Pull Up A Chair

This free live event series features members of the Rouxbe team in discussion with various leaders in the food industry on a variety of topics including diversity, equity, and inclusion.

The Events

Episode One:
Food and Futures
Join us for a conversation about food literacy, Black history, and Black food futures with Chef Njathi Kabui and Adante Hart, RD.
WEDNESDAY, FEB 23 at 11AM PST
Watch recorded event
Episode Two:
Food and Gender
Join us for a conversation about Food, Power, and Gender with Jamila Robinson, Food Media Editor for Philadelphia Inquirer and Chef Eryne Zerihun.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30 at 11AM PST
Watch Recorded Event
Episode Three:
Food, Labor and Climate Change
Join us for a conversation about Food, Labor and Climate Change with Professor Enrique C. Ochoa and Chef Chris Rodriguez.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27TH at 11AM PST
WATCH RECORDED EVENT
Episode Four:
Culinary Culture & Mental Health
Join us for a conversation about Culinary Culture and Mental Health with Chefs Nephi Craig and Chris Rodriguez.
WEDNESDAY, JUN 29 at 11AM PST
REGISTER FOR THE EVENT

The Guest Speakers

Chef Njathi Kabui

Njathi Kabui is a Chef with a passion for Food Justice, a Leading expert in Food Literacy, a Medical Anthropologist and an Organic farmer. He is actively involved in promoting food literacy as a Public Speaker, Writer and a Social Commentator. Chef Kabui appears regularly on one of the most popular radio stations that broadcasts in his local language in Kenya as well as international media. Chef Kabui has literally worked on almost all common sectors of food from the farm, marketing, food app design, to the consumer’s plate through his advocacy and eclectic food workshops and dinners on farms, Non-profits, museums, academic institutions and corporate events.

Chef Kabui has designed his own cuisine which he calls Afro Futuristic Conscious Cuisine as a more healthy option that deals with Climate Change, Health and Food Justice. He has promoted this cuisine in Africa, Europe, USA and in the UAE, at numerous educational institutions, corporate companies, nonprofits and embassies.

Chef Kabui has set up a food literacy and sustainability center in Kenya which has a village branch and an urban branch for the purpose of promoting food literacy, demonstration farm and creation of content. The center has both local and international attractions and collaborations. Chef Kabui is ranked as the top chef in sustainability in Africa.

Chef Kabui has presented at numerous conferences and panels such as SASS Conference in Milan Italy (2021), Kenyatta University, Kenya(2021), U.N Food Systems Summit (2021), Africa Week in Berlin (2020), SOAS Food Summit in London (2019), The Smithsonian (2018) in Washington D.C. He is also a notable Public Speaker at various gatherings such as BCAGlobal in New York (2020), the Males Place (2018), CFSA (2020) in North Carolina, Kenyatta University (2021), Dedan Kimathi University of Technology (2021), SASS International Conference in Milan Italy (2021) and Alliance of Leadership Fellows (2021) . Chef Kabui believes that the best African food is in the future.

Adante Hart

Adante Hart serves as the Health Programs Manager, leveraging his experience in public health and nutrition to inform and optimize many of Rouxbe’s culinary and wellness initiatives. He is also a Registered Dietitian, nutrition educator, and speaker who strives to improve public health through advancing food sovereignty. He brings to the Rouxbe team a wealth of experience working in and around food, from academia to agriculture and farming, hospitals, restaurants, non-profits, and nearly everything else in between.

Drawing from this wealth of experience working around food in various capacities, Adante regularly speaks and leads classes/interactive workshops that reside at the intersection of nutrition, foodways, and health.

Adante holds a Master of Public Health from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Bachelor in Biology from The Johns Hopkins University. He also serves or has served in a formal capacity with Oldways Preservation Trust, the Southern Foodways Alliance, and the National Organization of Blacks in Nutrition and Dietetics (NOBIDAN).

He currently resides in North Carolina, and spends his spare time exercising, gardening, and gaming.

Jamila Robinson

Jamila Robinson is the food editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer where she leads a team of reporters and directs its multiplatform food content franchise.

Previously, Jamila was an editorial director for Atlantic Media where she led content strategy projects for media companies. Previously, Jamila was an editorial director for Atlantic Media where she led content strategy projects for media companies, a senior content strategist for the USA TODAY NETWORK, where she managed editorial strategy for special projects including USA TODAY’s Wine and Food Experience; a senior editor for features at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, leading its features and entertainment team.

