A Culinary Community with Megan Sanchez

[cheerful folk music]

Food cart culture in Portland is really cool

because the city does create this way

of making it not impossible for you set your thing up

and try your thing out and see how people respond to it.

I'm Megan Sanchez

and I'm the chef of Guero in Portland, Oregon.

My mom's Egyptian and my dad's an Angelino

of Mexican descent.

I love Mexican food and cooking both sides of my history.

There is a spirit of just doing it here

that takes vulnerability

and I think there's a lot of really powerful

and creative women here

who also know that vulnerability and see it in each other

and it creates a sort of magnet for that.

The community of women here in Portland,

there's so many layers of people inside

and outside the industry that have come around

to just make this restaurant what it is.

I love Nong. [giggling]

I love her because she was a few steps ahead of us

in the food cart

and then transitioned to brick and mortar game really

and her story's really inspirational.

Maya Lovelace is another young woman

who just had a vision and knew what she wanted to do

and executed it.

Naomi Pomeroy is an icon in Portland

and in the chef community.

She's incredibly innovative.

Kara from Vibrant Valley Farm,

yeah, she has a gorgeous farm on Sauvie Island

and driving out there to pick up produce

is like the best part of my week.

Megan from Fieldwork Flowers does all of our arrangements

and we've been working together since we started here

and I think the plants in here

have become sort of why people come.

It's like a little tropical escape

from the rainy weather we have here in Portland.

Maja's incredible.

We feel like her work just fits so nicely

with what we do here.

Jennifer, her store has the most gorgeous artifacts.

It's like art that we get to use in the kitchen.

When people come in here and eat for the first time,

I want them to feel like they're at our home.

The carnitas torta's been on our menu

since day one in the food cart and people love it.

It's sort of the people's favorite.

We've really made a family

out of the community we have on this street

and around this restaurant.

I feel like what makes it a whole thing worth existing

is all of these other contributions from these women,

the ceramics, the flowers, the produce, of course,

and that's where you get something really special.

[cheerful folk music]