Interested in the cuisine of Ghana? Internationally, West African cuisine is popular. But chances are you don’t know or have never tried any of it before. Broaden your knowledge and learn about authentic Ghanaian cuisines and their culture.
In this episode of Action Antidote, we spoke to Joanna Stein, a private chef and event planner about how she immersed herself in new west African cuisine flavors. Joanna is very passionate about cooking and helps their family business in catering services. She is dedicated to having everyone get a taste of Joanna’s kitchen authentic West African Food, Ghana.
Whether you’re a wanderlust or you’re just someone who just wants a mental vacation, Actions Antidote will take you on a trip. Listen to this episode and get a glimpse into the country’s food culture.
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Authentic Ghanaian Cuisine and Cultural Practices with Joanna Stein
Welcome to Action’s Antidotes, your antidote to the mindset that keeps you settling for less. Those of you who’ve been listening to my podcast, especially the last few episodes, know that I’m really interested in travel, but if you’re really open to travel and travel experiences, you realize that travel is actually a two-way street. Sometimes we get up, we go out, we get in our car, on a train, on a plane and we go visit another place, but sometimes people and experiences from other places come to where we are and that’s something that has happened to me quite a bit this summer, including only a few blocks from my home where food available from my guest today, Joanna, the founder of Joanna’s Kitchen, is available at my local grocery store.
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Joanna, welcome to the program.
Hello there. Thank you so much for having me.
Definitely. So, Joanna, you make food from your original homeland of Ghana and I’m sure that there are a lot of people listening to this podcast who have never had Ghanaian food or never even had West African food and so what I’m wondering is what can people expect when they try it and what should people be thinking about going into the experience?
So, Ghanaian food is very flavorful, it’s full of spice. I do definitely try to make it more of a medium mild so everybody is able to enjoy it but I also do have gluten-free option, I have vegan option, and then meat option. I try to make it so that everybody, regardless of your dietary restriction, you’re able to enjoy the cuisines, a little bit of everybody. So it’s just full of flavor. I’ve had a lot of clients from all parts of the world tell me that it kind of reminds them of like their grandma’s cooking or their back home cooking so it definitely feels good to be able to connect with people from all over and not just Ghanaian people.
When you talk about the spices, are you talking about being like heavily spiced, and if someone were to want the full authentic Ghanaian experience, would this most likely be a level of spice that overwhelms the average American here in Colorado or anywhere else?
Yes, I would definitely say the average Ghanaian is more of a high to an extra high so it’s more peppery and more spicy and, for me, my experience is just for you just to try our cuisine. So I definitely have the spice there but my goal is more of the flavor. And so like our bell peppers, we use lemongrass, I use a little bit from every cuisine so we use like curry, we use nutmeg, and so I feel like it’s amazing to be able to like see the same ingredients that we use here make the same dishes and so that’s why I also offer cooking classes because I love to be able to show people that you can make this dish, like it’s not unique ingredients that I’m getting sort of from Ghana, like there is certain things like palm oil but most dishes you are able to create yourself as well.
Oh, wow. Yeah, because your business is not just about the food, it’s about the catering and the cooking classes. And so what can someone expect from a cooking class? Because I’m sure a lot of people have thought about taking a cooking class or even during the pandemic, a lot of people thought a lot more about cooking and took that up as a common habit.
So with my cooking class, I try to create the whole experience so we’re going to be listening to Afrobeat, we’re going to be listening to Ghanaian music. All the plate wears are mostly clay like, we have the African pots. A lot of our dish are eating with our hands and so with that in-home experience, we are going to be most part using our hands to enjoy our meals.
I do like to have my guests be a part of the cooking experience so everything is not made beforehand. Click To Tweet
So like we are cutting the tomatoes to making the sauce because I want you to see all the process. it is a little bit more of a lengthy process because I still do, say, I marinate it for a while but I also love to be able to see that what all it takes to make a dish.
To make many of the dishes that you offer, both through your catering service and your cooking class, how long should someone set aside if someone were to like find a recipe and follow it properly?
For most of our recipes, it goes between two and three hours. It is kind of lengthy from the start. If it’s a vegan meal, it’s much, much more simpler, like when we’re making fried plantain and black eyed peas, we would have to soak the beans for a little bit and then we make the sauce and then we fry the plantain so that dish is like an hour 45 minutes from cooking the beans to making everything, but if you’re making like something that has like goat, lamb, then the coarser the meat, it has to cook for a bit of time so it can take between four to five hours. So it’s definitely labor intensive.
