54: Part I Food Talk Show with TEDxMileHigh Chef Andrea Murdoch

Michael Dugan: 0:01

and consolidated recording from Food Is Religion on clubhouse. A special thanks to Chef Mimi Lan and all of our members our club has now grown to over 7800 members across the world. We are chefs, culinary artists, and people who are passionate about cooking, food and conversations. And now,let's jump into the interview.I'd like to introduce you to indigenous Andian Chef, Andrea Murdock. She's an author, guest lecturer, chef and owner of Four Directions, Cuisine. She's also a moderator, and host and friend to Food Is Religion, and a powerhouse of information, a real powerhouse. Please welcome to our virtual stage. Andre Murdoch.

Chef Andrea Murdoch: 0:47

Thank you so much, Michael. Maria. Ingrid,thank you so much for having me here.

Michael Dugan: 0:52

Delighted and excited that you're here. I know that you're working and I want to visualize what's going on there.

Chef Andrea Murdoch: 0:59

Yes, so I participate in a farmers market every couple of weeks I work with or I should say I'm a chef participant with a shop called Ruby's market on South Pearl Street in Denver, Colorado, and the shop owner and creator Michelle as near she specifically curates her shop from refugee and other immigrant women who are just you know,we're small time entrepreneurs,we're just doing what we can.Some of us are supporting children and families some are just you know, flying solo, but that's still a lot of work too.So I'm here at the farmers market I packed up just a pinch early. So I could chat with you wonderful folks. And it is like a dog parade at these farmers markets and everybody is just such a good dog parent too. It's really beautiful to to be out here on on Sundays just to see that hustle and bustle see all the beautiful local produce, the farmers are selling it themselves. fresh cut flowers,people have all of these, you know, beautiful market baskets,none of them look alike. So you can tell that they've purchased them from, you know, makers themselves or shops like rubies market that sells these, you know, handmade goods, it's it's really incredible. It's a lot of fun. And we're usually here from you know, about eight until just shy of two in the afternoon. And so it's it's more or less a full day, but it's it's so beautiful.And it's wonderful to chat with folks. And, and the connections that you make are really wonderful. You know, just chatting with people, people who, you know, your work resonates with them, or they thank you for your work.Especially, you know, when I come across other indigenous folks and they, you know, come to my table and you know,they're like, Oh, I know what that symbol is that's the Chicano Cross or, Oh, I know where that comes from, or, you know, just whatever it is and just that that connection is is important and so beautiful.

Michael Dugan: 3:10

Can you walk us through your table your setup? I know it's extremely creative and engaging. Can you just give us a visualization of what it looks like out there?

Chef Andrea Murdoch: 3:20

Sure, I always have some sort of, you know, native pattern, tablecloth or I sometimes bring the the cacao sacks that have all the beautiful, you know, decorations painted on them, you know when shipping and you know, those burlap sacks. And so we'll have you know, two different baseball hats or trucker hats I should say, on the table. One is camo back. You know, above the opening, it says not all wounds are visible, and it has a little teal ribbon on the side and that was created for just mental health awareness in general. In conjunction with my Warrior Goddess Dinner that I host every me to raise funds for national Indigenous women's resource center. Then the other hat is my2022 MMI W hat MMI WG2S I should add. It stands for missing and murdered indigenous women girls and two spirits. I am a Two Spirit woman so that's important work to me as well. And then I have my blue cornmeal sugar cookies in you know craft paper bag with the little window opening so you can see that beautiful blue. And I always share with folks that I source my blue corn and yellow corn from the tribe here in southwestern Colorado. And then I also have two of my three flavors of Inca trail mix. And that one's special. It took me about five years or more to bring that to market because they're just there was a niche but people weren't ready for it.So I love that because it's my pre colonial answer to the very European oat based granola, and it's much more nutrient dense and lower in carbohydrates because of the ingredients I'm using. So I utilize Colorado grown, organic Quinoa Use popped amaranth that I do put myself on the stovetop if you've ever done that, you know, it's labor intensive, but it's also a lot of fun. What is amaranth? Ah,amaranth is a crop that is indigenous to South America to the Andes specifically, it's actually a seed, even though it's usually discussed as a grain. And it's roughly the size of a poppy seed. And so when you get it into a pan that has the right heat to it, they start to dance and pop just like popcorn,but they're even more delicate than popcorn is the corn kernels. So you can definitely overdose them. And I myself even burn the first batch sometimes the second batch too. So it's a it's definitely a trial and error thing for your first time or too.

