Cooking up a solution
Houston surgeon wants to ensure women in restaurant industry have access to health care
If Dr. Lori Choi could change the world, she would want every woman to have adequate health care.
That’s why the inaugural “Something for Everyone” benefit at Ivy and James in Evelyn’s Park in Bellaire April 8 is her passion project. The benefit, which is hosted by her I’ll Have What She’s Having organziation, brings together more than 100 female chefs for a trio of events aimed to raise $1 million for women’s health care in Texas.
Choi, a Baylor-trained surgeon who is married to Coltivare owner and chef Ryan Pera, has teamed up with veteran chef Monica Pope and emerging chef Erin Smith (Feges BBQ), and a group of other women in the restaurant industry, to lead the charge for bringing awareness, education and funding for women’s health care.
“I truly believe our health care system is broken,” the forty-something Choi said. “Texas has the highest number of uninsured women in the nation. Many of the female chefs are working 80-100 hours a week, but can’t afford their health insurance. We’re focused on the barriers they face from equal pay in the restaurant business to lack of awareness about their own health.”
Choi learned early about the need for basic health care. Her father was a general surgeon in the Appalachian region of North Carolina, where she grew up with her three siblings and a stay-athome mom, who was trained as a nurse.
“My father helped the community in so many ways,” she said. “He did everything, from delivering babies and setting broken bones. But clinics like those in our small town — rural and underserved areas — are being closed around the country. It’s so easy to close a clinic, but so hard to open one.”
I’ll Have What She’s Having, which raises community awareness and funds in support of women’s health, started in September with fundraising pop-up dinners and donation drives after Hurricane Harvey. According to the group’s website, since 2011, more than 80 clinics have closed in the state because of lack of public funding, and the Texas maternal mortality rate is the highest in the developed world.
Choi became immersed in the restaurant business after she and Pera met in New York, where she was in medical school and he worked as a chef. It was love at “third sight,” she said.
“I was too exhausted from medical school on our first date. I never thought I’d get married because I didn’t want to compromise. He said, ‘You go be a badass surgeon, and I’ll be a badass chef.’ That’s what I needed to hear.”
They moved to Houston in 2003 and were married in 2014 in a surprise wedding at the opening of Coltivare.
In the next year, Pera plans to open three to four new restaurants, she said. Each new venture is a chance to spread more awareness about the need for health care in the industry. “The food community is amazing, and we’re trying to find sustainable solutions to the health care crisis. We have to find solutions for Houston.”