BRONX, N.Y. — Churrasco sizzles on the fire. Behind the grill, Carmen Baez, better known as Chef Yala. After a few final touches, the to-go box, or Yala Box as customers call it, is ready. Her restaurant looks like an oasis on East 174th Street, just off the Cross Bronx Expressway. It’s a long way from where she began.

“I started in a little kitchen that was pretty much for staff. We had a microwave there. That’s when I go and buy my electrical grill and a deep fryer and it was a very small place,” said Chef Yala.

Chef Yala was born in the San Cristobal province of the Dominican Republic and emigrated to the Bronx with her family. She began helping in her mother’s hair salon, but her her heart wasn’t in it. Yala loved the kitchen, but didn’t make the jump until grief gave her the push she needed.

“I say when my mom passed away, I was born. I had to become the woman that I am today and make her proud too,” she said.

Yala attended culinary school and completed several internships, learning all about French cooking, plating techniques and fine-dining along the way. She didn’t pursue cooking immediately, opening her own hair salon instead. But the kitchen kept calling her and she began serving up premium cuts of steak to clients who were waiting to get their haircuts.

“You would never imagine that behind a beauty salon with rollers and hairdryers, manicures and pedicures, you could find this gorgeous plate," said Chef Yala.

The operation and the aroma began to overpower the salon. Yala set-up shop out the back door, running el Patio de Yala for three years. Then she rented a kitchen at a car wash, but the customers outgrew that spot too. She finally founded her own, tiny place in 2017.

“It was four tables when I bought the place. It was very small, but for me it was a castle because it was mine," said Chef Yala.

Everything was going well, she even expanded. When the pandemic hit she shut the restaurant La Cocina de Yala and began cooking for homeless people instead. She distributed the food in shelters and the subway.

Now she’s sharing her curlers to Churrasco story with a memoir, Mi Transicion or My Transition, which is available in Spanish through Amazon and her website. It will be released in English later this month. When asked what she would tell her younger self about the woman she would become, Yala could not hold back the tears.

“I am proud of her. I never thought I could work so hard," said Chef Yala.

She has a message for women who have an idea or a dream, but are too afraid to follow them.