Adé Carrena Transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everyone. You are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe, and I'm your host, Kerry Diamond, coming to you from Brooklyn, New York. Today's guest is Adé Carrena from Raleigh, North Carolina, a chef and storyteller whose work bridges continents, generations, and communities. Adé is the owner of Dounou Cuisine, founder of iLéWA Foods, and co-director of the “Bite of Bénin” documentary. You can find a link to that trailer in our show notes. Adé was named the 2023 North Carolina Chef of the Year, and when you hear about Adé's cooking, an incredible story, you will understand why. She's a force, and I think we will be hearing a lot from her in the near future. Stay tuned for our chat.
I want to thank everyone who joined us in Austin, Texas, for the kickoff of our Summer Tastemaker Tour, presented by the Visa Dining Collection by OpenTable and Visa. We had a great lunch and panel discussion at the beautiful Commodore Perry Estate, and caught up with some of our favorite food folks. Austin is such a great food city, and I am always happy to visit. Next up on our Summer Tastemaker tour is Hudson Valley, New York. Join us on Friday, July 11th, at Wildflower Farms, an Auberge Resort, for a day of food and community. We'll be joined by culinary stars Sohui Kim, Angie Rito, and Leah Cohen, and we even have a special focaccia-making class with Ashley Napoli, a focaccia florist. It's the perfect summer escape. I'll be there with team Cherry Bombe, and I would love for you to join us. Access is available for those with eligible Visa credit cards. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at cherrybombe.com and get your tickets through OpenTable. We can't wait to see you there.
Now let's check in with today's guest. Adé Carrena, welcome to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Adé Carrena:
Hi, it's lovely to be here. Thank you for having me.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us how you wound up in Raleigh.
Adé Carrena:
I am from a very tiny country on the west coast of Africa that almost no one has ever heard of called Bénin, but if you can place Nigeria on the map, it's to the left of it. I was adopted at a very young age. I was 10 years old when I was adopted and grew up in the suburbs of Trumbull, Connecticut, raised by a Puerto Rican woman. I fell in love when I was 19. I'm reframing, it's not the biggest mistake of my life, but it was a very much a big learning experience. So love actually is what brought me to Raleigh, but the energy and the people made me stay.
Kerry Diamond:
You've had quite the story already.
Adé Carrena:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. I mean, to leave your country when you were 10. 10 is young, but it's not too young.
Adé Carrena:
No.
Kerry Diamond:
You had a lot of memories.
Adé Carrena:
Yeah, absolutely. It's a very interesting experience honestly, because you forget nothing. I remember how to walk to school, the market. I remember flavors and scents. I remember my parents, obviously. The dichotomy is very interesting.
Kerry Diamond:
You moved to Connecticut?
Adé Carrena:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
What was that like at that age?
Adé Carrena:
It was very interesting. Adoption is a funny thing. There are so many different perspectives on it. I think there was excitement at first for me of just because of the way that we view the western world in my home or probably most of Africa, so there was excitement of what was this going to be like? Unfortunately for me, I did not have the best experience. I grew up in quite an abusive household and I left when I was 17 and was like, "Oh."
Kerry Diamond:
I'm so sorry.
Adé Carrena:
"I'm not coming back here." But I've been through therapy, I've really worked on reclamation. I've reconnected with my biological mom. That's how my spice company was born. I'm in a space of reclaiming and advocating and trying to shift our perspective on the ways we view adoption and the idea of home, and how do we define success and wealth and a good future? How do we define that? So I'm in a good space.
Kerry Diamond:
Those are all pretty profound things.
Adé Carrena:
Oh, thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
You wind up here in Raleigh. You're still very young. You're like a teenager.
Adé Carrena:
Yeah, I fell in love at 19. I was a baby, oh my goodness. I always tell myself, "Man, 33-year-old me would be like, Adé, what are we doing, baby? Come here. Let's give ourselves this attention and this love." But at 19, when you go through what I've been through, there's a lot of work needed on self-love and accepting yourself and understanding who you are first. And so when I got pregnant, I got pregnant at 22 and I had my baby girl, and that shifted a lot for me, and becoming her mother has helped do a lot of healing on the inner child in myself and how I show up for her as a mama too. So I came here when I was 22, had my daughter here actually in Raleigh, and just stayed to build a life for myself here.
