In this nourishing conversation, Matika and Temryss sit down with Pyet DeSpain (Prairie Band Potawatomi and Mexican), chef, entrepreneur, storyteller, and the first-ever winner of Gordon Ramsay’s Next Level Chef. Fresh from finishing her debut cookbook, Rooted in Fire: A Celebration of Native American and Mexican Cooking, Pyet shares the streams that brought her to this monumental point in her career and together we explore the meaning of being rooted in fire: cooking with passion, with purpose, with seasonality, and with reverence for the land that feeds us. 

Pyet reminds us that food is never just food — it is ceremony, resistance, community care, and lineage. It is how we remember who we are. With tenderness, she shares the deep spiritual work of reclaiming identity; the moments of grief and illumination that came with saying no to extractive opportunities; and the healing that arrives when we follow the recipes our grandmothers left for us in stories, memories, and the land itself.

TW: This episode includes discussion of suicide. Please take care while listening.

Filled with laughter, truth, plant medicine teachings, and the joy of returning to one’s roots, this conversation is for anyone longing to reconnect — to culture, to the land, to purpose, or to the fire within. So pull up a chair, relatives. This episode is fragrant with memory, alive with story, and served with the kind of warmth that lingers long after the last bite.

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Credits:

A/V Production by Francisco “Pancho” Sánchez

Edited by Mandy Yeahpau and Francisco “Pancho” Sánchez

Produced by Matika Wilbur

Co/hosted by Temryss Lane

Social Media by Katharina Mei-Fa Brinschwitz

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Follow us on Instagram @amrpodcast, or support our work on Patreon. Show notes are published on our website, Allmyrelationspodcast.com. Matika's book Project 562: Changing the Way We See Native America is available now! T'igwicid and Hyshqe for being on this journey with us.