Ronnishia Johnson and Rheema Calloway are The Vegan Hood Chefs. In this video, watch as they specialize in turning many of our soul food and American style favorites into delicious vegan meals. Their passion for community organizing, creativity, and food has allowed them to launch a food initiative to help fight against food justice and social inequity within the San Francisco community. These chefs have recognized how nutrition education and access to healthy foods has contributed to the health conditions of many communities of color. Their mission is to provide healthy education and healthy vegan food for disenfranchised communities with their culinary work.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 We're a community-based vegan business
00:09 that started off as a catering business,
00:11 but now a food truck.
00:13 Our whole goal is to increase education and access
00:16 to healthy foods for, in particular,
00:18 black and brown communities
00:19 who are impacted by food apartheid.
00:21 We specialize in cooking some of your favorite
00:27 Cajun, Creole dishes and turning them into vegan delicacies
00:31 like mac and cheese, oyster mushroom po'boys,
00:35 red beans and rice, jambalaya, avocado tacos.
00:38 That's the city swing on it.
00:40 (upbeat music)
00:43 (upbeat music)
00:51 (upbeat music)
00:53 Running a business with my best friend is super fun.
01:00 I think it gives me a upper hand in the business world
01:02 because I trust her judgment.
01:04 But sometimes, because we are friends, we argue.
01:08 I know that she has my back and best interests
01:11 and we're both going towards the same goal.
01:13 Hey, girl!
01:18 - Hey!
01:20 - So I think it's a benefit, basically,
01:22 to run a business with somebody that you can trust.
01:24 Ooh, not too tall for my neck.
01:26 (laughing)
01:27 Girl, it's been a minute, I ain't seen you.
01:29 Girl, look what I found.
01:31 (laughing)
01:33 Look at this.
01:33 Is she trying to blackmail me?
01:37 (laughing)
01:38 I know growing up in the city that there's this complex
01:41 that we're black girls, we're not supposed to be friends.
01:44 Ranisha tried to talk to me and I was like,
01:47 I'm gonna talk to her.
01:49 That's you right there.
01:51 Look at this.
01:52 (laughing)
01:53 - You know I braided my own hair, too.
01:55 - You did good.
01:56 You used to braid mine.
01:58 - Look at it.
01:59 - At this school, we were now considered the minority.
02:03 So we actually started our activism together.
02:06 We were protesting our teacher who made a racist comment.
02:11 Since then, Ranisha and I have been best friends.
02:14 - I could not imagine telling these two girls
02:16 that we would be running a food truck.
02:18 A very popular and delicious food truck.
02:21 (laughing)
02:23 - Let me pull up my list so that we can make sure
02:29 we have everything we need for today.
02:32 We have to stop at the garden to go pick up the produce
02:34 from Fahim and Zane should be waiting for us at the kitchen.
02:39 - I'm gonna get some gas first.
02:40 - Thank you.
02:41 - And then go to Lake Mary and then we should be there
02:46 and sell for a couple hours.
02:48 - I think that's it.
02:49 - All right, let's go.
02:52 (laughing)
02:54 Oh, that breeze feel good.
03:02 Lawrence Fang Garden was one of those abandoned spaces
03:07 that the Asian community took over
03:10 and started to garden on it and grow their produce.
03:14 - Put in the steam water and then I will crisp it.
03:18 - Mm.
03:18 - This is for crispy.
03:20 It's different from the Western cauliflower.
03:24 This is mostly the Asian people like this
03:26 because it's crispy.
03:27 - Yes, yes.
03:28 - Chop, chop, chop, chop, chop.
03:29 Very good.
03:30 (laughing)
03:32 - Hey, Fahim.
03:35 Fahim, who is a Bayview resident,
03:40 started to activate the space adjacent to the garden.
03:43 - Some of this is like misting with collard greens.
03:46 - Oh, that's fine too.
03:48 - And as a black business, we want to support black farmers
03:50 because in San Francisco, it's unheard of.
03:53 - I'm trying to take it all in.
03:55 (laughing)
03:56 - They are farms that were curated
03:58 from people from the community.
04:00 So they have a direct relationship
04:02 and also they understand the needs of the community as well.
04:06 And they're super accessible.
04:07 - Rock with me.
04:10 - Rock with me.
04:10 - See you later.
04:11 Don't forget to text me.
04:12 - I will.
04:13 Enjoy the garden.
04:14 - Bye, Ata.
04:15 (upbeat music)
04:18 - It is super hard to run a food truck business,
04:26 like having to load the truck,
04:29 all the permits that you need,
04:30 along with the preparation.
04:32 You know, usually in a restaurant space,
04:34 you can get a lot of the goods that you buy
04:37 delivered to the space.
04:38 Whereas in the food truck, to even run it,
04:40 you have to have a compensated kitchen
04:41 where you prep or cook majority of the food
04:44 and also store the food
04:45 because you can't store it on the truck.