Kerry Diamond:
Did you decide Raleigh was going to be your home, or just circumstances kept you here?
Adé Carrena:
There was a bit of both, because at the time, my daughter's grandmother on her father's side lived here, and I remember when I was about eight months pregnant, well, maybe seven months pregnant, I came to visit. I was at Harris Theater, and this older gentleman took my cart and was so nice, and growing up in the north, that's not really the experience you get. And I'm convinced it's because of the cold, and I can understand that.
Kerry Diamond:
That's so weird. I was just going to say, is it because it's so chilly all the time?
Adé Carrena:
I think that's what it is. Imagine you wake up, you're like, "Beautiful day. I'm going to just have an amazing time today," and then you walk outside and that cold smacks you in the face. You're like, "Ugh, what even is life?" Then you have to go and you have to work, and you have to people. I understand. I do not enjoy being cold at all. I'm not mean or I'm not unkind to people because of it, but I feel like that definitely plays a small role.
Kerry Diamond:
It might get in the bones in a bad way.
Adé Carrena:
Yeah. And so when I came and I had that experience, the air just felt even different. The sun was shining, I really enjoyed that, and so I said, "Wow, you people are nice, a lot nicer than the people I'm used to over there up in the North." I had a really hard pregnancy, and because I felt good here, I left... I worked up until I was eight months pregnant and then I came down here, and that's where I had my baby.
Kerry Diamond:
Wow. When did food start to become a big part of your life?
Adé Carrena:
Oh my gosh, that's such a good question, because it's kind of ironic. Growing up in Bénin, the ways in which we cook, we're not taught how to cook. Cooking is a very communal act, and it's an oral tradition for us. You usually are surrounded by a bunch of women, older women, we call them aunties. You are in the space, you are watching, you're being asked to complete tasks, and you're listening to the stories that they're sharing and what is being exchanged, so it's an unspoken language that feels quite ancient actually. That was my experience at home.
Then when I came into this country, it shifted very quickly for me because at 10 or 11, I was responsible for cooking for a family of seven or eight. I hated it. I had really traumatic experiences in the kitchen with my adoptive mother, and so I hated it. I was like, "I'm never doing this. I don't want to be in the kitchen. I hate it here."
Kerry Diamond:
That's so for a child of that age.
Adé Carrena:
I can lead with grace as a mama and an adult myself. That's why I say adoption is a funny thing. You really have to be sure of your capacity as a human. Actually, just having a child, period, you have to be sure about your capacity as a human to love, to be honest and honor yourself while also being empathetic to the human experience that your children also experience, because they are humans first. You were a vessel that brought them here, and you are also a human first. You have to navigate a very fine line of understanding what you both are first and then what you are to each other, and so that's not the experience I had growing up. So I hated it, didn't want anything to do with the kitchen.
And when I was 19, pivotal years, 10, 17, 19, 22, when I was 19, I was walking down the street in downtown New Haven, Connecticut. It's at the heart of Yale. There was this building on the right side of me that had glass. I can see bookshelves, but I saw tables and chairs, so I was very confused about what that space was, and I walked in, it was a very small boutique hotel that had a farm-to-table restaurant inside, and I asked if they were hiring. The hotel is called the Study at Yale, and the restaurant was called Heirloom. It was Chef Carey at the time, and I asked if they were hiring, and they said yes.
I started off as a banquet server at first because I started working in a restaurant when I was like 15, but I wasn't yet in the back of the house. One day, they were short-staffed. They asked if I could support in the restaurant as a hostess. I said, "Sure," and I remember looking at the menu, the least expensive thing was a roasted octopus. It was $16. The most expensive thing was a hanger steak with fingerling potatoes and chimichurri sauce, and it was $52. I kept seating people, and I'm like, "Y'all coming here on purpose to eat this food and pay this price? There's something more here, because you're not just eating because you're hungry. You could do that anywhere."
And so that got me thinking, and then when I reconnected with my mother, I understood that food was so much more than edible and a way to tell stories, and for me personally, it's been a journey of reclamation and understanding who I am and reclaiming my identity as a Béninese woman, while also accepting all these facets of me as an adopted child, as someone who's an immigrant, as someone who also has lived the African-American experience. Then you add in the Puerto Rican culture that I was raised within, and then now I'm planted in the south.
