Intro (Adjo): “Because I’ve experienced that. I’ve experienced that lack and that deprivation going through life here in America as a teenager. Food nurtures us. Food is such a connection to who we are: the smell of it, the taste of it, the stories told around food, how you learn how to cook those foods, the people you ate those foods with — it’s something that’s so embedded in our brain that you don’t really realize until you’re deprived of that… and and that was my realization.”

Michael: My guest today is Chef Adjo Honsou. She’s a celebrated chef from St Louis, Missouri —originally from Togo, West Africa. Chef, I’m so excited to be talking to you today! We met in St Louis a while back, and I love your food, I love your story, and I really appreciate you coming on and talking to me.

Adjo: I appreciate this. I really do. Thank you for the opportunity to share my story and to bring my people with me, because that’s always on the back of my mind.

Michael: Cooking for other people and sharing that love through food is a real act of giving. And for you, I know that’s really important; but also I think it’s more for you than just sharing your culture, right? You’re really trying to create unity, understanding, and kind-of have a deeper purpose with what you do with your food and how you share that with people.

Adjo: Yeah. So, you know, talking about coming to America at the age of 14 and kind of being pushed into a system that you know wasn’t there to represent you — not by fault or anything like that is it just was the way it was and going through that and understanding after the fact that it wasn’t because anybody was specifically out to get Africans it just was not enough representation around for it to to be um uh for for it to be a target right for it to be this is what we need to do and then I sort of put myself in the shoes of you know literally because I’ve walked those halls of the students today that are coming from Africa the migrants that are bringing their kids here all of these things and the stories are the same even like adults like myself that also came here when they were younger the stories were the same of how there was just no representation in the food that we were eating and so for me it became a mission in okay how do we make sure we teach other people to be global citizens even when it comes to food because that’s very important i would say like some of the um some of the experiences that further um fueled my sense of disconnection from just being in America was my experiences in the school system of how I would bring food to school and kids will make fun of my food because they’re just not exposed to different cultural foods and things like that and so today what I do is go into institutions and do cooking classes at schools do cooking classes with um Girl Scouts do cook cooking classes with differentmies um and part of that is teaching them the value of how connected we are to our food um and uh for kids that can’t even begin to explain why they’re feeling the way they’re feeling right because when I was 14 and I was getting made fun of and all of that stuff it was I it was the processing was just oh they don’t like my food they don’t like my food right but later on as an adult I realized how deeper that affected me more than it translated to I don’t belong here right it’s translated to oh well because food is so fundamental so even if if you don’t even think what I’m eating is okay then how can I be okay right and that’s kind of the translation into that so trying to build a community around immigrants trying to build a community uh around just people in the diaspora one part kicking us hey it’s not a matter of not belonging it’s just a matter of exposure so creating this community around this topic and making sure that everywhere we go we’re bringing oursel authentically we’re representing ourself authentically and we’re giving people the space to learn about us um in order to better understand who we are as a culture and as a people so that’s why the community aspect is so important xenophobia is always an issue and I think the more foreign something is to someone you know they sort of had that fear of it because it’s not something they know and understand and also I think there may be a little bit of people you know people who come to the US feeling like they’re rejecting being an American because they’re clinging on to their past but people don’t understand how important that is and how what a gift that is to to the US which is you know a melting pot of all these different cultures and all these different traditions and foods and so forth and so the more we embrace that um you know it makes us better people brings us all together with understanding that we should celebrate the differences but again we’re not really all that different not at all not at all and even in food that’s so apparent because one of the things that I really love to do in my classes especially with children cuz they’re just they’re just so curious about everything and and they’re they latch on and they want to know so the easiest way is to relate things to them like I I’ll do I will bring all the ingredients of say if we’re making a goosey for example which is a spinachbased stew um the goosey itself is roasted melon it’s a melon seeds that’s grind into like a fine powder but it’s it’s nutty and it almost mimics kind of like the flavor of something uh like cheese but there is no dairy or anything in it right so the first thing is I bring the stew and I show it to them and they look at it and nobody can recognize it they’re like I don’t know something green something red and stuff like that