She runs the Nutrition Lab at the Boston Public Library in Roxbury

I had no idea that the Boston Public Library had a chef in residence — which is so exciting, given the funding pressures that libraries face right now. What does your job entail?
Now, she shares her culinary and academic talents with the Boston Public Library, where she’s the newest chef-in-residence. She runs the Nutrition Lab at their Roxbury branch, cultivating cooking programs and teaching nutritional literacy. She’s also conducting research on Mashpee Wampanoag foodways to inform future library classes. She chatted about her favorite MIT hangouts, most loathed garnish, and goals for the library’s nutrition program.
Somerville’s Kayla Tabb, 28, came east from California to study at MIT. But she soon traded a potential career in STEM for anthropology, research, and cooking: After MIT, she attended Boston University’s pastry program, worked as a plant-based recipe developer at meal-delivery service Purple Carrot, crafted sweets at The Lexington and Vinal Bakery, and conducted cancer research at Cambridge’s Whitehead Institute.
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I’m the new chef-in-residence at Boston Public Library, specifically the Roxbury branch. I work out of their Nutrition Lab, which is a teaching kitchen. My job is twofold. I partly run programming, cooking classes, and things like that for the community. In fact, we’ll have our first community listening session, where we figure out what it is the community wants to see coming out of the Nutrition Lab, [this week].
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The other half of my job is actually conducting research for kitchen kits that library employees can use to teach their own classes. My project is exploring seafood in the Mashpee Wampanoag foodways. The Nutrition Lab specifically asked for a focus on indigenous populations this year, and I had some experience working in indigenous environments and populations in the past. I figured, since we’re on the coast and we’re in Massachusetts, it would be really exciting to look at the way that the indigenous populations of New England cook seafood. I feel like it’s a space and a culture that’s not highlighted very often.
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Tell me what the Nutrition Lab does.
The main goal is to increase nutrition literacy. I can see how the Nutrition Lab or having a teaching kitchen at the library feels a little funky, but if you frame it in terms of increasing nutritional literacy, teaching people how to cook, how to feed themselves, it’s the hub for that. There are demonstrations and hands-on classes, providing learning opportunities and a space to develop these life and work skills. It’s a great way to gather, meet new friends, and have a lot of fun cooking food.
What led you here?
My background is in anthropology and research. And I’ve always loved libraries. I found out about this [job] through a Substack, Thinking Food Jobs, that’s run by a professor with BU’s food and wine program, which is where I went to pastry school.
I started cooking at a very young age. My mom actually helped me start my first business at 13, baking cakes and delivering them around the San Francisco Bay area to help me pay for a summer class in web design at UC Berkeley.
I had been told for so long that I couldn‘t pursue a career in food, that it didn‘t feel lucrative enough or like the right path for me. I was equally excited about chemistry and science, so I came to Boston because I went to MIT for undergrad.
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I originally enrolled as a chemical engineering major. I realized I didn‘t like STEM all that much, except for thinking about the chemistry of food. I took kitchen chemistry at MIT; I took food anthropology classes and things like that. I cared a lot more about learning about people and humans and culture and the development of culture over time, and how food plays a role in that.
[After graduation], I was part of BU’s inaugural pastry program class and then moved into restaurants and production. I worked in Vinal Bakery in Somerville, and I worked at the Lexington and Cafe Beatrice with Boston‘s best pastry chef, Brian Mercury. And, after that, I moved into recipe development at Purple Carrot, because it would get me closer to the kind of research and analytical work that I prefer. And now I’m here as a chef in residence.
I used to do cancer lab research at the Whitehead Institute, and I find that working in a test kitchen is actually quite similar. My anthropology background ended up being the perfect fit, especially for this role, in terms of connecting with the community and doing research on indigenous foodways.
How do you hope to impact the world with this new job?
I think that the library is trying to position themselves as kind of a one-stop-shop, a hub for all things education and knowledge.
I learned how to cook from reading cookbooks and checking out books from the library, and now there’s just a space for somebody to do that, hands-on, with a demonstration and with an actual teacher. I’m excited to be able to connect with the community and offer classes on how to incorporate nutrition into their own cultural context, especially since our primary audience is the Roxbury community.
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I’m really excited about being able to showcase Caribbean and other places around the African diaspora, West Africa, African American cuisines, things like that, and to teach how to cook food in a way that feels good for themselves.
I think that there’s a lot of food media that tells you exactly how to do things: This is the best way; this is the right way. The Nutrition Lab is like: ‘Here’s one way, and we encourage you to take that and make it your own.’
I’ve spoken to friends who wish that there was something like the Nutrition Lab around when they were kids, so that they would have learned how to cook before they became adults.
