To Paola Vélez, New York City begins in the bodega corners of Kingsbridge Heights, Bronx. Raised in an environment with three neighborhood shops, she remembers not just the snacks and staples, but the core of the community.

“Everybody knew everybody. When someone did not have a dollar, the owner of the bodega would tell him not to worry, it was an IOU, and they would not cash it in,” Vélez says. The lesson of that generosity was the kind of chef she would grow up to be, and that kindness and community are as basic as flour and sugar. To Vélez, bodegas were not merely shops but a "third space”, something that cannot be found to change in an ever-changing city.

That early influence shaped her journey as a chef. Vélez was born to a Dominican mother and grew up in New York; she was trained o

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