Local chefs Alexander Zubia and Will Lopez are leading the fight to put forgotten foods back on the tables of their community and underappreciated artists in the eyes of beholders.
My Homies Kitchen (MHK) is a Fresno-based restaurant, and is largely the result of a years-long vision of Zubia’s, stemming from his time as a chef in Santa Barbara. During his time cooking in the area, he realized that there was a surprising lack of healthy options available, and the healthy foods he could find were completely disconnected from their cultural roots.
“A lot of people didn’t realize that quinoa, and the avocados that Santa Barbara is famous for, were really indigenous superfoods,” Zubia said. “So when I came back to Fresno, I would try to cook quinoa for my friends and family, but they would tell me ‘Naw, we don’t eat that hipster food.’”
Seeing how centuries of colonialism and gentrification had taken both food and knowledge from his community, Zubia set on a mission to bring them back. However, he couldn’t do it alone.
Lopez and Zubia met through an internet altercation they had, after Zubia called Lopez out for how he and his associates were operating at the time. Though they prefer to keep the details of this internet beef in the past, they now laugh it off as the start of their close relationship.
“I was always fighting people, right, always defending myself,” Lopez said. “I was always finding myself in trouble, and trouble was finding me. So coming from that background, seeing how [Zubia] came at me, made me reflect on how I’m built. And we’ve had conversations now where we admire a lot about each other.”
Lopez has since taken his fighting spirit in a new direction, and with Zubia’s desire for change, the match made sense on nearly every level.
The pair truly put the “art” in “culinary arts,” with each item on their menu aiming to preserve indigenous recipes and traditional flavors. The way each plate is presented makes it clear that each member of the kitchen sees food for the art form it can be.
This passion for various forms of artistry is especially evident in their Downtown Fresno location, which has been known to host monthly exhibitions for local artists free of charge.
Most recently, MHK put on what they called “Tostada Thursday,” where the kitchen served up $3 tostadas while guests could view breathtaking art from Marco Dominguez, otherwise known as ham.creates, and Norberto Gonzalez Ramirez.
The evening was characterized by warm lighting, intimate conversation between attendees and commanding visuals. A standout piece from the night was Dominguez’s “Intention.” Although he says the name and the painting itself are still works in progress, the messaging is as clear as it is stunning.
“In a cold world, she’s placing her intention and hoping to make a difference,” Dominguez said.
Ramirez’s art was also impossible to ignore, with its raw displays of the female figure. With the collection on display at MHK, Ramirez sought to showcase his fascination with the human body and what it can portray.
“Art is a language, but we communicate with each other in so many different ways,” Ramirez said. “Through bodies we subtly say so much, and the conscious and subconscious minds can pick up and relay the depths of who we truly are.”
Though “Tostada Thursday” was a successful marriage of MHK’s love for food and the arts, the fight against food disparities and lack of cultural knowledge is ongoing. A sore spot for Zubia is the fact that despite being the agricultural center of the world, the Central Valley rarely gets to taste the spoils of its labor.
“They can eat our vegetables in LA, and we grow some of the best vegetables, yet we don’t get the credit for it because we didn’t even eat those vegetables ourselves,” Zubia said.
Although MHK aims to source the majority of its ingredients locally, Zubia noted that even at farmers markets the number of vendors that sell locally-grown produce is few and far between, with food trucks dominating the space. Looking beyond their four walls, Lopez and Zubia feel a deep concern for underprivileged areas that have even less access to fresh produce.
Though it would be easy to look at such a complex issue and throw their hands in the air, MHK, with help of organizations like Fresno Barrios Unidos and the Central California Food Bank, opened a food pantry for the community just over a year ago.
Although it’s come with its challenges, such as a lot of the food they’re able to acquire for the pantry being processed, Zubia and Lopez are in it for the long haul, and won’t back down from fighting the good fight.
“We’re not just cooking food and making meals, we’re trying to fill the void in a community that needs it,” Lopez said.