Gabriela Álvarez, Chef, (she/her) approaches her role of chef as a culinary artist and healer. Her work sits at the intersection of cooking, wellness, social justice, and alchemy. Gabriela began her culinary career in 2012 and has since cooked predominantly with community-based organizations and grassroots movements. She offers nourishment as a tool for resiliency and connection. In 2013 Gabriela began facilitating cooking workshops as a Just Food Community Chef and continues to teach youth classes at El Puente. In 2015 she founded Liberation Cuisine, a catering company dedicated to preparing meals collectively with sustainable ingredients and practices. Her menus are constantly evolving hand-in-hand with her studies of astrology, numerology, tarot, food energetics, and traditional food preparations. Her relationship to land and food are deeply connected to her homeland of Puerto Rico, where she visits frequently. She has been the Kitchen Manager for the Black and Latinx Farmer Immersion Program since 2015.