Renowned Navajo Chef

[blackcrowheart]

Renowned Navajo Chef

Prepares banquet for Sheep is Life Celebration

Friday, 20 June 2008, 5:00 p.m.

Greyhills Academy Campus, Tuba City, Arizona, Navajo Nation.

Walter Whitewater, award winning Navajo Chef, is preparing the banquet
for the Sheep is Life Awards Dinner on Friday, June 20, beginning at
5:00 p.m. at Greyhills Academy in Tuba City. Chef Whitewater has
crafted a menu featuring Jay Begay’s locally-grown Navajo-Churro
lamb in two specialty dishes: lamb-stuffed green chile and
chipotle-rubbed roasted leg of lamb with wild cherry sauce. The full
menu and banquet details are on www.navajolifeway.org
<http://www.navajolifeway.org/> .

Chef Whitewater grew up in a traditional Navajo household in Piñon,
Arizona, where his family was raised sheep and farmed. His grandmother
was a well-known weaver. In a recent interview, he recalled that his
interest in cooking began at an early age, even though cooking was not
part of a traditional male role.

In 1992, when he began working as a professional chef in Santa Fe, he
said that he was the only Native American in the profession at that
time. Over the years, he experimented with a range of ethnic and
creative cooking approaches, including contemporary and traditional
Southwest, Spanish, and Asian, while working in kitchen environments
ranging from Mu Du Noodles and Bishop’s Lodge in Santa Fe to
restaurants in other states.

Currently he teaches at Santa Fe School of Cooking with chef Lois Ellen
Frank, of Kiowa heritage, and makes guest appearances at restaurants
nationally. He has been on numerous televised cooking shows. In March,
he was the first Native chef to receive the James Lewis Award honoring
Cultural Awareness. He collaborated with Chef Frank to adapt many
Native recipes and ingredients for her book, Foods of the Southwest
Indian Nations (2002).

The twelfth annual Sheep is Life Celebration honors the central role
that sheep and fiber arts play in the philosophy and daily life of
traditional and indigenous cultures throughout the world. Through
contacts with Sheep is Life, Chef Whitewater is starting a flock of
Navajo-Churro sheep in Piñon to recover the pastoral lifeways of his
childhood and promote healthy eating with traditional foods. He
explained that since incorporating the Navajo-Churro sheep in his
cooking, he has begun to understand what his grandmother was teaching
him many years ago.

In addition to Friday’s Awards Banquet, Sheep is Life presents a
Navajo Rug Auction on Saturday beginning at 4:00 p.m.; free Sheep to
Loom demonstrations on Friday and Saturday from 9:00 am. to 5:00 p.m.;
eight fiber arts workshops beginning at 9:00 a.m. on Thursday; and sheep
shows, wool grading, and management workshops throughout the weekend,
June 19 â€" 21. Sheep is Life is at Greyhills Academy Campus in
Tuba City, Navajo Nation.

DBI is a community-based, nonprofit organization founded in 1991 by
Navajo shepherds and weavers. Sheep is Life is supported by the USDA
Risk Management Agency and WESSTCorp. For more information, go to
www.navajolifeway.org <http://www.navajolifeway.org/> , call
505-863-3192, or e-mail [e-mail]
<http://us.mc301.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=[e-mail]> .

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Attached is a narrative bio for Chef Whitewater. Thank you for sharing
this information with other interested parties to promote this Navajo
community-based, annual event in the Navajo Nation.

----Suzanne JamisonHC 58, Box 90Unit 50, KlagetohGanado, AZ
[e-mail]
<http://us.mc301.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=[e-mail]>
928-652-3247