program was provided by California Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, California Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Foundation.

California Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and the foundation are partner not-for-profit organizations supporting their members in the community to improve the health of Californians.

Additional funding from the KPBS Explore Local Content Fund.

♪♪♪ Patty Corona: Okay.

[speaking foreign language] Okay, bye, mom, thank you, bye-bye.

Okay.

♪♪♪ Patty: My name is Patty Corona.

We're here in National City, this is a beautiful community.

This is my barrio.

We are like 7, 8 minutes from downtown San Diego.

I arrived this community 20 years ago.

My kids growing up here went through all the schools.

This is a community that is composed by most of them Latinos and Filipinos.

National City is considered a low-income community.

One of the biggest challenges we have here is that we are surrounded by junk food restaurants.

All the fast foods are here in one street.

Now we are going to Olivewood Gardens Learning Center right here in National City.

female: Welcome to the garden.

♪♪♪ Patty: [speaking foreign language] Welcome, everybody.

This is the generation number 16.

Welcome to Olivewood Gardens.

♪♪♪ Patty: Cooking for salud means cooking for health.

It's a cooking program where the participants learn how to transform the way they cook.

The first time they come, we talk and say, "I'm here because I have diabetes, I'm overweight, my family has illness that has been chronic for a lot of years."

And when we have this talk, it wake up something inside you to have a better health.

When they come to the program, I can tell you that 90% of them know how to cook.

We don't teach them how to cook.

What we teach them is the way that they can transform the way they cook.

Patty: [speaking foreign language] female: [speaking foreign language] Rebecca Gomez: My name is Rebecca.

I am 22 years old, and I am here taking this Kitchenista program so that I can learn more about nutrition and incorporate that into my life.

I was involved with the garden before.

During high school, I did most of my community hours here.

We all introduced ourselves in the beginning of the class, and we got to hear some personal stories from the other future Kitchenistas and I think even that simple, like, day one just brought us a little closer together.

Patty: [speaking foreign language] Monica Guerrero-Lim: It was through my mom that I learned about this place.

At the time, when my mom was going through the program, she would actually invite me to her house and she would make some of the stuff that, you know, she was learning to cook.

And my mom would also talk about all the different activities that she would do here, and it just seemed like she had a lot of fun.

You know, it was a really good group, and that's how I kind of started interest in Olivewood.

Rebecca: My mom too, she's a Kitchenista.

She's sixth generation.

I'm very excited.

Claire Groebner: It originally started out with a children's program, and it was getting kids' hands dirty out in the garden and their hands dirty in the kitchen learning how to grow and prepare healthy meals.

And then we started to have chaperones and moms saying, "Hey, you know, my kid is coming home.

They're so excited about what they learned and they want to make this recipe, but I don't have the tools.

I don't know how to do it.

I don't know how to support them.

And so how can you support me, you know, in supporting my child?"

So "Cooking for Salud" came out of that.

It was a request from the community, that we provide that support and education.

Patty: [speaking foreign language] Patty: When I was a little girl, I have the opportunity to live with my grandmother.

I remember my grandmother was cooking Mexican food, simple and plain.

She raised her own hens, and she have access to what my uncles plant and harvest.

So we have different sources of food from our own family.

Patty: When my mom moved from the rancho to the city, all the changes start coming.

She start cooking in a different way.

My grandmother is 99 years old and she's still healthy.

My mom is 75 years old and she's diabetic, and all my uncles are diabetic.

female: National City has one of the highest rates of childhood obesity and diabetes in the state.

female: You're talking about an economic group that doesn't have access to quality foods.

You're talking about a culture that's used to eating the kinds of foods you described.

What can National City do about this problem?

Christina Ng: Welcome, everybody.

My name is Chef Christina.

We're doing salads that are, what we call, nutrient-dense.

The more color or the more texture, the more flavor, the more healthful it is for us.

So we're going to talk about, again, some new foods, some old foods.

So we're going to talk about these here.

[speaking foreign language] Christina: Within those first fundamental weeks of hands-on cooking, I feel great responsibility to just kind of share the basics with the class and with the students.

Christina: So green, right?

Green, it takes a long time, right, to cook.

Probably 1 hour.

