Episode 25: From Family Kitchen to Grocery Aisles: The Hess Street Foods Story

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hi I’m Zac the nonprofit guy welcome back to Beyond Giving the best nonprofit

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podcast on the Boost Network sponsored by Nonprofits HQ and the Boost this

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episode we’ve got a good friend of mine Asante uh and she is representing her

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organization Food Horizons so tell us a little bit about yourself and Food

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Horizons and uh what it is you do hi my name is Asantewa i’m a chef by

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profession and I run a nonprofit called Food

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Horizons and we’re basically in the business of helping people expand their

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horizons on food culture and sustainability and we do that through um

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we have programs and events that we host to bring people together from diverse

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backgrounds for example we have panel discussions and we have a festival which

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we’ll talk about later and we also have a quarterly newsletter we write just

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kind of giving insights into the food industry and different policy making

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changes in the food industry okay cool awesome and so I want to kind of go back

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to you said you’re a chef by trade i’ve had your food you are a chef like it is

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delicious how did you find that path how did you start like working with food and

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how did you get so dang good at making food thank you Zach i like that and you

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still haven’t seen most of my delicious food well I look forward to tasting more

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and more of your food um actually it started um in high

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school um I knew I wanted to do two things food and travel and my mom is one

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of the greatest chefs I’ve ever known i know a lot of people say that but she

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kind of has a technique with different styles of cooking and everything was

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always delicious made from scratch and my dad used to travel a lot even though

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he’s in academia and so I was like I want to do those two and I went on to

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hotel school in South Africa and then I just Wait so are you a hotelier are you

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like are you is there another level to this no but they call it hotel school

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but here it could be culinary school oh okay so I did food and beverage

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management um hospitality management for my bachelor’s and then in 2022 I did a

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masters in food business at the Kalin wow america so it just started since

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almost 15 and continued until So it was just a passion that you’ve had since you

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were super young and now when you started like So when you started when

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you were 15 right you started cooking you hadn’t gone to culinary school you

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hadn’t you know didn’t get all these fancy credentials that you have now so

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what has your cooking looked like when you first started at 15 and how has it

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evolved to what I know uh from today firstly when my mom started teaching me

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how to cook I hated it because um you know as a kid you just want to have fun

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and you feel like they’re interrupting your time and I don’t know when I went

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to high school we had this culinary class okay um as an elective and I just

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got involved and I was like “Oh okay it’s not that bad and I really loved it

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and I continued to explore different ways of telling food stories i call

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myself a food storyteller.” Food storyteller doing it through food dishes

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I create writing or events it’s all about telling food stories okay and is

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this like does this surface in the way you like plate dishes or the way like

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the ingredients that you you you put into these or like what how do these

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stories kind of surface in your work how it surfaces so I would say plating is

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actually not as easy it’s almost like looking at an abstract artist and saying

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it’s so easy until you have to do it you’re like oh he wasn’t just throwing

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paint on a canvas or something so um I would say for me it’s the ingredients

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and how I bring everything together i focus on the flavor

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um and the story how it connects to me so my I have lived experiences in Sudan

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South Sudan and South Africa and now America and in those places I had

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different cultures that kind of mesh together and so my story is in that dish

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I create and where it comes from and how it connects me to the world around me

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yeah and so like do all of your dishes have kind of like influences from those

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different cultures that you’ve experienced or um do you kind of like do

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you have one particular area of the world that you like model your food

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after or what is that like i don’t have a particular area cuz my world is

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already meshed like we grew up in for example in Sudan we had a bit of they

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refer to it as Mediterranean cuisine okay and then we also had a bit of

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influences from Kenya Uganda which who had Indians so my mom would make curries

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and chapati which is like roti um in South Africa they also make roti because

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they had an Indian um immigrants that went there as well okay and so it’s

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always going to be a bit of feta cheese here a bit of curry here a bit of I can

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have a chocolate chip cookie and brownie for dessert so it’s kind of this world

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coming together and from my own personal region would be like we make spinach

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with peanut butter like a creamy spinach okay instead of using cream we use

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peanut butter so it’s all these different cultures that mesh together

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with the diversity of people that kind of

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travel to South Sudan Sudan Egypt Kenya Uganda and then you have South Africa

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and the US just the world is really more diverse than we think right

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that’s really cool and then so this like experience and passion for food is kind

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of what led you to Food Horizons and starting that organization right can you

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tell me a little bit about what that experience was and when you decided oh

