In 2018, Curtis Cardinal launched Tee Pee Treats, a catering company in Edmonton that focuses on Indigenous meals and dishes with Indigenous influences.By the age of eight, Theresa Contois was tall enough to reach the controls on her family’s kitchen stove. To her parents, that meant it was time to cook.
Cedar Feast House has since expanded and it continues to serve Indigenous dishes such as rhubarb BBQ pulled-bison sliders, pumpkin-crusted halibut, and wild-rice cranberry salads, in the province and beyond. There are plans to launch a mobile trailer to make food even more accessible to Vancouver residents.
Cardinal, who is Whitefish Lake First Nations, grew up in Slave Lake and other northern Alberta communities. In 2018, he launched Tee Pee Treats, a catering company in Edmonton that focuses on Indigenous meals and dishes with Indigenous influences. Bannock donairs, chili, and bannock berry cake are just some of the foods Cardinal excels at, thanks to the cooking techniques his mother and aunties taught him.
Cardinal, too, faced obstacles. He says his childhood was marked by constant moving due to his parents’ separation, and he experienced the tragic loss of a close cousin in a drinking and driving accident. This death, Cardinal says, led to alcohol addiction, which he eventually resolved in 2012, after three attempts at rehabilitation and being taken care of by family.
In 2021 she says the loss of her mother, a Sixties Scoop survivor, and the discovery of unmarked graves at former residential school sites, intensified her commitment to her culinary project, Cedar Spoon Indigenous Catering.