Erwina Barney was born and raised in the Philippines. She is an immigrant woman who is married to Michael Barney, an American man. She started her culinary journey when she was 14. She was trained by her uncle's wife, the brother of her father, who owned a catering business in their country. Erwina became her aunt's assistant. She patiently watched her aunt and helped her every time there was a catering order. She was able to replicate her aunt's cooking , especially her popular adobo and the brown rice cake. Over the years, she became a self-taught chef and developed many traditional recipes. She cooks for her family, relatives and friends every time there is a gathering.

When Erwina arrived in America, she attended Oregon Culinary School in downtown Portland in 2009 and worked at some very respected restaurants in Southeast and Downtown Portland as a chef. She then opened her first Filipino food truck, which she named Erwina's Inasal Filipino BBQ, in 2012 and moved to Beaverton after a year, which became very successful.

She then expanded and opened the Fork and Spoon in 2018, a "brick and mortar restaurant" in the Historic Parkrose District, which is across from Parkrose Hardware.

Erwina launched a grassroots "Filipino street food" event in 2022 to bring people together and hundreds more people came than anticipated. It was a crazy success and a learning experience. She also opened a coffee shop named Chik & Chuck's Coffee at the same location shared with Fork & Spoon with different business hours in 2021.