So these will take 1 hour, and they feel very hard, you know.

Red, red is--the shell is off.

Red is fast.

Red is like 10 minutes, right?

Yeah.

Christina: I think getting people comfortable with the fundamentals of home cooking, scratch-made cooking is key because, you know, it's a busy world.

Life is going a million miles an hour and, you know, time is always of the essence, especially if you have a family like many of the Kitchenistas do.

Christina: like this, and just cut the white part out.

So they're going to take the tops off for our lentils.

We're going to roast them in the oven.

So usually when we roast things, what temperature--if someone says roast vegetables, what temperature do you set your oven to?

Four hundred, right?

So this is an interesting one.

This is 300, 300 and 325, but it's 40--45 minutes.

Christina: On the cost side of things, the food access is certainly a rising challenge, especially in an urban population like National City has.

In the classes when I'm with the Kitchenistas, we try to really make sure that that knowledge of the varying scales of ingredient costs are explained and that with different techniques these ingredients can fit into the menu, whether you have 10 minutes or you have a full day's worth of cooking.

Christina: Beautiful, yeah, so we have our--I washed the herbs.

So the chives are just going to get small.

That's okay.

Christina: I worked with multiple Kitchenistas who have been given a certain health diagnosis, and the answer is either prescription drugs or maybe changing something on the dinner table, on their consumption habits.

Christina: How many people cook at home during the week?

Yes, yes.

Christina: It's definitely an uphill battle starting with something simple and really taking down the barriers on it and introducing new ingredients and taking the stigma off of them in order for the Kitchenistas to take it to the next level for their families.

♪♪♪ Sabrina A. Montgrain: It's interesting in health care because we've reached this threshold of what medical intervention can do.

Now we see that there's been this disconnect between the foods that people eat and the health effects that we see on the body.

Now we're essentially seeing the downfall of that.

The standard American diet has affected people's health for so long, and a lot of times we almost practice sick care.

So you wait until somebody is ill and then you're treating the diabetes or you're treating the heart disease or the hypertension, especially as we're seeing now that obesity rates are skyrocketing, the rates of diabetes, liver disease.

If we move the needle towards people cooking more at home, towards people learning that eating fast food on a regular basis really affects our health on an ill way, we are now bringing back to the table the conversation of what led to the diseases that we're treating.

Patty: When I came here, the supermarkets--every time that we go there, I realized that it was very high prices.

So I used to go a little bit more for the north.

So it was worthy to drive all the way up and shop there and then go back to the community.

So that little by little supermarkets were transforming by coming and offering to the community Mexican ingredients, very good prices, fresh produce, and then people start shopping local.

Claire: You can put a grocery store in a neighborhood that was previously a food desert, but if people don't know how to prepare meals with fruits and vegetables, they're not going to do it.

You know, there's a shift that has to happen, and then also things have to be affordable.

It's a whole conversation of the food system, of food security, and there are so many different pieces that lead to what you're seeing in National City.

♪♪♪ Aureny Aranda: My name is Aureny Aranda.

I'm from the seventh generation, and I've been volunteering here at Olivewood Garden for almost 4 years.

So I met Patty at my daughter's school.

She went there to give a class to parents, so how to--so how we can do healthy snacks for the kids.

Aureny: I do have some cooking backgrounds.

I went to a cooking school.

I'm actually a pastry chef, but I don't like to do pastries anymore.

Aureny: [speaking foreign language] female: [speaking foreign language] Aureny: Now when I start being Kitchenista and start to see like a cause to do it, everything changed in my life.

Aureny: [speaking foreign language] Aureny: There are so many new things that I didn't know anything about them.

Aureny: [speaking foreign language] Aureny: The way they show us how to create with just vegetables, herbs--even though that I knew of some of them, my vision of cooking completely changed.

Patty: [speaking foreign language] Patty: [speaking foreign language] Rebecca: So I've been vegan for about 6 years.

After a while, I started kind of noticing, "Oh, you know, I don't feel as energized anymore," or, "Why am I--why can't I lose more weight?"

So I was very interested to learn how I could incorporate whole foods into my meals, and I noticed that I ate a lot of processed foods.

Patty: We make a dressing today, and also we make a chia pudding dessert.

