How Calif.’s most famous Native American chef spends Thanksgiving

As a little girl growing up in the Bay Area, Crystal Wahpepah always wondered why there were no Native American restaurants around to enjoy her favorite corn and turkey soup, or other dishes common to her Kickapoo heritage.

“I thought, ‘How come we don’t see our food?’ Everybody has a purpose and I believe that was my spark at a very young age,” Wahpepah, now chef-owner of Oakland’s popular Wahpepah’s Kitchen, told SFGATE. 

This lack of Native American food was particularly top of mind on Thanksgiving morning, when Wahpepah’s family and thousands of other Native Americans would make the predawn journey to Alcatraz for the Indigenous Peoples Sunrise Gathering, which commemorates the occupation of the island by a group of young activists called Indians of All Tribes from 1969 to 1971. Before it was a prison, or a tourist attraction, Alcatraz belonged to the Ohlone. 

Coming off the ferry at Pier 33 after the event, Wahpepah was always hungry and longing for a familiar dish.

This year, Wahpepah, one of the only Native American restaurateurs in California, is doing something about that. Tomorrow, while the James Beard Award-nominated chef’s restaurant is closed, she and a few staff volunteers will rise early to make a Kickapoo-themed breakfast for the tribal leaders, dancers and others returning to San Francisco post-gathering.

Wahpepah’s family has been connected to the gathering for as long as she can remember. Bill Wahpepah, her late uncle and a leader of the International Indian Treaty Council, founded the gathering in 1975. And what started as a small group coming together for one hour has grown to a three-hour event with as many as 6,000 people, including celebrities like actor Danny Glover, singer Michael Franti and former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who attended in 2017 and 2019, according to organizer Morning Star Gali. 

“It’s so humbling and it brings tears to my eyes that this was their idea, about a mainstream holiday that causes a lot of pain and anguish for us,” said Gali, who also happens to be Crystal Wahpepah’s cousin. “It’s really been this lifelong journey and commitment to truth and shifting the narrative to tell our stories on our own terms.” 

For Thursday’s gathering, Wahpepah is planning to make burritos filled with squash, beans and corn, a sacred trio of ingredients known to Native Americans as the Three Sisters. According to the organizers, Kaepernick, who is known for his civil rights activism, is footing the bill for 200 breakfast burritos. “What a huge honor to be asked to feed the community,” Wahpepah said. “It’s like coming full circle for me, to provide nourishment to all the people.” 

Gali is particularly proud that the event, which brings together representatives from 300 tribes across the country, will have Native American food for the first time. “There is so much beauty and healing in having access to traditional foods from within Oakland, where we were raised,” Gali said. “And for her [Crystal] being a young person asking why she never saw her food to now have such strong visibility and a restaurant of her own, it’s extra-special.”

Wahpepah started her career 14 years ago as a caterer. In 2016, she became the first Native American chef to compete on Food Network’s “Chopped.” Two years ago, she opened Wahpepah’s Kitchen in the former Reem’s California space in the Fruitvale District. Shortly after, she was nominated for a 2022 James Beard Award for Emerging Chef. Wahpepah calls her food “modern Indigenous,” with a seasonally changing menu written in her native Kickapoo language that currently includes slow-braised rabbit tamales, blueberry-infused bison meatballs and heirloom white cornbread.

Inside, the dining room features a community table built by Lakota woodworker Stephan Cheney and a mural by Navajo artist Tony Abeyta. In the back, a wall-sized yellow bookcase is stocked with jars of indigenous ingredients, including the corn and beans that will go into tomorrow’s breakfast burritos.

“It took me almost a lifetime to do what I do,” Wahpepah said. “I want to pass something on. It’s about honoring our ancestors, our language and land.”