Crystal Wahpepah | |
---|---|
Born | |
Education | Le Cordon Bleu |
Style | Native American cuisine |
Crystal Wahpepah is an indigenous American chef. She was the first indigenous chef on the cooking program Chopped.[1] Wahpepah has a Native American woman owned catering business.[2] She opened her own restaurant with to reclaim Native American cuisine.[3] She received the Indigenous Artist Activist Award.[1]
Wahpepah was born and raised in Oakland, California.[1] She is a member of the Kickapoo, Sac, and Fox tribes from Oklahoma.[4] As a child, she cooked with her older relatives.[4]
Wahpepah loves cooking. She attended the Le Cordon Bleu cooking school.[1] She studied French cooking.[1] In 2010, she got a place at a program that helps women of color start food-related businesses.[1]
She opened a catering business.[4] Large companies like Google and Facebook have hired her to cook.[4] Even though the San Francisco Bay Area had many kinds of chefs, there were no indigenous food restaurants.[1] She traveled around the United States and learned more about Native farming and cooking.[4] Eventually she opened her own restaurant.