La Oaxaqueña

02/08/2025

Mama Rosa Oliva came into this world on February 4th. Help me wish a happy birthday this Aquarius Season! Aquarius is the water bearer and they have a very strong sense of community, they are visionaries! Mama came far in life, being the only person from her siblings to leave the coast of Oaxaca to go to the City of Mexico in search for economic opportunity. She did seamstress work for many years before migrating to California in 1993 where she did all kinds of odd jobs to put food on the table before staring her own food business, ‘La Oaxaqueña.’
If you eat her delicious food when she lived in California, you were blessed.
Mama is the Matriarch of our family and she has taken care of so many people on her time here on earth and sharing her story to advocate for support from the Bay Area community. The truck she drove cross country from California to Oaxaca, Mexico broke down and needs a new transmission. Please help me to uplift her at this time! Money can be donated via Zelle for the mechanic repairs! (510) 501-3969

12/10/2022

Sweet gifts come wrapped in banana-leaves!! Tamales Oaxaqueños de mole en hoja de plátano! Keeping our Ancestral traditions alive!! We’re taking orders for the Holidays!! We’ll be offering chicken mole, pork mole and a plant based tamales made with mushrooms and poblano. 🪅🙌🏾💫🫔

12/06/2022

Hello my Oakland, Bay Area Community,

Many of you know and love my Madre Rosa Oliva. She has lived and worked in the Bay Area since 1993 and it’s come time for her to slow down and retire and in 2023, Mama will move back to Oaxaca, Mexico to do just that- retire. This fundraiser is to help support her move and relocation. Thank you in advance for your generosity.

All of you know that my mother has a strong community and entrepreneurial spirit and she and I have ran La Oaxaquena, a small food business in Oakland and the East Bay for many years. Sadly, the increasing cost of ingredients makes it very challenging to continue to run a food business. That plus the general cost of living in the Bay Area and the current economy means she cannot retire here, even though in her heart this place is her second home.

She’ll be retiring in Oaxaca where she has a casita that will allow her to stop working and move into a space of ease and rest that she deserves and that is long over due.

Mama has fed hundreds of people over the years with her delicious mole sauce and tamales, rooted in the flavors of Oaxaca. Please say thank you by making a contribution to this gofundme to help her with the transition back to Oaxaca, Mexico. She will be traveling by land brining some of her belongings and we also need part of the money to get all the paperwork lined up for the vehicle to stay in Mexico which is $2,500.00

Again, thank you kindly for your generous support!!

Rosa + Carolina

Hello my beautiful community, Many of you know and love my Madre Rosa Ol… Carolina Santos needs your support for Retirement in our Ancestral home Oaxaca.

10/21/2022

Día de los Mu***os Season is almost here!! The veil is thinning! If you would like to tamali and/or mole offerings for your altars please come find us at the downtown Berkeley farmer’s market this Saturday 10am-3pm or place an order to pick up on Tuesday in West Oakland. ***os

09/29/2022

Quesadillas de flor de calabaza!!

09/29/2022

Fall is here and the changing seasons reminds us of the importance of return to Earth centered gastronomy, we are also mindful of the seasons, mindful of the elements! That being said I'm here just to remind you that we're still vending at the downtown Berkeley farmer's market every Saturday and that we are available for catering events!! Dia de los Mu***os is around the corner and one of my favorite time of the year!!! If you know of any vending opportunities where we can do pop-ups please keep us in mind.
Rosa y Carolina

09/01/2022

Chapulines saladitos con limon y chile!!

12/09/2021

During this cold fall/winter months eating caldos, soups, pozole is a good way to get nourishment and to uplift the spirit. 📸

12/09/2021

Grateful for our Ancestral traditions and mom’s cooking that comes from the Heart. I truly believe that cooking from the heart is a gift and you can taste on the food.
Oaxaca is one of the places Mexico where our Indigenous Roots are alive and well. Thank you for your ongoing support trough all that we are living during this time of great shifts. 📸

07/28/2020

“Everywhere in Mexico tamales are fiesta food-the equivalent of "Lets celebrate!"

The further south you go in the country, the more amazing and inventive the range of different tamales becomes.

The usual concept of a tamal is that it's masa mixture, with or without other ingredients, cooked in a steamer inside a folded packet of leaves or husks. But Oaxacan Tamales are not limited to that. There are tamales that regional variations are dizzying. In Teotitlitlan del Valle we have tamales in the Valley Zapoteca style that are made by forming thin corn tortillas, topping with some Mole Amarillo and shredded chicken and elegantly rolling them in cornstalk leaves to create a virtually fatless dish probably very close to Oaxaca's pre-Hispanic roots.

Banana-leaf tamales are popular everywhere. (Bananas, like almonds, were brought to Oaxaca from the Old World by the Spanish.) The leaf releases oils in cooking that lend a delicate aroma to the food. I am very fond of this fragant quality and often switch around traditional wrappers and contents, pairing up banana leaves with fillings that would traditionally be cooked in corn husk.”

- Zarela Martinez "The food and Life of Oaxaca" 1997

07/23/2020

The Berkeleyside recently wrote an article about the many challenges small business/entrepreneurs/artist/creatives are facing during these shifting paradigms. Both moms and I expressed our perspectives! AND when I got the mike I didn’t not hold back. One of the most important and profound questions was, How do you both feel about the future?

Rosa Oliva: The economics have been incredibly challenging. The money is not flowing and I don’t think things have improved all that much since the start of the pandemic. But I still have hope that I can save enough money to pay off the land for a house back in Oaxaca. I want to move back there in two or three years. I don’t see a future myself here in the U.S. I need to get out, I need to get my peace. That’s why I want to go back to my homeland.

Carolina Santos: “I’m both excited and nervous for the future. I’m excited to create a new economy. I believe the systems that are in place are not here to serve Black and brown people but I think it’s going to be very chaotic before we get our bearings for what comes next. The pandemic has exposed the injustice and corruption is ingrained in the American culture and systems that we live under. I believe that another world is possible in my heart. I guess in that sense I’m a dreamer.”