297 Adé Carrena
/Transcript
Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/297
Haley Radke: [00:00:00] This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing stated on it, either by its hosts or any guests, is to be construed as psychological, medical, or legal advice.
You're listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm Haley Radke. We're getting so close to 300 episodes, and I don't think we've ever had anyone on the show that shares today's guest's profession. I am so thrilled to introduce you to chef Adé Carrena.
She is the subject of a beautiful new documentary called Bite of Bénin. Adé is passionate about using food as a storytelling tool and has worked to bring West African flavors and spices to a global audience. She shares some of her personal story with us today, including being taken at age 10 to the United States with her sister [00:01:00] to be adopted.
We do mention some difficult topics in this episode, so take good care when deciding to listen. Before we get started, I want to personally invite you to join our Patreon adoptee community today. Over on adopteeson.com/community, which helps support you and also the show to support more adoptees around the world.
And we'll talk about it at the end, but Chef Adé is going to be with us for documentary club this month. So make sure you join so you don't miss out on that. We wrap up with some recommended resources, and as always, links to all the things we'll be talking about today are on the website, adopteeson.com.
Let's listen in.
I'm so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On, Chef Adé Carrena. Welcome, Adé!
Adé Carrena: Thank you. It's lovely to be here. I'm excited to take, go on this journey with you.
Haley Radke: Me too. I've, I told you before, I'm so looking forward to our conversation today. [00:02:00] I'd love it if you would start by sharing your story with us.
Adé Carrena: Yeah, absolutely. As my name is Adé. I'm a chef and storyteller and a filmmaker. I was born in a very tiny country on the west coast of Africa called Bénin. Almost none of us have ever heard of it, but if you can place Nigeria on the map, Bénin is a small country right to the left of that.
I was adopted when I was 10 years old and moved to Trumbull, Connecticut. So I lived in the suburbs of Connecticut raised in a Puerto Rican household and, experienced that, experienced a lot and I am now a chef a filmmaker, an advocate, a mother. And I'm just grateful to have platforms that allow us to amplify our experience as adoptees and to start this journey of healing for all of us. So thank you for having [00:03:00] me here.
Haley Radke: My honor. Can you talk a little bit about why you were relinquished for adoption at age 10, because that's unusual. And I know your mother is still alive.
Adé Carrena: Yeah, that's a great question. And it is actually unusual. I would say in conversations with my mom, when you grow up in a third world country, there is this sort of idea that all of the answers are in the Western world.
And there's a misconception of what America is like, of what living in Europe is like. And so any opportunity there is to send your children abroad in hopes of a better life, you take it. And so at 10 years old, they felt that the best opportunity I would have to live a life [00:04:00] worth living would be to send me away. For me to come to the states and have that experience instead.
Haley Radke: What's the perception of adoption in Bénin? Because we've heard stories from people whose biological parents, again, in a developing nation, may need assistance with child rearing and will send children to orphanages so to make sure they have food to eat or be educated or those kinds of things.
And then they're like, permanently severed and adopted out to other countries, and that was unexpected to them. Is there a cultural perception of adoption as a permanent legal severing there? Or what would you say is, they think about it there?
Adé Carrena: I would say that, again, the perception isn't necessarily adoption isn't really what they're [00:05:00] looking at.
What they're looking at is the opportunity that is provided to them. Like they're looking for the out. So you even have experiences, even me, when I go back home right now, when I go back home to do the work I do there, folks want to give me their children. Folks tell me. You can take them. It provides an opportunity for them to live a grander life that they imagine is what America is like, so it's less about the word adoption and so much more about what is the exchange that happens.
What can I what? Also, what value does my child have to whomever you are that allows you to take my child with you? Without knowing what is even the experience your child is going to have in their mind, it's just [00:06:00] so much better than what life is like for them here, which is fascinating. When you think about it, like the defining what a good life means, what wealth means, what health means what happiness means, what success means.
It's very fascinating to hear the perception that I don't really, that the latter, the unknown has to be better than what we're actually experiencing every day here in this world. And so it's very interesting. And Bénin is a very small country. There's probably a much less percentage of children who are adopted.
There are orphanages in Bénin Republic, but it's a lot less about what adoption means and much more about what the exchange that's happening and the possibility of the life that can be given to their child all also in the hopes of that child coming back to also make your life better.
Haley Radke: So I guess I'm picturing [00:07:00] like, it's like a, it's not an exchange student because there's no exchange happening, but it's like sending your child abroad to be educated.
With the hopes they'll return did you still have contact with them when you were in the United States?
