When Gricelda Judith Burgueño Gutiérrez gets into the kitchen and starts creating and tasting different dishes, she forgets about the life of domestic violence that forced her to escape from Mexico and those dark days in those who, together with her daughter, lived for weeks in their car on the streets of Los Angeles.
Today, Judith prefers that her Call, she is one of the chefs of the Pasadena City Symphony and is creating her own healthy food preparation company that includes teaching cooking classes.
This Mexican immigrant has had a passion for gastronomy since she was a child.
“My mother had a roadside restaurant in Villa Unión, a town in the state of Sinaloa. Since I was 9 years old, I started helping him in the kitchen, making tortillas. ”
In Mazatlán, Sinaloa, where she was born, He worked in the kitchen of several high-end hotels. It was there that she met the man she would marry and have two daughters.
“En 2001, we came to the United States, but when the recession of 2008, we returned to Mexico. Our youngest daughter who now has 17 years old, he was born here in Los Angeles. ”
In 2016, Judith fled Sinaloa with her youngest daughter, when she could no longer bear the mistreatment of her husband.
“I saw them very hard when I got here. My countryman, chef Claud Beltrán, was the one who opened the doors for me, he has helped me and, seeing my dedication and ability to cook, demanded that they give me a good salary. ”
She tells that it was chef Beltrán who took her to work with him, preparing food for several catering companies in the Los Angeles area.
It was during one of the extra jobs that he had to take to survive, as a driver for a shared transport company, that he met the assistant of a famous film director.
“During the trip, I spoke to her with great enthusiasm about my job . She told me if I would be willing to cook for them and of course I said yes. ”
Remember that the first time she was called to prepare food for the film director and his guests, she was so stressed because she did not have a roof where to live, that she did not realize that the actor Nicolas Cage was in front of her all the time until when she finished working, someone pointed it out to her.
“I found a roof walking through the streets of South Pasadena, which was the area I knew. I asked for an apartment and luckily the owner agreed that I would get involved just by giving him $ , but the rent was for $ 1, 300 and I had no more money. I did not know what I was going to do to complete the rest. ”
It was then that he entrusted himself to the film director and told him that he was a person homeless. “He immediately sent me a check for $ 1, . I immediately paid what I lacked in rent. ”
At that time as a shared transport driver, he says that he offered his passengers his vegan tamales. “It is not allowed, but I was in great need. I promoted them and they bought them from me ”
And everything was going well, says Judith until the pandemic started and everything stopped.
“I spent three weeks anguished at home, thinking how I was going to do to pay my bills without events to provide my catering service ”, he says.
From so much thinking and thinking, he got the idea of selling healthy meals to the families. “Everyone talked about strengthening the immune system so as not to get sick from Covid – . So I created a menu with food to reinforce it, preferably with products that we already have at home; and I started looking for clients. ”
One of his creations was sweet potato tacos as well as a salad dressing made with a syrup natural that she was given as a child to relieve a cough. “It basically has red onion, garlic and organic apple cider vinegar.”
One of its modalities is to prepare the menu according to the needs of each family, whether vegan, vegetarian or if they eat everything.
He also had to hire himself as personal chef for wealthy families during the pandemic.
“The family of a film director who hired me They just warned me that they didn’t want Mexican food because they didn’t like it. I started preparing mole poblano for them, green enchiladas. They were amazed. Is this Mexican food? really? It is authentic Mexican food, I replied. They were fascinated. ”
Reveals that before the pandemic, she did not know anything about social networks. “With the support of my eldest daughter of 23 She has lived in Germany for years and two of her friends connected on the Internet and they began to advise me to promote myself on social platforms. ”
Now Judith is creating her own RedFit Cooking company to offer her healthy food preparation services and teach classes. “I teach people from knowing how to buy and I go with them to the market to show them how to select the food with which they are going to cook. I also check what they have in the cupboard and the refrigerator. ”
And she is happy because in collaboration with Claud Beltrán they are the chefs of the events from the Pasadena Symphony. “I am very happy because the Pasadena Symphony concerts will reopen this summer, after all activities were interrupted due to the pandemic.”
Judith says that she is a creative chef, who likes to create, experiment and try new dishes. “A healthy diet does not have to be boring.”
Four years after leaving Mexico to save her life from domestic abuse, Judith reveals still receiving psychological therapy. “I arrived in this country with a great nervous breakdown and with great anxiety and fear. I found a refuge in the kitchen, a way to disconnect and vent. Today, I feel more confident because I realized that there is always hope that life will improve. People always come to help us get ahead. ”
You can contact Judith on Instagram: chefjudithb, and on the site: redfit.cooking.com