A still from Crisis Kitchen by local filmmaker Gabriel Baron.
Crisis Kitchen – a short film about a food organization of the same name for mutual aid in Portland – has a lot to offer in its nine-minute running time.
Crisis Kitchen was created by local filmmaker Gabriel Baron and sheds light on a group of restaurant chefs and volunteers who started cooking and giving away rice, beans and tamales at the start of the pandemic and have since given over 10,000 meals to Portlanders in need.
“As soon as we became available to the community as a resource, we realized how far the crisis was going in our city,” says Adrian Garcia Groenendyk, co-founder of Crisis Kitchen, whose voice-over guides viewers through much of the film.
Garcia Groenendyk also speaks in the film about the limits of capitalism in the fight against income inequality and hunger.
“The solution to the food insecurity crisis has to lie outside the formal capitalist economy because capitalism is about how to make it profitable,” he says. “It’s not about helping communities.”
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“This whole idea that we don’t have the resources or means to feed everyone is an utter lie.”
When food donations come in, your first instinct may be conjuring up pictures of canned green beans and stews with kitchen sinks. But Crisis Kitchen offers people “really high-quality, delicious and chic restaurant-quality food that we give away for free,” says Garcia Groenendyk. The kitchen also supplies vibrant grocery boxes filled with products donated by local farmers. Baron’s shots of the team’s cooking process – zucchini lovingly carved and seared, queso fresco carefully sprinkled over enchiladas – are lavish and delicious, and would be at home on any major food media brand’s website.
Crisis Kitchen – free streaming on Venmo – is a must-have for any Portlander interested in the city’s growing network of mutual help. Just try not to see it when you are hungry.
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