Joe Pastry: How is everyone?

Everyone doing great?

Awesome.

All right, so let's get started.

So this is a basic--there's a basic ratio for vinaigrettes, three to one.

That's the three parts oil to one part acid.

Rebecca: I have a question about the balsamic vinaigrettes.

I bought some last week, but they were different types.

What's the difference?

Does it really matter?

Joe: Well, there's white and then dark.

Rebecca: When we go out to restaurants--my dad, like, loves his Mexican restaurants, and I can't even order something as simple as bean and tortillas because the beans are cooked with lard.

That's a no for me.

I really like that we are in the kitchen with the chefs.

It was very interesting, and I feel like all these little tips and tricks that I learned throughout the course will help my cooking.

They sound so simple but can make a big difference.

Joe: I don't know, what do you guys want to do, huh?

female: [speaking foreign language] female: [speaking foreign language] female: We want to thank you for coming and teach us what you know, and we want to give you--okay, thank you so much.

Make sure you're not crying, okay?

Joe: It's more signatures than I got on my yearbook at school.

Monica: I did bring croutons, mom.

Esperanza: Tell me how we made the tomato-- Monica: I did, I did.

I said that that was tía Mati's tomato sauce.

Esperanza Guerrero: Mostly my traditions are my mother's food.

My mother never bought processed foods.

My mother never went and got frozen foods.

No, she always baked for us.

It's something that you can feel.

Monica: So here's our tostada.

We're going to add a little bit of beans to it, okay?

Then we add our cabbage.

Emerio Guerrero: [speaking foreign language] Esperanza: [speaking foreign language] Emerio: [speaking foreign language] Monica: See, everybody has their own way of--on how the ingredients go, how they like it.

See?

It's nice to remember when my tía Mati would put the dried chilies on the pan and the smell of the chili, and sometimes we would even have to run outside 'cause that smell is so intense.

And, you know, those are the things that you still remember at grandma's house.

Esperanza: And especially the gatherings at the kitchen.

It would always be in the kitchen.

Monica: This has no--it's not hot.

It's just tomato, it's just tomato.

See if I were to that because sometimes you say things are not hot--but okay, okay.

And they--I made a mess here.

Emerio: One here and then you go like this, and then you go.

And then you take a break, and then the show must go on.

Monica: I don't feel I have that time or I spend that much time, you know, like they did in the past.

I think the way of--that I cook is very different from the traditional way of my grandma's cooking, you know, and I see it maybe as a compliment or I could even say maybe a new chapter.

Emerio: [speaking foreign language] Esperanza: There are certain dishes that my mother cooks that are tradition in our family, I could say.

There are memories that are also associated with those dishes, and I don't want to lose them.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ female: Put it over here, then we're going to smash and then it's a tortilla over here.

Claire: We just have a community that has been ready to make a change.

Once they learn about health and they learn what changes can be made--you can't stop someone who loves their family from doing whatever they can to change that.

Patty: Do you see that this little kernel, how big it will grow?

Because this kernel that you plant is what makes this plant grow this big.

Patty: My relation with this garden starts like 10 years ago.

The first time that I came here, I came because my daughter was in a field trip.

It blows my mind, and I get in love with the place as soon as I went walking into it.

And I asked, "Do you have volunteer opportunities here?"

And she say, "Yeah."

Say--and I sign up that day.

Patty: And this here is edible.

You just cut it and use this part to make a tea or to put in the top of soup.

Yeah?

Patty: We notice in the kitchen that when the kids try to get into the vegetables, the moms stop them and say, "You know, my kid don't like this and my kids don't like that."

When we saw that attitude from the moms, we realized that we need to also educate the moms to let the kids to be adventurous and try what we were offering.

The recipes the kids take it home, they were only in English, and then I offer to start translating the recipes in Spanish.

And we start with 1 recipe, 2, 5, 10, 50, 100, and we end up translating more than 200 recipes.

Claire: Olivewood Gardens exists because of a gift.

Jen Nation: This house was built in 1896 by a man named Oliver Noise, and he had moved here to be the first postmaster general of National City.

The land was all originally agricultural land, and then the Walton family purchased the home in the '80s.

Christy was pregnant and wanted to raise her son in this community.

