The skies are clearing after an surprising spring thunderstorm as I drive by a Harmony subdivision. I park in entrance of a two-story dwelling with beige siding and stone accents and stroll round to the yard. The solar highlights a slim white tent that shades a protracted desk set with 20 chairs. Ceramic vases of terra cotta-dyed Pampas grasses and pure wicker placemats pop in opposition to a black tablecloth.
That is “East Meets West: An Immersive Culinary Assembly of the African Coasts,” hosted by Charlotte-area cooks and buddies Awo Amenumey and Ammalu Saleh. Amenumey owns Eh’vivi—“tasty” or “scrumptious” in Ewe, one of many major languages of her native Ghana. The corporate shares the delicacies of her dwelling nation at pop-ups and particular occasions, like this one. Saleh runs an analogous enterprise, Serengeti Kitchen, with meals from Tanzania.
Amenumey, 37, emerges by the sliding glass patio doorways. She’s carrying distressed skinny denims, cheetah-print mules, and a white chef’s coat lined with a blue-and-green patterned cloth from Ghana. She takes the time to hug and communicate to every visitor—buddies, influencers, foodies—as in the event that they’ve been buddies for many years.
As soon as people are seated, the cooks introduce themselves, although everybody is aware of their reputations properly sufficient to have spent $125 to be right here. Amenumey places her arm round Saleh’s shoulders as they share how they met on the North Finish Farmers Market two years earlier than; how they’ve collaborated to create seven programs for tonight utilizing cassava and plantains, staples in each their nations; and the way they sourced substances from native farms, together with Previous North Farm in Shelby.
“In Africa,” Amenumey tells their company, “cooking is a manner of getting neighborhood and sharing with anybody you come throughout. … and we wish to see the meals from our nations within the forefront of the culinary scene right here in Charlotte.”
The “East Meets West” dinner included Cassava Mchuzi, a stew with chapati (above) and Abladzo (under) made with shredded goat, grilled plantains, onion soubise, and sauteed ramps.
Rising up in Ghana’s capital, Accra, Amenumey says her dad and mom uncovered her and her two sisters to “every kind of meals, however Ghanaian meals was my core.” Dishes in Ghana, usually soups and stews, are often served with a starch, like cassava, rice, or maize. “It’s daring, very umami,” Amenumey says, “and we use a lot of spices and peppers.”
She grew up in a home with 20 prolonged members of the family—“my mother and pop, my two sisters, a number of aunties, uncles, cousins, grandmas, grandpas.” The ladies in her household have been all the time within the kitchen, and she or he started serving to round age 8. “The range or coal pot”—an outside pot just like a charcoal grill—“was by no means off,” she says. “In order that’s all the time been part of me.” However she by no means thought of that cooking could possibly be a profession.
She had simply graduated from highschool in 2006 when her household relocated to the U.S. for her father’s job as a diplomat on the Ghanaian embassy in Washington, D.C. “Once I received right here, I used to be like, The place is Ghanaian meals? I noticed Asian meals, I noticed Mexican meals, I noticed Italian meals—every kind of meals however not mine.”
She started to cook dinner for everybody she may. “I used to be like, ‘This meals I grew up consuming is nice and scrumptious.’” However she nonetheless by no means thought of that cooking could possibly be a job till her husband, Kevin, whom she married in 2010, urged culinary college. “I might perform a little analysis right here and there,” she says, “however then I’d simply brush him off.”
5 years handed. The couple had two kids, whom Amenumey stayed dwelling to look after. “We’re very religious folks … and at some point my husband informed me, ‘The Holy Spirit informed me that after I’m executed with my grasp’s (diploma), it’s your flip to return to highschool, to do culinary,’” Amenumey says, chuckling. “I used to be like, OK, I suppose I’ve received to take this severely.”
Many of the substances Amenumey makes use of—like rice, okra, tomatoes, and greens—are staples of Southern delicacies. “They have been introduced right here by the Transatlantic Slave Commerce,” she says. “There’s a lot that connects us in our cooking.”
Shortly after that dialog, in summer season 2015, the couple moved their household to Paducah, Kentucky, for Kevin’s job. Amenumey was shocked to study that West Kentucky Group & Technical Faculty, of their small new metropolis, had a culinary program. She began in January 2016. “My very top quality was, like, an entire new world had opened as much as me,” she says. “I used to be simply lit up.” She graduated on the high of her class a semester early—regardless of giving beginning to her third baby in the course of her remaining yr.
She was working for the varsity’s café after commencement when Kevin received one other job supply—in Charlotte. After they arrived in 2018, Amenumey didn’t wish to work in a conventional restaurant due to the lengthy hours, so Kevin urged she strive catering.
“I began Awo’s Catering,” she says, then laughs. “The identify was so corny.”
Her first shoppers have been fellow members of Christ Embassy Charlotte church, and she or he cooked no matter cuisines they requested. However simply a few months in, she was provided a job as a touring sous chef with Morrison Healthcare, which operates kitchens in additional than 1,000 hospital and well being care programs, together with Atrium. She labored the job for 3 years whereas she ran her catering enterprise at dwelling. She loved the job, she says, however “at some point, I seemed on my Shelton app, and I had stayed in lodges for 200-and-something nights of the yr.”
Amenumey stop and rebranded Awo’s Catering to Eh’vivi to get again to her core. “Once I got here to the U.S. and began cooking for folks,” she says, “Ghanaian meals was all the time on the coronary heart of it.”
As we speak, Eh’vivi hosts about 4 occasions monthly—cooking demos, pop-ups, festivals, and extra. Amenumey’s additionally a full-time company chef for a neighborhood meals service procurement firm, Foodbuy, and has a line of connoisseur cookies and granolas known as BisKrunchies. However Eh’vivi is her ardour, and she or he hopes to ultimately flip it right into a restaurant.
“Charlotte’s meals scene is rising … and I wish to add to the variety of what we now have right here whereas sharing my tradition,” Amenumey says. “My hope is that Charlotteans proceed to have an open thoughts and an open palate.”
Tess Allen is the affiliate editor.