"Transitions" with #QueersInTheKitchen Founder Chef Paxx Caraballo Moll
Name: Paxx Caraballo Moll / @paxxito
Location: San Juan, Puerto Rico
Sign: Sagittarius
Details: Owner and Chef at Jungle Bao Bao in Puerto Rico, Food and Wines Best New Chefs 2019, James Beard nominee
Fav food cook : anything fish, crudo, cooked fish, coconut rice with seared Capitan with a little lemon and hot sauce. Simple.
You can read the session yourself or listen to the read below <3
Our night started at La Factoria in San Juan where we drank through the bartender Ricardo's shift. We sort out our tab, get another round and see him off. I see Ricardo from the corner of my eye in the bar window having an espresso and checking his phone. I try to give my crew a heads up what I'm thinking; "I'm gonna go chat with the bartender real quick and ask him if he knows any spots owned by women." My friends give me the: we are on vacation and have been here 8 hours look. I go anyway. "You gotta meet Paxx.." Ricardo tells me as he calls over the bar manager Carlos and the two start rattling off a list of places I need to take my squad while we are in town. "Hold on let me get a group chat going with all of us..." he says as he hands me his phone and instructs me to add my Instagram handle to the chat. The next thing I know I'm in a group chat with chefs, bar managers, restaurant owners, bartenders... Hold on I'll add Maria... If you have time you should go to ........" is the last thing I hear as we are being shuffled into a taxi on our way to JungleBird. A tiki-themed, neon bar Puerto Ricos La Placita district, where "Chef Paxx" runs Jungle Bao Bao
We walk in and I knew immediately we were gonna love it here. Beautiful drinks adorned with umbrellas are being passed around, the staff is all gorgeous, fun, and welcoming. No one is throwing off cool kid vibes here, though they all could be. There's neon (I'm a sucker for neon) and tiki lights. It's perfect.
I meet Paxx who runs their restaurant in the bar space, during the middle of Friday night service. La Placita is bumping, and quickly through the window, I begin yelling over the incoming orders I tell them my name, how I got to them, why I'm there. "Ok, you wanna eat???" Paxx yells back through the bustling of orders and pickups. I shake my head up and down, "Of course I do." Confession. We aren't even hungry. We just came from a huge meal of lobster and steaks but we are here and I know better than to refuse food from a chef. Plus I know something here can sober me up.
We order a sampler of crack eggplant, Frito, crab and grilled cheese sandwiches, plus daiquiris. The food barely lasts a minute on the table before we all start feeding one another "The this... OMG did you have this?!? That eggplant tho....." I don't even manage to get a bite of the grilled cheese sandwiches because they're gone before I can get to my phone to take a picture. My loss. We eat, we drink, we party with the staff, and that night our little squad found "our spot" for the rest of the trip.
The next day I'm set to meet up with Paxx after having just spent six hours on a boat and a four hour car trip from Parguera. The day has kicked my whole ass. As I arrive they are closing up because the nights been slow and they ran out of cooking gas. I walk in and Paxx motions to the ticket orders "Seven tickets tonight..." I've seen that look before, I've seen it on my friend's faces on many nights at close. I've been there myself, on a seven-ticket night and seventeen dollars in tips to match. Nothing kills the mood like a slow night. Attempting to offset the vibe, I try and switch it up. "I was just on a boat all day and got my period, fun times." Paxx looks past the tickets and at me " Oh that sucks. I know what that's like ..... I used to get my period after all". We both smile at one another and simultaneously start unconsciously straightening up the areas in front of us and I ask if they're still up for this? Paxx is more upset the gas is out and they can't cook for me and while I'm starving, it is what it is. We grab a few beers, walk to the back patio and find a place to talk. I feel like I'm someplace I've already been a hundred times. There is a calm, a grounded feeling, and serene wave that catches up with me for the first time since I landed on the island. We just start talking and the convo flows.
“I ran a marathon, I slept, did a 5K, and then prepped and did a dinner for 1200 people.
”
Paxx means Peace in Latin and is the name they have given themselves since their transition. I ask why they chose the name, Paxx. "Everyone needs a little more peace in their lives", they tell me. Our conversation goes the path of two people whose lives have crossed at some point before. Going off on tangents, talking about food, then off to relationships, restaurants we love, owners we know, our childhoods, my current obsession with pizza, our religious upbringing & our personal journeys with sex and sexuality. We laugh together about the good cry I had in my kitchen the night before we left because the pizza I made tasted like complete shit. While my new friend encourages me to get back at it when I get home "You know how many things I make in that kitchen that don't even make it out? And they get mad at me cause they want to eat it and I'm like no throw it out..... No, it's good food, eat it they tell me. Throw it out, I say. They reassure me. You have to Keep at it. You have to keep going. Cooks are the shit..baby It could be better. I can always be better."
How did you get into all this?
“I've been cooking since my early twenties, nineteen years in the industry with no professional training. I tried to go to culinary school for three months in PR and did not last. I knew I could learn more from my chefs teaching me and being hands-on. When I was working, while in school I was working for one of the top chefs here - I felt like the people at school held that against me. I also dropped out of art school. I'm not good with academia - I'm one of those people the professors would love and by the end of the semester, they're super pissed and like you're not even going to your class. You can't watch two shows and do a little research and try to open a kitchen without knowing anything it's not gonna work. You need to ask a lot of questions, learn stuff, bring a notebook to your job and ask stuff and write, and read a lot. I would say you have to go to a lot of kitchens and learn as much as you can.”