Kerry Diamond:
It's a lot.
Adé Carrena:
Yeah, identity was a big thing for me, but food helped me understand and take ownership of it. I was able to see the through lines, and I realized that when you actually follow the food, when you follow the food, you can understand the history of people, and that's how I landed there. I said, "Oh my goodness, what a way for me to own my story, heal myself," and then when I gained that understanding, I said, "Oh my gosh, I'm like a bridge," and if I could find a way to connect us all using food, then we could create safe spaces for really necessary conversations, especially in the Black diaspora, to kind of start sparking some healing for all of us.
Kerry Diamond:
We'll be right back with today's guest.
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These are all profound realizations for someone so young.
Adé Carrena:
Thank you. I like to say it's the trauma.
Kerry Diamond:
Is it that, or were you just very wise as a child even?
Adé Carrena:
I would say that I was a very studious child. I was very eager to learn. As an avid reader, I enjoyed learning and understanding things. I'm very inquisitive. Sometimes I'm like, man, where would I be today if I actually went to college? I never had a formal education whatsoever. I didn't feel there was any investment in me as a child to grow my mind more than maybe what it was, but I have found that in food. I believe in timing. I don't believe there's a wrong time for anything. I believe that all things work as they should, and I'm so grateful to have landed in this space. Yes, I didn't have the greatest of starts, but I think it has profoundly made me; it's embedded in who I am. It has made me see the world in such an interesting way. I'm so empathetic to people, and I can understand that perspective is a beautiful thing.
Kerry Diamond:
Even just at the age of 15, to have walked into that place and asked for a job, not everyone can even do something like that, but then to have looked at the menu and to have understood something else was going on here, and to have been curious and open enough to want to figure out what that was.
Adé Carrena:
Yeah. And then going down that journey was also-
Kerry Diamond:
Most fifteen-year-olds, no offense to the fifteen-year-olds out there, but they're not thinking on that level.
Adé Carrena:
Well, I'm very much a dreamer. I live outside of... Well, I did as a child. I think it was like escapism, it was a mechanism to keep myself safe, I want to say, and so it allowed me to almost be delusional in the sense where I'm like, "There isn't a thing I can't do," and if I can see it, if the thought has come to me, then it's possible. And I'm just like, how do I get from the thought to reality? And then that's what I focus on all the time.
And I have to give my daughter credit. She has really, really changed me, softened my heart, helped me understand the complexities of motherhood, of womanhood, of being a human on this Earth, and it's really thanks to her existence that I was able to open myself up even to entertain rekindling a relationship with my own mother, also seeing her as a human. Because at 22, I sure didn't know what I was doing. I literally was doing my best, which made me think, "Oh, she probably just made the best decision with the information she had, with all the best intentions and hoped for the best." To know what life was like for me and Bénin and to not know what it would have been, and to choose the latter, you have to really think that somebody's got to be in a place of desperation to not know where you're sending your children and hoping for the best for them. So my daughter has played such a beautiful role in my healing journey.
Kerry Diamond:
How old is she now?
Adé Carrena:
She's 10 now, almost 11. She'll be 11 in a couple of weeks. Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
You said something that almost made me sad when I asked how your food life began, and you talked about your earliest memories of cooking back home, that it was one based in oral tradition, but two, it was all about community and cooking together. And the thing that hit my mind immediately was how we've changed that, and it's so solo now. Even sometimes when you're in a restaurant cooking back of house, you might be surrounded by people, but you have your station, and your whole job is just to crank out what's at your station as efficiently as possible. And even at home, so many people, even if they're cooking for others, are cooking by themselves.
Adé Carrena:
I think we all, as humans, have a lot of healing to do on all sides. There's so much healing that needs to happen for all of us to relearn who we are, accept our past. That's part of the problem. Some of us don't want to accept the past that we come from, so that we can actually move on and find ways to be a collective of people. It's really embedded in our healing. And I also would say, I have a different perspective, and I know I'm a chef, but I think I just happen to be a chef. I think I'm a storyteller first, I'm a nurturer first. I cook well, and people are like, "Wow, I feel you in this food." And so what I like to say I do is intuitive cooking, ancestral cooking, and so when people work with me in the kitchen, these are the things that I hear quite often, and then I have to be careful.
