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Google PlayChef Yadira Garcia comes from a long line of powerful ancestors. It’s embedded in every fiber of her being and evident in every sentence she speaks. It’s a deep, ancestral type of power that shows in her work ethic, in how she connects with the world around her and in her everyday life–especially in how she eats. Tapping into her roots and into that power is what makes her who she is.
While she’s always known she would dedicate herself to a life of community engagement, it wasn’t always via health coaching and cooking. Born and raised in the Bronx, she actually grew up involved in the arts and theater. Originally Chef Yadi had planned to help inner city youth navigate emotional and cultural issues through drama.
Then, when she was just 20 years old and a junior in college at NYU, she fell down two flights of stairs.
“I started to eat and heal myself.”
Though once there, she quickly realized it’d be a much bigger challenge than she anticipated.
“When you’re in culinary school, it can be very European-centric,” she admits. “The cooking techniques and the things that are exalted are French cooking this, Italian cooking that, but I came in wanting to get deeper into Caribbean cooking and pathways.”
She wanted her peers to recognize the quality that exists in marginalized communities too.
“I want my people to feel empowered about eating rice and beans and making their own sofrito,” she says. “I was coming out as the people’s chef. I was coming out for the homies.”
And she stood on that.
“I’ve got you on my phone right now,” she says. “Then I have my other phone and my computer. I go where I’m needed. This partnership has empowered me to catch up to the vision of what I see.”
“The work I do is mind and spirit work.”
Chef Yadi has not only built a life that’s healed her own ailments, but she continually spreads a wealth of knowledge so others can follow suit. Whether through cooking workshops, special programs or even retreats in her home country of the Dominican Republic, her message is consistent. By encouraging true self-love, self-acceptance and an infallible tether to where you come from, you can thrive.
And honestly, that’s all she wants. Chef Yadi wants us to succeed.
“It’s like farming,” she says. “It’s about the soil, the seed that you put in, the watering you do to that seed. And you keep going until you have a harvest. We want the fast game, but I’m in the long game. I’m in the legacy game.”