then I lay out all the ingredients and it’s tomato you know what tomatoes are yeah we do you can put it on hamburgers and things yes yes you know what spinach is this is spinach you know what onions are so kind of relating the the bowl that they don’t understand to everyday things that they actually know and use and understand and all of a sudden a goosey is not something so scary anymore because I don’t understand the name of it oh I know everything that goes in it it’s just made differently and it’s called differently but in actuality this is just like a red spinach dip without cheese right yeah it is a red spinach dip without cheese and so making it very relatable takes the scariness out of the unknown uh and so and I would say like we’ve had so much success because a lot of the time our first time tryers are there with their kids because the kids are like “Mom I want to try fufu or “Dad I’ve seen fufu on TikTok and I want to try it.” And so that almost always you know brings the parents along because the kids are so open-minded to explore and and and and find out what they don’t know versus I feel like us adults we can kind of be set in our ways a little bit and so we get to a point in life where it’s like what I eat is what I eat i know what I like you’re not even willing to you know explore outside of that so um another one of the reasons why we tend to focus a lot on institutions and schools and and places that are dealing with young people and the youth and things like that people you know adults in the US like going out and having Italian food or Chinese food or Japanese food but African cuisine is not really very wellnown yeah so what what defines the flavor profiles for you know West African cuisine cooking methods other things that that sort of distinguish it and with these components you would recognize as as uh you know food that’s that’s culturally appropriate culture so I think West African cuisine we are very uh we are defined by mostly bold flavors if you’re eating anything West African you’re tasting the ginger you’re tasting the garlic you’re it’s and then there’s buildup of flavors there’s never just this one thing that you’re tasting you’re tasting this and then oh there’s also this and as you swallow oh there’s also this there are all these different notes right that are kind of mixture and that’s because we cook by building flavors right you start with maybe just oil and you caramelize onion and you add garlic and you add this thing and you add this thing and then at the end of it you’re looking at one mostly homogeneous something in a form of a stew with some kind of a protein in it but when you take that bite all of those flavors are just then deconstructed in your mouth and then there’s always this after taste that just stays with you and it’s such comfort food and it’s it’s food that just sticks to your rib and it’s food that you know stays with you a long time which kind of makes sense as the culture that we are because everything is always on the go people are on the way to the market people are going to the farm people are going fishing people are doing this so you really don’t have time to eat in the morning eat two hours later eat so you you know there’s not that so you need something that of sustenance and then we always have fillers so fufu is kind of a filler right so it’s you would take the fufu you would dip it in the stew and fufu is very starchy doesn’t matter when you make it with plantin or cassava or yum roots or anything like that very starchy so it’s meant to keep you full all day while you’re on the farm and you know cultivating or where you’re out to see fishing or where you’re out to the market walking about selling stuff um and then our techniques of cooking too a lot of things are cooked over open fire in the sense you know there’s wood in the fire there’s coal you’re cooking on fire and so you get those smokiness from the open fire into the food even when it comes to grilling things right it’s done on open fire as well something that’s very recognizable recognizable in West African culture is palm oil palm oil is so essential to West African cooking and so nine times out of 10 if you see anything made with palm oil are you West African should be your next question right um you know and so palm oil is a big one uh and then the palm tree itself really because beside the oil we have the palm butter that we also cook with and then you have the nut in between that makes the clear palm oil so those are some of the indicators that you’re eating West African food very much ginger filled we’re a ginger culture to a fault we ginger everything like to the point where like ginger meat is a saying it just means like everything good which is kind of like what but yes it is a saying in West African culture so yeah those are some of our I would say our key elements and uh indicators of of West African lots of B flavor lots of buildup flavor starchy content um food that hugs your rib like you feel like you’re eating Thanksgiving food and and palm oil many cultures have aromatic blends like you know miraa or rato ratut or cajinjun trinity does west African cuisine have something similar to that oh yeah i definitely say that a blend of um so we h actually fufu and sauce has a proprietary like fufu and sauce curry that we use in um in our cooking which you can find on our website you can purchase it through fufu sauce.com but that for me is a West African spice blend that is it may vary little by little depending whether you’re in Togo or Ghana or Nigeria or Ivory Coast wherever you are on like what whichever country but the base of it is always ginger garlic