Oh, wow. What if I — that reminds me of some of the Southern barbecue traditions that I found out, I’m originally from New York and lived in Chicago, in Colorado so I never really experienced like the real southern culture and then I found out that it’s only considered barbecue with them if you slow cook it over wood and that a lot of people who do their barbecues there will wake up early in the morning to like start cooking the meat that they’re going to serve at like 7 p.m. in the evening just because it just slowly cooks over wood for a long time. I’ve also heard about this movement called the slow foods movement, which is mostly around not being in a hurry all the time, not trying to like cram every activity to every minute or make something that should take a certain amount of time go faster just because we’re always starving for time in our culture today.
I definitely agree because I feel like with certain meals, slow cooking the broth, there’s a lot of benefits in it and so being able to enjoy every aspect of it and also my sobolo drink that I make, it’s done in a process of a four-hour process so we brew the hibiscus and the pineapple skin and the ginger and we let that brew down and then once that cools, we add our ginger and our honey to it. So I do definitely feel like a lot of our meals, it’s love, like definitely it’s not a short time period. It’s made with love.
And so does that mean that in the Ghanaian or West African tradition, when a food is made with love, does that also mean it’s made like in a group as opposed to just one person by themselves cooking?
As a business owner, I am finding help because a lot of our meals, it’s not a one-person labor, it’s definitely a team effort, just because like because we make something called kenkey which is we take cornmeal, we ferment it for about two weeks, and then after that’s fermented, we cook partially of it and then we take corn husk, we individually wrap it and then we boil it for 8 to 12 hours.
Oh, wow. Okay, that’s that whole day thing we’re just talking about, yeah.
Yeah, and why would you taste it, it almost feels like it gives you like a sourdough because it’s fermented type of feel but I feel like that’s only created over that process, like you can’t just do that in one day and get that sourdough taste. A lot of meals are definitely more challenging for me to do as far as for catering and so, for those meals that are more labor intensive, I try to do in-home experience because I feel like it’s harder to produce that at a mass setting for pop-ups.
So, in-home experience, is that where you come in and you cook the meal, like a home-catered meal in a way?
In-home cater but also I have my clients be very much involved so they will be helping me cut the meat, mixing the stew. I like them to know what they’re making.
So does this include like a lot of dinner parties that people put together, if someone’s having an event —
A girl’s night, yeah.
Yeah, one of those, a lot of people over and they all kind of get involved, cook this meal together and then then enjoy it. So when these events, after you cook the meal, everyone kind of cooks it together, do you often like join everyone at the table and talk about like the cultural experience and stuff like that?
I always start out by our culture, we are given a name based off of the day you were born. I was born on a Monday so my cultural name is Adwoa.
And then a lot of the dishes, a lot of people are not used to eating with their hand, like it’s not like a two-handed, like the whole hand method and so I kind of go over like how to properly grab it so that you’re not feeling embarrassed but then also you feel comfortable to what you’re doing as well.
Oh, wow. So I have to admit that I’ve been messing up, as I’ve mentioned before, your food is available in this convenience, grocery store a few blocks from my house, the Sun Market, and I have to admit, I’ve been eating with a fork and I guess I’ve been doing it incorrectly.
But, yes, it’s very much meant to be eaten with your hands and my goal right now is I am trying to have my juice and my meals available at multiple locations. I want to make it where it’s like not just, because right now, I don’t have a storefront quite yet. I would like in the next two years to have a restaurant. I would like to have like, because I love Afrobeat and a lot of African music, like and reminds me of back home because I still have that connection and so I would love my restaurant to be open mainly on the weekends so it’s more like a night feel but then I would like to be able to invite artists from my country to come play.
You’re bringing that cultural experience with the travel being a two-way street to the people who are here. And it reminds me of one of my first guests, Kayla Ferguson has an organization called Same Plate in Denver which essentially is just that, she talks about how she travelled the world and then, of course, most people who don’t travel for a living can’t always be traveling, eventually you run out of money, you run out of energy, you run out of something, but still wanted to bring that experience to other people and so we’ve had similar events that one of my guests who, couple episodes ago, who is part of the Adelante Foundation so when I met at one of her events about Honduran food, bringing the experience of that country, and so it’s interesting to get the experience here. And so having been from Ghana, lived in the United States most of your life, you’re probably really well versed in this whole idea of getting different cultural experiences from different areas. What do you feel is the main benefit from doing something like this, where you immerse yourself in a different culture from somewhere else in the world than your own?