There are a lot of people who are constantly confused by the messaging being put out by diet culture. There are lots of negative things around food and diet, and the Nutrition Lab is a space for us to be excited about food and cooking holistically, outside of counting calories.
Let’s talk about MIT for a minute. What’s it like on the inside?
It was insane to go there. I was the first person from my high school ever to be accepted. Coming from California to Massachusetts was a big deal.
I did not have a good first year emotionally. It can be a lot, but I think that one of the best parts about MIT is that they do such a great job at finding some of the most inspiring and talented and amazing human beings from all around the world. The closest friends that I’ve made were all basically MIT students. My partner went to MIT as well; she’s an electrical engineer. I had great opportunities while I was in school there. I worked at the Whitehead Institute as an undergrad. I was even able to live and work right off of the Navajo reservation for a summer, doing research out there. I had great opportunities that I wouldn‘t have had going anywhere else. And I was a founding member of my sorority chapter on campus, which was a big legacy for me. Now, we’ve got a house, which is still on campus: Delta Phi Epsilon.
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When you had time to eat, where did you hang out?
I definitely had time to eat. When I lived in my sorority house, we spent a lot of time at UBURGER — I’m not sure if it’s still there, on Beacon Street. I loved it. The frozen yogurt at Cafe 472 is famous and notorious on MIT’s campus. All the students love that frozen yogurt. I also ate a lot at Beantown Taqueria and Anna’s Taqueria. Especially coming from California, they were the closest to the Mexican food that I grew up with, and so I ate a lot of burritos there. I missed my Mission-style burritos. Oh! And Flour. I love Joanne Chang. Especially as a pastry person, Flour can do no wrong.
What’s your burrito order?
I usually get the super burrito at Anna’s with cheese, carnitas, rice, beans, sour cream, guacamole, hot sauce, and fajita veggies, if they have it.
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I’m really anti-lettuce in a burrito. No lettuce for me. That’s not the way that we do it in California, at least. There’s just something about the crunch that I’m not a super huge fan of. It gets so soggy, so fast; it wilts with all of the hot ingredients wrapped up in the burrito.
Tell me about your views on the Boston-area food scene. What do you think is really good, and where could we improve?
I think that there’s a lot of diversity in the Boston food scene. I think, especially coming from the West Coast, there were a lot of cuisines that I had never tried before: Haitian food, Brazilian food, Irish food, even the Italian food in the North End. Boston does Italian food very, very well.
Maybe this is just me being a little homesick; I wish we had Filipino food out here. We need more Filipino food. I also have been craving a Hawaiian barbecue plate. There are no traditional Hawaiian places around here. There’s poke, but that’s it. I grew up with macaroni salad, Hawaiian barbecue chicken, Spam musubi, and things like that. So I think [Boston needs] a little bit more diversity in the space of AAPI.
Is there an ingredient that you hate or a dish you can‘t stand?
Yes. Oh, my God. I hate mint. It’s very challenging for me, actually, because there are so many great dishes and great cuisines that use mint a lot, but for some reason, I just have an aversion to it.
I have autism, so it’s a sensory thing for me. I can‘t do mint. My biggest pet peeve is when I get dessert, and there’s just a random mint leaf on top as garnish. The flavor actually sits there, and I can taste it, and I don‘t want it, and it’s not doing anything for me.
How has autism affected, or enhanced, your career?
I would say, in terms of enhancing my career, it’s done wonders. Food and cooking are definitely my special interests. I’ve been consuming food in all forms, in all forms of media, in every single part of my life, since I could watch TV and understand what was going on. I watched the Food Network growing up, and the Cooking Channel. I remember going to Giada De Laurentiis’s cookbook-signing at 10 years old. My mom bought me my first chef coat at 6. It was embroidered with my name, Chef Kayla.
But I was not diagnosed until last year, so it was actually very challenging for me to be in MIT’s environment as somebody who was undiagnosed. Academics were challenging, and autistic burnout is very real, and when you don‘t know that that’s what’s going on, it’s even harder for you to figure out how to get help. I recently sat on a panel talking about how autism has impacted my career. I think that it impacted the windy road that I’ve taken. I think that it’s really common for autistic people to have a bit of an atypical and nonlinear career path.
Where do you eat these days?
I go to Vinal Bakery and Vinal General Store all the time. I’m a little biased: I used to make their English muffins on the weekends. I also live near Michette, a French bakery, and I love going to Elmendorf. They make a lot of their pastries in-house, and they grind so many of their flours in-house as well. And, honestly, anything at Bow Market is delicious.
Interview was edited and condensed.
Kara Baskin can be reached at kara.baskin@globe.com. Follow her @kcbaskin.