Evelyn Billy was standing in the food court of her local shopping centre when she got an idea she couldn't shake.
"I wanted to eat my own food. I stood there in that eatery and I looked all around me — we had every culture except ours," Ms Billy said.
"I'm thinking to myself, 'where's mine?'"
Ms Billy, a Torres Strait Island and Aboriginal woman, grew up between Townsville and Injinoo, on the tip of Cape York.
Ms Billy was already cooking traditional food as a hobby for festivals and community events. Now she has made it a business.
"I was thinking, 'this can be a help to not only me but to non-Indigenous people as well'," Ms Billy said.
Where are you from?
She opened up a shopfront, bought a food van and now serves the meals she grew up on.
But it's more than a business — it's about culture, connection and keeping the story of her ancestors alive.
Recently at a Sydney conference she says she was asked five times where she was from.
"I said 'I'm from Torres Strait'. They looked at me and they said 'where is that? Is that in Australia?'," she said.
"I felt really sad. I had to take out my phone and Google it to show them where it was."
There are many non-Indigenous Australians who want to know more, but the challenge is getting the knowledge out there, Ms Billy says.
Banana leaf damper and seafood boils
Torres Strait cuisine is heavily based on the garden vegetables grown on the islands, alongside fish and crustaceans.
It has been influenced with ingredients and trade from the Pacific, fisherman and labourers from Asia, and white colonialism.
Ms Billy's dishes include the yam stew known as "sop sop", coconut curry, seafood boils, banana leaf-cooked sweet damper, and namas — a raw pickled fish dish made with citrus.
Many of her customers are trying the cuisine for the first time.
"They know five Japanese dishes, they know five Chinese dishes, but they don't even know one dish from my menu," she said. "But that is all going to change."
Ms Billy says she loves to share the stories behind her food and her culture, including the influence of other cultures in the cuisine.
"With coconut curry — Polynesians [and] Melanesians, they all cook it — but as Torres Strait [Islanders], we have our own way of cooking it," she said.
"I'd like to keep that going for the next generation."
'One big deadly menu'
Ms Billy has branched out into two Townsville boarding schools, with a high number of Indigenous students from remote Cape York communities and the Torres Strait.
"I know what it feels like to be away from home," Ms Billy said.
"Because I grew up in a community, I know what we eat. I put that into a mainstream menu, just collaborate together and make one big deadly menu for them."
She believes food can break down barriers.
"We had a family from Canberra come up to eat our food — they were from the Torres Strait but they had no idea. So we introduced Torres Strait cuisines to them," she said.
"When we eat together, that's like forgiveness in action.
"When I cook and I give it to non-Indigenous person, I am actioning my forgiveness and saying 'it's okay, what's done is done."
Food from 'deep within'
Ms Billy hopes to open a cafe with a menu all in language, and has plans to send more vans into remote communities, like Palm Island and Masig in the Torres Strait.
"It unites me and my husband and kids. When we cook our meal there's a different connection you can't explain, it's just pure love," she said.
"It's very special ... It's comforting for me. It's soul food and it's from deep within. You can't get that with just any frozen pizza."
Torres Strait Islander woman Mona Tamwoy, who works with Ms Billy, said she was really happy when she met non-Indigenous people who came back to eat their food again and again.
She hopes future generations continue to celebrate their culture through food.
"I think it is very important for our children to pass that on to them so they can carry that on into the generations to come," Ms Tamwoy said.
"A culture is so mixed. When we share that food with them [people] it has so many flavours and it is unique in its own way.
"It makes us happy to see people happy and enjoying our Torres Strait food."
The long history of the Torres Strait Islands and all those who came — including Japanese pearl divers, Indonesian fisherman, Malay and Filipino traders — had left their mark on the food, she said.
"Some Torres Strait Islanders are mixed with Polynesians, some are mixed with Papua New Guineans. How it influences the food is very unique," she said.
"It brings everyone together. You have got to eat. Food is very important to everyone."
