The Honey Spoon- A Chef's Journal

 wouldn’t say I always wanted to be a chef.

It wasn’t some lifelong dream I carried since childhood.

It was a hope that formed later — something I started imagining quietly, slowly, almost like it was calling to me. I began dreaming about what it might feel like to cook, create, feed people, and teach through food. It wasn’t a straight path, and honestly, I didn’t even know if it was possible. But the dream was there, growing in the background of my life.

In 2017, I took what felt like the practical route and began working toward becoming a substitute teacher. It seemed stable, manageable, a good direction.

And then everything changed at once.

That same year, I needed emergency spine surgery — the kind of surgery that forces your entire life to stop. Overnight, the plans I had been building fell apart. I couldn’t work the way I planned. I couldn’t stand for long periods. I couldn’t return to the path I thought I was supposed to follow.

I felt hopeless.

I felt lost.

It was one of the loneliest seasons of my life.

So I turned to what I could do — small things, creative things, things that gave me purpose without requiring a healed spine.

That’s how Aiyana’s Flowers began.

My daughter, whose name means “forever flower,” survived her birth with the cord wrapped around her neck three times. She came into this world fighting. Her name became my anchor, so I created flowers inspired by her — strong, long-lasting, crafted with love and intention.

After that came Carefree Creations — baked goods, handmade items, anything I could create from home during recovery. Those small projects didn’t seem like much at the time, but looking back, they were the first steps toward something bigger.

Then the Heart of America Indian Center asked me to help with pies, and that small moment began nudging me back toward food.

From pies came cultural foods.

From cultural foods came opportunities to serve our community.

And slowly, unexpectedly, I found my way back into the kitchen.

My first big cultural food moment was the Shawnee Indian Mission Fall Festival, where we set up our very first fry bread tent.

The wind tried to blow us out.

The burners fought us.

Nothing went smoothly.

But even through the chaos, something in me woke up again.

At the same time, I was losing so many of my elders and family members.

The people who once guided me, grounded me, or reminded me who I was were no longer here.

My circle felt smaller.

Quieter.

And there were moments when I didn’t know who I could turn to for cultural guidance or emotional grounding.

I only have a couple of elders left now, and that loss sits quietly underneath everything I do — not to weigh the story down, but because it’s part of the truth.

I also learned how complicated Indigenous spaces can be.

Sometimes our communities fall into that “crabs in a bucket” pattern — where the moment someone starts rising, someone else tries to pull them back down.

I’ve felt those pulls.

I’ve felt people distance themselves.

And navigating that tension made me question myself more than once.

And then came Monique Mercurio.

She offered me a spot at the All-Inclusive Art Market, and I didn’t fully realize at the time how much that moment would change my trajectory. I was still tired, still unsure, still grieving, still trying to rebuild myself.

Her invitation wasn’t just an opportunity — it was a lifeline.

She believed in me before I believed in myself again.

She opened a door instead of closing one.

She lifted instead of pulling down.

And it’s incredible what the right person can do for you at the right time.

Through everything — the grief, the doubt, the unexpected turns, the small beginnings — one truth kept pulling me forward:

Food connects us.

It brings us home.

It brings us back to each other.

It reminds us that we’re part of something bigger, even when life feels uncertain.

Sometimes when I’m cooking, the smell of a dish will take me instantly back to my Grandma’s kitchen — the warmth of the stove, her hands moving with confidence, the way she cooked without measuring because she carried every recipe in her bones.

Those memories still guide me.

They keep my elders with me.

They remind me why food matters.

All of these experiences — the losses, the shifts, the loneliness, the moments of doubt, the people who drifted, and the few who showed up — shaped the way I move through my work today.

It’s why I want to create spaces where we all feel included.

Spaces without gatekeeping.

Spaces where no one has to feel alone the way I did.

Spaces where Indigenous families can reconnect with culture, community, and each other.

Spaces where we lift instead of pull down.

I didn’t choose this path all at once.

Life nudged me toward it again and again — through pain, through creativity, through culture, through memory, through resilience — until I realized that food was always going to lead me home.

This is where my story truly begins.

And this is where The Honey Spoon begins too.