Around the Table

Our ongoing Around the Table series features informal conversations between food workers, thought leaders, elders, organizers, and creatives about emergent insights in food culture.

Together, we sink our teeth into the juicy stories, live questions, and critical conversations buzzing in food and culture spaces. 

Around the Table conversations are always free and open to all.

Poster Art by Lizzie Suarez

July 18, 2023 | 12–1:15pm PT

How might we create a culture of care for the lands, waters and peoples who nourish us by embracing the wisdom revealed by the apocalypse? Join Native Hawaiian Zen Priest and movement strategist Norma Wong, and  Boricuir food justice organizer, writer, farmer and founder of Cuir Kitchen Brigade, Lucecita Cruz in conversation with facilitator,  Yana Gilbuena-Bilbau, an ancestrally-taught chef, writer, and death doula around the virtual table as we unearth practices to compost empire and seed more liberatory, thriving futures. 

UNEARTHING APOCALYPSE

The Latin root of Apocalypse means “to reveal; to uncover.” Usually, this is interpreted to mean something dreadful is revealed.

What if what's revealed in apocalypse is our inherent wholeness, mutuality, generosity and connection?

For Queer, Trans, Black, Indigenous and diasporic people of color around the world, apocalypse has come and gone. In Around the Table: Unearthing Apocalypse, we recognize and center the power of two island communities—Hawaii and Puerto Rico—that continue to grapple with the reverberations of environmental, colonial and economic apocalypse by building on ancestral legacies of survival and resistance.

In this moment of collective existential unraveling, these communities are carving out viable pathways to support life on earth by sustaining culturally-rooted approaches to food, land and movement work. Drawing on their respective lineages of Queer ecology and Zen practice, Lucecita and Norma will highlight the wisdom of these distinct approaches to reweaving care for the lands, waters and peoples who nourish us, for generations to come.

Meet the Guests

  • Pronouns: they/them

    Lucecita Cruz is a Queer Anarchist Afro-Latinx farmer, herbalist, organizer and Land justice advocate from the Puerto Rican Diaspora that lives in Minneapolis. They are fighting to protect front line communities who are affected by food injustice and climate change. They have organized with inter-generational BIPOC Queer and Trans folks around gender, race and food. Lucecita organizes in a way that combines art, food and activism to better understand our current conditions and develop ways to help fix them. They believe in the liberation of Puerto Rico and of all peoples from their oppressors.

    Twitter:@Luz_Cruz3
    Instagram: @Plantita_Luz

  • Pronouns: “There is no gender pronoun in the Native Hawaiian language. In English, I go by Norma, or she/her/we, or anything respectful.” - Norma

    Norma Wong (Norma Ryuko Kawelokū Wong Roshi) is a teacher and thought partner. She is the abbot of Anko-in, an independent branch temple of Chozen-ji. She serves practice communities in Hawai‘i, across the U.S., and in Toronto, Canada. Among her areas of teaching: waging peace; leadership and strategy in the 7 generations context. Wong served as a state legislator, on the policy and strategy team for Governor John Waihee, and community organizing and policy work in the Native Hawaiian (indigenous) community. She is a Native Hawaiian and Hakka who lives in Kalihi Valley on the island of O`ahu in the Hawai`i archipelago.

    Zen resources: https://kaweloku.com

Meet the Facilitator

  • Pronouns: she/her/siya

    Yana Gilbuena, a Philippine-born, critically acclaimed ancestrally-taught chef, started SALO Series to share with the world the vibrant food culture of the Philippines. The Salo Series hosts Filipino Kamayan dinners, wherein food is served on communal tables decked with banana leaves, and guests are encouraged to eat with their hands, in pre-colonial tradition. In her American tour, Yana hosted pop-up dinners in 50 states in 50 weeks, as well as across Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Australia, Europe and her home country, Philippines. She is a 2017 Stone Barns Exchange Fellow and has also been featured in major publications such as The New York Times, SF Chronicle and National Geographic. She's been published in The Cherry Bombe Cookbook, Feed the Resistance and has self-published her own: No Forks Given of March 2019. This global culinary nomad aims to further her mission and aims to host a Salo on every continent.

    Instagram: @saloseries

UNEARTHING APOCALYPSE

Audio Potluck

Every season we invite the community to co-create a tasty new playlist featuring music curated around a prompt to nourish our bodies and souls. This season’s playlist prompt? What songs are feeding your healing, rebirth, and renewal?

Miss a recent Around the Table?

Click through to the Food Culture Collective Journal for video recordings and multimedia recaps of our recent Around The Table conversations.

Featured
What’s possible when we collectively embrace the wisdom revealed by apocalypse?
What’s possible when we collectively embrace the wisdom revealed by apocalypse?

What transformative pathways emerge when we unearth the wisdom revealed by apocalypse? The Latin root of Apocalypse means, “to reveal; to uncover.” Usually, this is interpreted to mean something dreadful is revealed. But what if what's revealed is our inherent wholeness, mutuality, generosity and connection? How might we unearth practices to compost empire and seed more liberatory, thriving futures?

These were some of the questions that Food Culture Collective’s Advisory Council Member, ancestrally-taught chef, writer, and death doula, Yana Gilbuena Babu, brought to the table on July 18th, with Boricuir food justice organizer, writer, farmer and co-founder of Cuir Kitchen Brigade, Lucecita Cruz, and Native Hawaiian Zen Priest and movement strategist, Norma Wong.

Read More →
What if we centered joy & play in our food, land & culture change work?
What if we centered joy & play in our food, land & culture change work?

What would the world look like if we fed our collective capacity to embrace play? If play is a way to reimagine our world, to try on new ways of nourishing ourselves and our communities, by growing a food culture where everyone gets to be free—what happens when we step through the portal? How might we play our way to collective liberation?

These were some of the questions that Food Culture Collective’s Digital Culture Creative, Ada Cuadrado-Medina, brought to the table on March 30th, with creative improv facilitator and creator of Cattails Comix, Kai Tzeng, and community organizer and founder of Black Food Fridays, KJ Kearney. Together they shared a juicy conversation that embraced play as a tool for centering joy and creativity in our liberatory spaces.

Read More →

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