Adé Carrena: No, very seldom. I think perhaps maybe I do remember a couple phone calls with my father and my mother but not nothing really beyond that. It really was no longer a relationship. It was like, okay, you're like out of sight out of mind and so and I said what I said now because in interviewing my mother and my grandmother, there's this pride in your children going to America or in Europe for them [00:08:00] to, oh, you know how, have you ever seen Slumdog Millionaire?
Haley Radke: Yes.
Adé Carrena: I could equate it to this idea of winning the lottery and the lottery being a plane ticket into this new world, this new experience, because if I make it out, the idea is that I then provide this new gateway for my family to also make it out. But that's a lot to put on a 10 year old child.
Haley Radke: And it wasn't just you, some of your other siblings left as well, right? So you went with your one sister, but to my understanding, other siblings went elsewhere.
Adé Carrena: Yeah, my mother is a mother of six children, four girls and two boys. All of her girls were adopted. That is also something to do. [00:09:00] It's also something to be said about that and the way that young girls are a commodity.
And our connection to servitude and the desire of society for us to have a lack of autonomy over our own bodies. That's the way young girls are viewed. As a young girl, I could clean, I could cook, I could, be of service, and that is something that gives me value to go outside of the world that I'm used to living.
I had sisters, a sister that went to France, and then she was the first one to be adopted. And yeah, we just dispersed, but the boys stayed.
Haley Radke: So not to just break this. I'm trying. I'm really trying hard to wrap my mind around it. Do you think this worldview [00:10:00] is as a product of Bénin being colonized.
Adé Carrena: Is that where it's coming from?
Haley Radke: Yeah.
Adé Carrena: So mindful of what I just said that I think of that and just think about Russian brides. Think about young child brides. Like most communities don't say, okay, this boy is of age let us send him into marriage. That's a conversation that happens around young girls. There's also completely hidden worlds in which young women are quote unquote sold into like service work, I think it does have a lot to do with colonialism.
I think it has a lot to do with our fight as young girls and women's in this world of having autonomy over our own bodies and what happens to us. Even the idea of like women [00:11:00] back in the day being having to marry into other kingdoms to make treaties for peace and safekeeping. Women have always been this thing that decisions are made for us.
Big decisions are made for us in these kinds of ways outside of our control to help society in some sort of way based on what their views are. But yeah, I think. When I think of international adoption, and of course, for me, it's very much continent to western world I think it really feels to me like legalized, human trafficking, and also just another form of like enslavement, you know?
Haley Radke: I was going to ask you about that. Yes.
Adé Carrena: It's a modern day way of enslavement.
Haley Radke: Your amazing documentary, which we [00:12:00] will talk about, I'm sure, at length a little bit later on, is called A Bite of Bénin, and then it's, a play on words where Bite, B I G H T is a location where many slave ships left from. I just, I'm having so much I get it, but also I'm having real trouble reconciling the idea of it being a pride amazed I'm so proud to send my child abroad to where all the slave ships left from to take our people away. It doesn't make sense.
Adé Carrena: I hear you. We can see this. I see this in two parts, and it goes into a lot of the work that I do of shifting the narrative and using food to do when I think about the impacts of enslavement across the diaspora. And because I came here at such a young [00:13:00] age, I was 10 years old. I had the opportunity to live the African American experience.
I learned that black is a thing because in Africa, we do not identify ourselves based on the color of our skin. It's more so your religion more so the tribe you belong to. Color, we, race isn't a thing. Colorism is, let's be clear on that, but race is not a thing. So I got to experience what it's like to be black in the world, which is a direct effect of enslavement.
The other thing is, as a child who grew up in Bénin, and then with the experience I have going back home, I also understand the effects of colonialism when colonialism helps to break down a person's identity completely. Rips you of it and [00:14:00] introduces some new concepts to you. A big example of that is like beauty standards.
People wanting to be lighter, bleaching of our skin. The straightening of our hair, the perming of our hair. Wanting to be closer to this idea of that whiteness equates to beauty or better. That's what happens with colonialism. Not only that they strip you of your languages. In any, our nationally recognized language is French.
The language of those who colonized us, and so you completely break down a society and introduce new concepts to them and that's where that idea of, it's gotta be better over there, makes, comes from, because we no longer have the same, hold the same value about our own culture, our own ways of thinking, ways of living completely shifts for [00:15:00] us, if even if you have the opportunity to go to school, you're being taught in that language of your colonizers. The way we teach, I don't know if you've ever heard an African elder speak, they speak in anecdotes, they speak in philosophies, like the ways in which they are taught is very philosophical.