It's like, "Oh man, experiencing being in the kitchen with you is healing because a lot of us have mother wounds." We have father wounds too, but when I'm in the kitchen, it's not about the perfection of the craft. It's very different. To me, it's about what the impact is. When you take a bite of my food, I don't want people to say, "Wow, look at this pristine plating." I want people to say, "Whoa, I'm feeling something here," or you go on this journey of things that feel familiar yet not. I want you to go into introspection, question yourself, and come out of one of our experiences being like, "Whoa, what the hell just happened?" I want you to feel uncomfortable, and then I want you to think about how you show up in the world. And so it's so much less about the finished product and much more about the heart, because for me, that's where it starts.
And I think in the food industry, when you talk to most people, they're like, "Oh, my grandmother." Even men, "My grandmother, my mom, I remember when my nonna and my abuela used to do this," and then we've taken that essence and turned it into a system, and that's what's withdrawn us from it, because everything is about numbers now. And for me, really, it's about the impact and the imprint of being conscious and kind to our environment, supporting our local food systems, making cultural and ethnic foods accessible and educating folks on their misconceptions of what these foods are. That's my realm. It's a lot less about... Sure, I appreciate recognition. It makes me feel like, okay, thank you for seeing me, but if I've won zero awards but made somebody think about themselves and the role they play in the system, then I think I've done my job.
Kerry Diamond:
I know you said you see yourself as a storyteller. Do you ever think of yourself as a messenger?
Adé Carrena:
Hmm.
Kerry Diamond:
I've interviewed a lot of people over the years, but that has never entered my mind interviewing someone, but I feel like you are as much a messenger as a storyteller.
Adé Carrena:
I got chills when you said that. Thank you. I never had that thought before.
Kerry Diamond:
Or like something is speaking through you?
Adé Carrena:
Oh, absolutely. I have a ritual that I do every time I step into the kitchen. In my culture, ancestors are something that's so... They're not far, they're accessible. My biological father, he passed away when I was 17, so I never got the chance to reconnect and do that work with him, but in my culture, they have some wisdom that we can tap into. And so we have our local liquor, which is called Sorabi, which is distilled palm wine. So palm trees, it's a benevolent tree for us. It gives us so much, and then the fruit of that we use to make so many things, including this alcohol. And our relationship to alcohol is very medicinal. You end up making a bunch of different infusions based on things that you feel. Okay, my heart, my mind, my stomach, my whatever, and you can craft it to your body.
What we do is we always, we pour out. We'll pour a glass for our ancestors. And so the way I've implemented this into my artistry or ministry, every time I'm about to go into the kitchen or have an event, I have a moment with myself where I pour for my ancestors, I pour for myself, and have a moment where I say, "Let your hands work through mine. Let my heart be open to receiving what I'm supposed to say in this moment, and then also let me taste from memory," even if mostly those memories are actually not mine, because what I'm saying is please come, please be in this space with me. And to me, when I taste something and I'm like, "Mm, it needs this, it needs that," that's them working through me. I think intuition is such an important part of cooking, and I think because we're now in this land of convenience, we want everything to be convenient for us. We've gotten away from being present.
And so sometimes I frustrate people because they're like, "Can you give me a recipe?" Of course I can, but what you're not going to see on this recipe are measurements, ever. I will never tell you to put a cup of this, a tablespoon of that, anything. What I'm going to do is give you guidelines and then with yourself and your ancestors, you say, "Okay, what am I feeling here? Do I need three garlic cloves? Do I need one onion?" You need to go on that journey with yourself. I'm not going to tell you exactly what to do, just borders. I'll give you a little guidance, that's it.
Kerry Diamond:
Radical. Sometimes it's frustrating.
Adé Carrena:
I know. Sometimes, because West African food is starting now to find its place, I can understand how it could be frustrating to some people because they're like, "I want it to taste like yours." But you know, the truth is it never will. Because the way I make gumbo, I know it doesn't taste like my mother's or the way her mother makes it, because there's a piece of you too. And my philosophy is the food has got to be reflective of the people of its time, and so sometimes I get my Béninese brothers and sisters who give me a hard time, because they say, "Well, this doesn't look like it."
