Deputy Mayor Nina Hachigian, consulate reps volunteer at community-based food prep organization LA Kitchen
On the morning of Wednesday, March 5, the meeting room of the Lincoln Heights-based LA Kitchen was abuzz with excitement.
Feeling like a miniature version of the United Nations, the meeting room was filled with representatives from the Los Angeles Consular Corps, an alliance of consulate offices representing more than 15 countries, who came to participate in the first quarterly day of services hosted by the Los Angeles Mayor’s Office for International Affairs.
The Office for International Affairs was established in 2017 and Deputy Mayor for International Affairs Nina Hachigian met with officials from various consulate offices in LA who wanted to give back to the community.
Hachigian, a former U.S. Ambassador, and these consular delegates volunteered their Wednesday morning at LA Kitchen, a revolutionary community-based food distribution service that reclaims wasted food with “cosmetic defects” from suppliers to help feed low-income seniors in the greater LA community.
LA Kitchen also provides classes and training to formerly incarcerated people, kids who have timed out of foster care and other folks who have limited opportunities because of their backgrounds.
“LA Kitchen is an incredibly impressive space and it’s got a really exciting model for how to feed people and provide training for formerly incarcerated people, so it’s great that so many cultures are being represented here today to give back this way,” Hachigian shared the Asian Journal.
Among the consulate delegates who came out to represent their offices included Armenia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines.
“This is our way of giving back to the community and the Philippine Consulate wanted to show its solidarity with all the communities here in LA, which is so diverse,” Andrea Lazaro, vice consul of the Philippine Consulate in LA, told the Asian Journal. “We wanted to represent our culture and show that Filipinos are naturally helpful.”
LA County has the largest food insecure population in the United States, according to a 2017 report from the LA County Department of Public Health.
An estimated 1.5 million people in LA County live with food insecurity and don’t know how or when their next meal is coming.
On average, more than half a million Angelenos make less than $71,000 often don’t earn enough to buy nutritious food that could sustain a family of four or more.
LA Kitchen’s place in city diversity
Established in 2015 by visionary Robert Egger — founder of the renowned DC Central Kitchen in the nation’s capital —LA Kitchen has three central missions: promote food sustainability, provide culinary training for former convicts and homeless people and feed low-income seniors.
It was an ambitious endeavor, but in a few short years, LA Kitchen has manifested its cause in a big way. Through this collaboration with the mayor’s office and consular corps, LA Kitchen seeks to expand its brand so that it represents the city’s growing diversity.
“What’s exciting is that LA is home to the largest concentration of Armenians, Iranians, South Koreans, Filipinos…it’s a magnificently swirling city and I’m really interested in healthy food, but what makes healthy food so exciting is that we can incorporate so many dynamic flavors and mix and match things,” Egger shared with the Asian Journal.
“I think that’s the glory of LA cuisine, and I’m just trying to make that accessible to poor people,” Egger added. “So this dynamic way of making use of food that would have been wasted with these volunteers who have culinary ideas they can share with us. We want to know how food can bring us together and how to break down these artificial, old and boring barriers with food.”
Guiding the volunteers was lead chef and community outreach specialist Theresa Farthing, who enrolled in LA Kitchen when it was first established and is now an integral part of its staff.
Farthing’s journey to LA Kitchen is an exceptionally fascinating one. More than a decade ago, she was in and out of jail for drug-related crimes until one day she decided to “correct” herself when a judge threatened to put her in prison.
She decided to reinvent herself and fulfilled all the requirements: attended outpatient drug programs, community service and reported to court when required. During a stay at the Downtown Women’s Center, she saw a flyer for “a free culinary program for women over 40 with a criminal record.”
“I didn’t believe it,” Farthing shared with the Asian Journal. “I’ve always wanted to know about culinary, even when I was young. When I was in my 20s I wanted to go to culinary school, but then when it felt like I destroyed my life, I thought that dream was long gone. It was a dream that I thought would’ve just passed me by.”
Farthing enrolled and got accepted at LA Kitchen where she put all her focus into learning everything about food. She studied every day, seven days a week and eventually became valedictorian of her class.
Now as a lead chef and community outreach specialist, Farthing mentors the incoming students who see her as an example of what they can be. Though many see her as an inspirational matriarch in the kitchen, she stays humble and reminds students and volunteers of LA Kitchen of the greater task at hand.
“A lot of people say I’m giving back,” Farthing said. “I don’t look at it that way. I’m not giving back. I’m just giving. Just giving. That’s all it takes. We all have the same cause, and that’s to feed somebody and to give somebody something that’s healthy and that can sustain them. The thought is to keep a person healthy until their life comes together. It all starts with that. It’s a much bigger picture.”