An elder will tell you a story, and within that story, you're supposed to understand get the gem that they're trying to teach you. Our philosophy's just, there aren't Eurocentric words that can really define what some of our philosophies are. So when you're already starting with the children and shifting the way that they think, there isn't value anymore in our own culture.
We look externally. So I don't, some people say, oh, you're gracious for being able to rationalize. Like my heart and my [00:16:00] mind are very different. I can rationalize. a mother saying it's hard here. I have all these girls my husband's 14 15 years older than me I live in a society where even I myself don't have full autonomy of the decisions that I make we see tv we see on tv how the life in america looks you I can rationalize the it must be better there.
Like I let me take the opportunity to make sure you know they might at least have a chance there, but in saying that, what are you, in really believing that, what are you then saying about your own home and culture, that's not enough? So my heart can be sad and feel all the anger and all the feelings about that decision, but I have been able to rationalize it. In a way that I can see why you, I can see [00:17:00] why you would think that, but let's do work to undo that way of thinking.
Haley Radke: Yes. Yes, and so if you're comfortable sharing, can you talk a little bit about what it was like for you in this promised land of education and opportunities that your mother envisioned for you?
Adé Carrena: Yes, I can. I will also say that as a child, while I were very, I have this vivid memory, we used to have this channel called El Cedro. El Cedro used to play American shows and like music videos. I remember one of the first music videos I saw was Destiny's Child Survivor. And I used to sing that song.
It really, as a child too, I have this idea that America was this beautiful place that I was going to be sent to. And so the way I was told that adoption was happening or that I was [00:18:00] leaving home, literally I'm in fifth grade, I'm 10 years old. I just finished my final exams. I come home. My mom is having a conversation on the phone with somebody later on we're having dinner and we were just told you're going to America. And then there was no conversation, no sort of direction about. This is what it might look like. We might be able to talk to you this amount of times. Maybe we'll see you this is exactly where you're going. There was no information.
It said you this is what's happening. So then it happened. So at first I felt a great deal of excitement, obviously I'm 10 I already have what my perception of America is like according to what I feel I know. There was this, so there was a bit of excitement and I remember living in this place of [00:19:00] wonder because it almost felt like I'm a child.
My brain is man, where am I going? What's it going to look like? What is it going to feel like? So I remember when I got off the plane at JFK, I remember this very vividly. We got in the car we're driving down their parkway. I'm looking at the trees. I'm taking it all in. This is August.
It's August of 2001, one that I get here. So it's warm, but it's not like hot. And I remember even turning onto, taking that left onto Lakewood Drive in Trumbull and coming out and seeing the new place I was going to live in, coming out and feeling really excited. The first. The first few months, even I would say, like my first day there, they had a pool in the backyard. I almost drowned. That literally, that really should have been an indication of what my experience was going to be [00:20:00] like. As a child, I did not know how to swim. Don't ask me what, why I let somebody convince me to go in the deep end, but I did. But at first it felt, felt good for a moment and, my adoptive mom, something that I now think is a bit strange because we hadn't developed a relationship, immediately was asking me to call her mom.
And at first it seemed like she also was excited about this experience, right? And then the reality, I think, set in of I went from having two children of my own. To having these other children who don't speak the language, who really don't understand this culture, who we don't know, who doesn't know us, then it all shifted very quickly, I grew up in a, an extremely abusive household by the time, I was 11.
We're responsible for like cooking for our family. Like it was, you go to school, you come home, you do your chores. If it's your turn to cook, you do it. [00:21:00] It really felt like a prison, if I could really describe it, what it felt like was I no longer, my humanity was no longer intact. It felt very much to me like be grateful that you even have the opportunity to be here, which then mean because I was meant to be grateful. My needs as a child were no longer important were no longer met because I was given an opportunity. And so there was a clear distinction in the way I was treated versus the way their children were treated.
It really was take what we give you and be happy with it. Before that's before we even start talking about abuse. It was just a lack of love, a lack of care, a lack of consideration, a lack of even the grief I was feeling for having lost my [00:22:00] entire life. There really was no empathy no compassion for the experience of a 10 year old child leaving their entire home, their parents did not even knowing whether you would ever see them again, so outside of the actual abuse that happened that felt more cruel than anything, because there just was no emotional or mental support in the transition of leaving everything I knew to come into this new space. So first, you're dealing with grief. Then, within that grief, you have to learn how to disseminate into this new society. And children are fascinating. Children are beautiful because children are incredibly resilient. And will find ways to cope with what's going on because they'll naturally be like, safety.