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this is the path for me i need to start this organization i need to um bring

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food into because like I know a lot of people food for me is tedious right it’s

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like I have to eat so it’s repetitive it’s it’s it’s boring it’s like a it’s a

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necessary thing that I have to do right and then when I’m talking to you it’s

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like food is like this amazing thing that that’s an experience that’s uh

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granted I’ve tasted my food until I’ve tasted your food right so it was not an

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experience for me um but like how how did you how did you decide that yes Food

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Horizons is is what I need to be doing and where I should be focusing my energy

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so I I I was conflicted firstly because I loved the culinary art part of it and

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I knew I loved the theory and I loved reading about food news policy making um

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food trends specifically i’m interested in the future of food specifically with

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food tech not necessarily only like equipment but more into how it relates

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to changes in cooking styles changes in eating habits and I was like how can I

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put both and create something that um I can play around with this passion for a

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lot of us as chefs it’s mostly either they’re in culinary or they’re doing

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academia mhm and I was like I want both worlds and that’s when Food Horizons

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kind of came to be i actually started with secret food stories first oh okay

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and I was doing a lot of cooking um demos online like sharing my recipes and

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I was like but I also want to write you know okay so then I started writing and

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I was like but now if somebody came for the recipes maybe they’re not interested

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in the policy and and research and advocacy so I’m like maybe I have to do

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two things and then I’m like how can I still blend the two you know so I kind

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of said okay secret food stories will be for like your

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outward events and marketing and then food horizons would be for those who are

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really so it’s still the umbrella but it’s kind of focus on those who are in

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the policy making working in professional ind um industry and other

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people who are enthusiastic about that part of food yeah that’s awesome and so

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you kind of have both both components right have the delicious tasty component

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and the more educational like um you mentioned a couple of times like the

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policy side of food what are we talking about like uh food ingredient

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requirements that the FDA sets or like what what are we talking about when we

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say food like policy so when I’m talking about policies I’m following in change

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um if there any changes in um it could be for

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example removal of certain ingredients or item in highly processed foods and

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California kind of push forward a new law to remove red dye and certain

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elements i’m really interested in that and finding out how how does that impact

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manufacturers as well and what will that impact the whole of the US because if

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California is saying we won’t allow this then manufacturers cannot um it’ll be

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too expensive to create two different products exactly yep and so it’s

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interesting how one state can state set the kind of president for the whole

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country you know so those kind of changes or if they’re saying ban on

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plastic or something you know and how is that impacting your buying habits and

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what um um retailers doing about that but still related in the food industry

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or for example recently about the shutdown of USID um I wrote an

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article about it on the food report about how this will impact us farmers

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because everything is connected and when you’re not in the industry you think

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it’s just an isolation and so I’m always connecting it to what does it mean to

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the farmer and to the consumers at the other end and so you’re following the

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policy to really understand how it wholly affects um society essentially

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right and then um on the educational piece so like the first event of yours

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that I attended was that panel um where you were talking about like um dieting

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and nutrition and and that sort of thing and this was a really cool some of the

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points that they made was a way to position food in kind of a way that I’ve

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never thought of food before right and to be fair my diet is mostly Monster

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energy drinks and hot Cheetos right so not the best um but when you take these

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through these different events and you take the educational piece um that is a

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large like cornerstone of the different events and things that you do for

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Horizon right or food food Horizons right is kind of educating people about

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the the food that they’re consuming and and and what is in it or like that sort

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of thing so yeah we do that um because once again I want to connect with people

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i want to expand their um understanding of um the food not specifically industry

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but just how it relates to them individually and that

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they have a role in this whole industry um and the more aware they are the

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better they can kind of even if changing your own habits regarding sustainability

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or your physical wellness and understanding

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um how things impact you and so with that panel discussion cuz this year our

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theme is chasing health so every year we’ll focus on one theme and just horn

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on that write articles about it um create events and even um just all

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around that and so it’s really about we’re chasing health what does it

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mean to you what are the experts saying what is the chef saying what’s a doctor

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um a professor who’s in health uh public health a nutrition what are they saying

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about what is happening and then advising you and it’s open to anyone

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who’s interest who’s a food enthusiast or just really interested in learning

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different things yeah yeah because like each of those groups you know doctors um

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nutritionists uh uh chefs all of those groups kind of play a really big role in

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what goes into food and and how it gets there and most people don’t actually

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know you know most of the time what it is they’re eating or how to change um