Claire: They have their son Lukas, and when he was about 3 years old he was diagnosed with a rare form of kidney cancer.

The doctors didn't give him a very good chance of surviving it.

Jen: And so having all this great property, they started the garden, started growing fresh food.

They started juicing food for Lukas and for lots of the neighbor kids as well.

Six months later, Lukas' cancer had stopped spreading.

In 2006, John and Christy decided to donate the property to the International Community Foundation.

Claire: One of the stipulations was that we maintained the garden here, and that we would use that garden and the space to support the local community.

Alejandra Sotelo-Solis: We are a national city that has a--you know, small town feel with a big city attitude.

I'm proud to say that I'm third generation here from National City, my daughters being fourth.

I've now seen from having food deserts to truly advocating for the healthy food options.

We see so many people wanting to learn more about how to green their diet, how to create more open space, how to reclaim the pavement, the blacktop.

We have to see ourselves as part of a bigger family; and you have to have people that will carry on that legacy because if the legacy or the program, you know, dies with you, then what impact truly have you been able to make?

Patty: My name is Patty Corona.

I'm from the first generation of the Kitchenistas.

Please feel free to ask whatever you want to ask.

There's no secret recipes here.

We have a mix of three whole grains right here.

We have red quinoa.

We also have brown rice and barley.

This drinks have no sugar.

So you only get the flavor on the fruits and also on the herbs.

Monica: [speaking foreign language] Esperanza: I just want to thank all of you for being here.

Being a Kitchenista is very important for us because we do go out to the community; and what we learn, we'd like to share with all of you.

Alejandra: Being able to see what leadership is, it's not at council, it's not in the legislature.

These women are in the fabric of our community.

Patty: Some dishes that you want to cook.

So what is important is just to the whole green to be cooked, and then you can use it in salads and any dish that you want to-- Aureny: [speaking foreign language] Aureny: I was really nervous.

It was like stage fright for me.

I think it's always challenging even if it's with the Kitchenistas.

I always get nervous, but I know it's going to be good.

Aureny: [speaking foreign language] female: [speaking foreign language] Aureny: I prepare myself every class I'm going to do.

Even though if I know, I try to get or do some research of the latest updates of what's new in the kitchen because we have some trends on the kitchen as well.

Aureny: [speaking foreign language] female: [speaking foreign language] Aureny: When I do what I like, I think you can reflect that in your face.

Even though that I was nervous, I think I did a good job there.

Sabrina: I feel like our role, especially in primary care, is to have conversations about health in general.

We think of wellness as really these five pillars of wellness that really help make sustainable changes: sleeping, eating, exercising, connecting with people, and being mindful.

Those five are never going to go away.

Sabrina: Food is not just about what you're putting in front of you.

It's also about the community that one can have around food.

We eat for not just the calories.

Sometimes we eat because we're stressed out or we didn't sleep enough, and those conversations really come out in "Cooking for Salud" and realizing if we focus on those we overall are moving our health in a fantastic positive direction.

♪♪♪ Patty: If we see this necklace, it's like a circle, and this is exactly how we are.

Patty: [speaking foreign language] Patty: Today is a very special day.

We are going to a citizenship ceremony.

One of our Kitchenistas, Mary Velez, will become US citizen.

This is very important time for her and for me because several years ago we adopted each other as sisters, and we have a very special relation.

Patty: They are not like us, we are like them.

What happen one, it matters to the rest.

Patty: My heart start popping faster.

Patty: And even though they are wearing different dressings, they look like the same.

Patty: Ready, let's go.

Patty: We have different ages, we have different levels of education, we have different stories, but at the end we are a group of women that love each other and what we have in common is that we all are Kitchenistas.

male: Lithuania, Philippines.

Patty: They passed Mexico.

male: Vietnam, Zambia.

Did I miss anyone?

all: Yes.

male: Mexico.

Patty: That's Mexico, that's Mexicans.

Oh my God.

female: Congratulations.

Patty: [speaking foreign language] Mary Velez: [speaking foreign language] Mary: Oh my goodness.

♪♪♪ female: [speaking foreign language] Angel: [speaking foreign language] Angel: [speaking foreign language] Patty: Most of the participant coming from a different country where they learned to cook, but when they come here to this country, they don't have the same tools and they don't have the same ingredients.