I think it’s amazing for people that always wanted to experience that. I haven’t been to Ghana since I was eight and so, for my 35th birthday, my goal is to be able to go to Ghana and to like bring the world of here with me and I know that that’s going to be amazing as well too. But I just want to be able to like first or second generation where their family was born there where, for me, I was born there so I feel like there’s more of a connect for me. I want to just be able to like enlighten them, let them know what it is back home. Because when I was growing up, I came to the country and I didn’t speak any English and I went through just a really rough stage of just like understanding and accepting the thing and so being able to switch it where now it’s like I am teaching people about my country, like I haven’t been so much more happier to teach people about myself than this phase in my life. So it’s really amazing to be able to be like, “I love who I am. I love that I came from this unique place and I can share this with you.”
You know, you talk about community, you talk about the labor, the labor and the food together. Is there something from Ghanaian culture, I guess, that we could benefit from maybe doing a little more of, maybe thinking a little bit more about?
I would definitely have to say being appreciative. I feel like a lot of us, we look at what other people are going through and want to be in their mind or where they’re at and so just being appreciative of like where we’re at and how we’re slowly going up and not giving up and so just like having that mentality that like it’s not the end but we’re not giving up, that we’re slowly going, if that makes sense.
Yeah, that makes sense. I think that’s a key part of starting a business and sticking with it as well, because most people talk about you need something to get you through, you don’t just snap a finger. We live in a culture of instant gratification with social media, everything online, oh, you just post a picture, you get 100 likes right now, versus some of the most important things in life, some of the things that are really worth doing are not in that realm of instant gratification. And that goes for any starting a business, it takes a little while to get from point A to point B. It took a little while for you to be like, “I’m gonna start the business,” to now it’s available in grocery stores and you’re going to the point where it’s going to be a storefront and then wherever you’re going there. So that appreciative state seems like a very important aspect of that particular part of the journey of anyone listening to this program that’s going to be saying, “I’m gonna start the thing that I really wanna start, where my true passions are.”
That is very true and just not giving it up, like it’s not an easy road. There’s definitely been times, especially being a mom of a special needs son. There’s definitely been times where I’ve just wanted to give up but I definitely know that in a couple of years, it’s going to be so much more beautiful so just keep going. You got this.
I think you’re alluding to some of these days and most people have those days where you’re just so exhausted. You have all the things you need to do, it’s been a while since you reached a new milestone to really encourage you and there’s like another struggle, day-to-day tasks, all that, you’re just really exhausted. Is there a method that you use in your brain to get through those days to say, “Okay, this is a really, really exhausting day, I have a list of 15 things that I absolutely have to get done today,” to do it and not give up and say, “No, because we’re making progress toward this thing that I really want”?
Me, what I do with like, the days where I have like two or three events, I like to just make a list that day. I spend like zero to little time on social media because I want to be in my focus zone. And I also like to plan ahead. I like my lesson plans and so if I know like this Friday is going to be very busy with today being Tuesday, I’m already, after this meeting, going to be doing my grocery list and kind of getting that done.
So I like to break things up into different days so that it’s not overwhelming for me in one day. Click To Tweet
I just find that much more easier. So I kind of break it throughout the week so that each day I’m accomplishing something for Friday but it’s not so big.
Yeah, so you’re spreading it out, and this is something where everyone’s journey is different. Someone can have a different technique but it might be tough to say, “Okay, I have 18 hours’ worth of stuff to do today and then only two hours’ worth of stuff to do tomorrow,” you would rather, and I think there’s probably a lot of people listening also who would rather find a way to be like, okay, no, we can kinda move some stuff around to even it out, to make each day around the same amount of productiveness and around the same amount of energy load, essentially, because we all run out of energy at some point. We will, at some point, have to take a rest.