I say, "I understand that, and that's because I was adopted at 10 and grew up in the suburbs of Trumbull, Connecticut, raised by a Puerto Rican woman, and now I live in the south, and something that's important to me is a little country." It's not going to look the same. My energy is in there now, and that's what I believe we should all do, at our own energy to the food.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, let's talk about this food a little bit more. How did your work in food begin?
Adé Carrena:
Yeah. So when I came here at 22, I actually went off the rails a bit. I was in banking.
Kerry Diamond:
Banking?
Adé Carrena:
Yeah. I was in banking. As a single mom, I had to do what I had to do. So I was in banking for about three and a half years, and during that time, this is what I did. Anyone who came into my office, I saw as an opportunity to talk about what actually I'm passionate about, and it's from that I got my first ever private booking. I still have the little letter that they wrote to be like, "Okay, it's four people. This is what we're doing. This is the price," because I'll never forget that. I started there, and a friend of mine introduced me to Kirk, who is now a very good friend of mine from Crafty's at Lafayette Village. I remember bringing him a bowl of greens, and he ate them greens and he said, "Wow, they're the best greens I've ever had." I said, "Oh, thank you." And so he said, "Well, why don't we do a pop-up here?"
Kerry Diamond:
And you were still in banking?
Adé Carrena:
I was still working at the bank at that time. He said, "Why don't we do a pop-up here?" I said, "Okay, I don't know what I'm doing, but sure."
Kerry Diamond:
Had you transitioned to back of house at all when you were-
Adé Carrena:
Yes, I had done that. I stayed at Heirloom for some time, learned all that I could there, worked in miscellaneous places, like I worked at the Hyatt, the Hyatt in Heirloom, which took up most of my time.
Kerry Diamond:
No pizza.
Adé Carrena:
No pizza, no pizza. Although-
Kerry Diamond:
You were in one of the capitals of pizza.
Adé Carrena:
I know. I keep trying to tell people this. They don't believe you.
Kerry Diamond:
They don't.
Adé Carrena:
They don't believe us. I'm like, "You don't know." You don't know what you don't know, right? I said, "Okay, let's do it." And I remember it was three courses, they paired it with their beers. I charged $35 for those tickets, which is like, what did I even do? I probably paid for the food with that.
Kerry Diamond:
And you were in banking, so you can't say you didn't know.
Adé Carrena:
No. Yeah, yeah. We sold out. I had worked for days. I had some of my friends came together to support me. I think the day of the event, I had worked from about six or seven in the morning to about 11 PM. at night, and I'll never forget, I talked to every single person who came to that experience and was like, "How was the experience for you? What did you think about the food?" And Béninese food is not a food that most people know anything about, so this was very new for them.
Kerry Diamond:
What did you make?
Adé Carrena:
I remember making Suya, which is a big street food all across West Africa. A Suya is like a satay of sorts. You can use lamb, goat, beef, and then it has a blend of spice called Suya spice blend, which has a base of roasted peanuts. That's actually our signature spice with my spice company, so it's got a little smoky, it's got a little kick to it, and so lots of the vendors just sell it on the side of the road.
And I made some stewed goat. It had a little kick to it with some okra and very fragrant rice, and I made these Béninese beignets, which we call yovo doko, with a salted caramel and some blueberries. So it wasn't-
Kerry Diamond:
Sounds great.
Adé Carrena:
Thank you. But at that point, I hadn't even tapped into my creativity yet. I made what felt so familiar to me, and at that point, I hadn't even gone on my journey back home yet. It was all from just what I remembered. And I spoke with every single person who came there. Maybe it was about 30 or 35 people. Checked in, asked how the food was, what the experience was, and they really loved it and enjoyed it. And then at about 11 PM, I sat down, Kirk poured me a glass of beer, and I took a sip, took a deep breath, and I said, "Wow, I am exhausted. I cannot feel my feet, but my heart is so full, and I think I found it. I found the thing for me." From there, I just-
Kerry Diamond:
Did you pour some out for the ancestors?
Adé Carrena:
Of course I did. At that point, I said, "Okay." I picked up some caterings here and there. I actually then, because I realized, oh my goodness, I have something, I'm interested in this. I actually got a second job working at a local restaurant here to get more practice at the back of the house as a line cook-
Kerry Diamond:
You're still banking, raising your daughter as a single mom when you get this job?
