Evelyn Antae Boatenk grew up in Thessaloniki with an African father from Ghana and a Greek-Polish mother, and learned how to cook dishes from all three influences, which she has taken to New York with pop-up dinners under the business name Sagapo.
It means, I Love You, of course and her customers are using it about the food she makes, after she went viral on social media earlier for sharing some of the Greek dishes she makes – and because people said, “Oh my God, You’re Black!” said Bet.com
Now 33, she said growing up in Greece in the 1990s in a multi-racial family exposed her to a lot of different foods. “I grew up without my father, so my mom worked hard to make me proud of being African. She even learned African recipes.”
Her grandmother cooked Polish food, “while my grandfather was super Greek, making things like moussaka and Greek meatballs,” Boatenk said. She offers family-style gatherings for up to 25 people and there’s a growing waitlist.