04:47 It's bad-ass, honestly,
04:49 for two black women to be running a truck.
04:51 We don't turn nothing down but our collars.
04:53 But at the root of it,
04:54 we make sure that we uplift and keep our community involved.
04:57 - I'm about to take my coat.
05:02 Man, it's approved.
05:05 - Shout out to Zane.
05:07 - Yes, all day.
05:09 - Everything that we have touched our hands in
05:12 has been around uplifting the community
05:15 and bringing the hood with us
05:16 and creating a seat at the table for our people.
05:19 All right, let's gas it up and go to Lake Merritt.
05:23 Get it going, Pop.
05:25 You ready?
05:26 - I am ready.
05:26 (laughing)
05:29 (yells)
05:31 - All right, y'all, you know how we do.
05:38 We on our way to the lake.
05:39 You see ya, Pop.
05:40 - Yes, Jesus, Jess.
05:42 - Be there, be square.
05:44 - I think it gives us the flexibility to go where we want.
05:51 Our motto is to go to different communities
05:54 that don't have access
05:55 and show them that veganism could be good.
05:57 - I think the next step for us
06:00 is owning a brick and mortar restaurant.
06:02 This right now works really well.
06:04 It allows us to travel and we have other obligations.
06:08 I don't know how we're doing it, but we're doing it.
06:11 Rima, girl, look at this cauliflower
06:13 that we got from the garden.
06:14 Look at the color.
06:15 - They look good.
06:16 And like you said, it's gonna be crispy.
06:18 (upbeat music)
06:20 All right, we are now open.
06:24 - We call ourselves mostly Creole or Cajun-based food.
06:32 Rima and I both take care of our grandmothers
06:35 who actually are from Louisiana.
06:37 The way we learned to cook was that
06:38 they taught us how to cook in the kitchen.
06:40 - A lot of our early recipes and samples,
06:42 we tested them with grandmothers, so we grandma-approved.
06:47 (laughs)
06:48 - And we love to experiment,
06:50 so we'll think of like,
06:52 what are your favorite kind of American or Cajun dishes,
06:55 and then find plants that'll emulate
06:57 kind of the same essence or flavor.
06:59 And they also have healthy healing properties,
07:01 you know, like lion mane mushroom, we make mock steak.
07:04 We'll also make crab out of it
07:05 and has a lot of different healing properties,
07:07 like helpful with memory loss, brain functioning.
07:10 We also use a lot of jackfruit where we'll saute it,
07:14 we can fry it up, we'll make a mock chicken out of it,
07:16 or like a pulled pork sandwich.
07:19 - A lot of our base are transitional vegans
07:23 or people who are not vegan.
07:24 And so we always have folks that are pretty skeptical
07:27 about trying our dishes.
07:30 And so when they come up to the truck and they're indecisive,
07:33 I try to like walk them through the menu,
07:35 but then also give them samples so they could try it.
07:37 And we get a lot of, "I don't like mushrooms."
07:40 I give them a sample,
07:41 and then usually when they get the sample,
07:42 they're like, "Oh yeah, this is good."
07:45 - Yeah, and I think for our family too,
07:46 for the longest, we just didn't tell them it was vegan.
07:48 We just basically will bring the mac and cheese
07:50 to the cookout, and they'll be like,
07:51 "Who made this potato salad?"
07:53 Our potato salad is fire.
07:55 - I got a question.
07:57 - Uh-huh?
07:58 - What's our serve?
07:58 - Today we got tacos.
08:00 Avocado tacos are popular.
08:02 The southern grill, I think is really delicious.
08:05 (upbeat music)
08:07 - After all the work, prepping all the food,
08:11 all the meetings, going to the garden, getting the produce,
08:14 being able to interact with the community,
08:16 I think is like the most exciting piece of all of this.
08:19 - I really like being able to talk to people,
08:22 and I'm very intentional in making sure
08:25 that we know our customers' names.
08:27 - And she knows what they order,
08:28 what they like to order all the time, what's going on.
08:31 And I think it makes a difference
08:32 because we think of ourselves as extension of the community.
08:35 And so I feel like the fact that we know our customers,
08:37 we can converse with them, and we're accessible,
08:40 is a testament to it.
08:42 (upbeat music)
08:45 - That's a wrap.
08:46 And tomorrow, we got to heal the hood.
08:50 Here we is.
08:52 Oh, that was a little--
08:56 - Better get some sleep.
08:57 - Yes, I'm tired.
08:59 I'm motherfucking tired.
09:00 No, I'm just kidding.
09:01 I'm just kidding.
09:02 - Hey, Big H. - Hey, Big H.
09:09 - Fine, how are you? - Good.
09:12 Good, good to see you. - Thank you, good to see you.
09:14 (laughing)
09:17 (upbeat music)
09:19 - I was in college.
09:23 I kept feeling like I was like, had very, very low energy.