How do I find [00:23:00] it? And whatever that is, that's what they'll do to feel safe. So I did that amidst like the literal hell I was experiencing. But what felt the most insidious to me is really the dehumanizing of myself and the complete removal of my autonomy as a human. Existing in life.
Haley Radke: I'm really sorry that happened to you and your sister. Do you even know why they adopted? What the impetus was? They already had their own biological children.
Adé Carrena: Yeah. What it very much felt like to me going back to what we're talking about, this servitude idea. They were, I don't know, how young were they? Maybe in their thirties, perhaps mid to late thirties.
I think what it felt like to me, and I'm speaking for them because I don't have a relationship with [00:24:00] them. And I've never gone down this path of like understanding them, but what it felt like to me was. They had, there's a life that they wanted to create for themselves and us being there was a support of that. So domestic work, we did it. Even the caring of their children, we did it. So it feels like that enabled them to be able to pursue the things that they wanted to do to progress themselves in life and then, and then also just adding, let's say, yes, I do lead with grace. I do. I'm just imagining what it might feel like as well to make a decision and then be faced with the reality of that decision and not doing the work to work through it yourself to show up better in [00:25:00] ownership of the decision that you made.
And then just not doing the best, like it's, I'm a mom, you're a mama, like it's not. It's not always the best, the easiest thing, it's not, you wake up, you're tired, you make lots of sacrifices, you got a lot of things to do, but it's already hard with your own children, right?
Navigating the nuances of being a mother, a mom, excuse me, a woman, a mom, a partner, and whatever else you are to everybody. But I think there was just no ownership and accountability for the decision that were made. Even thinking, even if they thought, oh, we could do this, and then you realize, oh, I can't do this, then what do you do?
You know what I mean? There was no there really was no responsibility on their part to be better. Because I can take somebody saying to me, I really thought I could do this. I really [00:26:00] thought I could love you and care for you as my own. I really did. I really thought I could, but I'm finding it harder than anticipated. I really would have loved a conversation like a real conversation like that. It still sucks because dang, I didn't ask to be here. It still sucks. I'm not saying that is the best option either. But it's real. And at least maybe there would have been another option for me maybe.
Maybe I would have found a safer place. I don't know but they're also we also have to take accountability for ourselves in life and the decisions that we make and in doing that you also give yourself grace and you're showing yourself love. They're like man. I thought I was better. I was in a better place, but I'm not how can I do that then?
There was nothing like that, but yeah, thank you for saying, you know for seeing [00:27:00] me. It's not the easiest thing for anyone to experience. I'm just so grateful that I'm blessed with just the way I was created, of having the disposition, the natural disposition I have, because this could have ended real bad.
This could have been, oh man, my heart could have been the coldest, I could have been a whole, I could have been on a whole different trajectory, so I am so grateful that I have found the healing necessary to be a fuller person.
Haley Radke: Can you talk about how did food start off, not start off, but let's talk about when you're adopted and it's it's a job you're given, you got to feed the family and you don't know how to do it and you tell a little bit about that in the documentary, but how did it switch for you to something that you chose as a career, as a [00:28:00] passion, as something that you show your love through and story tell through. That's a real flip.
Adé Carrena: Yeah, it's wild. Every day I'm shocked. Sometimes I sit on my couch and I think about, I'm like, baby girl, how did we get here? But I'm very grateful for it. I always like to tell people in Africa, our ways of living is incredibly different. When you're cooking I have vivid memories of my mom cooking outside. We do a lot of live fire cooking and cooking for us is a communal act. It is an oral tradition. It's not something that you're taught. You might be a child in that space with your mom, your aunties, and the women of the community, and never at once are you being, are you thinking to yourself, oh, I'm learning how to cook, but that's just not how we do it.
You're in the spaces and it is through storytelling. And through communion, it's a communing that you learn. [00:29:00] And when I got here and it became this trauma filled task for me, cooking became very connected to traumatic experiences for me, living here in the states. I hated it, it was nothing that I ever imagined doing, personally or professionally.
But when I was about 19 years old I started working in this beautiful fine dining farm to table restaurant called Heirloom at the study at Yale in the heart of New Haven, Connecticut. And I remember I was hosting, I was a hostess one evening cause they needed some help. And I remember studying the menu, looking at the pricing, the range of pricing, nothing was under $16 and I think the highest, the most expensive thing there was like 52 or just under $60.