anise some star anise and black African black pepper those five ingredients blended together and then Other places may add different things like I know Nigerians usually will add a to like their blend um others may add uh cumin others may add a little bit of cinnamon um depending on the region and even in Togo whether you’re in the southern part of Togo uh versus the northern part of Togo you may see a little bit different things added to that blend but ginger is always a star ginger garlic anise um some cumin um definitely definitely would be our blend you’re not eating anything spicewise uh or spice blendwise in West Africa without ginger um for sure for sure yeah so last year you won the Great American Recipe on PBS all right so first of all congratulations that’s super awesome thank you so talk a little bit about the experience what you made and why that was so important for you to kind of get that that national platform and and how you can use that to you know to further some of the stuff that you’re doing in both in terms of your business but also in terms of your your your goals as a humanitarian and trying to bring people together absolutely so let me just tell you the story about um I don’t know if I’ve told the story as of yet on any network in that sense so you’re like the first one getting it but so I remember uh back in 2023 was scrolling down my Fufu and Sauce Instagram inbox okay because every now and then we will get like people asking questions about things so I would make time to go and just look through our chat to see what questions to answer and I see this um scouts I guess they’re um producers in that sense or I know there’s a technical term for it but I can’t remember uh and I get a message hey my name is so And so and I’m recruiting for PBS’s show and I’m interested to I would like to know if you’re interested um you know we would like to recruit you i was like BBS um okay i don’t know what kind of scam this is but I’m not paying because what will BBS ever want like what uh no i didn’t believe it i was like whatever and typically hand to God I would just delete those things and not think about it because I’m like you’re not about to scam me but something was like h maybe respond until they ask you to pay money and then you can delete it cuz she didn’t ask for any money as of yet so humor her so I was like okay so I responded and I was like okay I’m interested tell me more and so the entire process I just kept waiting for her to say “You got to pay money.” Because then that’s how I know you’re scamming me right and lo and behold they’re like “No no no we we’re you know the point of the show is to bring about home cooks and you can’t have um you can’t have gone to culinary school.” So that was part of the question that they asked me uh did have you ever been to culinary school because that’s a disqualifier we only allow home cooks to be part of the show and I was like no my grandma taught me how to cook i started this brand because I wanted to share my culture with my community and I feel like it’s such a necessity and so that’s why I started doing this and so we went through the process they then they they ask you for all these things and you submit and it’s just like you hear nothing and so it’s like you’re waiting you’re waiting you’re waiting and then finally we got an email that say oh my god you’ve been selected to be part of the next season and blah blah blah and so it was like “Oh my god.” And it was such an exciting moment but I will say even going through that I had no idea what to expect you know I had no idea what to expect until we got to Nashville and you know sort of meet all the other home cooks and of course we develop such a great bond which each and every one of them because you know this is you you get to meet all these people from different backgrounds of cooking style and ethnicity and but the one thing we had in common is the love and passion of cooking and feeding our communities and feeding our family and just nurturing um the people around us right and so being on the show I knew when challenges after challenges I knew that my biggest part was just representation it was like okay listen we got this opportunity and this is a big one so we got to make sure that we’re representing the culture authentic authentic authentically and making sure that everything that we’re bringing is something that’s going to give the pop the the public a window into West African culture specifically tool cooking and so a lot of the things that I made were complex and difficult um because I just felt like listen if we already don’t get you know the the visibility I feel we deserve as far as you know a culture and a like the type of food we make so this is the opportunity to show that you know African food is elaborate and it’s flavorfilled and it is intentional and it’s nurturing and it’s nutritious and all of that and so in every dish that I that I made um I didn’t I didn’t take the easy way out i I wanted to represent my culture i wanted to bring to light all those recipes that my grandmother has taught me from you know age eight that I’ve taken on for my life and I wanted to bring along things that I made for my friends and my community the things that they truly love and enjoy about um West African culture and I think we’ve achieved that but the biggest one for me um was the full circle moment and the healing because I didn’t one thing I didn’t realize was how healing being on that show was going to be for me personally because you know I I was that child that was that got the ew what is that you’re eating oh that’s gross that looks disgusting why are you eating that you know most of my teenage life and to be at a place where I’m serving serving those food to you know chefs Michelin chefs and they’re eating this and loving it and winning it was just like felt like vindication in a way like huh my my food is not so stinky after all right and so that was that was the the personal achievement and the healing part for me but the bigger joyful part of it is now being at the food truck and having people come hey we saw you on PBS and I want the green thing in the bowl that you made on

