Who Made It: A Kitchen Truth

“Who made it?”

Most of what I know about care, I learned in kitchens.

Not the Hallmark kind. The kind earned at six in the morning when your feet already hurt, the coffee tastes like regret, and the only thing keeping the place standing is the people who showed up anyway.

I’m a white woman who came up in kitchens built, staffed, and held together by immigrants. Mexican. Puerto Rican. Cuban. Often whole families, sometimes spanning generations. Mothers beside daughters. Cousins breaking each other in. Skills passed down the old way—watch me do it, now you do it, no one’s writing this shit down.

That matters to say out loud.

Because I got to leave at the end of the night. I got to move through the world with a kind of ease that wasn’t available to everyone standing next to me. I was shaped by people whose lives were heavier than mine, whose days often started long before ours did—and that shaped how I cook, how I lead, how I pay attention.

A lot of them didn’t start their day with us.

They came in after factory shifts. After cleaning office buildings. After overnight work that never makes it into anyone’s glossy story about food culture. Then they tied on an apron and went straight into prep—stocks, sauces, proteins, veg—everything that actually makes a restaurant run but never makes it onto a menu description.

And they didn’t complain.

They showed up. Every time. Consistent as hell. Quiet about it. Careful with the work. If they said it was done, it was done right. That kind of trust is rare in kitchens. It’s gold. And I learned to recognize it because of them.

Sunday brunch was our shared penance. Early mornings after Saturday night chaos. The air still thick. The ice machine humming like a witness. And there they were—steady, locked in, already moving. I never worried about prep. I worried about everything else.

That reliability? That’s love. Kitchens just don’t call it that.

La banda was everything.

The prep kitchen had a heartbeat. A speaker hidden where it wasn’t supposed to be. Music loud enough to keep you moving but not so loud you missed a call. Spanish flying fast—half of it affectionate, half of it absolutely not. I learned my curse words the proper way—late, incorrectly, and with a lot of laughter when I screwed them up.

If they teased you, you were in. If they went quiet, it was time to focus. You learned the rhythm or you got out of the way.

There was a phrase I still say to this day.

When something landed just right—when a dish came back clean, when a guest complimented the food, when you could feel that quiet satisfaction move through the kitchen—someone would grin and say, “Who made it?”

Not loud. Not bragging.

A humble flex. A shared understanding. Pride without ego. A reminder that the work mattered, and the hands behind it mattered too.

After service, there were Modelos. Not craft bullshit. Just cold beer and decompression. There was food shared like currency—barbacoa made from deer meat brought in because someone thought of you. Supermercado borrego eaten together because it tasted like home and the night had already taken enough from everyone.

Food wasn’t precious.
It was personal.

When I got married and left town, videos came back to me from the kitchen. Dancing in front of the ice machine. Lady Gaga, because they knew I loved her. No irony. No performance. Just joy sent back across miles from people who didn’t owe me anything—but gave it anyway.

That moment still wrecks me.

Because it holds the truth people miss when they talk about kitchens like they’re just workplaces. Those hours mattered. Those people mattered. The care was real, even if no one ever wrote it down.

I think about them all the time.

When I season food by feel instead of measurement. When I trust someone’s hands before I trust their resume. When I build a prep list that assumes people deserve clarity and respect. When I try—imperfectly—to lead with the same steadiness I was shown.

This is a love letter.

To the people I stood beside for thousands of hours. To the ones who fed strangers after already giving their bodies to other jobs. To la banda—the music, the shit‑talking, the shared exhaustion, the unspoken loyalty that taught me what community actually looks like.

And because I love them, I need to be absolutely clear about this:

I do not support ICE.

Not now. Not ever. Not with cosmetic reforms or softer language. ICE, as it exists, should be abolished.

You don’t get to build entire industries on immigrant labor and then terrorize the same people who keep the lights on. You don’t get to enjoy the food, the service, the comfort, and pretend the cost is invisible. You don’t get to call fear “order” and expect people not to notice.

I’ve worked next to people living with constant anxiety. People who flinched at sirens. People who did everything right and still never felt safe. People who held kitchens together while being treated as disposable.

I can say this clearly because of where I stand.

This isn’t politics to me. It’s memory. It’s responsibility. It’s the awareness that I benefited from systems that harmed the very people who shaped me.

Immigrant kitchens are built on care, pride, humor, and showing up when your tank is already empty. They are places of dignity and community, even when the world outside refuses to see them that way.

Food was how we took care of each other.

I carry that with me.
Every day, guey.

This is one chef’s perspective.
From the prep table. From the pass. From the ice machine that saw more truth than most people ever will.

Audrey Middleton, 2026