When you interview a chef, chances are you’ll come out of it with useful tips for the kitchen. A new recipe, a must-try restaurant, a versatile ingredient. And while I did check those boxes during my chat with Barbara Sibley, I also managed to squeeze out some very powerful relationship advice.
Of course, my primary intention was to talk about food. After all, Barbara is an award-winning chef, co-author of a cookbook, and owner of East Village gem La Palapa Cocina Mexicana , going on its 25th year in business. But I quickly realized that Barbara’s not just about the ingredients — though she’s got a lot to say about them too — but more about the deeper connection food has to culture and identity.
Barbara Sibley is first and foremost an artist, both culinary and visual. Born and raised in Mexico City, her first job was as a receptionist in a factory. “I hated it,” she reflects, adding that there was, however, one perk of the position.
Every afternoon, ladies from the neighborhood would walk by selling tacos de canasta. “Even then, food was the highlight!” Barbara laughs. Not long after, Barbara moved to Michigan for school.
The culture shock was visceral. In lieu of dancing at parties, her classmates would drink to inebriation. Instead of sitting around a table after dinner conversing, an act so common in Latin America that it has its own word — sobremesa — friends would immediately rise and move to the T.
V. “It was so removed from what I was used to,”.