PBS my job is done my job is done and and that’s what I feel today is that representation part of it you know and now because some kid in America is going to see a goosey on TV and he’s going to see fufu on TV and he’s going to see okra stew on TV when a kid that just came here from god knows where and brings their food to school they’re not going to be ridiculed cuz you’ve seen it on TV you’ve seen it on PBS you know what this is it’s not stinky it’s being on PBS and so for me that’s the bigger extension of the role that I played on that show um on for me and and it makes me so happy it makes me so happy to have been part of that um uh teaching aspect of it yeah yeah it’s it’s super awesome i mean it’s is a huge honor for you it really shows all the work that you’ve put in throughout your life because you don’t just bring stuff you learned from your grandmother and win that show right i mean you’ve worked very hard to build your business by the way I understand you’re opening up a brick and mortar soon so congratulations on that you are thank you thank you so much we Yeah we just found our location uh it’s been oh a few years in the in the making just looking for a spot that fits because even in finding a brick and mortar I didn’t want it to just be anywhere i wanted to be somewhere centered in the community that I was part of uh and so finding a location was very important it was very intentional um I wanted to to be somewhere where I’m I’m easily accessible to the people that I want to represent which is the the diaspora uh here in St louis and um like I always say fufu and sauce it’s not it’s not just about selling food it is very very far from that it it’s about you know extending this come explore come be with us come be in community with us share our food and by extension learn about us as a people and as a culture you know and we we’ve begun to do that a little bit with the food truck because people come and they say “Oh I want fufu but I’ve never tried it.” And they try it and they like it and they’re like “Huh where is this from?” Togo okay i’ve never heard of Togo but now I’m going to go look it up and I’m going to learn something about it and then you know the next time they would come and they’ll be like oh while learning about Togo I I found out that Nigeria and this countries do the same thing how so it starts the conversation and it picks that curiosity and it extend into just them wanting to know and explore and and that is why I do what I do and so with the brick and mortar it’s going to even allow us to do that but in a deeper level because then we’ll be rooted in a location where they can come to and you know in this space you are welcome you are welcome here doesn’t matter who you are you are welcome here and that’s the message I want to convey with that brick and mortar and we’ve done well with the food truck in that regard so I’m just I’m excited to see uh how big and influential our community is going to become with this space for sure yeah yeah i can’t wait to see it open it’s it’s it’s such a big achievement and it’s so much work as you know are there particular toolles or West African dishes that are really for you comfort food that kind of bring you back home when you you have have all the stress in in your life and you just kind of need that a yes and B what are some of your favorite dishes from your cuisine and C what are your some of your favorite foods outside of uh West African cuisine okay so staples in tool culture when it comes to food that um when you eat you’re like “Oh okay i’ve never had this anywhere else like this other than Togo is okra stew.” So to people are known for our okra stew and um even on the show I tell the story of you know we had I think one of the challenges were uh what is your recipe DNA right and um for that challenge I made okra but even in that challenge while making okra I was very nervous because okra is I’m sure you know very slimy and okra is one of those food you either like it or you hate it there is no in between there is no I can kind of like it if you do this really that’s not the case at all you either love okra or you don’t and so even making it on the show I was very nervous because I didn’t know if how familiar the judges were with it or anything like that but okra is so essential to us we eat it with everything you eat it with rice you can eat it with fufu you can eat it with a you can eat it with very different things it’s just a staple for us so answer to A is also answer to B for me so like that food that I’m just like

