Salvi Kitchen -- Taste of Sensuntepeque
Salvadoran Recipes from Chef Michelle Lainez
"Take a walk with me to Sensuntepeque through your kitchen...This is the town where my family is from. This where I learned to make cheese, washed corn, and carried it to the mill to make masa and this is where I fell in love with food." – Chef Michelle Lainez
With last week’s post celebrating the Silk Road Supper Collective, I thought we should do a deeper dive on the Salvadoran recipes created for one of our home delivery boxes by Michelle Lainez (a member of the Silk Road Supper Collective). With more than a decade of relationship-building in the SoCal food community, there are certain people who hold a special place in my heart and Michelle Lainez is definitely one of them. I am not alone to feel this way as Michelle’s warmth and generosity and hard-working spirit always shine through with everything that she does.
I can’t express how grateful I am to have been in community with Michelle when my company was a food delivery company in Los Angeles. She is part of some of our cherished memories (she catered a delicious meal of Salvadoran specialties for our first community dinner with fellow women B Corp leaders from We the Change), she showed up in a major way for us at the start of the pandemic by coming to our aid and packing boxes alongside our team, and continued as a member of our Chef Services Team. We couldn’t be more delighted to share her story and recipes. Follow her journey on IG chefmichelle_and_company.
MICHELLE’S MENU (click for recipes):
Before we start cooking, just a final opportunity to honor the women who have inspired those we respect and love (let’s make every month Woman’s History Month)! For Chef Michelle, her Abuela is one of the women who greatly impacted her personal food narrative. She taught Michelle at the age of 7 how to kill, clean, and prepare chicken, how to make cheese, and taught her all the steps to making masa. She blazed a trail setting an entrepreneurial example for her nieta – buying a house, starting a cheese company, and even starting a walk-up bar out of her home. She's one of the reasons Michelle fell in love with food, and for that, we are truly grateful.