a conversation with Chef Q. Ibra
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Apply the traits of a child from a Jewish mother fused with Middle Eastern teachings to a black woman in the Mid - West and you’d get Chef Q. Ibraheem. Culinary art school was a farm in Georgia, a chair to stand on over the stove top while being taught recipes in her mother’s kitchen and her father’s halal poultry shop in Detroit’s Eastern Market, America’s largest farmers market. Chef Q’s hospitality career began immediately after high school in Greek restaurants where she began in the front of the house. Determined to cook she applied for a culinary apprenticeship where she was given the opportunity to apprentice with a Top Chef. Traveling through the restaurant scenes in Detroit, Atlanta, and Chicago she scored a position at Michelin starred Elizabeth and moved quickly to another kitchen to work as an Executive Sous Chef. After acquiring the skills for training staff that became kitchen teams she became an Executive Sous Chef, Executive chef and then Corporate Executive Chef at P.S. It’s Social a restaurant training program for ex-offenders and at - risk young adults
Community
Chef Q develops culinary art curricula for workforce development programs and 501c3’s that focus on cultural awareness through food diversity. Her curricula has been implemented by Oakton Community College / Workforce Development Department where she began a new passion as a culinary art instructor. She showcases her culinary, educational and agricultural backgrounds at private dinner tables as Owner & Executive Chef of Teertsemasesottehg - Secret Location Underground Supper Club and employs youth that have completed her culinary training programs. Chef Q.Ibraheem serves as President on the board of The Evanston Food Exchange, an organization that focuses on 86’n food insecurity. She is also the Operations Manager of the Foster Street Urban Agriculture Program.
