Gold Coast Ghal Kitchen

Cooking is life. Eating good food is life. My grandmothers taught me to cook, or should I say put me to work, until I learned how to cook. By the time I was 4, they trusted me to make rice, which is the highest honor in a West African home. In our family, every meal was a celebration. We made big dishes because there was always a steady string of people passing through – people we thought were lost to the Liberian Civil War. The war drove us out of our native Liberia to Ghana where we could live without the threat of upheaval. So, when these long-lost friends and family showed up for dinner it was a cause for celebration. Food brought us together and cooking continue to carry our bonds. When we moved to the US in 2001, we settled in Philly. There was a large West African population there which made it feel like home. And even with the move to St. Paul, MN, I was never far from familiar foods or the rich spices I knew so well. But when I moved to Seattle in 2016, I left all that behind. I was shocked at the lack of West African restaurants, spices, foods, and markets. I wanted to go back to my roots, in Seattle. I started hosting dinner parties for groups of friends and acquaintances – partially to share the flavors of my food but also to make friends. My small dinner parties started to grow and grow as my friend circle got bigger and bigger. And that is how Gold Coast Ghal Kitchen started.