Michael Dugan: 5:59

Wow, well, I now I feel like I want to be at the market. Like right now. I don't like a lot of heat. My wife will tell you I get what's called Heat attitude when it gets really hot. I'm more like a 70s80s kind of guy and pass the 80degrees. That's why we live in Seattle. It's pretty mild, mild climate. But we're heading for some pretty hot temperatures too. So moving on, why don't you take us back a little bit and share a little bit about your backstory.And may we take a walk with you through your life?

Chef Andrea Murdoch: 6:30

So I am originally from I was born in Caracas, Venezuela, but my indigeneity is from the San Cristobal region, which is on the western side of Venezuela eastern border of Colombia. I was actually adopted by an American Army family adopted when I was six or nine weeks, I always forget which one it is. I always know it's in increments of three though. And then we we left Venezuela because it was you know, an active war zone. My father's orders got changed.They barely got me out of the country. Because my adoption wasn't finalized. And so my dad had orders to go to El Salvador.And my my parents were coming up with contingency plans if my adoption wasn't finalized yet.But fortunately, all the paperwork got through in time and all three of us traveled to El Salvador, and we spent shy of three years there. I believe because we came back we came to the States to live permanently when I was about three years old and so if you can imagine this little Andeana living in middle of nowhere Ohio that was that was me growing up when I was in middle school my father and I would started watching Emeril live on Food Network and I just thought it was the coolest thing so much fun. You know that was our that was our father daughter time you know so eight o'clock Eastern Standard Time on weekdays we would watch chef Emeril live cook and, you know back then we had the dial up AOL and you know, the whole house knew if if you were logging on to print a recipe or something like that, and that's, that's what we would do when we decide you know what recipes we wanted to try if any, and then we would try them so it was it was a lot of it was a lot of fun. It was a cool way to bond because otherwise my father and I would talk about Latin American politics which have have fun imagining a 12 year old Talk Talk Latin American politics with her Lieutenant Colonel army father because his major at West Point was political science. Up until Emeril live that was our father daughter bonding time.

Michael Dugan: 8:49

So the food was the Savior. It really was Emeril was kind of the Savior, right?

Chef Andrea Murdoch: 8:54

Yeah, so I was having very adult conversations about Latin American politics when I was you know, a young teenager Yeah, I got I just got the I was hit with the food bug and I've been I think cooking for 20 years almost 21 I've never looked back through all the the chaos and the mess me and insanity but also you know, all of the overwhelmingly awesome things that just would not have happened outside of the kitchen.You know, just the the personal growth in the exploration. You know, even the damage you know,even the trauma from kitchens teaches us a lot so it's been it's been quite the journey and I am beyond excited to see what the next chapter has in store for me.

Michael Dugan: 9:49

So when when you connected to Emeril Was that was that a time that you started cooking and early age? Do you remember a first dish? You ever remember cooking?

Chef Andrea Murdoch: 9:59

Oh Ah, I'm sure it was something, something along the lines of cookies, you know, or coffee cake. With my mother actually, coffee cake is very, very possible first first dish that I ever made. I was,oddly enough, because my parents are not foodies, by any stretch of the imagination, food has always been a focal point for me, my father used to brew his own beer. And I remember sitting in the middle of our kitchen,like the actual cooking space,not where we we sat for meals,but remember, you know, pulling a chair from the kitchen table into the middle of the actual,like physical cooking space. And my dad had his, you know, brand new trash can. And it was lined and he had his, you know,fermented, you know, his base is brew base in there. And he was siphoning it into all of these reclaimed bottles, all of these flip tops, you know, that he had gotten here, there and everywhere. I know that some of them came from Germany when he and my mother were stationed there. And it was just really cool to just, you know, sit on,sit in a kitchen chair and watch my dad, you know, make beer and just to watch that process,beginning middle ends. And then of course, for it to be sitting in racks in the basement. And every once in a while, they'd get a little too, a little too yeasty and active and we would hear one burst, which was always funny if we were watching movies on a Friday night, and all of a sudden we hear pop.

Michael Dugan: 11:35

Andrea, I did not expect this. This is awesome.This is like really where it all started. I get it. You know,it's funny, because I made my mom, I burnt a coffee cake. And I made it for my mom. That's the first thing I ever remember. So we're, we're connected in another way that I didn't even realize that's really cool.

