Leon Matthews
A new "Cook" book on the way
Off the Rez Ramblings
By Leon Matthews
Lakota Country Times Columnist
lakotacountrytimes.com Becoming a chef has been a journey of developing my skills in the kitchen. Knowing your weaknesses is important to grow in the industry. I was able to develop my recipes at the Higher Ground Coffee House and I really enjoyed my work for our Oglala people. I had many people come from around the country and they enjoyed the food. I remember bringing in five gallon buckets of tomatoes and starting my marinara sauce from scratch and it was excellent. Today I make it with ease and added garlic knots to the meal. While I made Italian and studied the favorite dishes people ordered in America, I found Chicken Parmesan is the second order behind spaghetti. I do some other dishes as well but I wanted to be perfect on the top two. Alfredo and Marsala dishes are great as well and when I make my pizza I am very excited about the sauce and crust. I know you may be thinking to yourself about the reason I am talking about this again. If you are my Facebook friend you know I take pictures of my food. My daughter was the first to call me a chef and I wondered about this but I wore my uniform and I cooked. I was able to create a great menu and recipes and if I had a larger kitchen it would have been amazing. I enjoyed hearing from people about the food as I got a lot of praise and a National paper gave me a great review so I felt good about where my life would be heading. Having my daughter call me a chef was one of the greatest moments in my life as I tried to serve people the best foods I could create. When I arrived in the Philadelphia area I realized I did not have the speed to keep up with the hordes of people and I wanted to get some speed. I ended up developing my speed for a year and enjoyed meeting people. I met a SWAT officer that looked bigger than a doorway. I met the restaurant people who would come in late after they were drinking and then come and order some of our food. I met the workers that came from Philly and would start work between 4 and 5 in the morning. I then took a chef position and it was great learning recipes from a chef culinary perspective. I was always calling myself a foodie, which means likes to try different restaurants in search of the perfect food. I was telling a customer one day I said I was a foodie. My chef told me stop calling yourself a foodie, you are a chef. A few weeks ago he must have been in a bad mood because he told me, “You are not a chef until someone calls you a chef! On the inside I was laughing because he told me I was a chef plus I do not take it personally because the proof is in the food and I have been developing my skill for some time. I am seriously considering a food truck because I want to put my focus on a few items and the brick and mortar restaurants can be more regulation and you have to stay in the same place. I want to be able to travel and share the food and meet the people. I have a few chef friends and they often work for others and it is a good working wage but when you are the owner you can make as much money as you want and there is lots of room for other food trucks. In the coming months I will be working on my recipe book and the art of a Lakota Chef. I want to share the cultural changes to our foods and how they affect the people today. I am excited because I get to tell my story of how I came to be a chef in a mostly dominated non-Lakota group of men and women. I always thought my mother Bessie Red Shirt/Matthews should have had a restaurant and I know she would have rocked the culinary world.
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I hope to develop a dream and with the cook book I hope to help fund the truck because I believe people need to seek their dreams. I have done everything I wanted to do in life and now I have the background to develop a cook book and a way to feed people. I am seeking to be great at my food because I believe I can make a great burger with frybread and making it hybrid in a world full of mixing foods. A few years ago I made a Korean taco and it was really great as I bit into the tortilla I thought it was the best thing I ever tasted. Then I had a banh mi which is a Vietnamese hoagie or sub and the flavors are amazing when you bite into all of the flavors. There are many foods in the world and when I develop my menu I know it will be great and people will want to follow where the food truck is located. So I gave you my plan and if I can help you in any way let me know and I will try to help you live your dreams. (Leon Matthews can be reached at blunthorn@gmail.com) Find the award-winning Lakota Country Times on the Internet, Facebook and Twitter and download the new Lakota Country Times app today.
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