kitchen activist, now that you arrived, you will change the world with what you eat. Welcome, I'm so glad you're here.

Speaker 1: 1:11

As I record this, it's November 1st, day of the Dead, dia de los Muertos. I'm sure you're familiar with this tradition, but I want to focus in on something that I think is really special around Day of the Dead, which is to make the favorite food of someone that you want to honor. So the idea for Day of the Dead is you build an altar, put pictures out and special the skeletons and some flowers the marigolds as well because when you take the petals of the marigold and you scatter them on the ground, creating a path so that the dead can remember how to get to your altar, but one of the big aspects is to put their favorite food and drink on this altar. It's a great opportunity to think about cooking with purpose and remembering those who've passed that you want to honor. I always think about my grandmothers during this time my grandmother Virginia and my abuelita Chole. When we really start to think about those who've passed and we've had the pleasure and the privilege to spend time with those people, the thing that really comes up as joyful moments or moments that we remember do revolve around food, and I think the reason, at least for me, is that our senses are heightened, they're awakened when we eat, because all the senses are engaged. It's why, when I do eat less water presentations if there is the opportunity I want food to be involved, because the senses are there and when we can taste something or smell something, we remember it and we remember the moment and it's marked in our minds. I think the best way to honor someone for Day of the Dead is to remember them through the food that they loved.

Speaker 1: 3:21

When I think about a meal with my grandmother, my abuelita Chole, I am always taken back into her kitchen as a little girl when we would go to her house to recognize Ash Wednesday, which is a Catholic holiday, and the in the tradition, or at least what I was told, was that the food the angels ate on that day was lentils, these shrimp patties and fresh dorthias. And I remember her over the stove the entire meal making fresh dorthias. So this week, as part of my menu, I'm going to make fresh dorthias and some lentils and a shrimp dish to honor my abuelita Chole this week. I want everything about that meal to be beautiful, to honor everything about her, so I don't want it to be attached to stories of exploitation. So that's the difference between cooking and cooking with purpose is to be intentional and to align ourselves with the solution and to align ourselves with cultivation or agricultural practices that are growing well-being on the planet and I feel like that is the way we can honor those who have passed is to really use this as an opportunity to start to practice that muscle of curating foods that are part of the solution. Because the kitchen activism, yes, it's about meal planning, yes, it's about wasting less food and keeping your refrigerator organized and your kitchen organized so that you can reduce your food waste, but the other part of it is shopping with purpose and starting to align our food purchases with our value and our desire to help heal this planet. And I think that is a great way to honor our ancestors is remembering them in this way and honoring them and their beauty in this way.

Speaker 1: 5:43

The idea around Dia de los Muertos, to me, is we only die when we're forgotten. So this is a great time to remember those that you want to live para siempre, right forever in your hearts and in your minds, and I wish you a beautiful holiday with those who are present with you now and those who have passed. So this is your day of the dead kitchen activism tip, which is to cook a meal for someone who you want to honor and remember their favorite meal. And if you don't know what their favorite meal is, maybe a favorite meal that you remember sharing with them, or something that you could imagine that you think that they would have loved if you didn't have the opportunity to spend time with that person. That would be the action tip, but taking it further, which is to be mindful and curate the ingredients from sources that are dedicated to grow well-being, so supporting your farmers markets and your small scale shops from food makers who are intentional about the food that they produce and the ingredients they use in their food. We have to support them if they're going to exist. We have to support them if we want the work that they do to flourish and what better way to honor those people we love than to bring things that are good and beautiful? And we want to flourish and are vibrant and are swirling with life force.

Speaker 1: 7:37

I know that when my time comes and it's time for me to move on from this physical space, the best way I could think of to honor me would be to live profoundly, just to live fully, and to live the life that you're designed to lead, and to take your unique talents and bring them forth into the world, to do good work, to live with purpose and feel the radiance of who you are. I want to end thinking about so many people who've passed recently to the hands of war, water scarcity and these devastating weather events that have been made worse or caused by climate change. So I want to recognize them. As I put together my altar today, I have a bowl of heart rocks that I've collected through the years as I walk along the shore near my home, and I'm always on the lookout for heart rocks. So those heart rocks I plan to place on the altar to recognize all of those who have passed recently, that I've not had the privilege to meet or to know, but their passing is felt and I send my love and light to everyone who's holding space in their hearts or feel the absence really deeply now of somebody who's passed, sending everybody healing and love and light in a time that feels raw for so many, and remembering to hold those that we love, who are present with us right now, in this moment, a little tighter. Be resplendent, and I'll see you here next week.

Speaker 1: 9:30

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