Salty Hospitality Delivers a Love for Mexican Cooking
Images by Morgan Fraser
Deb Peña is a Salt Spring Island cook, originally from Mexico City and Puerto Vallarta. Deb has worked with Mexican top chefs, done private dinners, and cooked in restaurants serving international cuisines from Japanese to French to Mexican. After graduating from cooking school, she found a connection to Chef Martin Vargas in Vancouver and decided to experience Canada for the first time. Deb now calls Salt Spring Island home with her wife, Miranda, where they run Salty Hospitality. Salty Hospitality is an event planning, catering, and rental company, with a new (exciting!) arm to their business: taco delivery kits. We talked to Deb about her love of cooking Mexican food, and the unique aspects of cooking on Salt Spring.
Q&A with Deb Peña
Why have you chosen to make Salt Spring your home?
Well, I fell in love with my future wife, who was living here. And then I fell in love with Salt Spring - I love how nature is right outside my door. Life here is so different from the city, especially from Mexico City. While living on Salt Spring, I planted my first garden. I love going on hikes with my dogs. A really special part for me living here is getting to know the farmers who grow incredible produce and care so much about the process. It just all feels really special, calling Salt Spring home.
Tell us about your love for cooking Mexican food. Why is it important to you to share Mexican cuisine with others?
I want to share true Mexican flavours. In Mexico, we don’t eat a taco with sprinkled cheese on top - period (but no judgement if you do! Haha). We eat our tacos with finely chopped raw onion, cilantro, fresh salsa, and meat that has been cared for hours with attention and respect. Taking people to Mexico in one bite is my goal when I share my cooking. When I eat my tacos, I feel like if I closed my eyes I could be there. I want people to know that Mexican food is not just about the flavour, but it also includes the process and long history behind why that food and flavour has stood the test of time.
“Taking people to Mexico in one bite is my goal when I share my cooking. When I eat my tacos, I feel like if I closed my eyes I could be there.”
-Deb Peña
Tell us about what you’re ‘cooking up’ currently with Salty Hospitality.
We’ve started cooking my favourite tacos from Mexico: carnitas (pork) and barbacoa (lamb). They are famous in Mexico and both have really special processes to make them come to life, so much so that it feels sacred to make them. Now we’re making taco kits with carnitas, barbacoa and vegan chorizo, made from mainly local produce and meat. Most importantly, we are making handmade organic corn tortillas. Without a good tortilla to hold it all together, you don’t have a taco - and corn is everything in Mexico. I’m really happy to be sharing my organic corn tortillas with the island, and I think islanders are happy about it, too. :)
“[Carnitas and Barbacoa] both have really special processes to make them come to life, so much so that it feels sacred to make them.”
What’s your favourite meal to cook? What makes it so special?
I’ve been enjoying cooking barbacoa the most lately. It feels almost like a ceremony - I wake up, make a coffee, and start the fire. When I smell the charcoal burning it takes me to a pueblo. Pueblos are what we call the little towns in Mexico, where everything feels traditional and very pre-Hispanic. The smell reminds me of home. Making barbacoa is time-consuming but so worth it. You fall in love with the smoky flavour and how tender the lamb becomes.
What’s your favourite ingredient you get locally on Salt Spring? What are the ingredients in Mexico that you miss?
I miss fresh cactus the most, for sure. As for Salt Spring, it’s an honour to use some of the best lamb in the world to make my barbacoa. Ruckle Farm lamb is my favourite so far.
Tell us about the experience of making Mexican food on Salt Spring. How is it different than making food in Mexico?
In Mexico, I’d go to the mercados to pick up fresh produce. Here, I get the luxury of visiting the farms myself. I have a direct relationship with the people who grow all this beautiful produce and raise their livestock. It’s been a good challenge to force myself to source locally grown food as much as possible. I always want to feel close to Mexico. Now that I have made a home here on Salt Spring, I appreciate my home country even more.
Is there anything else you’d like to share?
When I cook, I can’t help but cook with all of my heart. Sharing good food is so important. The point of my cooking is to make people feel like they are in my home and that I’ve invited them for a taco. I want people to feel like they know me through my cooking, and that they are inspired to learn the rich history that has gone into that dish.
With the COVID situation, it’s been hard for us because we would normally be busy executing weddings as Salty Hospitality. Instead, we started an entirely new arm of our business by delivering my cooking to islanders’ homes. It is something I have always wanted to do, and I’m so happy that people on-island are finally getting to try my food. The support has meant the world, and I am so grateful for it. And if I could say thank you to Salt Spring, I would say it with all of my heart.
Thanks to Deb for sharing so openly her love of all things cooking. To order taco kits for yourself, visit the Salty Hospitality website. Remember you must place your order by noon on Wednesday, for your Friday delivery!