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what they’re eating or their diet to really uh elevate their health right and

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so I think that was something that one of the interesting takeaways from your

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event that I attended was that kind of different perspective on it um but also

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kind of translating all of that stuff if you have a lot of information coming

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from a lot of different places and it’s not always prepared for the average

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person to consume and know how to um do something with it to make it actionable

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right so I think that’s why you know the advising part and the educational piece

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of food horizons I think is so important right because it helps people understand

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what it is that all these experts are actually talking about and how it

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applies to them uh even beyond that like what is my version of health right

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you’re chasing health so what does health to me look like Um so that’s

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pretty cool um so how long how old is Food Horizons oh we’re one year old one

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year oh exciting wait when is your oney year birthday it’ll be in April okay so

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we registered in April but then the first event under Food Horizons was in

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January this year but we already had our festival last year June okay yeah so

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we’ve just kind of been online for a while and then I was like you know what

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i need to now get out there and do in real life

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events which by the way was a crazy adventure

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well after after editing the promo graphic a billion times minutes before

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the event that was so helpful in that by the way thank you Zach um oh it was not

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even that just for the festival itself so just

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like slowly coming out of the behind like just being online and sharing

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stories and being more like very visible and public about it so tell us about the

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festival what what is it what happens there what can we expect this year oh

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wow um as much as it kind of I learned a lot from it it was exciting and I told

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myself cuz I’m crazy you know innovators are all crazy people and got to be at

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least a little bit crazy to innovate um and I wanted to

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bring the stories to life and I felt like how can we now bring everybody on

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board not just the professionals and the enthusiasts and the um stakeholders but

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just everybody to come and see hey if the theme is chasing health let me see

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what chefs have created and let me look at what artists have created and what’s

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the panel discussion and what are community organizations is doing so

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Secret Food Stories Festival is bringing everybody together to an from an amazing

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party we have chef’s tables they create um bite-size items amazing i’m already

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going to be there we’re going to do this again this year we have art artists so

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they create unique artworks for the festival and we’ll have a panel

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discussion as well related to the theme and then we have um nonprofit

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organizations or companies that are working around related to the topic um

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as well and then we have a live band so it’s food music

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um a bit of discussion but just learning and interacting in a non um kind of a

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what’s the word i want to say scary way but just

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kind of in an approachable way you know so so like the the secret food or food

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stories festival um is kind of like the culmination of all of your work around

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that theme um for the year it all kind of comes together in this large

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community environment uh for people to enjoy the food which I’m very much

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looking forward to um and kind of learn more about whatever the theme is that

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year so the the festival also kind of aligns with your theme of the year yes

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it does so that’s the most exciting thing and oh my gosh you just have to

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come and see the chefs so last year we focus on waste so it was called waste no

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more okay and the chefs created like minimal waste items somebody did

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something with like watermelon and they used the whole watermelon like made

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juice and then had like watermelon candy so they were just so creative it’s like

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this show and tell really i had a lot of fun and I’m so proud of them because

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they just showed the different ways you can take care of yourself you know like

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promoting um sustainability and wellness and so that’s the real essence of the

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festival and so along the theme of chasing health what are like what can we

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expect from your chefs at this year’s event what types of stuff do you think

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they’re going to bring and show us and well I

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I some of them might I might be able to guess but I want to say I don’t know

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honestly because they everybody has unique ways of doing things but I know

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that expect it to be delicious cuz that’s the first

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um I don’t believe in eating non-delicious food there’s no reason to

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do that and that’s torture and I think it’s unfair to the ingredients and the

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people it’s that’s such a chef answer it’s unfair to the ingredients and the

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people to have not delicious food i love that and I am I am an advocate for

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delicious doesn’t mean tasteless so I know it’ll be delicious and I know it

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it’ll even be like one of our chefs last year which could even be done this year

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she had a carrot cake and she doesn’t use sugar for example she uses carrot

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juice and that’s naturally sweet it was really sweet so even just things you

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don’t think would be sweet or you don’t think will be maybe crunchy somebody

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could do something baked but it’s crispy you know so those different ways you can

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use at home and still have that um flavor and texture you’re looking for

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but in a more healthier version so I think that’s what they’ll probably bring

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okay okay exciting but so we know the one thing we absolutely know is that it

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will be delicious and it will be educational informative right cool um

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you know I go to a lot of events like with our customers and just in general

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throughout the year and I think your event had easily the best food and it