Adé Carrena:
Yeah. And when you talk about how community is necessary, I remember the girls from the teller line, sometimes my daughter would be back there with them watching YouTube videos. Sometimes, I'd build such a beautiful connection with them, they would come, and some of them would take my daughter on weekends sometimes and bring her on all these like, they would gallivant the streets and go to farms and make her food. And so-
Kerry Diamond:
You were recreating the-
Adé Carrena:
Yeah, that community-
Kerry Diamond:
The existence that you had.
Adé Carrena:
So shout out, I don't know if they'll ever hear this. Shout out to Francis and shout out to Tiba and her gorgeous mother and Brittany for that time in my life where they really showed up and supported me, and gave me the space to do all the things I wanted to do and needed to do to progress in my life. So I'm so appreciative to the way women show up for each other. At one point, I'll never forget, June of 2018, I said, "Well, I think, baby, I think it's time. I think we're at this point here where you've got to make a choice. You can't do both." As the universe would have it, I quit my job at the bank and said, "I'm going to go be a chef," and then COVID happened.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, no.
Adé Carrena:
COVID happened and said, "No, you're not. You're absolutely not," right? But again-
Kerry Diamond:
Was it too late to get that banking job back?
Adé Carrena:
Oh my gosh, yeah, because they were laying off people too. Nobody knew what was going on in this world, right? But again, I'm an avid believer, there's no such thing as wrong timing and everything works the way it should. I obviously was stressed, but what am I going to do? And then I said, "Wait a minute. You make spices, you know flavors. Is there something to explore there?" Because at that time, there was a beautiful place called the Palace International. They no longer have a brick-and-mortar, but they were in Durham, and on Friday nights, I would do Africana Nights, and I would have a grill out there and I would make Suya. And people loved it, and they were like, "Can I buy this spice?" But I never took it seriously.
And so I said, "You make spices, girl. You know flavors. What can you do?" I said, okay. Well, I got on the internet and I said are there any African-inspired jams or food products? And also, as I was understanding more about my identity, there's no space for us in the grocery stores. There isn't anything dedicated to educating folks on what these flavors are and how to implement it into their lives themselves. I couldn't find anything, so I said, "Okay, let's make spices." But then I said, "Well, can I go further?" That's when I called my mom, my biological mama, because actually, I don't have a relationship with my adoptive parents anymore. I called my biological mom. I said, "Hey, mom. Would you be open to going home with me? I have this idea. I want to see if it's possible." She said, "Okay."
So after 19 years of being away from my home, and I'm going to get emotional, got on a plane with my mother and went home to start a spice company that sources exclusively from women farmers and producers in my home country, all in the hopes of creating some sort of system that builds equity for all of us in a very fair way.
The first time I went, I spent about three weeks with my mother, and obviously that helped us have some very necessary conversations. It allowed me to relearn so much about myself, my culture, my home, our ingredients, that thing I was talking about of this communal and oral tradition. And not only that too, it gave my mother a chance at showing up in a way she hadn't in 19 years.
So she's a very integral part of my company now. She's between France and Bénin, and she's the one who's helped me find who we source from, have all those necessary conversations, because obviously I don't speak the language the way I used to, so it's healing in so many ways for the both of us.
I came back with maybe 800 pounds of spices, and I said, "Okay, let's build a recipe," and so I did, and I have two. We have a traditional, which is really about honoring my home and the flavors of my home.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell folks the name.
Adé Carrena:
Yes. My spice company is called iLéWA Foods. Our traditional blend is called Suya Spice Blend, which really honors my home and is an ode to the culture that birthed me. And then there's a coffee rub. Our coffee rub is an ode to also my upbringing as a Puerto Rican. Coffee is big for us in that culture. The coffee I get is from a female-owned company in Ghana. They have a farm out there. It's called Kawamoka, and that's where our coffee comes from, because y'all, West Africa also does have coffee. I know people don't know that, but we do. I came back, I built recipes. I sent it out to people. "Taste, give me feedback." They did, and then I said, "oh, this could work."
The next time I went back, I went with my mom. We stayed for about two, three months, to really understand the system, so now there's a young woman, Felis, who is the one who does all of our peanuts from start to finish, to it being ground to a powder. We hire the women from the community, the one that I grew up in until I was 10, so it's like a full circle-
Kerry Diamond:
I can't believe all the things you've had to master just to do this.
