My name is Charity Qalutaq Blanchett, Founder and CEO of Dipping Spoon Foundation.

I’m an Indigenous Yup’ik and Black woman born on Dena’ina Land, a descendant of the Yup’ik tundra, the land of the caribou, from a bloodline of royalty, the Real People. I was given the name Qalutaq as an infant by my Indigenous Yup’ik mother.

I am Qalutaq. My Indigenous Yugtun name means Dipping Spoon.

The meaning of the Dipping Spoon is, “From one dip you serve other people, dip into water, and the water is given to everybody, it grows and keeps going.”

When I was a little girl, my Yup’ik mother would host gatherings at our home. Every Yup’ik or Inupiaq woman we knew from our small town would dine at our kitchen table and feast on traditional foods. My mother and her friends, my adopted aunties, would commune together, chat, laugh, eat, and in the late evening, take a hot backyard maqiiq, my father built it for my mother so she could continue our ancestral traditions. Even though my mother no longer lives in her small rural Alaska Native village of Tuntutuliak, she found a sense of community and sisterhood in our little town, Wasilla.

That’s what I love about New Orleans, Louisiana. My new hometown. My new roots. My mother’s parties are now my ladies ’ night. I adore the unity, diversity, sisterhood, and community of this magical city. She is rich, vibrant, and ripe with culture at her helm, which is her heartbeat. They are the people, music, Second Lines, giant oak-lined streets, lush parks, accompanied by hot, sticky, sweet temperatures, storied Parades, and, of course, New Orleans ’ dynamic food culture.

I’ve lived a blessed life with access to many experiences, and I have immersed myself in culture, traveled, and have always been keen on what the world would look like without the bold creativity, flavors, and design of Indigenous peoples and artisans. Fairytales aren’t real, a perfect world doesn’t exist, but you can’t get rid of the true romance Indigenous peoples have with our land, ocean, animals, and skies. The luxury is in our stories, none like the other; the design in who we are to survive the elements. The land creates us. We are rare. We are mysteriously special, daringly observant, creators of the day and night; our ancestors' spirits live, create, and design within us. My life is a design of my creation with the strength of my ancestors.

A woman I admire greatly is Elizabeth Peratrovich. She was an Alaskan Native Civil Rights Hero who championed the Anti-Discrimination Act of 1945, the first anti-discrimination law in the United States. She was a civil servant to her people. She eloquently reminded the good ole’ boys club: “I would not have expected that I, who am barely out of savagery, would have to remind the gentlemen with 5,000 years of recorded civilization behind them of our Bill of Rights.”

Ms. Peratrovich’s brave actions fought for equality, representation, and justice.

I believe food should champion culture and rebel against boundaries. Dipping Spoon’s programming allows young aspiring Indigenous and Black Youth to not only be champions of themselves, but also of their culture. Cultural representation in the kitchen, education, and business is beyond important in today’s world. Cultural Representation in all the avenues food touches is paramount.

Our identity is what makes us solidly unique. Culture in the kitchen is diversity in the kitchen. Investing in our community is investing in our youth. Future legacies await.

Food unites us all, a language we speak. Food is the one rare thing that brings us together.

Dip In.

Quyana,

Charity Qalutaq Blanchett