When Guadalupe Hernandez migrated from Pachuca, Mexico, to Rye in Westchester County more than 20 years ago, she brought with her a passion for cooking. But that she would one day be able to use that passion and study under a Michelin-star-earning chef, while also cooking up scholarships for students from her hometown, was something she never could have predicted.
Speaking little English and knowing no one other than her husband ”” a Rye resident whom she had met on a return visit to his native Mexico ”” Hernandez picked up work “wherever it was available,” she recalled, from dog-walking to housekeeping to home care for the elderly. On those jobs, Hernandez would often bring along her own home-cooked meals for lunch. Her culinary creations soon caught the attention, and taste buds, of her employers.
“I started cooking for a particular lady,” Hernandez said. “Then a friend of hers, and little by little, what I”™d see was the whole week filled” with cooking gigs for Manhattan clients.
Food also became a way for Hernandez to make connections and learn the language in her new home.
“My English was very poor,” she said. “With the food, it was kind of an opening to get a little conversation.”
She continued working as a private chef for more than 15 years before deciding to take her skill set to the next level.
Enrolling in “any class I could take that was available,” Hernandez eventually earned a hospitality and meeting planning certificate from City College of New York in Manhattan. From there, she transferred to Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn.
At that point, Hernandez was uncertain whether she should continue down the path to earning her hospitality degree or move forward with her passion for cooking. So she did both, graduating with an associate degree in tourism and hospitality in 2012 and earning an associate degree in culinary arts a year later.
The hard work paid off. Â Earlier this year, Hernandez became one of 21 women to receive a Women in Culinary Leadership Grant through the James Beard Foundation. Â Selected from a pool of 60 applicants, participants nationwide are guided by mentors through rigorous programs that include training in the kitchen, floor management, marketing and entrepreneurship.
Hernandez will complete a 12-month mentorship overseen by British chef April Bloomfield, a James Beard Award winner and winner of two Michelin stars for chefs, at The Spotted Pig in New York City.
“It”™s going to change my world,” Hernandez said.
The fast-paced program will not only hone her culinary skills but will also give her firsthand experience in managing a restaurant.
“They are very patient with me sometimes,” she said of her mentors. “You have to learn one day, and the next day you are alone.”
Shelley Menaged, manager of special projects and student programs at The James Beard Foundation, said the program aims to help women learn the ropes of becoming a chef and restaurateur who can eventually move up the ranks in what is “more of a male-dominated industry.”
“There aren”™t enough women to go around to balance out that score card,” Menaged said. “We want to make sure that we have equal footing” by giving women “that little extra chance to learn and to be able to advance.”
For Hernandez, who says her father taught her an early age to disregard gender stereotypes, differences between the sexes in the kitchen are slim.
“They are stronger to carry things,” Hernandez said of her male peers. “But when you”™re cooking, you are equal.”
Hernandez hopes to translate the training she receives into owning her own restaurant and catering company one day.
“My idea is more no specific menu,” she said. Instead she wants to incorporate various ingredients and cooking styles into her restaurant, an idea that traces back to her earlier work as a personal chef, where her menus were set by the whims of her clients”™ tastes.
“Sometimes, I come in the morning, and (they would say), ”˜Lupe, I want to eat some food today with meat,”™ or ”˜No, I don”™t want meat today, just veggies.”™ So I would go to the store, buy whatever was fresh,” she said. “That”™s what I would cook.”Â
Her successes in metropolitan New York have left Hernandez not forgetting where she came from. Partnering with other chefs from her home state of Hidalgo, Hernandez will share her talents at the Feria Gastronomica in Long Island City on June 26 by creating dishes from her homeland. Profits from the food and music festival in Queens will be used to fund scholarships for students from Hidalgo who live in the New York area.
“Little by little, we are trying to get the community involved,” she said.
