Ep. 32: The New Filipino Kitchen Authors Pt. 3 - Alexa Alfaro and Dalena Benavente on Navigating “Half”-Lives with Full Faith

Hidden Apron Radio

This is the third installment in a special series of conversations with fellow authors of the recently published cookbook and anthology, "The New Filipino Kitchen" (available on Amazon) that features Filipino cooks, writers, and thinkers all across the globe. We take a peek into how they view the world and their cuisine.

For this “Halfsies” edition (all 3 of us are of mixed heritage, me being Chinese-Filipino and Alexa and Dalena being half Caucasian), we feature:

- Alexa Alfaro (for another round!), an Alaska-born Milwaukeean who, after a 10-week trip to the Philippines, was inspired to open her city’s first Filipino Food Truck “Meat on the Street” with her younger brother in 2014. This involved dropping out of her Engineering degree but weeks from graduation. Since then, the pair have opened a brick-and-mortar slinging their famous BBQ sticks and pork adobo to the masses.

- Dalena Benavente, born and raised as one of the only Filipinas in the Southern state of Tennessee. She has worked as a recipe developer and product tester for Kraft, filmed with Paula Deen, and hosted numerous cooking segments on a variety of radio and TV channels. She is also an accomplished author with her memoir “Asian Girl in a Souther World”.

We talk about:

- The realities of straddling racial and cultural lines and what it’s like to go “back home” to the Philippines.

- The ways we balance being relatable to our many communities without diluting who we are.

- Balancing the expansion of your business while serving your Home Team and your "Day Ones”.

- Balancing affordability/access with charging what you think you’re worth.

- Staying sane be it in the Food Truck business or trying to balance a day job with the side hustle.

There’s a lot of nuance in these conversations that I think often gets overlooked in favor of simpler narratives so if you’re also a Halfsie or find yourself straddling multiple worlds, “jobs”, and identities, give this episode a listen.

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For more information including notes to the show, please visit hiddenapron.com/podcast.