While working in South Florida, she gained a valuable understanding of Latin food and culture. While working at a Caribbean restaurant, she learned about the food: Cuban, Puerto Rican, and Dominican, among others. She also developed a good tolerance for Scotch Bonnet chilies and other spicy items. Though she enjoyed her six years cooking at various top Miami
most incredible thing she had ever eaten in her life, despite being made from only eggs and salt. It was really rewarding because it was something she had made. That feeling carried her first to Johnson & Wales University in Rhode Island for a degree in food service management, then onward to work in Miami, and eventually to settle in New York City.
experiments helped her tremendously. The first thing Chef Fernandes made herself, however, was decidedly more traditional. It was scrambled eggs. “I don’t know why, but I have the perfect third-person view of me getting up on the kitchen counter stool,” she says. “And my mother showing me how to stir it.” It was the
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