For Anzia Bennett, food is community, creativity — and always delicious

Anzia Bennett is immersed in many facets of the local food world, and at the root of it all is this simple fact: “I love to eat.”

Bennett is the founder and head of Three Sisters Kitchen, which trains food business entrepreneurs, hosts manufacturing space, holds cooking classes, operates a cafe at Explora, offers its own line of healthy products and distributes food to needy families while teaching them how to cook it.

“I know it sounds silly, but I really think that what got me excited about community food work is the fact that I’m an eater, first and foremost,” Bennett says. “I love the process of learning about where I am and who I am and who I’m with through cooking and eating together.”

The 7-year-old Three Sisters Kitchen, headquartered in Downtown Albuquerque, is about to expand its manufacturing space by adding a third commercial kitchen.

But its food training program, which has had 88 graduates since its inception, is on hold because of a $300,000 slash in federal funding as part of overall federal budget cuts.

“It’s a big hit for us,” Bennett says.

Bennett, who is trained in public health, says her obsession with the food world comes from her upbringing. Her family moved a lot when she was young, and learned about their new environment and culture by taking cooking classes together.

When Bennett became blind more than two years ago, she spent time at the New Mexico School for the Blind and Visually Impaired in Alamogordo, acquiring basic skills. But one of her main goals was relearning how to master the kitchen.

The school “was about learning how to walk with your cane and learning to read braille,” she says. “And there’s a cooking component. I don’t know what they thought of me when I walked in, but I said, ‘OK, I’m here for 15 weeks. These are all of the things I want to cook.’ The first thing I made was a brisket.”

How would you describe the mission of Three Sisters Kitchen?

We talk about it as sort of an ecosystem. Our local food system is big and complex, and we are trying to create programs that interact at every level of that economy. We’re hoping that we’re helping people access the local healthy food they need and deserve. We’re helping people feel more confident in the kitchen. We’re helping people feel proud of their food traditions and … sharing what they know in the kitchen. And then we are supporting the development of businesses that will be a good, healthy part of the food system.

What inspired you to launch Three Sisters Kitchen?

As a young person, I always worked in restaurants. I liked waitressing and dishwashing and helping out in the kitchen. I liked that it was hard work, but that it was really social — that it was about taking care of people and learning with and from people that really fed me early on. I apologize — there’s a food metaphor for everything.

Tell me about your cafe at the Explora museum.

It was this really fun opportunity to think about how do we celebrate the bounty of New Mexico and how do we highlight local ingredients on a menu that meets the needs of a children’s museum?

So how do you get kids to eat vegetables?

Well, we make them taste good. The idea that kids don’t like veggies is flawed. What we find with young people is that No. 1, when kids are able to be part of growing food, harvesting that food, preparing that food, they’re much more likely to taste it. Creating fun opportunities where it’s not stressful and where (it’s not) “You have to eat your veggies and you have to clean your plate.” There’s just opportunities to taste in this way and this way and this way. That being said, our focus is on delicious menu items that people want to eat. They’re not thinking that they’re healthy, but they’re thinking they’re delicious.

How is your public health training involved?

I believe everything is public health, so having access to healthy food, having safe spaces where we can join together and build community, having opportunities to build businesses that are good members of our community. Being able to have food at the center but use it as a way to connect …. that just felt really, really important and clear to me.

What are your favorite foods?

It changes by the day. Yesterday, I harvested the first okra from my backyard and just sauteed them up with some fresh tomatoes and seasoning. It’s the things that I crave right now. It’s silly in the desert, but I love seafood. I love a good chicharron burrito with red. I love dumplings.

What do you do in your free time?

I think the simplest answer is I’m growing food in my backyard and cooking it and sharing it with friends and family. I enjoy walking to the river. I am spending a lot of time learning about what it means to be blind and building those skills. So lots of experimenting in the kitchen, lots of experimenting with physical activity like rock climbing, lots of exploring. In terms of education, in terms of thinking about inclusive and accessible programming here. Building that confidence back — creating opportunities for learning for all types of people, all types of eaters, all types of cooks and so thinking about all the different sensory cues in the kitchen — feeling the heat, hearing the sizzle, smelling the toasty smells, etc.