The Daily Grind
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"Embrace your heritage and use your hands and work to find purpose and happiness in foreign land. "
I was born in Mexico in 1986 and I grew up in Tuijana, the border town next to San Diego and California. I grew up around women and my family was composed of mostly strong women. In 2010, I was finishing culinary arts school in Mexico and a couple from Regina came down to Mexico to take some treatment. I was working at an alternative medicine clinic as a head chef in a very small kitchen focused on organic and whole foods and that’s where I learned the importance of high quality ingredients and good food and the impact it has on our health.
This couple from Regina asked if I wanted to come back to Canada and teach them how to cook this food. I came to Regina for a summer and I lived with that couple and had the best time of my life. It was amazing. After that summer in Regina, I ended up traveling to Spain for 6 months for a pastry workshop and then moved to New York City to work in restaurant called The Presley for 3 months. It was long 16-hour workdays for 6 days a week and the money I was making wasn’t enough to pay rent. Dion Graham messaged me and said a pastry shop was opening in Regina and that maybe I would get a job there so we started that process.
In November of 2011, I moved back to Regina and got the job at the pastry shop and then in 2013, I met my husband Keiran. I ended up having to go back to Mexico for 6 months to get approved for a Canadian work permit and that was very hard because when you are uncertain of the future or when you will see the people you love again or even learning in two places at once, it takes a while to be understood and be accepted.
Coming back to Regina, I needed a creative for food, and the idea of a pop-up restaurant came to life called The Backyard. It was a good taste of what we could do if we had a restaurant. It was a research project for local ingredients in Saskatchewan. Shortly after, I met my business partner Madison and together we started dreaming of having a restaurant. That’s when our journey with Malinche began. Malinche is a Mexican food truck that has become homage to my heritage and memories. Malinche just finished its second year and at the same time we started the truck, my grandmother passed away so it’s been a really interesting process of growing this small business and making peace with my past and my story and just growing as a person.
The last year in the half has been a really hard journey of healing and recovery and I’m looking forward to the future and what’s coming. I’m grateful for the opportunity to live in a country where we can raise our voice and we can say what we think without being scared and that’s what I’m mostly grateful for. I’m grateful to have immigrated here and the responsibility I have to do the best I can so that I can inspire women of my country or I can go back to Mexico and give back to my community there.