That’s definitely true. There were days where I’ve had events back to back to back and it’s been exhausting but I also feel like me having like my things are the prepped where I’m just going to the commissary kitchen and just grabbing and going makes it a lot more easier because I’m not prepping and then going to an event. So I just feel like, for me personally, it just helps breaking it up a bit.
And now so with your personal story, you talk about moving from Ghana when you were eight years old and not really knowing the language, not really knowing what’s going on. How long did it take you to feel comfortable where you are?
I would have to say this point in my life. I would definitely say that because there was a lot of cultural differences as far as like the way we show emotions, the way we like just deal with our parents, the way we just feel, just a lot of things that was just quite different from back home. And so I just went through a phase of just like feeling confused and then once I learned the language, I still went through a phase of like who am I, like accepting who I was, the fact that I wasn’t from here, that I was different and now to have a business that is dedicated to show people my cuisine, it’s just like amazing because now I’m constantly on YouTube and the fact that I haven’t been in Ghana since eight, me planning this big trip of my 35th birthday, I’m so excited because I have so much flashbacks of being back there and I still speak our native tone and so I still feel quite a bit of connection so I’m just like, I’m excited.
Oh, that is exciting because it sounds like a big part of your business, a big part of your understanding of things is staying connected to those roots, which I think is part of anyone’s story. I think about New York more than I probably should have and I haven’t been back there and several years, it’s not two decades but it’s still been several years and I keep thinking to myself alright, when am I going to go back there, experience the way things are there, which same country but there are some differences in the culture between the two places, for sure.
Like what’s available, like for us like favorite taste and so like right now, I talk to my family, most of my family is still back there so I still do talk to them and I still do talk to them in my native language and with my kiddos, I even teach them our language because I want them to have that connection. We speak — our native tone is Twi. There’s a ton of different languages throughout different villages, to be able to like go to an African rocket and speak that, a lot of them will look at me like, “Oh, you understand that?” Yeah, I do.
And then are there other people in Colorado that you can speak your native tongue with?
It’s mostly when I go to African stores. I guess I don’t look African which I’m just like, I don’t know how you’re supposed to look African, I just thought — so it’s just really there when I go in and like they see me pick out certain ingredients and just like look at me crazy and then when I speak the native tone, they’re like, “Oh my gosh, you’re one of us, you know the language,” and I’m like yeah. So it’s definitely amazing to be able to connect with them. Right now, I am hiring and so I am trying to look at other Ghanaians that love cooking up cuisines, that wouldn’t mind that being their job and so I’m definitely looking at hiring at this moment.
And so have you been able to connect these African markets and some of the other population with these people that are in your local area to participate in some of these cultural traditions to maintain that connection with those roots?
Yeah, I definitely feel like being in Colorado, I haven’t found like any place that plays African music or have that diversity of it and so that’s why I’m really eager to open that because when I do popups, I usually try to have the music where you’re hearing the music, like I want to take you there where even though you’re waiting for your food, you’re hearing something different that a lot of people enjoy and so that’s my goal for my restaurant, but at this moment, just worry about getting my name out there, getting who I am out there so that once I open the restaurant, it’s more successful and it takes off.
Yeah. So, on the business side of things, I guess, since you’re planning your next step, which is opening the storefront, what do you view as the necessary conditions, prerequisites for having that open, because you want to know that you’ll be able to pay the rent on that place from your business and turn enough of a profit to pay your employees, everyone that you hire? If anyone out there’s like thinking about getting a restaurant, what do you think needs to be in place, that reassurance you need to know this is enough for me to then go ahead, buy the building or sign the lease on the building and open this up?
For me, it has been very important growing my social media because I feel like with our age, everybody goes off of either reviews or how many Reels you got there, how many videos, just how many people are watching your Stories and so I have been very interactive with my social media. With catering and cooking and the meal prep, I’m also focusing on my juice beverage and so my juice is called sobolo and so right now I am working on, by the end of this year, having it in 10 cafes or coffee shops. And so my goal is just to get my name out there and my logo because I feel like the more you see me, once I have the restaurant, it’s going to be more eager and so with my restaurant, I’m not planning to have it open every day, just more Friday, Saturday, Sunday, where it’s like if you don’t get in those days, you like wait so it’s like a hotspot and so I’m trying to create an experience when I think about my restaurant.