Jamila is the chair of the James Beard Foundation Journalism Committee, which organizes the highest honor in food media. She is also the North American Academy chair of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants.

Jamila is an idea person, an avid traveler, and in her free time, coaches figure skating. Her love language is pie.

Chef Eryne Zerihun

Born and raised between Los Angeles and Pomona, Eryne Zerihun has had cooking in her blood since the age of 5 when her father would allow her to be his Sous-Chef on the nights that he made dinner. Though her path was planned to have a career in Criminal Justice, her purpose would come to fruition in college where she would cook meals for students in the dorm halls and her friends. She realized during that time that community, laughter, and great food provided experiences that would forever leave an impression. By chance and with a request from a friend’s brother who needed help finding a great pastry school, 2 days after Eryne graduated college she enrolled in Culinary School and never looked back.

By 2017, Eryne rose through the ranks to become the youngest female Black Executive Chef at Bar Bombon in the heart of the Philly food scene and was featured in a digital series on YouTube called Veggie Hunter, Top Vegan Restaurants in the Philadelphia area. By 2021, she was inspired by the never ending unique and diverse East Coast brunching scene, betted on herself and embraced her entrepreneurial spirit by launching her first brand, Everyday WE Brunch! where she took it back to her roots and embraced memorable food experiences by curating one-of-a-kind brunch options and artisanal cocktails that could be enjoyed any day of the week and not just on the weekends. Eryne’s motto is that great food should be orgasmic and encapsulated by great shared experiences.

In her free time, Eryne can be found creating her next lifestyle brand and having full R&B singing sessions in the car while thinking about the next meal she will create or restaurant to try a new experience.

Enrique C. Ochoa

Enrique C. Ochoa (they/them/he) is professor of Latin American studies and history at Cal State Los Angeles. Enrique grew up on the San Gabriel Valley and was raised by his Sicilian American mother and his Nicaraguan father, both of whom were middle school teachers.

Enrique received their Ph.D. in history from UCLA and has been teaching at Cal State LA since 1995. In 2013-2014, Enrique was named the President’s Distinguished Professor, and from 2006-08, they held the Walter and Michi Weglyn Endowed Chair of Multicultural Studies at Cal Poly Pomona. The author and editor of multiple articles and several books, Enrique’s research focuses on Mexican and Central American history, food studies, Latinx studies, immigration, and teaching history and intersectional ethnic studies in K-16 classrooms and communities.

Enrique’s publications include Feeding Mexico: The Political Uses of Food Since 1910 (2000) Latina/o Los Angeles: Migrations, Communities, and Political Activism (2005) From Tortillas to Low-Carb Wraps: Capitalism and Mexican Food in Los Angeles Since the 1920s, Diálogo (2015) Political Histories of Food in The Oxford Handbook of Food History (2012) and Food History in Oxford University Bibliographies Online: Latin American Studies (2021)

Chris Rodriguez

Chris Rodriguez grew up between Los Angeles and Baja California with ancestral roots in the Iberian Peninsula (Spain, France, and Basque Country) and across Northern-Central Mexico. He is the descendant of classically trained chefs, crystalized by the culinary legacy of his great-grandfather’s bacalao a la vizcaina, still prepared by his family to this day.

As a father and mutual aid chef organizing community-based access to the ecological stewardship of the land, Rodriguez is actively engaged in the development of local institutions such as a land trust, community gardens, mutual aid kitchens, a homeschool, and grassroots community health projects.

He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Gender, Ethnic and Multicultural Studies; as well as a Bachelor of Science in Hospitality Management from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.

Chef Nephi Craig

Chef Nephi Craig has 24 years culinary experience in America and around the world in London, Germany, Brazil and Japan. Nephi Craig is an enrolled member of the White Mountain Apache Tribe and is half Navajo. Chef Craig is also the founder of the Native American Culinary Association or NACA, an organization/network that is dedicated to the research, refinement, and development of Native American Cuisine.

Chef Nephi Craig provides training, workshops and lecture sessions on Native American Cuisine for health to schools, restaurants, universities, treatment centers, behavioral health agencies, and tribal entities from across America and abroad. Chef Craig served as Executive Chef of the Sunrise Park Resort Hotel. During Chef Craig’s nine-year tenure at Sunrise Park resort, Craig and his White Mountain Apache culinary team achieved many national and international benchmarks in establishing a culture of Indigenous Foods across North America.