By Emma Renly
For Columbia Gorge News
THE GORGE — Chef Kesh Akinsanya grew up in a small town in Liberia about 300 feet from the Atlantic Ocean. He described the culture as warm and welcoming; a hello from neighbors led to warm conversations, and food and drinks were commonly shared. It’s a juxtaposition to the U.S. culture, which feels less social and more reclusive.
So Kesh asked himself, “How can I bring what I was given as a child, that was so beautiful, to the Gorge?”
Group dinners were the answer. What started out as casual hangs with friends during his travels turned into him becoming a private chef. Now, Kesh is in the Gorge with a series of pop-up dinners, which started with “Three Roots, One Table” at The Ruins in Hood River. Dishes were based on his heritage and upbringing — Liberian from his mom, Nigerian from his dad and Lebanese from his uncle.
“I realized, maybe I can bring something from my culture into this culture,” Kesh said. “For me, this is what life should look like. People coming together, enjoying themselves.”
Food across past dinners included Nigerian puff puffs, suya chicken with a homemade sweet pepper sauce, a simmering stew with locally raised lamb and Liberian herbed rice. One dessert item was a specialty collaboration with Shasha Pops — “reminiscent of the mango trees and coconut trees in my yard,” Kesh described.
Growing up in Liberia meant also living through a civil war. “I got to see the first five years of it — pretty brutal — but my sense of safety was watching how people cared for each other,” Kesh said. After being evacuated with his mom from their coastal town, they returned three months later to a surprise. There was an abundance of food growing outside.
“When we came back, there were string beans growing on the trees, fresh peppers, beans ... The mangos and papayas were getting ripe,” Kesh explained. “All kinds of things that we had eaten, and not necessarily deliberately planted, were growing in the yard.”
It was then, at 11 years old in a war-torn country, that he understood the power of food. “It was exciting to eat a fresh tomato ... It was just like wow, this is a miracle.”
As a teenager, Kesh moved to New Jersey to live with his dad, but he didn’t feel like he quite fit in, saying that “people did things mostly on their own.” Instead of living in one place after graduation, he wandered around the U.S., taking high fashion modeling gigs, then later stints in other countries for cooking.
“I heard Hood River was a bunch of hippies; the person who told me made it sound like a bad thing,” Kesh said. After visiting friends in the area in 2021, “I just really fell in love with it ... Everything people said about Hood River was a lie.”
Since landing in the Gorge, he’s felt that the community has been open and welcoming. “It’s just this beautiful town of entrepreneurs who are also just like adult kids,” he said. “They’re enjoying their lives with windsurfing and being in the mountains. I appreciate the lifestyle.”
Kesh looks forward to cooking here as much as possible. “I’d do one every day if they’d let me,” he added. In the meantime, his upcoming cookbook, “A Love Affair With Food,” is available for preorder at www.keshstable.carrd.co.
Commented