I know some international cuisine here in the United States are what people refer to as Americanized and I’m wondering is have you had to do any of that to appeal to crowds here other than, of course, like lowering the spice level? Or have you generally been able to keep your food pretty authentic to what the culture is?
I would definitely have to say 80 percent of my clients are not Ghanaians and, to me, at first, I was that’s so weird but, to me, I’ve heard a lot of people that are like, “Well, I’ve been to Ghana and I studied there and I remember this kenkey dish or I remember the puff puff dish, I remember this drink.” So, to me, I love being able to just connect with you in some point and so I feel like the only thing that I’ve had to change at this time is the spice level because a lot of my clients don’t want the overpowering spice and so just lowering that, but as far as the other ingredients, I want them to have that similar taste that they had back in Ghana. So I’m keeping all of it the same, just lowering the spice a bit. And with the custom orders, if you want it spicier, I can definitely do that for you, but when I’m doing popups, I definitely try to keep it more of a medium just so everybody’s able to taste it and then go from there. So I do give out samples at my popups just so you know what you’re getting yourself into.
And then do you find a lot of people especially requesting saying, “Yeah, put the full spice in,” when you do find your Ghanaian clients or even clients from similar types of countries so they are more likely to then say, “Okay, crank it up, give me the full spice”?
I’ve definitely had, oh, I would say 20 percent of my clients that, yeah, definitely go for it. I’m like, okay, so I always have like a little spice. It’s called shito sauce on the side and that’s like our spice and so I’m like, there you go, and so I always have that spice when you’re willing to take the next leap, but I always just like, let’s start off slow and just go low.
Have you ever had someone try to be tough and be like, “Give me all the spice,” and then not be able to handle it and you see them like —
They’ll walk in and like choking and I’m like, “Did you say what?” and they’re like, “No, I’m good.” It’s happened a couple of times, but I feel like, overall, like just the bold flavor because it’s very flavorful, like I use like cilantros, like a lot of our ingredients are so similar so that’s why it’s amazing because a lot of people think like, “You have to import it? You have to wait six months?” No, I really don’t. It’s not — no.
That’s awesome. And so, as of where you are now, it seems like there’s a certain level where you’re talking about appreciating the journey but also a certain level where you can already think of yourself as being successful. Do you feel that way?
I do. I just graduated from Rocky Mountains Microfinance and they give you like three mentors and that class, it was a 12-week class and so it’s definitely like really helped me just looking at the bigger picture of my company and where I want to go because, at some point, making all these meals that are so labor intensive over and over again, it gets tiring and so, at this point, me focusing more on my beverage, I feel like I can look at from a part-time employee to a full-time because it’s much easier to train with a drink. And with the meals, it’s much more intensive where the drink, we can make a big quantity of it and have that at stores and so that’s why when I look at having my drink at stores, 10 stores by the end of this year, that’s very manageable, where looking at having meals at 10 stores is a bit more tougher just because the quality control and the fact that you can’t make the meals and freeze it, it just does not work out the same. And so I’m in the phase of not really rebranding my company because I still offer the food but choosing to focus on my juice so that takes up and then slowly keep building the food. But I feel like the food will be more available at the restaurant, but having my juice at different locations and keep seeing me will get the hype for the restaurant once that starts and that’s the way I’m looking at it.
That makes sense. And it’s interesting you bring up quality control because one of the things that some people worry about as you expand, if you were to build a location and if you were to build anything beyond that, is that eventually you have other people cooking and I think we’ve all seen some of the larger chain restaurants struggle with expanding to dozens, hundreds, thousands of locations and still maintain that same quality control that you maintain there. Do you have an idea in your business pursuits going forward of where you want to be ultimately, like with this Friday, Saturday, Sunday storefront, is there like a bigger move after that?
So like my goal is once I get the juices out, I would definitely like to have like meal preps back available right now. Because right now, my meal preps are like a container and seal. I am working with a company that would like seal it so that there’ll be no air being able to go in the meals and that would help the lifespan of it so instead of two to three weeks, they’ll be much like way you can freeze it and then pop it in there whenever to go. So I’m definitely working on that. I’m also working on having a spice line available where you can just buy any meat, any product, and still create the meals. So I definitely have little projects that all fall under this umbrella and keep that excitement going, but I feel like once I open my store with having me at all these different locations is going to be like, well, this is the place, and so that would just help bring in that traffic. And it being limited days, that will also limit how often you’re able to use our store.
