At Mother’s Cooking Experience
Alby Alawoya’s twist braids swing a little as she pivots from table to table on Northtown Coffee’s patio (1603 G St., Arcata). She and her mother, Monique Sutton, run Mother’s Cooking Experience out of the café’s kitchen and alongside its baristas. They serve breakfasts and lunches six days a week, stock and prep on their off day, and take on catering gigs once the café closes in the late afternoon. Once a month, they also host prix fixe, multi-course Afro-Cuban dinners with music and dancing — the “experience” part of the name, to “tell the story” of the food and its cultures. It’s a lot of work for a two-person operation, but Alawoya and Sutton are on a mission. That mission is ultimately one of independence: to purchase property on which Alawoya and Sutton can grow produce for Mother’s Cooking Experience, putting Sutton’s sovereignty-geared garden experience to work. But the immediate target is a food truck, for which the mother and daughter duo are trying to raise $30,000 through fundraising, sales and events, including hosting a pop-up Waffles and Wings brunch at Septentrio Winery on Sunday, Oct. 23. Alawoya, who owns the business and handles the marketing, bookkeeping and most of the shopping, commutes an hour from her home in Klamath, where she lives “with goats and chickens and dogs.” She grew up in Los Angeles and originally came to Humboldt for a business degree from Humboldt State University. After graduating, she moved around between New York and Georgia, then back to Los Angeles, where she was a project manager for Sweetgreen restaurants. In 2019, she returned to Humboldt, where she saw an opening in the marketplace. Alawoya also does prep work and “whatever my mom tells me to do,” she says with a laugh, adding she’s proud to have been trusted with the job of saucier. The recipes and the menu are all up to her mother. While she admits sometimes they “bump heads,” she says she and her mother have always been close. Even during her rebellious teen years, “My mom always kept a tribe of strong, opinionated friends around and no one ever let me disrespect my mom.” Today, they also share a good working rhythm. Sutton learned to cook from her maternal grandparents, who were born in Cuba and worked in domestic service in the U.S. “I always loved to be in the kitchen with my…