listen if I’m missing home sh ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok okra I have to eat okra with fufu or palm butter is also another one that’s kind of like a staple in Togo but not just in Togo like in Ghana Nigeria Ivory Coast all of those West African countries cuz that palm tree is just such an essential tree to us in West Africa so palm butter and palm butter are also made on the show we have it on our food truck i make it um the protein of choice that I use is oxtail but it can be made with other protein and back home typically with like smoked fish dry fish you know salted and fermented fish things like that are used to kind of make it and it’s also a very staple for us so then C food outside of toaliz culture or West African culture that I like um that I got introduced to in America actually is Thai cuisine i love Thai food i love Thai food especially Thai curries because I think for me it was kind of like a direct resemblance in the plate to what a stew would be like you know tastes different based on the spices and things like that and typically they use a lot of coconut coconut milk in making of those things but also love love love Thai cuisine tacos are my other like I love me some tacos so things um here that I that I’ve I’ve discovered along the way too in in in in the culture being here in America tacos are my thing and then let me see if I can pick something that’s like American um that I’ve grown really really fond of is Bratz i don’t even know if Bratz are American but German i’m not a huge huge fan of hot dogs i could eat like one hot dog or two but brats are my jam like brz with some like grilled onions and grilled pepper bell peppers or sweet mini peppers on there with some mayo oh absolutely love it so yeah have you been to Germany i have not been to Germany brats are a German thing aren’t they yeah it’s like so you should go and you’ll be introduced to all kinds of Oh my goodness i definitely will have to add it to the list then because and you know what’s so funny i fell in love with BRZ in high school actually I remember um the first ever um football game in high school and a friend of mine was like “We’re going to the football game you know come with us meet us there something.” So I just remember us going to the concession stand and they were all getting like different things and I was like “What is that?” And the lady’s like “Bro browers.” And I couldn’t even pronounce it at the time and I was like “Okay I think I want one of those.” Instant love instant love i was like “What is this thing give me 50,000 of them.”

50,000 but yes that was my introduction and I even like sauerkraut which was shocking to my mom she’s like “You like this thing?” I said “Yeah it’s it’s delicious.” But yeah that was my introduction to Browers and now I have to go to Germany cuz you’ve picked my interest yeah you definitely should and the sauerkraut you know helps helps balance the the unnutritiousness of the broad vers so uh you know mix them together yeah it’s they’re delicious yes definitely very delicious do you mostly reproduce dishes from West Africa or do you like to experiment and create new dishes and if so how far do you kind of push the the cuisine towards more fusion dishes or introducing elements of of other cuisines into what you’re doing that’s a very good question so I I would say that as far as like my day-to-day and feeding people and the things that I do the authenticity of what I provide is what people are looking for so it’s kind of I stick to that in that sense i like I give it to them like my grandmother gave it to me uh because that’s fairly important especially in the introduction of what I’m doing right but in my own personal space and in my own personal life I definitely like to explore i like to explore i like to fuse things um even with the food truck sometimes um we do an event Cinco de Mayo gets celebrated here in St louis and one of the things that we do with fufu and sauce is try to do like um stew tacos so like um our meat that we put in like say like the palm butter or the beef stew and stuff like that so those meat is then transfer onto tacos so it’s like you’re getting this pretty much almost like a numb dipped in stew texture of tacos so I kind of like do um fusions in that way but exploratory not necessarily like to cater to other people or to like give to other people um just to explore amongst friends and things like that then my latest obsession has been like Asian and Chinese food because May my bestie May from the Great American Recipe uh when I went to go visit her showed me how to make fried rice the way they make it and so like it’s been my latest obsession of like doing fried rice how may mix it and infusing a little bit of like African notes whether it’s like adding my ghee cube to the fish sauce or whether it is adding a little bit of our curry spice when I’m marinating the shrimp that’s going to go into it and what that does is just adds a little bit of notes that are different than the way she’s make it so to answer your question yes I do explore and I explore often but it’s just for myself for my friends and for maybe like things that are not so rigid in the mission of what I’m doing because the mission is to bring West African culture and food to the forefront so in order to do that I kind of have to preserve the authenticity of what it is um until I feel we’ve gotten to the point where it’s like if I were to give you you know a fusion of it you would know the difference but I’m afraid right now people don’t because they don’t even know what the authentic one is as of yet so I kind of just stick to that um regiment of making sure it is made the same way every time until we can perfect that knowledge in the brain of oh this is what West African cuisine is um for for the population that I serve for now anyway but I’m I’m definitely one of the things that I really want to do eventually as we grow and things like that because being a chef too and somebody that loves to cook and is passionate about cooking it can get kind of monotonous making the same thing over and over and over again so but for the purpose of fufu and sauce I understand the mission and so my personal sentiments are out of it because