That makes sense. So you have the Friday, Saturday, Sunday availability at the storefront and then you’ll have the packaged meals available —
At all times, at stores, yes.
At stores at all times and the juices available. And with the juices, it seems like you’re talking mostly about coffee shops and similar types of places. Just going to ask, are the juices caffeinated or do they have caffeinated versions? Or are they more of like an afternoon refresher drink? Like what’s the use case?
Yeah, so the juice, it’s called sobolo. Right now, we are working with five different flavors. Our classic is the hibiscus ginger so it’s hibiscus, ginger, pineapple skin, clove, and it’s honey. So you can drink this hot like tea, you can drink it cold or you can drink it with spiced rum so there’s three different ways to enjoy it and so my main focus is the fact that you can enjoy it in so many different ways, not just the summertime, but at the fall as a tea because that’s how I like to drink it as a tea, like the hibiscus and pineapple skin is really good for your immune system, it is really good for your blood flow so there’s so many different benefits and the clove is like amazing for you so there’s so many different benefits to this drink and so my main focus at this time is I am rebranding my website, making it stand out where it’s mostly focusing on the juice, focusing on different ways to have it as a cocktail because it goes really well with spiced rum since they share a lot of ingredients but I also want to focus on different cocktail places to have it. There’s a bar that is looking at having me have the drink available there so I’m just trying to just look at different beverages places that could use it as a mixer.
Oh, yeah. And you said the best mixer — or the best thing to mix it with is spiced rum. It could be some other types of beverages. There’s probably at least one type of alcohol that you would say never mix it with?
At this time, I don’t know what — I will say vodka, I don’t know.
That’s what I was thinking too. I was thinking there’s probably like maybe put it with tequila but not vodka.
But I love the fact that you can enjoy it in three ways and right now I am working on a lemonade one, like all the same base but there’s going to be an additive so I’m working on — not an additive but a fresh flavor that’s added to it so we’re working on a lemonade one, a watermelon one, a mint one, and so those are going to be coming later on but I want to get the classic since the hibiscus, a lot of people that are Jamaican, a lot of people that are Puerto Rican, a lot of different countries resonate with the hibiscus and pineapple so this drink is so diverse, like it’s not just a Ghanaian drink.
Yeah, I was thinking that the whole time. Of course, rum is a very Caribbean, Puerto Rican — Puerto Rico is where the Bacardi factory is.
Yeah.
So there’s going to be some like cultural overlap with some places, the same way like some of your curries might have some overlap with like India and some of these other places.
Yes, yes. So I definitely love it because my goal is not just to ensure one people, I want to ensure everybody and with my meal preps, as it goes, I would like to also reach out to nursing homes to have it available, people that have special needs, because they want healthy meals. I have this one lady and she is blind and she’s been my client for the last two years. Now, every week, I make her meals and she loves my meals because it’s convenient, she can just warm it up when she’s ready to eat, and so I definitely want to make my meals because it’s a healthier alternative.
I just want to make for people that want to try new things that work a lot, aren’t able to create this but also have the convenience to find it. Click To Tweet
Yeah, yeah. I mean, blindness is just a really, really tough thing to deal with and that’s like one of the things you were getting at before about the whole appreciation and, a lot of times, one thing that I’ve been trying to do lately but admit I always forget to do is just appreciate the things that I have, like that I can see well without glasses, which is like a really amazing thing, or I hiked a fourteneer, a 14,000-foot mountain with my Siberian Husky last Thursday. So just looking around and just being like, okay, this is a beautiful mountain, the way the morning sun is pressing against the mountain in the morning, or even here in Denver, the way it presses against the buildings if you go out at like maybe 6:30, 6:15 in the morning at this time of year, stuff that we oftentimes don’t take time to appreciate. And so, hopefully, everything that you’re doing is helping people appreciate some of these things a little bit more.
There’s times where I have popups where I don’t sell out and so I am very big with giving back to the community. I donate at least twice a week at the Denver Community Refrigerators, either I am picking up meals from food rescues and filling up the refrigerators or meals from my events. I don’t touch them, I make to-go meals and I delivered that at the Refrigerator so people that are homeless, people that don’t have meals just open the fridge and at least get something.
