Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Demeatrie Funderburk. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Demeatrie thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?

The name of my company is The Starving Gypsy and it was inspired by many moving portions of my life. Being a military brat and veteran myself, I have never really felt like there is a specific place I can name as a homebase. It often made me feel like a transient, moving from place to place. When I started my culinary journey, I found a sense of community within the people that I had met but I still found myself being much of a wanderer in the efforts of advancing my career. Later, I realized that all of those experiences have greatly influenced my not only one how I cook but the why of my cooking. I have learned that a huge portion of doing what I do has come out of the need or “starving” for connection through a world that I feel I have often begged, borrow and stole from to create my existence.

Demeatrie, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am the owner, culinary magician and mastermind behind The Starving Gypsy. It is a small, black owned, female owned, veteran owned business that provides private chef services, where we specialize in mini to micro sized events ,that feature global cuisine. We also provide culturally centered cooking classes that aim to naturalize history, context and connection through the creation of food from all around the world. Becoming a chef and creating this space now was not always the plan but definitely a pre-determined destination. I am the only child of two military affiliated parents, Army to be exact. With everything that was instilled in me from that upbringing, my Father often cooked for the troops on base and my Mother baked. I was on the receiving end of all of those gifts. And I will say, growing up a military kid, immersed in so many cultures of the world, left a huge impact on my adult life.
I was taught that the best way to learn about another world, outside of your own bubble, is to sit down, cook and break bread with other people. My father believed that if you took the time to learn and appreciate the food of others, you could in turn understand more about them because at the core of it, everything comes back to the people. And yes, it is about the food but most importantly it is about the people that create it and the reasons why they do. That is the emotion that we try to recreate as a company. I want people to leave with not only the memories of great food but also an overall feeling of community and camaraderie.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I will say that I have had many times in this industry, especially while being a business owner, that I have wanted to quit due to a host of micro aggressions, limited visibility and other things. That, however, has never stopped me from doing what I enjoy to do and what I consider to be a huge portion of my purpose. Last year, I lost my Father very swiftly and unexpectedly to Cancer and as a business owner, the world continues moving around you even when yours has stopped. This was the most difficult part of my journey thus far that forced me to pull from storages inside that I had no idea existed. My Father was a man that worked incredibly hard but his passion for life and uplifting others around him was deeper and stronger than that. And through that loss, I had to realize that that same passion lived in me say. The biggest lesson I have learned here is that no matter what happens, you are always enough, what you do is enough and if you do not think you have it in you, sometimes you have to be still, quiet and sit with yourself. That is the only way that you will be able to see your true reflection and understand that whatever talent you have is good enough for the world….and keep going.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

For me, I have taken inspiration from books that are about resilience, drive, purpose and self care. Those seem to be the ideals that stick out the most and help keep me on course. Examples of those books would be:

The Cooking Gene by Michael Twitty
No Reservations by Anthony Bourdain
The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
High On The Hog by Jessica B. Harris
The Mother of Black Hollywood by Jenifer Louis
Sister Citizen by Mellissa V.Harris-Perry
Guru by RuPaul
Small Doses by Amanda Seales
We’re Going To Need More Wine by Gabrielle Union
Love, Loss & What We Ate by Padma Lakshmi

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thestarvinggypsy.net
• Instagram: @thestarvinggypsy
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thestarvinggypsy
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/demeatrie-funderburk-0a2b7537/
• Twitter: @StarvingGypsy
• Other: Cooking Classes: https://faradayskitchenstore.com/pages/cooking-classes-in-austin