They had bottles of wine that were like thousands of [00:30:00] dollars and the place was packed. And I remember feeling perplexed by that. That, huh, why are people coming here to eat this and also pay this price? So food must be something more than sustenance. So food must be more than I'm hungry I need to feed myself and attain to my physical body. And that's when I, this, I became curious in trying to understand why folks were making that choice. And then it hit me that, oh, it's more, there's an experience here. There's something that is more fulfilling than just this food tastes good.
So I went on this journey of seeing food as a form of storytelling. And then as I matured more, I recognized not only is it a form of storytelling, it is [00:31:00] also a vehicle for understanding oneself and reclaiming one's identity. And as I grew more and reconnected with my home, I was like, oh, not only is it that too, it's also incredibly healing because in the same way that generational trauma is passed down, so is all the other information, like there is a connection between our biological makeup, our cultural DNA, and biologi and geographically where we come from.
And so when you are, when you have certain cravings, that's not by accident. It's your body. Your body is I'm looking for something familiar. And so going through that journey, I say, whoa I am African. I'm African American. I, culturally, I'm Puerto Rican. And then I [00:32:00] grew up around white folks all my life. I'm an immigrant. I'm adopted. I got a lot to say. And I think food is this really beautiful non abrasive way of connecting with others and it's an unspoken language that we all understand. We don't have to we know when food tastes good. We know when food makes us do that little dance, that it feels good and it tastes good and we can relate.
If we can't relate on anything else as a society, we know what good food tastes like and food gathers communities. And that's where I, that's how I landed here. So it really is a personal journey for me of understanding myself and healing myself. I just now am able to take everyone else on this journey with me and then demonstrate to others that they can too find healing through [00:33:00] this.
Haley Radke: What was it like the first time you went home since you were adopted?
Adé Carrena: Oh my goodness. That itself is another story, but it was very eye opening to me because I remember everything. I didn't forget anything. I remembered it all and it was a lot. It was incredibly overwhelming, but it made me one going home and going back to the home I grew up in and seeing my father's empty chair was quite a bit to take in because he passed away and the feelings were so layered because I know you, but I don't know you. I have this connection with you. I feel like I lost you twice and then also the nerve of you to be dead. [00:34:00] Why are you dead? I have questions, so it's so many layers of emotions that you feel. And in that experience, really if you don't know how to accept the things you can't change, you're going to live a life full of disappointments and just and always feeling unsettled. My experience has really taught me that control the things I can and the things I cannot learn to let it go and I can't control what happened to me.
I can't control the fact that I can't, I don't have a relationship with my father. I can't control the fact that I lost him when I was ten and then again, and I can't bring him back. It really teaches you how to be at peace with the things that are outside of your control. But it was a very emotional experience because it's also not fair and I also have the right to feel my anger.
But [00:35:00] going back and understanding our complex history as a people who have suffered a lot and being like a byproduct of that because living in America for so long, I was like, oh, I can see where there's a disconnect between us as Africans and us as children of the black diaspora. And then I also found myself slipping into some normative westernized philosophies and having to check myself for that. I especially remember having that experience in the market when I was there with my mom. Another hard thing is people's perception of your experience. And then really just not having any idea to them. It's like to them, it's like the prophecy is fulfilled.
You see what I'm saying? To them, the prophecy, she left, she [00:36:00] came back. That's what they set out for. So the prophecy is fulfilled and she came back. And so it's how does that benefit us now? But also, they just cannot really relate to the amount of loss that they will never understand the loss.
Haley Radke: They see the gain. They see the gains.
Adé Carrena: Yeah.
Haley Radke: And that's what benefits them.
Adé Carrena: Yes. But they will not understand what it feels like to not live with people who've loved you for years. And then. And then also not hate them for sending you literally to the devil's den, and processing that on your own and making space to even allow them into your heart again, because to them, they also see the sacrifice they made, and then there's like this, just this misconception that because I'm in America, [00:37:00] like everything is great, like that I'm wealthy, that things have come easy for me.
But there really isn't this understanding of how hard I've had to work to get to where I am because I'm a black woman in America. They don't understand that concept doesn't even exist. You know. And then there isn't even an understanding of my relearning. I go home and they're like, do you remember me?
I'm like, no, they want to speak to me in all of our different languages. I don't understand them anymore. I've got to do work to relearn and then it's hard for us then to communicate because we don't speak the same. We're not on the same wavelength anymore. Sometimes I feel like a stranger. Sometimes I feel like an outsider.
And there isn't a way for them to really process that or even understand what that means [00:38:00] for me. So it's a lot.