So what they do is they cook what they found here.

All those traditions change when we are here.

Angel: [speaking foreign language] Angel: [speaking foreign language] Sabrina: National City is very similar to many other places throughout the United States and the world.

It actually doesn't matter what the demographic is.

It could be any ethnicity.

It could be any first language.

It could be different social-economic.

The information is needed by all.

Sabrina: So welcome.

I am so excited that you're here.

So I have been at Sharp Rees-Stealy 15 years.

I do internal medicine, and again--and since 2016 is really when this culinary part has really transitioned.

So it's one of my favorite parts.

So here goes a transition here.

So I take off my white coat and I put on my white apron, and this has been such an exciting transition.

So-- Sabrina: So at Sharp Rees-Stealy we've started doing shared medical appointments, where we're getting 12 patients in a room for up to 2 hours.

And during those 2 hours, we teach them five recipes.

We dive deep into really the scientific information about the health processes, really working on the language that patients understands and really covering the broad strokes of really what culinary medicine is about.

Sabrina: Okay, now I'm at work and I'm hungry.

Hey, look, there's some snacks that somebody brought in.

Okay, and then we do this again and again.

You know, day after day and year after year-- Sabrina: Culinary medicine has a name for it.

I actually first heard about culinary medicine at a conference I went to in Napa, and it was a conference that was a combination put together by the Culinary Institute of America and the Harvard School of Public Health and it really was the space of integrating physicians, chefs, nutritionists, dieticians to really bridge that conversation.

It was this aha moment for me.

Sabrina: And the goal of today is to really see how eating healthy should be delicious, first and foremost, should be easy, should not be expensive, and it should feel like you walk out of here and feel like there's steps you can take with your next meal on how to transition.

Aureny: We're getting healthier every time with our kids.

We have some struggles sometimes with the eating because we didn't have these habits before, and sometimes they just come back and we just try to get back on track again.

Aureny: What's the difference?

And I have seen it like the one that is like a butter on a solid.

Sabrina: And is it pure coconut?

Aureny: Yeah, it says pure, and some of it is MCT oil.

Aureny: I don't give them choices because I always tell them our house is not a restaurant so it's just one menu; and if you don't want to eat it, there's nothing else.

My oldest daughter, she's starting to get better decisions, and I think that was my goal.

It was more that than just to make them eat.

Now I can see that she's already making the healthy choices.

Sabrina: In Switzerland they make a lot of muesli, and essentially muesli is this.

So it's essentially eating cold, and it's a great way to just really get those nutrients.

Sabrina: This realization, which is a big part of culinary medicine, that unless you get people in the kitchen, the change isn't going to happen.

So there's a big emphasis on teaching kitchens.

female: [speaking foreign language] Jen: We started this program as a 7-week nutrition education program, and we've added an eighth week because we realized that this idea of being a Kitchenista is bigger than we ever thought.

Patty: The first "Cooking for Salud" week by week, we, all the ladies, were sharing with our friends what we were doing here and it was like a snowball that it was growing and growing.

And by the third and fourth generation, we start having a waiting list.

female: [speaking foreign language] Patty: And we noticed that it was a lot of interest in the community about the health and what we were eating.

female: [speaking foreign language] Esperanza: [speaking foreign language] female: [speaking foreign language] Monica: To me, my mom was always very quiet and reserved.

I would always see my mom working at home.

And so seeing my mom actually lead the class and seeing people come up to my mom and ask, "Esperanza this.

Where that?"

You know, it was very surprising.

I had never seen that side of my mom, so that was very gratifying for me.

female: [speaking foreign language] female: I think we've evolved and it's become more of an empowering program.

It gives you tools to grow as a person.

It goes beyond just teaching you healthy eating habits.

You know, that's how you start, but then you evolve.

Patty: Most of the work we having done is here in National City.

Here is where we live.

Here is where we can go and teach.

And when we graduate, we have this commitment to go back into the community and share what we love, and that was exactly what we did.

Patty: Thank you, everybody, welcome.

It's a pleasure for us to being here.

Thank you, thank you so much.

We're going to prepare tacos today, and we are going to start making tortillas.

