A child of the 1970s, chef Rick Martinez grew up in Austin before moving to Mexico in search of his heritage. Food workers and farmers are galvanizing and forming unions to push for fair practices. Chef and activist Suzanne Barr didn’t have aspirations to own a restaurant, but cooking for her ailing mother sent her career on a new trajectory. Eddie Lin remembers Yening “Lupe” Liang of Hop Woo, a Chinatown institution. Felix Böck was inspired to develop a recycling system for reusing chopsticks. LA Times restaurant critic Bill Addison visits the new location of Shunji. Dragan Ivanovic drives a refrigerated truck with his forage that he brings directly to chefs’ doorsteps.
Farmers unionize, recycling chopsticks, spring peas
At Vancouver-based ChopValue, chopsticks are collected and sorted to face the same direction before being recycled into daily household items and furniture. Photo courtesy of ChopValue.
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