Haley Radke: I have a 10 year old. You have a 10 year old. When you were talking about the circumstances in which you were sent abroad. As a 10 year old, I'm picturing my kid and sitting him down and telling him that and, of course the, our kids right now are so capable and smart and, they're not mini adults, they're kids.
And you got to be a mini adult at 10 because of the trauma of separation. I think this will be our last question before I do recommend resources with you. But how have you dealt? In order to be the mom you are to your 10 year old, like she's 10 now and you're looking at little Adé and how have you processed all these things and I know that you've even reclaimed a lot of culture through your food and storytelling and your work and bringing spices back and all, we'll get to that, [00:39:00] but like, How?
Adé Carrena: Honestly my daughter has completely changed my life. I do look at my little Imaga and I see baby Adé all the time and I'm like, how would baby Adé would have wanted someone to show up for them? So I always have that in mind. But before anything I expressed to my daughter that I am a human, I am a woman before I am her mother.
And in turn, I tell her that she is a human and a young girl before she is my daughter. So her human existence is acknowledged and I do not own her. I have no ownership of my child. I am a vessel that brought her here and I am a guide for her. And my responsibility to my child is to protect her, but to [00:40:00] raise her in such a way where autonomy over her own self is what is prioritized.
This sort of way of thinking has been very healing to me, but also allows my daughter to just exist in a way that she can communicate with me. I never want her to be afraid to express herself to me. I welcome her challenging. I welcome her asking questions, and I welcome her curiosity because she will then go into a world in which she has to be that person and be that way, and I want to make sure that my trauma is not transcended on her.
So I'm in therapy, I believe in therapy wholeheartedly, and that, in that same light, that my fears because of my trauma doesn't suffocate her either, [00:41:00] allows her space to, explore the world and make also make her own mistakes. So being able to see the humanity in each other has really helped us have a beautiful relationship. She can tell me she talks to me about anything. She talked she even the most beautiful conversations I have with my daughter is when maybe I've hurt her feelings or I've done something she has she doesn't like and she's able to say, hey, mom, I didn't like that.
This is how it made me feel. And I can accept it. And then in turn, she has also had moments where she might say something or do something and will correct herself. Like she'd be like, oh, mom, I didn't mean to say that I'm sorry. And I think it's just the most beautiful thing that emotionally [00:42:00] she feels safe to just express herself because as a child, I like, how do I, how would I tell my adoptive mom, man, you just beat me for no reason.
And this is why I'm crying and I can't even tell you that I gotta go somewhere and deal with it. And then as an adult, I recognize, oh, the fact that I always want everyone else to feel good in this space is because I was never allowed to express myself. So, therapy is, we all, need it everybody should be in therapy has really helped me be the kind of mother I am. And my daughter is who has allowed me to have the grace that people keep telling me I have, especially with my own mother. When I became a mama myself, I said I was, I became a mom at 22 and [00:43:00] obviously I didn't know what I was doing.
And so it really has allowed me to see my own mother as a human, too, and recognize that she made decisions based on the information that she had, and she probably was just doing the best that she could.
Haley Radke: Thank you. I am, so I'm so impressed with all the things you've accomplished at a young age, and just your your wisdom, like you really, you've got a depth of wisdom that a lot of us can aspire to. I want to recommend,
Adé Carrena: I always say that's the trauma.
Haley Radke: Yeah, it is. It is being a mini adult at 10, you skip 10 years of childhood and just got right to being an adult. So it's not a great, it's not great circumstances, how you came to it. But, your daughter, is benefiting from the work you've done.
Adé Carrena: Thank [00:44:00] you. Thank you very much.
Haley Radke: And so are we.
Adé Carrena: Thank you.
Haley Radke: Not grateful for the trauma this let's be so clear.
Adé Carrena: Oh for sure.
Haley Radke: I want to make sure people know all the things about you. So you're documentary a Bite of Bénin it's so beautiful and it is, God the video of all the different food in the beginning, especially like the, there's grinding rice and what you're doing with peanuts and there's basting meat and deep frying and whisking greens and marinating there's just it's so you can almost taste it, like you can't, which is sad, but it's so beautiful.
And it's so interesting how I think a project that started out being all about the food really comes to be about Adé and a critique of [00:45:00] adoption and you get to interview your mother and it's just amazing. And I know you're y'all are working on bringing it to be a feature length. It's shorter right now. It's 33 minutes, I think.
Adé Carrena: Yeah. 36 minutes.