it is bigger than me right it it truly is about my culture in that sense and so uh my biggest goal is to to teach it the way it is and to present it the way it is for now well I have to tell you you’re killing me because I’m so hungry now uh so is is your mission I mean do you plan to write a a cookbook maybe franchise in other areas maybe Seattle yes absolutely all of the above so I am working on a cookbook uh hoping that we can come we can release it to market by the end of this year if not early next year uh with our first location uh here in St louis the next goal is a second location across the river on the Illinois side of the river and definitely franchising and expansion is the goal because I feel as though you know other cuisines have had that opportunity right you know you have Panda Express that is everywhere you have Chipotle that’s everywhere you have yet to have a West African branch of food that is all across the US teaching people about African culture and African food and African culture acceptance and visibility so Fufu and Sauce I definitely see as that in the next 5 to 10 years I see us having our franchises all across the Midwest because I feel like that is definitely an area that’s needing the most because bigger cities like New York LA Chicago you may not have a franchise but you have 5 10 20 mom and pop shops that are doing exactly what I’m doing and presenting that culture in their own way so I don’t feel like that necessity exists in those bigger city as of yet but places like St louis Missouri places like Ohio places that are in the center of the US are definitely lacking of that food diversity and um most often time you know uh the migrants that get left behind are those in those areas where nothing around them looks like them talks like them eats like them sounds like them and I feel like it is part of my mission to kind of you know infiltrate that a little bit and that’s what I’m hoping to achieve in the next 5 to 10 years and then after that we will do more expansion out work um another component of fufu and sauce for me is our curry spice right so right now we have our curry spice that can be purchased from our website like I mentioned but I want to further empower people that may not necessarily have access to the to our storefront as we’re opening it or are not willing to wait for the next five years for a location to come near them uh by doing ready to eat meals so we are working on those the development of it of what does it look like to go to the grocery store and buy a fufu and socks a fufu and sauce meal that you can bring home warm it up in the microwave and eat it or warm it up in the oven and eat it some of the other thought that I talk I thought about is partnering up with like places like Factor that do meal deliveries and stuff like that because a lot of their meals are not very ethnic food so what does it look like to to be part of that system to be part of that ecosystem where we’re bringing our West African recipes to them to be able to have as part of their platform and introduce it to the population in that way so definitely have things in my brain that are going um that you know we will bring to fruition um and we just keep needing the support and the growth and the visibility uh so I you know I’m very grateful to get this opportunity to share my story of course because as we do more of this the visibility comes with it as well so um yeah I so those are some of the things that we’re working on for sure so excited for the growth and and what is to come and to continue sharing my culture and my people and um another part of it too is doing manufacturing back home that’s a big goal of mine and I know that’s going to take time but our curry spice um you know like I said I import them from Togo and then we have McCarthy spice here in St louis that helps us with the production aspect of it but I would love to be able to open a manufacturing site in Togo where all of our curry is produced because what that does is employ my people in Togo and make sure that they’re also part of the economy of what we’re sharing uh and not just you know me or not just the employees that we have here or not just the team that we have here i want to empower my tool people and my West African people like no you are part of this process you taught me what I know so I want you part of this process um as well so yeah Ro you’re such an inspiration and a great role model and you know I I love what you said about so many kids regardless of their background struggle growing up feeling isolated feeling like they’re they’re not accepted including kids who seem to be accepted you know everyone has their own insecurities and being able to show people through food that this is okay it’s okay to be different it’s not just that it’s okay it’s awesome right to to introduce these new foods a few years ago Kenji Lopez all wrote a book a children’s book about different cuisines called Every Night is Pizza Night and it’s it’s a great little book for kids because it’s it’s about how being open to trying different cuisines and and different foods and and learning more about different cultures that way they are all wonderful in their own ways and so being open to that you know really helps people develop as people but also brings us together and makes us feel like what we are as individuals and our culture also is okay and should be solved absolutely and I will say this I have yet to introduce African cuisine to a kid that then said oh I never want to eat what I was eating before right that that’s never happened yet so it’s not that they’re forsaking what they knew it’s just something extra