09:26 So I went to the clinic.
09:28 They ran my vitals, and they were like,
09:30 "Okay, well, your blood pressure is like super sky high."
09:33 Sky high to the point to where they wanted
09:35 to put me on blood pressure medication.
09:37 I felt like a lot of times when they put you
09:39 on the medication, it doesn't necessarily solve
09:41 the root of the issue, and you become dependent.
09:43 And I started doing some research,
09:44 and seeing the linkages between how what we eat
09:47 impacts our blood pressure.
09:49 I didn't immediately go vegan.
09:51 I think I had stopped eating red meat and then chicken.
09:55 And then over the years, I think once we transitioned
09:57 back to San Francisco, I completely went vegan.
10:00 I definitely think it became like just a conscious
10:03 lifestyle shift to not only think about my health
10:06 in general, but like what I'm eating
10:07 and what I'm doing will impact my lifestyle.
10:10 And then it challenged me, 'cause I thought
10:12 she was batshit crazy, to be honest.
10:14 We are both coming from families that are dealing
10:17 with a lot of health issues.
10:19 We're like, "Oh, it's hereditary, it's passed down."
10:22 But we learned through the organizing
10:24 and the knowledge that it's not.
10:26 It's basically directed to what you eat.
10:28 And so we just started to eat better
10:30 and try to empower our friends and families to do the same.
10:34 We had a friend, she actually had an event
10:37 and where her caterer backed out at the last minute.
10:40 And she was like, "Hey, y'all, I know y'all cook.
10:43 "Could you cater our event?"
10:45 And then that's where the Vegan Hood Chefs came.
10:51 (upbeat music)
10:53 We usually get like 100 people,
11:05 but we prepare food for 300.
11:07 All right, on our way to Heal the Hood.
11:15 Truck is loaded and we are on our way.
11:18 - Thank you.
11:20 - You ready, Chris?
11:21 - I'm ready.
11:22 (laughing)
11:23 Ready to light spaghetti.
11:25 Vegan spaghetti.
11:26 - Make sure our refrigerator's locked.
11:32 - It is locked.
11:33 (upbeat music)
11:35 - So my name's Cat, I'm the owner of Cat Fitness.
11:46 I'm actually one of the creators of Heal the Hood.
11:48 It was an idea that I had
11:50 and then I brought the Vegan Hood Chefs
11:52 and we did a collaboration and now we're here together.
11:55 Heal the Hood is a event that we host
11:57 in different Bay Area inner city communities.
12:00 It's a wellness event.
12:01 So we teach the community how to lower the risk
12:03 of high blood pressure, obesity, heart disease.
12:06 Things that we see a lot in our inner city communities
12:09 based on nutrition and lack of self-love.
12:12 You can start whenever you decide inside of you
12:15 that it's time for change.
12:18 So today we're gonna actually be giving away
12:20 300 free meals to the community.
12:23 We're also gonna be giving over 100 boxes
12:25 of fresh produce to the community
12:27 and we've also added another component
12:29 which is financial health as well.
12:31 - What's going in the bowls that we're giving out today
12:40 is our cilantro lime rice.
12:42 We have some sauteed mixed veggies, bell pepper,
12:46 onion, mushroom, some grilled zucchini.
12:49 Then it's gonna be topped with our grilled pineapple salsa
12:52 and our house garden sauce.
12:53 It feels really, really good to be able to give food out
12:59 to the community and for free
13:01 'cause I think people see the food truck pop up
13:03 and they're like, "Oh my God, food."
13:04 They're excited about it and then once they get to the truck
13:07 and we're like, "Hey, you don't gotta pay, it's free."
13:09 They're usually super, super excited
13:12 and so it gives them an opportunity to taste the food
13:14 and then they're like, "Oh, it's vegan."
13:15 And we can encourage them to try it
13:16 and they taste it and they're like, "Oh, okay."
13:18 Like, this is bomb.
13:20 It's a gateway into trying the rest of the foods
13:22 that we make.
13:23 So in our produce boxes that we're giving out today,
13:26 we got an assortment of fruit and vegetables.
13:28 So we have collards, some onions, rice, okra.
13:33 I think it's just a direct intention
13:38 to be able to curate a space for people to experience joy
13:42 as a representation of a healing practice as well too.
13:45 That's the beauty of this business
13:47 is that we can create what reality looks like
13:50 to women that look like us.
13:52 As beautiful black women, as big black women,
13:54 as thick black women, as conscious black women,
13:57 as organizers.
13:58 We want to be a representation
14:00 that vegan food is for our community,
14:03 which is why there's emphasis on the hood
14:05 and also carrying on the traditions
14:06 of what food means in our community.
14:09 How do we get back to that?
14:10 Growing our own food, but then also cooking food
14:13 that is healthy, but still doesn't sacrifice our culture.
14:16 [BELL RINGING]