DALLAS — Memories just sort of marinate with us.
“I grew up cooking with my mom, and grandmothers,” said Chef Amber Williams, Le Rouge Cuisine Food Company owner.
Williams, commonly known as Chef Amber, has held onto one particular memory. She grew up in Oak Cliff, an area often referred to as a food desert.
“A food desert is any place that doesn’t have readily accessible healthy and affordable food,” said Chef Amber.
Some turn to food distribution services.
“That was my reality when I was younger. I grew up on food drive boxes,” said Chef Amber. “I also grew up with a creative mom. She made sure she took what she had, and she used that. She made some fabulous things out of it.”
That is the flashback, Chef Amber flash-forwards. She has written a cookbook called Surviving the Food Desert.
“I challenged myself to make as many unique recipes with the items that are found in food drive boxes,” said Chef Amber. “It’s beans and rice. It’s spaghetti. It’s cornbread and all the things that you’ll see inside of the book where I took a lot of those things, and I remixed them.”
She’s also included a resource guide to organizations helping those in food deserts.
“We have great resources that are here in the DFW metroplex and all over the nation, but the education is where I saw we had the gap,” said Chef Amber.
It's a gap worth filling.
“If I had not gone through the things that I went through, I wouldn’t really be able to speak to the people that I try to help and serve now,” said Chef Amber. “Food can be a huge catalyst to help us build a better life.”
It is a better life with tasteful memories.
For more information to purchase Chef Amber’s cookbook, Surviving the Food Desert, click here.