What made you love cooking?
“I love my grandmother, ‘cause we used to cook a lot together. So I would say my grandmother and she wasn't a fine dining cook but she would make pretty amazing stuff. Very simple stuff, tasty and beautiful. I'd be cooking with her, but I never thought I'd be in the kitchen world, I thought I'd be an art person. I guess this was fate.”
Did you have the concept for Jungle Bao planned out, how you wanted it to look and feel?
“The staff is very diverse, The staff is queer, and that wasn’t intentional. It happened so unintentionally which I love.”
We start talking about Paxx's recent award from Food And Wine and what it meant to be on the cover of a magazine. How life changes after receiving accolades from your industry. How transitioning has impacted them personally, their career, and how no one gives you the playbook on how to navigate these moments. Mostly because it doesn't exist. Earlier in the evening, Paxx had shown me the cover of the magazine they just graced "If this helps one kid in Montana to see someone like themselves in the kitchen, that's great." and how sometimes just seeing someone who looks like you, doing anything, can make all the difference - but there is also pressure that comes with that. They talk to me about what has come with their life being transgender. How figuring yourself out, without sexuality involved, regardless of how you identify can be hard for anyone, and what it's like now moving through all of this while being a bit in the public eye.
Do you think people are more focused on your sexuality or how you identify vs your food in certain moments?
“Yes, I'm trans, but it shouldn't have to be about me being trans. It should be about me giving you a beautiful meal that not only looks good but tastes amazing and will satisfy you. I don't see myself as a role model, but shit if I threw myself out there and have this ‘Queers in the Kitchen’ hashtag... I have to measure my words, cause I don't want to fuck up a person’s life. If I can be a mentor or role model..shit..ok. I'm still learning and I have no idea what I'm doing, after all, that's been happening. I'm navigating, it took me a long time to come out as trans...Thirteen years and it was one of the most scariest things I've ever done in my life, but I don't regret anything... it was very necessary. I was very scared to come out because of family and religion. I was assigned as female at birth, it's not black a white for me. I just don’t like presenting as female. I will defend women..I can be your friend if your boyfriend sucks and you need someone to listen. I’ll be there for you.”
“This all feels very crazy. Im like 40...I need to make up time… and then in 20 years be able to rest in peace. I also need a vacation… the last two vacations were to Aspen and New York...to work.
”
We talk about industries, our upbringing, and how everyone in their own way has been told at some point to not be themselves. Either because of religion, family, shame, it's not the "norm", or because no one else around you is doing it. They talk about being traumatized by religion. What that does to you, your soul, and living while not really living. How finding your squad and people that are accepting of you and foster your growth is so important. Finding "family" outside of the family. How when you repress parts of your true self for so long, that sometimes we don't know even where to even begin to find ourselves. Our patio session has turned confessional and we both start talking about things you feel safer telling a stranger than someone you see every day. I admit "You know when I was really pursuing photography, and I was doing gallery shows and stuff I didn't tell people I was a nurse. So I played it down and would have people call me Dee, which I hated, I don't even like the name Dee, I wouldn't let anyone call me that as a kid. And I wouldn't say I was a nurse, like at the art galleries, like it wouldn't make me seem cool - being a nurse." Paxx starts laughing....…"Saving lives...Yeah, Mami...that's not cool at all." We reflect on how some of the things we disliked about our own childhood experiences have shaped us in ways that have also benefited us or created parts of our personalities that we wouldn't have otherwise. Paxx shares that they were raised Seven Day Aventis "I was raised a vegan in the 90s, which sucked. I rebelled a lot because of religion which is crazy because now I'm a pescatarian/vegetarian - I don't eat meat. It's not even my 10th choice. But mostly what you see on the menu is what I want to eat. "
I bring up the Donas Project and how I don't really know what to do with it. That I set out on this little adventure that has me in the backyard of a restaurant in the rain with a pretty amazing human. I ask if they have any advice for me? "You gotta go beyond people that have already been over showcased. Cause everywhere you go and every city there are the few people that are only getting the top news. Show them the people who aren't but you think should." Next thing you know they have my notebook in hand and are writing down bands I need to check out (Paxx is even in one of their music videos), a list of restaurants I need to eat at, along with contacts from San Juan to San Diego. I could sit here forever but that beer is almost finished and I'm not pushing my luck. I take a minute to be present, I think "my therapist would be proud of that" and look around the restaurant patio where we have been sitting. I take it in. With the humidity hitting, condensation slides down the Heineken bottle and I hear Carlos in my head, "When you go to see Paxx bring a six-pack of Heineken... and you'll be fine." I gesture to their beer, as they wipe the sweat off of it. "I was supposed to bring you Heinekens. Damn, I forgot." With that, I finally get the nerve to say what has been on my mind since we met the other night, so I just blurt it out -- "You know how people say they saw Michael Jordan play before he was Michael Jordan?" They look up at me as I lean in like it's some secret between us. "I feel like that's what's happening right now. .... like I'm meeting a Michael Jordan before the contract." Paxx clinks my half-empty bottle and motions back to me "Same; Mami".”
“If you have the camera and the sensibility to give a voice to the people you’re drawn to, it doesn’t matter if their trans, cis, gay, straight, woman or a man try to do something that humanizes people and tell their stories and the people that are not being represented right.”
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