Haley Radke: 36. Okay. So I hope we can help you do that. And we're we've chosen your film to be our documentary club pick for this month for Patreon supporters. So that's so cool. You'll be able to watch it and we're going to have another conversation fully spoiling the whole thing. We're going to talk about all of it, but can you tell us how we can support it to make sure we get more of it in the world?
Adé Carrena: Yes. First of all, thank you so much for saying that. It's a blessing. It really is a blessing that Brad Herring, who is a filmmaker came into my life and with so much love and gently pushed me into being open to [00:46:00] tell my story and has protected me, has covered me, has prioritized my well being in this entire process. So shout out to you, Brad. I love you so much. The ways in which people can support us, we have started a crowdfunding campaign to help us do a lot more of this work. I reckon I realized that through my own process of healing, it has opened up a door for so many more of us to tell our stories.
And that's what we really want to do. And crowdfunding not only helps us be able to do exactly what we're needing to do, but a very big mission of ours is to make sure especially us artists that are not exploited, and that we are able to compensate people for all of their time and their hard work and their creativity and their talents.
And then it also helps us get into bigger spaces where we can do this work in a profound way. That [00:47:00] change can happen. So we will, I'll be sharing that link with you. And if anyone wants to support in any kind of way, even if it's encouraging words, if you have a story you feel we need to tell in any kind of way, we are very much a collaborative team and there would be no Bite of Bénin without Brad and any other hands that have touched this. In any way, shape, or form anybody wants to support we welcome it and we receive it.
Haley Radke: Make sure we have that link in the show notes for folks. You can go right through and click through on your app when you're listening to this and find it. Okay, so we talked about your love of food and the storytelling and everything, but like, where can we eat your food and where can we experience this? I wouldn't even get to talk about this yet. You bring spices back from West Africa from women farmers and you are like, you have this really amazing business. You want to tell [00:48:00] us about that? Where can we get all those things?
Adé Carrena: Yes. So as a chef and storyteller, I have created this really niche space for myself that I'm grateful for so I don't have a restaurant. I have a food truck that does Street food from Bénin but really the bulk of what I do is create really intentional immersive dining experiences that explore different themes that are connected to healing and also exploring the intersection between West African food in the American South, and then just as a whole, the diaspora as a whole.
So whether we are doing an experience on a farm, in a garden, on a plantation, in a museum, wherever the story leads us is where I'm curating this experience. So it ranges anywhere from, five, seven, nine [00:49:00] courses and we explore a theme and we break it down and there's poetry involved and also it's all paired with zero proof cocktails because we believe in consent and being present to receive this message and doing the work in real time whether that's introspectively or with the people who we have gathered with.
So I am so blessed that through my trauma, through my story, I was able to create art in this type of way that allows other people the opportunity to see themselves and want to heal. So that's the way we can experience my food, and that could be anywhere. I've done it in New York, I'll go around the states, like I'll be in France next week doing something like this.
And it really depends on where the story takes us. Aside from that, because I know we're all from all over the place, [00:50:00] another way to support the work that we're doing is, in my first trip back home, I recognized that there was a need for creating ecosystems that will build equity for all of us. And so my spice company was born from that.
It's called iLéWA Foods where we work exclusively with female farmers and producers from Dene and Ghana. To source our ingredients and then we bring it here to the states. I make my blends here and we sell them on our website, but they're also in different stores across the state and also we've gotten into a couple stores like we're in Canada, we're in some stores in Canada, the UK, across Europe, and so I'm also incredibly blessed for that opportunity.
It's a lot of work. It's a lot of work. But, again, I'm just really grateful to be a vessel that my story, no [00:51:00] matter how not that great it was, that there was purpose that came out of it. Because I think about the amount of people who are, unfortunately, just exist in life and haven't found that thing, that, that fire that burns inside of them. So I'm very grateful that there's a fire inside of me that is burning brightly, that wants to make some sort of change in this world.
Haley Radke: I love that. Okay. I just want to say, I meant to say this earlier, but when I was researching you, like you've won all these awards, Chef of the Year, North Carolina.
I know you're doing something for the top secret we can't say at there's things, there are great things happening for you. But the other thing, when I Googled your name, I found a couple of people who were like Adé cooked, the best meal of my life. So the memory, the love, like it's all there and people can, you can taste it.
You said everybody can taste good food. So we.
Adé Carrena: Thank you. Thank you.
Haley Radke: So we can hear it from [00:52:00] your story and your presence that you're a good one. So thanks Adé. Thanks for sharing your story with us. Where can we keep in touch with you online and yeah, stay connected.
