Q&A with White Mountain Apache Chef and Author Nephi Craig

As White Mountain Apache chef Nephi Craig rose through the culinary world, he was pressed against the razor-sharp edges of generational trauma and substance abuse that would ricochet him from the kitchens of America’s most prestigious fine dining restaurants to cooking for more than 7,000 of his fellow inmates in Maricopa County Jail.

Today, Craig leads the nutritional recovery program coordinator at the White Mountain Apache tribe-owned Rainbow Treatment Center. There he teaches cooking skills and healing at the center’s vocational kitchen, Café Gozhóó. 

Craig’s long-awaited memoir, Our Knives Will Save Us: Dispatches from a White Mountain Apache Chef, hit the shelves this month. The book weaves together the chef’s journey from the reservation to the fast-paced, white-hot world of fine dining, to more than a dozen stints in rehab, and ultimately, back to the community he loves most, all while examining the history of Indigenous foods.

Craig talked to Native News Online’s Senior Health Equity Editor Elyse Wild about nutritional recovery, how culinary school transformed his worldview as an Indigenous person, what it means to decolonize our foods, and how he is teaching others to heal through cooking.

Congratulations on your book. I’ve followed you on social media for years, and know it’s been a long time coming. Let’s start at the beginning. Where did you grow up and what did you love about it?

 was born and raised on the White Mountain Apache Tribe in northeastern Arizona and on the Navajo Nation, also in northeastern Arizona. Those are two places very close to my heart.

What I loved about growing up in White River was the river. It was within walking distance from my house — maybe about a mile away, which felt far for a little kid. But we made that trek all the time. I loved going down to the river, swimming in the summertime and learning to be self-sufficient with a pack of neighborhood kids.

On the Navajo Nation, I loved climbing the sandstone cliffs. It’s crazy now because I go back as an adult and look at what I used to climb. I was like a little mountain goat. It was dangerous, but it was incredible. Those are the first things that come to mind.

 How did drugs and alcohol first enter your life?
I don’t know. It was just there when I was a kid. Well, not a lot of drugs at first — mainly alcohol.

Growing up on the reservation, you see it everywhere. Like I write in the book, I thought it was something that happened to other families. It wasn’t until I got a little older that I became more curious.

Encountering sexual abuse was a contributing factor, but not the sole cause. Once I realized chemicals could alter the way I felt and push away some of those difficult emotions, everything began to snowball.

There are a lot more variables than that, but I feel that’s where it began for me, around 10 or 11 years old, when I started using drugs.

People who have never been in active addiction often struggle to understand why someone would use drugs or alcohol to a detriment  in the first place. Often people in recovery speak about trying to sooth a pain insideof them.  Are you comfortable talking about the pain that fueled your addiction?

Sure. I’m comfortable talking about it because I’ve spent years processing it, and I hope discussing these difficult questions — and the tools that helped me on the journey of sobriety — can help someone else.

It’s a complicated question because the pain had many layers. It wasn’t one single thing.

Like I mentioned, encountering sexual abuse as a child was one factor. Then there was curiosity, finding inhalants, finding marijuana and not drinking alcohol until I was around 14. It all began to snowball.

When you’re young, you can’t always pinpoint where the pain is coming from.

Now I know shame was a major contributing factor. There was the shame that came from being part of an organized religion that teaches you’ll be condemned if you drink or smoke. But when you’re a curious kid, you’re going to experiment. That shame became one layer of my story.

As I got older, everything snowballed into other areas of my life. I also connect it to intergenerational and historical trauma. Trying to fit into a mold and not seeing yourself represented is a wound. Not speaking your language fluently is a wound.

All of that shame and guilt can manifest as violence toward yourself.

When I write about the sexual abuse I experienced, I’m not saying that’s the complete reason for my addiction. It was part of the background, but there were many contributing factors.

Some of it was just being a young punk who wanted to defy authority, stay high and have fun. Another part of me was a wounded child.

It’s multidimensional.

Let’s talk about food. What are your earliest memories of food, and who cooked for you growing up?

Of course, my mom. She was always cooking at home.

I also write about my grandfather’s garden and how that exposed me to food sovereignty long before anyone was using that term. Back then, he was simply protecting us from hunger out of necessity. This was long before food trends and everything we’re talking about today.

My mom, my grandmother and definitely my dad were the cooks in my life. That’s where it all started.

Your path into culinary school wasn’t exactly traditional. You were ordered to either attend school or get a job as part of your probation. Why did you choose culinary school?

Actually, I did both. I chose school initially, but I quickly realized I needed money. I went to school in August, and by October I was working full time at the Country Club at Binetzi Ranch.

I was taking 17 credit hours during the day and working nights. It was nuts.

The reason I chose cooking was because, as a kid, I loved photography, video production, skateboarding, art and creative writing. I wanted to do something in those fields, but I had been a pretty rowdy kid. My grades weren’t good, and I barely graduated from high school.

So I looked at it logically. What had I been doing the longest? When I found out there was a culinary school nearby, I thought, “Okay, I’ll try this.”

