Meet The Chef

When people compliment my cooking, they are really complimenting my grandmother.''

For many people, it can take a lifetime to find their calling. For me, I was twelve years old. In my home country of Liberia, I grew up in the city of Gbarnga but would travel to visit my Grandmother Lorpu's village, Kowai, about 2 hours away. As with many cultures, it was custom for young girls to learn how to cook so they could have the skills to cook when they are married. At eight years old, my grandmother began teaching me what cooking for the family should look like.

In her outdoor kitchen, built with cinder blocks and a thatched roof, Grandmother Lorpu would light the fireplace then sit on a wooden stool directing me through her recipes. ''I remember smelling the different herbs, spices, and alligator peppers. The warm aromatic seasonings would fill the space as my grandmother would recite recipes from memory.

My parents were both very hard-working people. my mother was a businesswoman and my father was a college professor. At twelve years old, I began cooking for the entire family - which meant cooking for twenty to twenty-five people at a time. ''I was very confident.'' ''it would take me one to two times with guidance from my grandmother.'' After that, she had committed the recipe to heart. No cookbook. No Pinterest. No recipe card.

All of the ingredients that my grandmother cooked with were literally homegrown. I would pick vegetables from our garden to cook. Many of my recipes can be made vegetarian, but all of them include wholesome, healthy-based ingredients such as chicken, beef, shrimp, fish, plantains, and rice. Many of my recipes include both exotic and familiar names such as kabobs, meat pies (similar to empanadas), okra, palm oil, and cassava leaves. It's not surprising that many of the meals, like collard greens and cornbread, would sound familiar to those who love Soul Food - or Southern cooking in America. Those dishes have their roots in Liberian cuisine.

The relative peace and happiness that I felt visiting Grandmother Lorpu and learning how to perfect her recipes became difficult when the civil war forced me and my family to flee to Guinea when I was fifteen years old, leaving my grandmother behind. In 2000, my father received a visa to America. one year later 2001 he applies for a visa so my mother, siblings, and me to join him in America.

My Grandmother Lorpu passed away in 2015. As with losing any loved one, was very difficult for me. However, I was committed to honoring her memory and the values and flavors that she had passed down to me. when I moved to Charlotte North Carolina in 2017, it was an opportunity for me to think about how I could honor both Grandmother Lorpu and my Liberian roots. In 2019 I got accepted into Johnson & Wales University majoring in culinary arts. I graduated with my associate's degree in May 2021. I'm currently doing my bachelor's degree in applied food science.

In July 2021 I established Lorpu's Kitchen. Establishing Lorpu's Kitchen was a way to share a part of my grandmother with the community. My grandmother Lorpu is not to see [it]," "if I can introduce her recipes and flavors to the world it would give both of us joy."

Lorpu's Kitchen is right now an online frozen African meal delivery service. The meals are prepared in a commercial kitchen. when a customer orders online, we take their orders prepared them, and ship them. Unlike other food delivery services, my recipes are new, exotic, and always wholesome. And, customers don't have to go through the work of cooking the meal to enjoy the flavors. By placing the meal in the microwave, the warm exotic spice smells of Lorpu's hearth in Liberia will begin to fill your kitchen.