Today we’d like to introduce you to Pyet DeSpain.
Hi Pyet, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I am a Native American and Mexican American chef from the Midwest. I am a member of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Tribe. I was born in Oklahoma and spent my childhood years between the Osage Tribe Reservation in Pawhuska, OK and Kansas City, KS. Both of my parents are from Kansas City. Growing up, I wasn’t only taught the importance of knowing how to cook but it was instilled into my siblings and I that cooking was a life skill, to be able to make a meal from little ingredients was a survival skill. I learned a lot of traditions and core values from both Native and Mexican culture. Every meal we had at home was shared together as a family. The kitchen was a sacred place, it is where we spent a lot of time together. We were either eating or cooking.
My true passion for cooking didn’t fully develop until my early adulthood but sharing time in the kitchen with family was definitely the foundation of my passion. I found it hard to ignore my love for cooking and decided to go to culinary school. I was a bit lost at the time, growing into adulthood at the age of 24. I was going through a lot of changes and a rough patch in life during this chapter. Culinary school and the kitchen was a place of peace and adventure. It was a place where I could completely focus on what was in front of me and zone the rest of the world out. When you’re in a fast pace environment and working with hot pans, you don’t have room to think about anything other than not burning what’s in your pan or burning your hand. I found my passion, I found something I truly loved to do and that was to create delicious food experiences. After finishing the fundamentals of the culinary arts program at a local trade school, I started a private chef business and was meal prepping for clients as a side hustle. I struggled trying to build a lucrative meal-prepping business for a few years then made the decision to move out of the midwest to see what the world had to offer. I was ready for growth and new scenery. I heard there was a lot of opportunity for private chefs in Los Angeles so without hesitation and some convincing of my best friend, I moved to LA.
I continued to struggle in LA trying to get my business off the ground and build clientele. Little by little I got closer and closer to what it felt like to be a successful private chef with a health-focused meal prep business. I was working long hours putting a lot of work in the kitchen, packaging meals then delivering all around LA. I spent two years running this beast until I hit a wall. I was tired of cooking food I didn’t love or feel connected to. I was tired of making the meal preps that matched the latest diet trend. I felt so restricted. I started to really miss home, I missed my family, I missed my friends and I missed my culture. I wanted to give up and go home back to familiarity but I had to get real with myself, I asked myself, “what do you really want to do with this life?”. If I could do anything in the world, what was it? My immediate response was that I just wanted to represent people like myself, a multi-cultured girl cooking and trying to live out her dreams of being a successful private chef. I also wanted to reconnect with my culture and share it with others. That is when I decided to focus on reconnecting to my ancestral foodways. I decided I wanted to create memorable food experiences while serving food that represents me, not the food I was taught to cook from a textbook. I chose to relearn indigenous foodways and share native recipes with the world.
Since then I’ve become a traveling private chef. I was able to cook food I was passionate about. I’ve been recognized on major media platforms as well as have won Gordon Ramsay’s latest award-winning food competition television show, Next Level Chef. After these successes and becoming so strongly connected to the traditional foods my ancestors once ate I’ve now realized my purpose is to uplift my communities and celebrate my cultural heritage by storytelling and cooking those same recipes but with my own flare. I choose to highlight the stories of our food relatives and teach the importance of honoring the food and ingredients just as we honor our human relatives. Just like us, these ingredients have a story, they’ve evolved over time and have survived many generations. I am grateful to be in alignment with my purpose. I hope my story inspires others to take risks towards finding their purpose and keep striving towards that vision that only they can see. When the road gets rough know nothing worth having comes easy.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
As a chef, I struggled to find my niche. I worked myself to the bone just trying to make ends meet while cooking basic and healthy meal prep food. I lost sight of my why and wanted to give up cooking altogether. I was stuck in self-doubt when I found myself homeless two years after moving to LA. I couch-surfed for a year until I could fully support myself on a private chef salary.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I specialize in Indigenous Fusion Cuisine. I take both of my cultural heritage and put them on the plate. Essentially I create food that represents me. I highlight indigenous ingredients from both sides of the border, Native America and Mexico. I am most proud of staying true to myself on this journey and never losing my values just to fit in or making a buck. I am filled with so much gratitude for have been guided by my upbringing and ancestral teachings to honor traditions and to be proud of who I am and where I come from
Have you learned any interesting or important lessons due to the Covid-19 Crisis?
I’ve learned the importance of building community and being kind. There were so many people struggling with mental health that didn’t have a way to relieve their anxieties due to the social restrictions set all over the world. I was able to host a few online classes that were free to the public just to give people a break from outside scaries. I was hoping to provide a gateway for others to find their peace and adventure in the kitchen.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chefpyet/?hl=en