We're going to slice them, and we're going to put in our plate.

Yeah?

And you see that they almost look like there's nothing in the molcajete.

And we already have solved the garlic and the chili, but don't worry because there's all the flavor.

Patty: Every time that we have an opportunity, we bring our molcajete with us and the tortilla press because those are part of the essential roots of our Mexican dishes.

Patty: But what we want is the dark part here because that will be very, very smoky and very delicious.

Patty: We provide a solution or a tool to share with a lot of people.

We need to be that tool because a lot of people, they didn't grow up by being teach how to cook.

female: If we don't have a molcajete, can we use a food processor or a blender or-- Patty: Yeah, the only that will change will be only the flavor and the texture, yeah.

Patty: We have this connection, that there's more behind cooking.

I don't know if it's the way that we share it, or this connection we have with the people, or how powerful is what we are sharing.

Could be the passion that we do because we love what we are doing.

Aureny: So this is what we're going to give you.

These are all vegetarian, and it gives a really nice taste.

Jen: When Kitchenistas go to do demonstrations in the schools or in community centers, people line up to hear what they have to say.

Patty: Hello, welcome, this is an avocado hummus.

So don't get surprised when you get a cheek peek around there.

Alejandra: We see so many people wanting to learn more.

It truly feels like a movement where the Kitchenistas are positioned to help revolutionize.

Aureny: Yeah, that's perfect.

Patty: Okay, we have this for you, this for you, this for you.

Alejandra: Many of the Kitchenistas have come and testified before city council meetings.

They've testified before the port on issues that affect National City.

Patty: We request the city of National City to show their support to encourage the county of San Diego to adopt a solution.

Alejandra: They've been able to advocate at the county wide level-- Aureny: And you can make lamb--like my favorite is with lamb, and they are-- male: A pouch like this?

Aureny: Yes.

Jen: They're speaking on behalf of their family, on behalf of their health to change the language, change the conversation.

Patty: And this is a cucumber [speaking foreign language].

Yeah, so enjoy it.

female: Thank you so much.

Patty: You're welcome.

Aureny: [speaking foreign language] But the flavor of the mushroom is just amazing.

Jen: Hopefully 5, 10, 15 years from now we can say National City is one of the healthiest in the community based on these Kitchenistas and their advocacy.

Sabrina: [speaking foreign language] female: [speaking foreign language] Sabrina: I absolutely love doing this class.

I grew up in Mexico City.

I was born and raised there, and then I moved to the United States when I was 11.

So Spanish is my first language.

Sabrina: [speaking foreign language] Sabrina: When I came to Olivewood Gardens in 2016, it really was returning to this cultural piece that I didn't realize how much I'd been missing.

I go through the basics of nutrition and how the plate should look, and a lot of this they've heard throughout the weeks.

So essentially to bringing it together as they're nearing their graduation date.

I feel that I've played some role in these women taking their life in a direction that a lot of times they never thought would exist.

[speaking foreign language] 'Cause I do culinary medicine, I love that there's so many opportunities, from giving talks to physicians to patients, but my favorite is really the hands-on experience.

Sabrina: [speaking foreign language] Sabrina: I feel so honored that I have kind of graduated and come back to the kitchen.

I actually went through the program with them through the ninth generation.

So they call me an honorary Kitchenista.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Monica: So to me graduation day, it's a super exciting day.

The participants get to create a dish.

It could be a recipe that they learned during the class or it could be something that they come up with, and then we share with our guests.

Patty: Hello, how are you?

Monica: Everybody is very happy.

Everybody is also very anxious because we do ask our participants to share, you know, with our guests about their experiences and then to share the recipes.

Rebecca: When they told us we were graduating, of course we're all excited, right?

Then they told us we had to give a little speech and everybody was like, "Oh, what?

No."

female: Eight weeks has come to pass too fast, but for now it's a special day, super special day for every single one for us.

female: [speaking foreign language] female: It's been a life-changing experience for me.

I just want to say thank you to each one of you guys 'cause now I feel different.

And it's because of each one of you guys.

Esperanza: Our next Kitchenista is Rebecca Gomez.

♪♪♪ Rebecca: Hello.

Welcome, and thank you for being here celebrating our graduation with us.

