REVISTA PALMAS_66 ABRIL 2022

YIA
NEW CHEF AT WYNDHAM
By Lissette Rosado, Editor
Her real name is Gymara Medina
but due to problems with
pronunciation they call her Yia-- it
was easier. Originally from Isabela,
and from a big family, she was
forced to leave after Hurricane
Maria. She was chef at the Ritz
Carlton Reserve, but the hotel
was destroyed by Maria, thus she
became unemployed. After two
months, they decided to send
their three kids with her family to
Texas so that she could finish her
academic year. During this time
they were sleeping in their car,
on the hotel premises. “The hotel,
in exchange for our work of picking
up debris, allowed us use the
showers, prepared food for us and
provide us with wifi,” Chef Medina
tells us. The hotel then relocated
her to the Dallas Ritz Carlton.
SURPRISE
YOUR PALATE!
Her career as a chef...
Yia didn’t study culinary arts; it
was life who took her there. She
just listened to the signs. “Never
in my life had I thought I was
going to end up as a chef! I came
from a musical family, so I thought
I was going to be a singer but then
decided to study Education at the
UPR to be an English as a Second
Language teacher, which I did for
five years. But again, I realized
that I hadn’t found my place in
the world. I realized that I hadn’t
found what would wake me up every
morning enthusiastically,” Yia
says. So, she decided to pursue
her passion. Or so she thought.
At this point she decided to study
criminology and law! But, as a student,
she worked as a waitress in a
restaurant. “Until this point, I had
never cooked anything, not even
a Chef Boyardee spaghetti can,”
she said and laughed. But life had
other plans for Yia. One day, one
of the chefs got mad in the kitchen
and left. Yia thought to herself, “I
have been observing how they do
this for years, it should not be that
hard!” And she did it!!! She went
to the kitchen and by imitation
and years of observations started
doing it. When she put on that
apron for the first time... it was
a revelation. She understood, at
that moment, that this is what she
wanted to do in her life!
This time, she didn’t go back
to school; she became an autodidact.
She started from zero but her
passion for the kitchen gave her
numerous opportunities—things
she never dreamt of. “I learned
a lot at the Ritz Carlton. I worked
with a chef that not only taught
me a lot of cooking, but he always
told me: ‘Anybody could follow a
recipe. The hard part is the administrative
part of the kitchen—it is
what many chefs don’t learn, and
it is what makes them fail.’ He
made me look at the numbers,
analyze the food cost, employees,
“When I wore
that apron for the
first time...it was
like a revelation I
understood...this
is what I want to
do in my life!"