Charlotte chef teaching vegan cooking

2022-05-21 17:28:22 By : Ms. Wei Huang

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CHARLOTTE, N.C — Adjoa Courtney, who is known as Chef Joya, started her experience with veganism 30 years ago when her entire family went vegan to help her father handle some health issues. 

What You Need To Know 

Chef Joya started making vegan recipe instructional videos on YouTube during COVID lockdowns 

Chef Joya has taken 30 years of eating and cooking vegan food and put her knowledge into cookbooks, a spice line and creating meal plans 

Chef Joya was chosen as an Ally Financial and GLADD Changemaker, an award honoring Black LGBTQ+ business owners who have made an impact in their community 

Chef Joya’s mother, Zakiya, converted family recipes into meatless options, but making a meal got much more difficult.

“We had to make things out of nothing. There's so much more access to stuff now that it's a really easy transition.”

Chef Joya was a makeup artist before the pandemic lockdowns. Without any photo shoots or events to plan for, she started cooking more, and posting videos on how to make vegan meals on YouTube. 

“In a lot of cultural communities where the food is known for not being so healthy, it's like ‘OK, let me show you how to make this, but let's take the meat out of the diet, take the dairy out of it, let's do it completely vegan, but still keep that flavor so you don’t miss anything,” Joya said.

Chef Joya’s videos got so many hits she shifted her main focus from makeup to cooking. She published cookbooks and created a line of spices.

“Just because it's vegan does not mean you don’t season your food anymore. It's like anything else,” Chef Joya added.

Chef Joya’s work caught the eye of Ally Financial and GLAAD. She was chosen as one of four ‘Change Makers’, Black LGBTQ+ small business owners making a positive impact in their community during the pandemic.  

@allyfinancial and @glaad video series highlights Black LGBTQ+ small business owners making positive impacts in their community, including Charlotte's own @CookingWithJoya pic.twitter.com/16fS5s5fSr

Chief Diversity Officer at Ally Financial Reggie Willis said Chef Joya’s passion inspired him.

“It gave me life just to see how much passion she put into what she did, and how much joy not only her but her family got out of it.”

Chef Joya said food is the way people can communicate with each other and reconnect, something that was missing for many people during shutdowns.

“It’s about creating memories. It’s about bringing your family together, bringing the community together, so yes, the food is, kind of like, the vessel of getting that message out to people.”

Ally Financial awarded each Change Maker $10,000 to help them continue to make positive changes and grow in their communities.