Adé Carrena: Yeah. The best way would be through social media, Instagram, and we can add that as dounou_cuisine or even through our website https://www.wamidounou.com/home. I love love, love talking to people and making space for that. A lot of times. I'm just like I lead with my humanity first. So please if anyone wants to reach out you are more than welcome to I welcome it. I am not I am very much right here with all of us and I love connection.
So please don't be afraid to send me a message or shoot me an email. I will respond. It may take me a moment, but I guarantee you that I will respond because human connection to me is the greatest [00:53:00] gift. So do not be afraid to reach out. Instagram is great. Or through my website, you can shoot me an email.
Haley Radke: Okay, perfect.
Adé Carrena: And I want to say as well, to you, I know you're saying how, you're saying thank you to me for all of these things, but also thank you to you. Your story has also allowed you to create spaces like this, where we as adoptees can express ourselves and our voices can be heard and what a beautiful thing you have done in creating community for all of us. So I'm very proud of you and I'm also very grateful for you.
Haley Radke: Oh, thank you so much. I got so excited for people to connect with you, but you also have something you want to recommend today. So I don't want to skip over that. What would you like to share?
Adé Carrena: Yes. Okay. I want to say that all of my life, I didn't recognize that other [00:54:00] people have had their own version of my experience.
And so adoption was not a thing that was at the center of my brain that there was a community out there for me that would see me, that would understand me until I stumbled upon Rewriting Adoption. They are a beautiful sister team who have all been also adopted who have gone on their own journey of self discovery and reconnection and have now created a platform for all of us to gather and be in community with each other.
So Rewriting Adoption is a great resource for us. If you are an adoptee, not only to be around people, who understand your experience but they're talking about real life things and they're doing beautiful work and helping us reconnect with our first families. So if that's a thing [00:55:00] that is important to you, if that's a thing that you've even considered, if that's a thing you want to even discuss because I'm not sure that we all want that experience, but they are at least a resource for you to start that conversation and see how you feel. So I love them. They also allowed me the first opportunity to showcase our documentary to an, to a fully, a full adoptee audience, which was a first for me.
Which opened my mind and my heart even more that there is a community of us out there and it also relit a passion for advocating for us. So please check them out. They are wonderful people.
Haley Radke: Amazing. Yes. We will link to that Instagram account in the show notes. Thank you so much Adé. What a pleasure to talk with you today. Thank you.
Adé Carrena: Thank you for having me. This is really [00:56:00] nice. Anytime. I I never imagined I would be talking to anyone outside of my therapist about any of this. And it has made me feel more comfortable. And it makes me feel more seen so thank you for having me. Thank you for wanting me to be a part of this.
Haley Radke: Our pleasure.
Oh my goodness. Is she not a delight of a human? I can't wait. We are doing Documentary Club. I know we mentioned in the episode, but I just want to let you know if you want to join us. You can join through Patreon and support the show and financially support the work we're doing here. I really appreciate everyone who does that.
You can do monthly or yearly and we also have a scholarship program and there's a free seven day trial. So all of those things are available to you. If you go to adopteason.com/community and click through to [00:57:00] join the free trial will come right up for you and you can access that if you're listening in the future, and that's already happened there will be an audio recording of it in Patreon. And, of course, check the show notes because you'll be able to find out where Bite of Bénin is showing and where you can support Adé's work. Okay, speaking of supporting Adé's work, another thing I've never done before, I ordered one of her spice packs that I could find in Canada.
She has a couple of different kinds, and this is from iLéWA West African Foods. I don't know if I'm saying that so my apologies if I'm mispronouncing it. But this is the one that came fast enough to get it in today's episode, and I haven't used it in cooking yet, but I wanted to open it with you.
And tell you my, my first impressions of what it smells like it's opening. It says on it, freaking delicious, make anything taste better, [00:58:00] rich and sweet. Fire roasted peanuts, bird's eye chili, this is the coffee suya rub, mellow mild. Okay.
It smells so smoky and delicious. I can't even describe it. Some of the ingredients are like sweet paprika, smoked paprika. I think that's what I'm getting. Coffee? Oh my gosh. I can't wait to use that. It smells so good. Just use it as a rub, marinade, or toss it on your favorite dish for sweet and spicy deliciousness.
Oh, I can't wait. That sounds so good. Okay thank you for staying for food podcasting, which just like television is not smell o vision or smell, whatever. I don't know what the podcasting version is, but I hope you join us to watch Bite of Bénin and celebrate Adé and learn more about her documentary.
And yeah, just [00:59:00] what an honor to get to talk with her and share her with you today. Thank you so much for listening. Let's talk again soon.
