Caracas-born culinary artist and self-taught chef Mercedes Golip remembers being a picky eater as a child. Now, her life revolves around experimenting with food. Years after she and her husband immigrated to Miami, they moved to NYC where her evolving curiosity for food was met with an abundance of CSA vegetables. Longing for food from home inspired her to recreate traditional Venezuelan dishes using ingredients grown in New York, but she wondered, is this still Venezuelan food?—a weighty question amidst the political turmoil & dire food shortages back home, and an anti-immigrant administration leading the US. Food has been the question and the answer, prompting Mercedes to share her food culture through pop-up dinners, culinary classes and cooking demos that explore questions of authenticity and creativity.