Cynthia Nirel Chico is a raw gourmet chef from Living Light Culinary Institute. She has been a raw food enthusiast since 1999, after years of searching for improved health and vitality. She discovered that she could eat her favorite foods if prepared vegan raw that doctors told her she could not eat due to her health condition. Two of these preferred foods are chocolate and chiles.

Chef Nirel recalls her childhood years most spent in her mother’s kitchen where her love for preparing food flourished. “For me there was no other person, other than my grandfather who owned one of the first Mexican Restaurants on the southeast side of Chicago, who was as great a cook as my wonderful mom.”