Adé Carrena:
To say the least, it's been a journey, but I'm so grateful for it all. I think also, people see, okay, Adé, our spices are in however many stores they're in today, and oh, you've won chef of the year in North Carolina. You've got this, you have that, and we have a documentary that has also won so many awards. And honestly, I'm just grateful because what it feels like to me is I've gone on my journey of understanding myself and healing myself, and it just so happens that it's happening out loud. I never imagined I would be here on this podcast saying this. I never even imagined I would sit in front of a camera and talk about my traumas. I thought I was leaving that with my therapist because she's sworn to secrecy, but no, it's been out loud.
And what I'm grateful for is, particularly with the adoption piece, I'm very grateful for when adoptive parents come up to me and they're like, "Here's a different perspective." Because our documentary really doesn't fault anyone. It asks lots of questions, but really, it's the perspective that we're missing, and that's of us, those of us who actually have had this experience, and the ways in which it has affected us. People don't understand that at all. That's an important piece of this, for people to be like, "Oh, I never thought about..." The amount of, whether it's teachers, adoptive parents, or adoption agencies, because we've also had them reach out or come up to us after watching our film. For them to be like, "I never thought about this. What do we do now?" I'm like, wow.
Or when I have now had two private screenings within only the adoption community, and that's powerful, for them to feel heard, feel seen, and see themselves and be impacted, and also say, "Wow, it's time for all of us to amplify our voices and talk about these experiences that we've had as adoptees." That's been really beautiful, and nothing I ever imagined in my life. I'm telling you, everything I've ever done was never a thing I said, "I'm going to seek out to do this." I've just happened to be in the right space at the right time in making the right connections with the right people.
Kerry Diamond:
And it's amazing how your work as an adoptee advocate has come out of the food space.
Adé Carrena:
Yeah, absolutely. This is why I'm saying food is so powerful. Food is so healing, because in the documentary, my mama says something. I interviewed my mom, which I'm sure was hard for her. My mom says something to me. She said, "Adé, I didn't teach you how to cook because you left when you were 10 years old, but it is innate in you. In our family, we are cooks. That's what you come from. It is innate in you, so you took what you remembered, and you worked on your craf,t and you continue to work on it to promote this food." There are no lies told within that because in the same ways that trauma is passed down genetically and is embedded in our DNA, I realize so is the good stuff. So is the good stuff, and we just have to learn how to tap into it, and trust ourselves and listen to ourselves so we can hear.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, speaking of the good stuff, people will listen to this and want to support you. Where can they buy your spices?
Adé Carrena:
Oh, yes. So if you're local, you can find our spices at any of the Weaver Street Markets, and if you're not local, on our Instagram, iLéWA Foods, we have where we are in the country, but you can also support us on our website at ilewafoods.com. And I always like to add that the goal here is for all of us to build the community, so when you support us, you're not just buying spices. Honestly, even if it's one packet of spice that you buy, you are literally playing a role in becoming a part of the system that we're trying to create for a much more equitable future for all of us, because we need that. We need that, and we want to be fair to everybody, so supporting us means a lot to me.
Oh, and also, I'll add, shameless plug, our documentary has outgrown us. We just finished our film festival circuit, so while we were in film festivals, we couldn't make it accessible to the public, but now it's out, and we're trying to figure out a way to make it easily accessible to the public. So it's not yet, but what has happened is it has fully outgrown my story, so we are now working on a feature, and this feature is exploring the idea of displacement. So it's not limited to adoption, but how those of us in this food industry, whether you're a chef, a farmer. Whatever role you play within this industry, we are exploring the way food connects us to our identity and is a vehicle for healing.
So we have since filmed chef Georgiana Viou, who is also from my home country of Bénin, the first black woman in France to win a Michelin Star. It was such a beautiful experience spending time with chef because we were the same person on different timelines, literally. I said, "Oh my God, I'm going through that right now. You went through that at 33 when you were opening up your first restaurant." And we got deeper into her family and her father and some of the things that maybe haven't been filled yet, and I said, "Oh my gosh, chef, I went through that already and I know what that feels like." So it was literally we mirrored each other and we were just on different parts of the timeline, which was beautiful, and also filling to me because I'm a Béninese chef and she's paved the way. When I say to people, as a Black female chef, we need representations of ourselves, I get to see that in chef, and some young Black girl will see that in me too and know that all things are possible for her too, and she's not limited. So that's been beautiful.