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was crazy because I know we were talking about um on your your food horizons

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panel we were talking ahead of time and you were like “Oh I think this chef is

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going to bring sandwiches.” And then you were like and then she said “This pairs

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well with soup so she’s going to bring soup and then this works well with

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this.” And like the food was just amazing but so was the event so it’s

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really cool to see like that kind of come together um what is the most

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exciting thing you’re looking forward to about your festival this year

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oh this year I’m looking um firstly we have a new venue cool and it’s more

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closer to town so at launch essay okay it’s more intimate and so I like that

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because I think last year we had a bigger space and you lose the essence of

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the community so that’s one of the most exciting things and I believe this year

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I’m more relaxed more relaxed it was our first last year and Oh and so are you a

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perfection i know the answer to this okay but are you a perfectionist or are

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you like let’s roll with it and then learn and as we go or like where’s the

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balance for you i’m a recovering perfectionist there you go recovering

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perfectionist we’re still recovering last year’s event

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yes every first time event I’m like it has to be this way and then it’s like oh

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well once you execute well you’re good right

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um and that’s the thing about like and you know this right about like events

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you can plan as much as you want to plan you can have every detail documented and

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ready to go and it will almost never go the way you planned it right ever so you

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plan for it to be different absolutely i think also it’s

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um how can I explain this so I decided to do an artwork um showing tomorrow

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actually two pieces of art related to food storytelling

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and I’d been planning for months and it’s supposed it’s inspired

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by a tree stump like the rings tree rings because they represent um time y

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um each ring is a year and I had this elaborate plan of how it will turn out

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and what I was going to add and when I started doing it

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um it had um a life of its own yep and then I’m like this is not what I planned

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but this is it so sometimes even the event will like I think life will tell

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you where it wants to go yep it it like but also like because like even as event

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planners right we might plan for the event and we’re like this is the impact

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it will have this is what will happen this is what it will do and then the

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event will kind of like live its own life but make that impact and it’s like

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more organic and it’s like exactly what it need to be presented where is your

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art showing it will be at the Cava Community Center okay it’s by the San

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Antonio Ethnic Art Society and it’s a women’s show and so it will showcase

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different pieces mine is I last year I decided um I wanted to do something more

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than food because I was like they’ll eat the food and it’ll be gone you know and

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I wanted something that they can look at for time and so I did a churri board um

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I didn’t make the wood but I did like clay food oh okay i painted it

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individually so it’s like strawberries raspberry chocolate

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waffles i said “Okay I’m going to share it with the world.” Like a little cafe

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like this and have like plates and something and then I decided to do the

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canvas with the inspired by the tree rings like sharing my life that kind of

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went it went its own way um so yeah so I said I was scared so it’s something I

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haven’t done before and I’m willing to challenge myself so this is the first

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time you’ve got art kind of being shown in a Oh that’s exciting when is it

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showing it will be tomorrow so it might be passed by then february

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probably February the today’s 19th so February

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20th at the But it’ll be there it’ll be for a month at the Cava Community Center

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oh so it’ll be on display for a month oh awesome and I have some food that will

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be kind of accompanying my story as well um in like edible food or more clay this

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is edible now okay cool i wanted to bring appetizers so the canvas is

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actually the the food is the art the canvas is just

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there kind of to supplement okay but it lasts longer so the food will be items

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from I’ll make tamilia which um is known as falafil as well oh okay we call it

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tamilia where I come from and just have some little snacks Peter bread i made

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some fresh hummus um some salata acwood which is an eggplant salad with peanut

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butter and I’ll have two desserts like in South Africa when I was in boarding

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school we used to have this amazing dessert called Malva pudding malva

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pudding it’s almost like sticky um date pudding or something like pudding oh my

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god that thing used to be with custard heaven yes and you’re going to have some

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of that yes so I’m going to have ma pudding and I’ll have some chocolate

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chip with pecan cuz I’m like this is not the

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America like the chocolate chip cookies with pecan pecans are grown in Texas and

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then maybe an oatmeal okay oatmeal cookie as well with some dried apricots

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cuz we eat a lot of apricots in South Africa and certain recipes so it’s kind

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of bringing everything together again yep yep yeah so like when you said that

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you’d have some appetizers I was thinking and I don’t know why I was

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thinking this because I know you i was thinking like you know what you

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typically have at things like that maybe some crackers maybe a couple things of

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cheese right like that type of thing um but it sounds like you’re um you’re