Chef Andrea Murdoch: 11:53

Absolutely.I've watched, you know, the process of food, the process of even beverage. Since I was,gosh, I was younger than 10.Yeah, I think I was younger than10. When all of these memories started, at least the ones that I can actually remember, there were a few memories from El Salvador that my mother has, has had to tell me like picking lemons off of the neighbor's tree and just sitting underneath the tree and in El Salvador, you know, sucking on these fresh lemons. And they are nowhere near as tart and sour. As if you were to do that here in the US like you can't, you can't grab a lemon from the grocery store and do that you're going to be in for quite the surprise. But they're, they're different when you pick them right off the tree. They're different when you pick them right off the tree in the US versus in the tropics. I remember my mom telling me about a fair skinned little boy who who would do the same thing.Except his skin was so fair that the acid in the juice dripping down his arms would actually give him it would advance what the sun was doing. And it would actually give him like mild sunburns on his forearms because the Yeah, the juice was real,you know, not nothing like, you know if he got burned like by a flame or anything like that. But you could tell it was the combination of the the sun and that acid, you know, fruit juice just rolling down his forearms,he would he would burn. But I had no problems because I'm Andina.

Michael Dugan: 13:30

Wow. You know,it's funny when you talk about these foods. I remember reading an article I read several, by the way and watched a few videos. You have a lot of great information out there about your background and everything around indigenous cuisine. You were talking about carrot juice, and you got really excited about it in your writing. It was a carrot cheese. I think it was.

Chef Andrea Murdoch: 13:52

Yeah, it was Carrot, carrot and orange juice combined.

Michael Dugan: 13:56

And that was like freshly squeezed. Can you share a little bit about that?

Chef Andrea Murdoch: 14:01

Yeah, yeah.So probably the first time my folks took me back to Latin America, I was a junior in high school. There's no there was no chance and still is no chance of me going to Venezuela because it's more or less imploded. It's difficult to it's highly difficult to get out. It's difficult to get in. You also don't want to go in. It's the whole country is a warzone,which is really sad because it's actually a very, very rich country. So it's sad to see what's happened from from the political standpoint and how it's trickled down to our citizens. I remember going to Guatemala with my parents. I was about 17 years old junior in high school. And we were touring around the country. We were in a little Mercado and we were walking walking through just you know, taking in everything and we stopped at this. This juice stands and they're just crates on crates on crates of fresh produce, you know full well somebody picked it within the past 24 hours. And, you know,you order what it is that you want you Zanotta carrot, that Mmm hmm, orange, and they put it through their machine and they use it for you right there, hand it to you on a cup. It is the freshest flavor balm that I have ever experienced. And so fast forward, what 15 plus years later, I wanted to create a dessert for a fundraising dinner that I was I was putting on I think it was indigenous peoples day. And I just I wanted to take a walk down memory lane. And so I created CityWalk is what I call the dish. And it's, you know, this, this chocolate ganache, but it's made with, you know, full fat coconut milk out of the can. And then I make a carrot orange jelly, and a carrot orange curd. And I make a little concha. And I deconstruct that. So it's like pieces of the Concha bread, but also the crumble instead of you know, the cookie being baked on top of the Concha is just such a cool,deconstructed dessert. And as people are kind of taking pieces and experience the different elements separately, and together, I'm explaining the story that I've just shared with you all, and just the look on their faces, I can tell that they can visualize that they're there. And that's how I know that I did my job. Well.

Michael Dugan: 16:35

You know, it's funny, that's what I remember was CityWalk and the desert and this connection, and I know you do that with a lot of your cuisine, which I think is is really unique. As a chef, you know, I interview a lot of chefs and I don't hear that connection as much. That's really a power of talking about becoming a chef. How and why did you become an Indigenous Andian Chef?

Chef Andrea Murdoch: 17:01

Ah, that one is that's a fun story.

Michael Dugan: 17:04

It's loaded.

Chef Andrea Murdoch: 17:06

Yeah, it's loaded. You've done enough of a deep dive on me and my career that you know, you don't want to we're good. I I like sharing the story. And I also have an easier time sharing the story now. And it's been so long and I also like sharing the story because it helps other people. I know that me hearing other people's stories them being an underdog as well or them going through trauma. I'm just like, You know what, I got this, I can do it.It's just a tough day, tough week, whatever it may be.

Michael Dugan: 17:38

Stay tune for part two, we invite you to follow along with Chef Andrea Murdock and discover how she evolved into an independent,indigenous chef who inspires the world.