I didn’t go into it expecting it to become my career. At first, I thought it would just keep the system off my back for a while and help me stay out of prison.

But I ended up loving it. At first, it was intimidating. Everything was new, and it all felt too fancy for me. Coming from where I came from, I was self-conscious about that.

But I loved the beauty of cooking, and I decided to stick with it.

How did culinary school change the way you thought about food as an Indigenous person?

It opened up the world to me. In a lot of ways, it reminded me of skateboarding when I was a kid. Skateboarding magazines and videos showed me places I’d never been. Cooking did the same thing.

My instructors always said you become a better cook when you travel because you learn world cuisines where they originated.

That exposure let me experience different foods, recipes and cultures. It was an edible education, and it was exciting.

It also made me wonder about our own cuisine.

When I was learning about the salt trade, the spice trade, the Renaissance and all these major moments in world history, I started asking questions about American history and food.

What did we eat before Manifest Destiny? Before Lewis and Clark? Before the Louisiana Purchase?

Those questions changed my life.

After culinary school, you began working in fine dining before experiencing a relapse. Can you talk about what happened and what relapse felt like for you?

It wasn’t just one relapse. From the time I was 14, 15, 16, until I became an adult, I was chronically relapsing. I didn’t really admit I had a drug and alcohol problem until I went to treatment for the first time when I was 21.

I started working at Mary Elaine’s at The Phoenician when I was about 22, but relapse had already been a constant theme in my life.

What made that relapse especially painful was that I wasn’t honest with my colleagues.

Outside the Southwest, I’m usually the first Native American many people have ever met. At that level of fine dining, I didn’t want anyone to know I was struggling.

Looking back now, I know I wasn’t really in recovery. I was abstinent for about a year, but I wasn’t doing the emotional work. I was just meeting the requirements of probation, treatment and Alcoholics Anonymous.

What led up to that relapse started in my mind. I began rationalizing it.

I remember climbing onto the roof with everyone for a champagne toast and thinking, Maybe I’m strong enough now. If I can handle this kitchen, I can handle drinking.

I told myself one glass wouldn’t hurt. That thinking snowballed very quickly.

As I write in the book, there was a dragon inside me, and I opened the cage just a crack.

Restaurant kitchens have long had a reputation for heavy substance use. Has that been your experience, and why do you think that culture exists?

I think my generation is changing it. It’s still an issue, but I think we’re seeing healthier kitchens than we used to.

Like construction, the restaurant industry draws heavily from working-class families and people who grew up in poverty. Access to mental health care, self-care and healthy coping tools often wasn’t part of our upbringing.

Then you combine that with an incredibly stressful work environment where substance use has historically been part of the culture.

When I entered the industry at 18 and 19, I took pride in it. It gave me an excuse to stay high. It gave me an excuse to enjoy fine wines, cognac, liqueurs and spirits. I became knowledgeable about my drug of choice because it was my job.

That was my excuse for a long time. Eventually I realized that wasn’t the path I wanted.

For young people entering the profession today, I’d say you don’t have to go down that road. There are much healthier kitchens now than there were before. You just have to find them.

Find a kitchen that’s committed to education, safety and learning instead of glorifying toxic behavior.

One of the most striking contrasts in your story is going from fine dining to cooking while incarcerated. What did jail teach you about yourself, and what did it teach you about cooking?

Jail taught me I could survive in that environment.

I learned I could navigate that institution without getting into trouble. That’s not to say I wasn’t afraid or that I ever wanted to be there. It’s a sterile place. It’s racist. Violence is always close.

Cooking in jail happened because I didn’t have much choice.

I joke that part of my culinary education came from jail because I cooked for thousands of people there.

It taught me about large-scale food production and what it takes for hundreds of inmates to work together to feed other people.

Everyone had different attitudes toward food. I write in the book that the Native inmates—who were called “chiefs” in jail—eventually took over the hot line because the white inmates had been caught spitting in the food.

It was incredibly disrespectful. The Native inmates talked with the guards, and eventually they switched assignments. That experience taught me a lot about humanity and humility.

It also reinforced something I’ve believed ever since: if you know how to cook, you can usually find work somewhere.

It may not be glamorous, but cooking is a skill that can carry you through difficult times.

Food is central to both your work and your recovery. How have food and Indigenous culture helped sustain your sobriety?

That’s really all connected. If I were putting it in clinical language, I’d say Indigenous foodways are an integrated care modality for trauma recovery, addiction recovery, diabetes management and family therapy.

They’re multidimensional. I’m only using that language because it’s what the clinical world understands.

Indigenous culture has always been about health and healing. Because of colonization, though, we often have to frame our traditions in clinical terms to gain access to funding or recognition.

The healing was already there. What we’re doing now is finding language that helps people recognize it.

At the treatment center where I work, there’s a clinical framework around what we do, but at its core it’s about relationships—with food, with people and with community.

When you create a safe, disciplined environment, transformation begins to happen.

