Saludos! Happy Friday and welcome to Comprende, edition 071.

From Caracas to Buenos Aires to Washington D.C., Gabriela Montes de Oca Fehr has always found home in the kitchen. But it took leaving Venezuela to realize that food wasn't just about feeding people, it was about preserving who we are.

Today, we're diving into how she transformed her unexpected career journey into Tepui, a platform amplifying culinary stories in Spanish through documentaries, events, and the kind of storytelling that makes you taste home.

So, depending on where you are in the world, grab your cafecito or cervecita and dive in. If you enjoy today’s edition, please forward it to your gente or share it online. Let’s keep growing this comunidad together. ☕️🍺

When Gabriela Montes de Oca Fehr walked into that Washington, D.C. Michelin-starred restaurant for her culinary internship in 2021, she thought she'd found her calling. She'd earned her chef certification, romanticized by cooking shows and films, ready to transform her lifelong love of cooking into a culinary career. Instead, she found something else entirely.

"Yo pensé que iba a amar el cambio de carrera y que iba a ser chef y lo aborrecí completamente. Fui miserable toda la vez," [I thought I was going to love the career change and that I was going to be a chef, and I completely hated it. I was miserable the whole time,] she recalls with characteristic candor.

But that disillusionment became the most clarifying experience of her life, not because it revealed what she should do, but because of what she discovered in those sweltering kitchens.

Behind the perfectly plated dishes served in the pristine dining room, Gabriela found a hidden world. The kitchen was filled with immigrants. People who didn't speak English, who'd started as dishwashers and worked their way up, whose stories had never been told in their own language.

"Me di cuenta de que todo lo que nos han contado sobre la escena culinaria en Estados Unidos es una mentira," [I realized that everything we've been told about the culinary scene in the United States is a lie,] she says. The glossy food media, the documentary films, the celebrated chef profiles, all of it existed in English, while the majority of people actually working in those kitchens couldn't access any of it.

Born in Caracas, Venezuela, Gabriela grew up with a diverse gastronomic upbringing that included the aromas of Portuguese bakeries, shared Spanish paellas at celebrations, and Lebanese kibbeh at neighborhood gatherings.

But it wasn't until she left Venezuela that she truly understood how deeply food connected to identity. After two years in Buenos Aires, where her Argentine colleagues were horrified by her Venezuelan breakfast of arepas wrapped in aluminum foil at the office, Gabriela moved to Washington, D.C. seven years ago to pursue her master's at Georgetown.

"Yo me conecté más con ser venezolana cuando me fui de Venezuela," [I connected more with being Venezuelan when I left Venezuela,] she explains. "Y sobre todo a través de la cocina." [And above all through cooking.]

That realization became the foundation for Tepui, the platform she launched to tell culinary stories in Spanish. Named after the flat-topped mountains of Venezuela, Tepui has become something more ambitious than food journalism, it's cultural preservation through storytelling. Through documentary films, written articles (including her Substack), and carefully curated events, and client services, Gabriela amplifies the voices of immigrants working in and owning restaurants across the United States.

Her YouTube series "Sazón y Resiliencia" profiles Latina restaurant founders in D.C. But she's expanded beyond profiles to create immersive experiences. She's organized three events where audiences don't just watch her documentaries–they taste the food, meet the chefs, and experience what she calls "ese tipo de conexión más humana" [that type of more human connection]. One event featured a Venezuelan arepera using nixtamalization, a technique often associated only with Mexican cuisine. Another brought a Korean grill concept into someone's home as a ticketed supper club.

This year, she's launching a new documentary series with a cinematographer, a technical leap that excites and challenges her. Her vision is to premiere each film at an event where viewers can buy tickets, taste a curated menu, and meet the people they'll see on screen. "Si tú conoces a la persona que está detrás de la comida, tu conexión cambia completamente," [If you know the person behind the food, your connection changes completely,] she says.

Gabriela is uniquely positioned to do this work. Last year, her essay on Venezuelan migration and gastronomy was selected for inclusion in "Mejor escritura gastronómica en español," an anthology of the best Spanish-language food writing. She's also a member of the James Beard Foundation's 2024-25 Legacy Network Cohort, cementing her place among the next generation of food media leaders.

When I spoke with Gabriela in August, she had just left her corporate job to pursue Tepui full-time, while awaiting her green card. The timing is both terrifying and perfect she noted. "Lánzate y luego averigua cómo se hace," [Launch yourself and then figure out how to do it,] she says, channeling the wisdom she learned from chefs who rose from dishwashers to Michelin kitchens without fancy culinary degrees.

It's the same principle that guides everything she does: start cooking, then perfect the recipe.

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