Walter Whitewater

Walter Whitewater was born in Pinon, Arizona and is from the Diné (Navajo) Nation. He grew up in a traditional family and began cooking as a young boy after seeing people cooking at some of the traditional Diné ceremonies attended by his family. Although a Native Chef, who works as a print model and appears in film or TV, Whitewater is active in traditional ways. He regularly returns home to Pinon, Arizona, for Diné ceremonial obligations. He worked on two Public Education DVD's featuring plant-based ancestral Native American ingredients for healthy Native American cooking. These include "The Power to Heal Diabetes: Food for Life in Indian Country." He is a chef at Red Mesa Cuisine, LLC, a Native American Catering company specializing in Native American Cuisine using ancestral foods with a modern twist. Chef Whitewater has appeared on numerous food TV Network cooking shows featuring foods of the Southwest. Chef Whitewater worked on the James Beard Award-winning cookbook, "Foods of the Southwest Indian Nations," with Chef Lois Ellen Frank. He and Chef Lois Frank, as part of the U.S. State Department and Consulate General's Culinary Diplomacy Program, traveled to Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and Russia. The two chefs promoted indigenous foods of the Americas through the culinary arts. Chef Whitewater was the first Native American chef to cook at the James Beard House in New York City. He won the James Lewis Award in 2008 from BCA Global for his work as a Native chef. He is very active in using Ancestral Native American foods for health and wellness in Native American communities. A big emphasis of his work is to help Indigenous Americans address diabetes and other health-related issues by promoting tribal-specific food cultures. This involves decolonizing the diet of Native peoples and passing down traditional food knowledge to the next generation. Chef Whitewater and Chef Frank taught a cooking class series at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center (IPCC), the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA). These courses on Healthy Native American Foods and cooking were sponsored by PCRM. They also taught a Native American Kids Camp for the Santa Fe Public Schools.