Melissa Miranda

"It’s not about making space at the table, because we’ve been at the table. Filipinos have been working our butts off for chefs cooking other people’s cuisine. It’s time to cook our food."

"The thing that I’m most excited about is the sense of pride. There is a sense of pride to be Filipino again, and that has come from food."

"When we talk about pride, we are reclaiming it. We are giving value to not just food, but to ourselves, and to our history, and honoring the struggles that our parents went through. And I can talk about my dad a lot, but my mom, she has been my biggest cheerleader. She has been at every single event."

"Because of the colonization that occurred in the Philippines, we were never given a sense of value. Because of that, we never gave value to our food"