About Cassidy

Cassidy sees food as reciprocal, and a community-builder. As a chef, sourdough baker, food equity advocate, and PhD student in Geography at the University of New Mexico, Cassidy engages with the world through the lens of community & food. Cassidy is a social scientist, and her PhD research focuses on how land-based communities come together in crises, especially in climate-induced disasters. She is a research fellow with the Robert Mallory Center for Community Geography, the PATHWAYS cross-cultural research exchange of Transect of the Americas, and the Transformation Network– a transdisciplinary research network that explores resilience for headwaters-dependent communities.

In 2020, Cassidy founded Masa Madrina in Albuquerque, NM-- a pay-what-you-can food service -- as a response to the Pandemic. Masa Madrina has evolved into a food project offering community-based food events and on-farm supper clubs with a mutual aid focus. Masa Madrina partners with local farmers and community organizations to bring local food and seasonal flavors to folks in the Albuquerque and Santa Fe. In 2020, she co-founded the ABQ Resilience Box Project, a mutual-aid, local food box that has connected nearly 500 households to local food and circulated $45,000 in the local food economy.

Cassidy has worked in farm and food education and policy for over a decade, including with the National Young Farmers Coalition. She is a committed educator, devoted to co-education and community-engaged praxis. She teaches World Regional Geography at UNM, and has developed science-based, public scholarship curriculums in cultural foodways of the Southwest and food sovereignty movements for Cottonwood Gulch (Thoreau, NM), Reunity Resources (Santa Fe, NM), Mountain Roots Food Project (Gunnison, CO), and Eleven (Crested Butte, CO), among others. 

Cassidy grew up on an organic mixed-vegetable and flower farm outside of Boulder, Colo. (historic lands of the Cheyenne and Apache). Her childhood Saturdays were spent at farmers market hocking salad greens, and her play time with her siblings was running through the irrigation ditch. Yet, it was not until she became involved in a community garden project in Crested Butte, Colo. that she understood the privilege of her childhood to know and be with the land. Her love of food and cooking was an evolution of watching and tasting the food of many strong women in her family, including the atole, green chile, biscochitos y más of her great-aunt and godmother, Henrietta Cochon Martinez of Arroyo Hondo, NM (unceded Pueblo land)— whom Masa Madrina is named for. She has her mom to thank for teaching her how to fry an egg, make a lasagna for a crowd, and the superiority of a hand-whipped cream.

Cassidy holds BA in Journalism and Political Science from the University of Colorado (Boulder) and a Masters in Environmental Management (MEM) from Western Colorado University (Gunnison, Colo.). She writes for Edible New Mexico, makes “adventure snacks” (aka the best picnics) for all her friends, is learning to garden in Zone 7, and is a mom to Ham the Cat and her chickens, Frida Kahlo, Dolores Huerta, Valerie June, Harriet Tubman, Sylvia Pajoli, and Hedda Peterson. She is a board member for Rio Grande Community Farm, member of the UNM Gradworkers Union and works in community with the ABQ Free Fridge. She lives in the South Valley of Albuquerque, NM.

More Tidbits on Cass:

• I’ve utilized movement and dance my whole life to center and ground myself. Growing up dancing, I was surprised to find a thriving movement community in the ski town I moved to after college, Crested Butte, Colo. My favorite movements modalities include partner-based improv, and West African, Guinean, Afro-Cuban, and Bachata rhythms, dance and song .

• In 2019, I received my 200-hr. yoga certificate in Bhakti Yoga. I followed this up with a 50-hr. Yin yoga training. For me, yoga is not about asana. It is about humble mindfulness and understanding our greater connection to all beings and things.

• I am a Reiki Level II energy worker. What this means is I chose to connect with the underlining energetic vibrations of myself, others and the planet. This work has informed my perspective of community care, reciprocity, and solidarity.

• I am a “self-taught” cook and baker, meaning I learned from observing and absorbing from many, many amazing homecooks and honing my palate at street food stands and in the kitchens of those willing to let me be a fly on the wall. I also paid my dues on the restaurant kitchen line. My parent’s farm and catering business was my training ground as a young person. In my 20’s, my audience grew from complimentary friends at potlucks, to 400-people enjoying a local slow roasted pig and all the fixings I prepared at the annual Fall Harvest Festival, Vinotok in Crested Butte. In 2017, I co-founded The Supperclub Collective, a pop-up dinner business, gathering community around food in unique, whimsical locations. This has evolved into the Masa Madrina Food Project today.

• I began baking sourdough bread in 2019, while in Peru. My starter hails from Larapata Mountain, in the Amazonian Forest of Southeastern Peru. It was a gift from my original sourdough teacher, Elton. My “Masa Madre” (the word for sourdough starter in Spanish, meaning ‘mother dough’) is named Rhastacana, and is now thriving in Albuquerque, NM.

• In 2018, a personal health crisis confirmed for me both the powers of stress to deteriorate, and the power of self-love to rebuild. My work today, from academia to food projects, is a direct extension from this experience.