Then we went to London and interviewed two other chefs, one from Ghana, one from Bénin as well, and now we're trying to raise money because these things cost a lot, what we did-
Kerry Diamond:
Did you do a Kickstarter or a GoFundMe?
Adé Carrena:
So right now, there is ways that people can support us and they can donate. We have a page for that, and now we're working on our Kickstarter so that we can, one, if somebody wants to share their story, we want to do that. We want to be able to make space for all of us to share our stories. And then if someone feels like, "Oh, maybe this is how I want to support," there's nothing that's too little or too much to add to this. Maybe it's somebody who's really good at, I don't know, who's an engineer, because that's not my ministry. I don't know how to do that. We are a very small team. Brad and I went to Bénin with one camera and four hands, and came out with a thirty-six-minute documentary.
Kerry Diamond:
We're good at spreading the word, so we will definitely help spread the word.
Adé Carrena:
Thank you so much.
Kerry Diamond:
We're going to do an abbreviated speed round.
Adé Carrena:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
But I have to ask you, you have your sleeves rolled up and I keep seeing that tattoo.
Adé Carrena:
Oh, yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
On your forearm. What is that?
Adé Carrena:
This means several things. This is Huedo. This is the Rainbow Serpent. In our culture, we say that Maolisa, who is a non-binary being, created the earth on Huedo, this snake, and this is the snake that bites its tail. And currently right now, the theory is that he's underwater, and when he's done, when he reaches his tail, that's when the world will end. So that's just mythology.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. Hope he doesn't reach his tail too soon.
Adé Carrena:
Not at all. But what this means to me, it's like every new beginning is another beginnings end, and so it's like the cycle of this balance of there's bad, there's good. It all rotates, and the biggest thing is how you, in your heart, the ways that you view yourself is what's important. In the low moments, fear not. The scales will balance themselves out again. Just continue to be a good person and put out more good in the world than you do anything else, and that's it. So that's what this is for me, the cycle that we live through.
Kerry Diamond:
Great advice.
Adé Carrena:
Thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
All right. We'll do two speed round questions. What beverage do you start your day with?
Adé Carrena:
Ooh, I love a nice black coffee.
Kerry Diamond:
Last question. We ask everybody this. If you had to be trapped on a desert island with one food celebrity, who would it be and why?
Adé Carrena:
Oh my God, that is a hard one, but the first person that's coming to my mind right now has got to becChef Georgiana Viou. Shout out to my mentor. Oh, that's hard because chef Ashley's also with me. That's a really hard one. Okay-
Kerry Diamond:
Well, I'll let you bring two since we didn't talk about chef Ashley at all.
Adé Carrena:
Thank you so much. Okay, so we're going to bring chef Georgiana and we're going to bring chef Ashley Christensen because those are the two most influential women in my life to me, who also just also happen to be celebrities. And so I'm taking them with me, because I don't know if you've ever had the mac and cheese.
Kerry Diamond:
I've had the mac and cheese.
Adé Carrena:
Cheese or the waffles they make over there. I don't know what they're making those waffles on, but that texture is incredible.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, you'll eat well on the island, and you are a survivor, so I think you three will be fine on that island.
Adé Carrena:
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, you are a very important voice in this industry.
Adé Carrena:
Thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
And I hope you come back on the show soon.
Adé Carrena:
I would love to. And thank you for your platform and thank you for the work that you do, because if we don't have these spaces, I don't have a place to have my voice be heard, so thank you so much for your work.
Kerry Diamond:
I appreciate that.
Adé Carrena:
And as we say, these are my views, my wishes for you, is that I hope that your work continues to empower and inspire so many people and that you also find the support that you need to continue to be the pillar you are for us in this industry. So thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
Thank you. Well, there's something we say that's way less profound, but still heartfelt, but you're the Bombe.
Adé Carrena:
Thank you. I'll take that. Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. Thank you to Adé for joining me. Our theme song is by the band Tralala. Special thanks to Earfluence Studio in Raleigh and Good Studio in Brooklyn. Our producers are Catherine Baker and Jenna Sadhu, and our editorial coordinator is Sophie Kies. Thanks for listening, everybody. You are the Bombe.