that now they’re interested in and and and I think all that does is just broadens their mind of the possibilities that are out there that they just don’t know about and and we see that time and time and time again in in our classes in our um in our takeovers you know and and the biggest thing too you know when I started especially with the university takeovers I had a mission it was just food was boring in college and I’m going to change that cuz what that was the biggest thing you know and then on top of that I was like well you know a lot of institutions mainly colleges has international students and I remember going to school as an international student where it’s like you know you’re you’re catered to in the terms of oh we have all these things that’s going to make your life easy but institutions forget the number one thing is the food the food is what connects the the brain back to home and so when I started doing that you know I was just set out to make food better you know make sure African students are seen but I cannot begin to tell you how many students from all different cultures that came about like I remember a gentleman from Latin America and he came and grabbed food he said “Oh uh my friend from Nigeria came back to the dorm and said that there was African food on campus and they had planten.” Well I’m not African but in Latin America we make plantens and I just wanted some because the last time I had some was before I came on campus in August and I haven’t had planten since then and when I had it it just it took me back to my mom’s kitchen i just I sobbed with them literally sobbed with this stranger boy from St louis University that I’ve never met in my life because I understood exactly what he was feeling exactly what he was feeling and that’s when I started to realize how much food crosses all our boundaries like it’s not plantains are not a West African thing they’re a Caribbean thing they are a Latin American thing so it be I began to just see how food just migrates from culture to culture to culture and that was my biggest eye opener like okay this is not you you can’t just be set out to go save the African students this is a saving of all the global students mission so so um I say all that to say yes it it really is great it’s great to for all of it to come full full circle and I really I really feel like it was my experiences that I went through and how those were pain points for me that’s fueling all that I’m doing because I feel like yeah this problem exists i was part of it i felt that problem so I want to make it better for the next generation to come and so yeah I’m just happy to be achieving it and and the support behind it um for sure I love talking to you your your story is wonderful it’s an inspiration to me again I think to a lot of people I can’t wait to go out and find some good West African food so I can try some of these these other dishes it’s been a while since I’ve I’ve had that cuisine and I’m definitely you know not very familiar with it like you know a lot of people are not so I love that you’re bringing it to you know your area and then hopefully eventually more to the the whole US so that people can enjoy it just as much as you know any other cuisine yes absolutely absolutely and that’s the goal so yeah you go try something because West African food is so delicious i’m telling you it’s amazing and if you’re ever your travels or anything is bringing you over to St louis we’re going to have a brick and mortar so you wouldn’t have to be like “When is the food truck?” You know we’ll be here you just let ring me let me know we’ll make sure you’re well taken care of and and and and dining properly um culturally anyway so yeah I will definitely come by next time I’m out that way and see your new restaurant and in the meantime just a little box UPS you know just screw off to me and Yes yes we can definitely do that too we’ll send you some curry with an instruction of and so like talking a little bit more about curry actually I tell people all the time it’s such a noninvasive way to explore West African culture because it’s a curry that not only you can use to cook West African food but you can use to kind of flavor things that you already do like if you you’re making like you know peppers or something like that you can sprinkle it on it and mix it before you grill it or before you sauté them and stuff like that and that’s like little introductions to like West African flavors and all of that into it if you’re making you know anything brothy you know sprinkling in the broth will kind of give you that and it’s very good for soups too like if you’re making soup the ginger and the garlic and all of that is going to clear you right up very good for fall season very good for coals and things like that too so there’s all those nutrition aspect of it um you know but then again um with the cookbook and the curry then it will give you the opportunity to to really dive into cooking the food itself and and all of that so but I got you i’ll make sure we send you a package of curry with instructions on how to use them so you can kind of double dabble a little bit for now all right well I would love that and I will definitely get your book as soon as it’s available that sounds like a really fun thing to to go through and and do i I I know how much Yes work writing a book is so on top of everything else opening a new restaurant all these ventures all the community work that you do is a lot so I admire your your work ethic and and all that you do uh thank you for the community and the you know culinary world in general thank you thank you so much thank you for having us