Yeah, I believe there’s one a few blocks further down the road from where I live and where that Sun Market is, like by —
What’s the name of that fridge?
I think it’s — I don’t remember the name of it but I know it’s at Downing and 18th, I think. There’s like this kitchen that people can go into, it’s like on the other side of the St. Joseph Hospital —
Is it Guy’s Kitchen?
It might be, I’d have to look it up, but, yeah, it is always good to, I mean, give a little bit back to the people who really just don’t have it. And then so you’re planning a trip back to Ghana in a few years’ time. What do you expect to experience there? Because I know you’ve been living here for a couple of decades and now you’re headed back there speaking the native tongue and everything like that, do you expect people to greet you a certain way? Do you expect to reconnect with certain people? Is there some sort of an agenda for the trip?
Yeah, I definitely have a lot of cousins that we grew up, like I remember them little and then they’re still there. I talked to them. I know that when I go back, it’s definitely going to be like exciting to just like reconnect with all my family that’s there. I am looking for my kiddos to be able to see a cultural difference because I feel like they grew up here, they’ve only seen in videos what it could look like, what I talked about, so for them to really be there and be like, “I am actually here,” I am really excited for them just to see the reality of things and how to be more appreciative of what we have here once we come back. I’m really excited to — I know that I make my cuisines but to be able to like authentically taste the different things and just to connect with the people that make it and to share that I make it as well, I’m just really excited for all that. And so right now, I am also trying to grow my YouTube. Every week, I am working on new recipes of our meals but I’m also planning that for the trip so I’m going to be recording a lot of the trip of how it’s back there, the 16-hour trip, that’s all that takes.
Oh, wow. Yeah. I’m guessing there’s going to be a changing of planes somewhere, right?
Yes. In England.
Oh my gosh, Heathrow? Yeah, London. Hopefully —
Yes, London, and that’s where when I came.
Not to jinx it but hopefully they get better at not losing baggage between now and then.
So excited. They have five years.
So, yeah, they have five years to figure out how to like — and I don’t even know if that’s a problem, I remember seeing this like in the news six weeks ago, and I’ve been trying to not really pay much attention to the news lately because most of it is pretty depressing but —
It is. It’s very anxiety filled and I’m just like I am right now at a phase where, even with my business page, I’ve went down to, I’ve deleted all my followers that I’m following because I want to get my mental there, like I’m not here to compete with anybody, I’m just here to share my gift and I believe that everybody has a special gift so I don’t see anybody as a competition.
Now, have you encountered other chefs from other West African nations? And if so, is the cuisine similar or is it like very much different in each country?
Very different. Very, very, very different, and that’s one of my goals. As my company grow, I would like to be a mentor, because my cuisine is more Ghanaian and I feel like Nigerian, South African, Egypt, I feel like we are all somewhat close as far as like the ginger, garlic, pepper base, but I feel like the additional stuff is different, like the season that’s added, because I feel like we use a combination of fresh herbs and season and that’s what creates our taste because there’s not just season which is started with sodium, it’s more of the freshness of the herb and the season mix and that creates that deliciousness. So I feel like we all start off with that same base but then your season is what takes off or what’s different from ours. So I’ve had like people that’s from like Egypt that’s like, “I really enjoyed this because it reminds me of my grandma,” but maybe that dish, they used raisin or it’s just prepared slightly more, but I do know like a lot of us do use rice but I feel like rice is like an overall filling for most people.
Yeah, there’s like so much of the world. I mean, I’d be hard to think of a country in the world that doesn’t use rice for anything. Maybe Scandinavia, I can’t think of rice in a Swedish dish but, right now, at least on top of my head. You mentioned cilantro before, so you’re talking about those freshly cut cilantro as opposed to being a shaker, the spice type of thing, like the freshly cut —
Right, so like I make this like green salsa where I’m looking at in a couple of months having it available for stores but I’m more trying to diverse my meals where, right now, it’s ready to go but as I grow, I want it to be you can buy these items off the shelf and create your own so my green salsa would have like different bell pepper, roasted, garlic, pepper, cilantro, lemongrass, ginger, carrot, so just like different things, avocado oil blended down and so you can like marinate this on like a meat, you can just put this, let it chill for a while and you get that flavor. Or if you’re making like a beef stew, that would be the base that you would start at the oil with and then add your tomato sauce and then your black eyed peas. So this sauce is like a starter for everything so just I’ll make it first like no matter where you’re at with you’re cooking level, you can do this. You can do this.