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really kind of But I guess the food is the art right so that is the the focus

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that’s really cool um awesome and so what about community involvement for

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Food Horizons like what what types of things do you need from the community

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how can people get involved um what does that kind of look like for you wow for

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me it will be come attend some of our events um go to food horizons us um

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follow us on Instagram as well and Facebook we’ll be sharing more details

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on our events um follow us online attend our events um

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read the food report it’s on SAP stack um we’ve got a lot of articles i was

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actually going through it today i said “Oh look at you you did a lot of

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writing.” Nice what is the food report so the food report is basically industry

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insights and news it’s the theory part I guess just so it’s

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like an aggregation of everything that’s kind of going on in the industry in one

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document yeah okay like food news like top five trending news i’ll write an

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article and every year I create a food and beverage industry trends report

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where I kind of go through everything and say hey you know this is what’s

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going to happen in 2025 um these are the areas and how you should prepare and

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that is more geared towards professionals you know okay

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nice um okay and then so what is your what is your favorite food your favorite

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thing in the world to eat oh that’s a I love desserts but

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um fried whole tilapia fried tilapia really with the head bone

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and egg oh with like like Yes oh why what does that do like so what is wrong

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with you scrub by the Nile okay so um you season

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it really well you season it without a head though no that’s all the flavor

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really you actually eat the head i tell people you have that and then you have

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my creamy spinach um with peanut butter oh my god and a bit of like a salsa okay

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um or kashimar like they call it but salsa tomatoes onions a little bit of Oh

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my god that thing is so good and acida which is like almost like pente okay

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yeah we have something like pente but it’s called acida or porcho in different

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countries orali or pop in South Africa it’s just a mixture of water and flour

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okay it could be mostly wheat or not wheat um maze sorry maze or something

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yeah and make it into like a It’s like a porridge but thicker that’s what I’m

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saying pente almost yeah it’s like a staple starch okay yeah that is heaven

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and so uh one more thing before we we we kind of wrap up so why does the head

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need to be on the fish like so don’t get me wrong right uh there’s this place

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like in Cancun where I would always go every time I’m down there in Mexico and

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it’s right there on the water there they would catch uh it’s like a it’s like a

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red red fish shred red fin I don’t know what it’s called what what the fish is

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but they would fry it and easily the best fish I’ve ever had but it would

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come with like the first time I ordered it I was caught off guard because it had

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the head it had all of the fins it had like everything right best fish I ever

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had but I feel like if they cut the fins off and cut the head off it would still

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be the best fish I ever had so like why why does it need to be there by the way

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the head is delicious like the like the brain that whole head the eyes

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everything delicious you eat the eyes you can eat the eyes yes you can eat the

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eyes everything in that whole fish can be eaten really and if you cook it a

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certain way even like the bones can be fried and it’s like so crispy um the

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best place I found amazing fish um the Korean zoo like the open like this um I

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forgot its name and it was a macro fish and we’re in California by the way

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California has the best food in America the freshness the quality of the fruit

28:46

my god makes sense try it yes um it was called Where was it it was in San

28:52

Gabriel oh my god it was so good so whenever I get an opportunity I always

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make sure to get fried fish and I find found out here in San Antonio you have

29:00

to go to the Elmeris like the Mexican owned restaurants they do the best job

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of fried fish really okay i’ll have to check it out and I guess I will maybe

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I’ll try and I I don’t know we’ll see uh I feel like I’ll have to work up to that

29:16

um awesome cool um is there anything else about Food Horizons that you want

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to share with our audience that we haven’t covered or anything like that oh

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yeah so we have an another amazing panel discussion coming up in um April April

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24th at Launch Essay from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m and we’re going to have another

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amazing discussion with different stakeholders we have a doctor who

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specializes in nutrition health and wellness and specifically weight

29:47

management sharing his own journey but his expertise we have a chef of course

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as always and we’ll have probably a policy maker as well so come and check

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it out and on October 25th right after startup week we’ll be at launch essay

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for Secret Food Stories Festival perfect amazing so that’s October 5th october

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25th it’s a Saturday yeah okay awesome delicious food delicious uh uh education

30:17

awesome thank you so much for joining us um Asantoa this was amazing conversation

30:22

it was great learning about food horizons um thank you for joining us on

30:27

Beyond Giving the best nonprofit podcast on the Boost Network sponsored by

30:31

Nonprofits HQ and the Boost uh look forward to seeing you next