Thank you to Chef Aureny for inspiring my recipe for today.

It was a potato salad, and we used vegan mayo.

And I decided to take this class to incorporate more natural and whole foods, vegetables, and fruits into my diet because, you know, being vegan doesn't mean you're healthy.

It's just you can eat a lot of junk food.

Rebecca: This class definitely sparked something in me.

So now I'm majoring in nutrition.

I was just interested in learning more about it.

When I'm in college--I'm an introvert, but when I come here, I find that I'm not like that.

I'm the opposite.

Rebecca: [speaking foreign language] Alejandra: It's such a blessing to be here again to recognize the beautiful work of our Kitchenistas here on this beautiful land that is providing such an abundance.

[speaking foreign language] And we're very, very proud of our 16th graduating class.

Gracias.

Sabrina: There's a lot of anecdotal and individual stories that we have of diabetic numbers improving, fatty liver disease getting better, triglycerides lowering, sense of community growing.

When we do look at studies where changes are made and are maintained, it's because there's other aspects.

It's not just about the food.

It's not a class you walk in and out of after 8 weeks and go on your merry way.

It's really this building of this community and this family that the Kitchenistas become for each other.

To see that in National City we are getting information that the whole country is seeking out, this is something that nationwide is being sought after.

Monica: My dad growing up would always tell me that his responsibility as a parent was to be sure that I was a productive member of society.

And I've never forgotten that, but now on graduation day I actually feel like I'm a productive member of my community, you know, that I am sharing.

Patty: The meaning of the word kitchenista--it's a coin word.

At the beginning, we thought that kitchenista means professional in the kitchen.

Ista is a suffix in Spanish for professionals.

But with the pass of the years, this term has been transformed because we not only have professionals in the kitchen, we have ladies that has become professionals in their community, in their own families too because they are transforming lives.

Monica: I always think that even if one participant out of the ten participants, you know, share what they learned here, they've planted a seed.

So I see it as continuing that vision and growing that idea that you can have a healthier life, you know, you can have a better life for your family and your kids.

♪♪♪ Esperanza: [speaking foreign language] Monica: [speaking foreign language] Maria Elena Estrada: [speaking foreign language] Esperanza: [speaking foreign language] Monica: [speaking foreign language] Maria: [speaking foreign language] Monica: [speaking foreign language] Maria: [speaking foreign language] Monica: [speaking foreign language] Maria: [speaking foreign language] Esperanza: Honestly, I started cooking when, I think, I got married, that I started asking her, "Mom, how do I do this?"

Or I would call her, "Mom, what do I do now?"

And that's the way I learned.

As a child, I think my mommy was the head of the kitchen and we wouldn't go in except for tortillas.

My sister was the one that was in charge of rolling out the tortillas.

So my tortillas don't tend to be round 'cause that's not my thing, but my sister's tortillas always come out real round.

Maria: [speaking foreign language] Monica: [speaking foreign language] Maria: [speaking foreign language] Esperanza: [speaking foreign language] Maria: [speaking foreign language] Esperanza: Almost ready.

Monica: [speaking foreign language] [conversation in foreign language] ♪♪♪ Monica: She owns a notebook and she's always writing things down on that notebook, and those are her recipes.

And then she writes the day, the event, what we celebrated, and for how many people she cooked.

And so she's had that notebook for a long time.

Monica: [speaking foreign language] Maria: [speaking foreign language] Esperanza: Monica is looking for the--my mom's notebook--cooking notebook.

But it's a funny one because every time she does something, she changes the recipe.

Monica: [speaking foreign language] Monica: There was a wedding that she made food for your cousin Hilda.

How many years ago was that?

Esperanza: Probably 40.

Monica: And so I've seen this book.

She always takes it out, you know, we go through stuff.

But when she said, "Oh, look at all this stuff that I did for Hilda's wedding," I'm like, "Oh my goodness."

So this notebook is actually more valuable than--you know, it's history, for me it's history.

♪♪♪ announcer: Major funding for this program was provided by California Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, California Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Foundation.

California Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and the foundation are partner not-for-profit organizations supporting their members in the community to improve the health of Californians.

Additional funding from the KPBS Explore Local Content Fund.