Yeah. I mean, it sounds like an adventure too because learning to cook something completely different than what you’ve always done before. And when you talk about the freshly cut herbs and even vegetables, you talked about carrots, are they stuff that are straight from a nearby garden that you have or a garden that someone has, like one of those farm to table types of situations?
So, yes, a lot of my herbs, I do have a local, it’s called Fresh Farm out here in Littleton and so I do try to source a lot of my things Colorado grown. I do have a personal garden that I have with my family but I feel like that’s not able to produce as much things as what I need for my company but most of my things I do try to shop local, like as far as like plantains, that’s a bit more harder and depending on the season, coconut and pineapple, but as far as like bell peppers, onions, those are easily sourced here. I am looking for a local farm for my produce but, at this time, a lot of things are sourced here.
And so anyone listening that has heard this conversation and wants to try your food or wants to try your juice, what will be the best way they can either get a hold of you or find it in a local store or get set up with like a catering delivery type of thing?
Yes, at this moment, my juice and meals are available at Sun Market as well North Lafayette and City Park. I am there every other Sunday from 11 to 3. We have popups here so you can definitely come up, talk to me, interact with me, and I always have samples because I feel like samples are a good way to start the conversation to see if you enjoy something and, if not, what can you enjoy so I always love to just let you try it out before you commit to something. You can also reach out on my website. I am very visible on Instagram so you can go on Instagram, Joanna’s Kitchen, or you can buy me on my website. With the website, we are converting it so it’s going to be JoannasJuice.com.
One final question, just something that may be on the minds of some people in the audience and I know there’s been some stuff I’ve read about on website, even seen YouTube videos about this, what do you think is the most common misconception that people have about Ghana?
I would have to say, even from making my own kiddos, coming up here, “Do you guys have lights? Do you guys have roads? Like how was the civilization down there?” So it’s very, very different to like at first, when I used to get asked those questions, I would get mad but then it’s like, well, people don’t know, they haven’t been down there, what they’ve seen and so that’s why I’m really excited about being able to, once I go to Ghana, document how it is and how it’s somewhat different but so much like to what we’re here. I just definitely feel like just the outlook of just our livelihood, it’s just myths, assume that we just live very nature wise, which is very true but not to that extent.
Yeah, so it’s not like pre-civilization tribal hunter-gatherer living, there are cities and roads —
Right. I mean, it definitely used to be 60 years ago but I definitely feel like now we definitely have apartments and skyscrapers and Wendy’s, like there is stuff that we literally see here down there as well, yeah. They go like, “Really?”
Well, I’m glad to hear the Ghanaian population can get Wendy’s whenever they want.
Right, I feel like it’s amazing just being able to have, for me, have both worlds because it’s not just what I’ve seen but I’ve actually been there to witness what it’s like.
Yeah, so you know what it’s like there, you know what’s like here. There’s probably a misconception on both sides of what it’s like on the other side —
Right, yeah, like all my cousins there, they’re like, oh, must be like what they think about America is and people here what they think about there is so it’s just definitely amazing to just come together or just be able to like explain to the other side like, “It’s not like that.”
Well, Joanna, first of all, thank you so much for bringing the Ghanaian cultural experience to Colorado here and more so in the future as you start up that storefront where people can come in and do the cooking and do the meal together and thank you so much for joining us today on Action’s Antidotes and telling us about your story, your business, and some of these cultural learnings. And I would also like to thank everybody out there listening for tuning in again to Action’s Antidotes, encourage you to check out more episodes, I think this is number 64 so I think we’ll have a good number of episodes still lined up between now and the end of the year and probably into next year so encourage you to travel, experience other cultures, and have your mind opened to other ideas, other possible ways to do things and, from that open mindedness, from that gathering of experiences and ideas, will probably come the idea that you want to pursue and the one that’s going to make your life what you want it to be.
The joy. Yeah, I definitely agree. It’s definitely a process and don’t give up.
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About Joanna Stein
Joanna Stein is a private chef and event planner and the owner of Joanna’s kitchen. She is dedicated to having everyone get a taste of Joanna’s kitchen authentic West African Food, Ghana. Her goal is to give back and teach others about her culture.