It’s not easy. But it happens.

Much of my reporting focuses on recovery and health equity in Native communities. One thing I hear repeatedly is that culture is central to healing. How do food and Indigenous culture support recovery?

It really is all of the above. To put it in clinical terms, Indigenous foodways are an integrated care modality for trauma recovery, addiction recovery, diabetes management and family therapy. They’re a multidimensional tool that brings together transformation, behavioral activation, wellness and relationship building through food.

The only reason I use clinical language is that that’s the language I have available.

I’m not saying Indigenous foodways need Western validation. Indigenous culture has always been about health and healing.

Because of colonial violence and colonization, though, we often have to frame our traditions as an “integrated care modality” to meet the criteria for funding and access to care.

We’ve always known this works.

What we’re doing now is putting language around something that’s always existed.

At the treatment center where I work, there’s a clinical framework around what we do, but at its heart it’s about building relationships—with food, with one another and with ourselves.

When you create a safe, disciplined environment, transformation naturally begins to happen.

Not because it’s easy. Because people finally have the opportunity.

One thing I’ve tried to explore in my reporting is the misconception that Indigenous knowledge is somehow secondary to Western medicine. It often feels as though Indigenous knowledge has been treated as anecdotal rather than evidence-based.

It’s important to remember this isn’t one-sided.

It sounds great when a Native person like me says these things, but the conversation only goes as far as clinical decision-makers, therapists and licensed professionals are willing to take it.

Just as Indigenous people are constantly being asked to heal, professionals also have to examine their own relationship with colonial violence and ask whether they’ve been complicit in it or simply turned a blind eye.

Those are difficult questions.

It means challenging years of clinical training and being willing to give power back to Indigenous communities.

A lot of people aren’t willing to do that.

Tell me about Café Gozhó. How did it come together, and what makes it different from a traditional restaurant?

Café Gozhó opened in October 2021.

There was a documentary called Gather that followed part of that journey.

The café seats about 30 people. We serve light breakfast in the mornings—coffee, pastries, fruit—and lunch from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Everything is made mostly from scratch, and we’re open Monday through Friday.

From the beginning, we wanted to build something that challenged the toxic culture that’s existed in so many professional kitchens.

We wanted an environment where people could learn without becoming indentured servants working 12-, 14- or 16-hour shifts.

Everyone on our team is from White River and the White Mountain Apache Tribe.

On the surface, we’re just a small café inside an old gas station. But underneath that, every piece of equipment, every design decision and every part of the kitchen was chosen to create a model for food service as part of addiction recovery.

I’ve spent years in and out of treatment. A lot of my friends didn’t survive relapse. I’m not saying that to be dramatic. It’s just the truth.

So we never know whether someone coming through our doors is beginning a new life or receiving end-of-life care.

I wanted everyone who came into that kitchen to be treated with dignity and professionalism.

Along with serving the public, we also train vocational students—clients who are well into recovery. They’ve completed residential treatment, moved through outpatient care and are usually nine to 12 months sober.

They can work alongside us for up to a year as part of their continued recovery.

What has been the most rewarding part of building Café Gozhó?

The most rewarding part is that we built it ourselves.

I was fortunate enough to design the kitchen and help create much of the clinical framework.

Our clinical director at the time wasn’t Native, but he was in recovery himself. He grew up on a farm and had worked as a line cook, so when I started describing the connection between cooking, technical skill and recovery, he immediately understood what we were trying to do.

One of my favorite parts is our recovery cooking group. For two hours, one of our chefs and I lead a class. We spend about 15 minutes talking about a recovery concept and introducing a recipe. Then everyone cooks together. Afterward, we sit down and eat together.

We travel around the world through food, and wherever we go, we also talk about the Indigenous foods that are part of those cuisines.

People get excited making gumbo, étouffée, classic French dishes, ramen and pizza—all while learning about the Indigenous ingredients that shaped those foods.

They get to eat together. Sometimes they bring their families. Sometimes they take food home. Watching people light up like that is the most rewarding use of the building.

It’s pure poetry in motion.

What’s been the hardest part of this work?

The hardest part is challenging the ways we’ve all internalized colonization. Many of the foods that became staples in Native communities weren’t chosen freely.

Flour, gravy, fry bread, beef, coffee, potatoes and rice often became staples because our traditional food systems were disrupted through violence, forced relocation and government policies.

People were pushed away from hunting, fishing, farming and gathering. Those food choices became part of survival. Several generations later, we’ve internalized those traditions.

I’m not trying to demonize those foods. They’re part of our history now. I’m on the side of nutrition and wellness that teaches rather than shames.

I’d rather educate people and encourage informed choices, moderation and balance. The challenge is helping people understand that fresh corn, beans, squash, tomatoes and chiles aren’t “white people food.”

Those are Indigenous foods. Changing that mindset is difficult because it’s rooted in survival, trauma and family history.

But we’re making progress. Not just here. Across Native America.

We’re one small part of a much larger movement.

That’s exciting.