🌴 Calllifornia loveee

Though people may spend their lives traveling the world and trying new cuisines, there really is nothing like eating a homecooked meal from your hometown. For Chef Keith Corbin, that homecooked meal would be a bit of his Grandma's Southern soul food.

Keith grew up in Los Angeles, with his grandmother who had moved there from Alabama. Louella Henderson (grandma) – who was raising eight kids as her own – spent much of her time in the kitchen, cooking up classic Southern dishes for the kids. 

• “That was one of her most joyous moments – baking cakes, cooking food,” Corbin recalled, talking about his grandmother. “If it was frustrating, we never saw it. If she was tired of it because she was raising some kids that weren’t hers, we never saw it. So, even though I didn’t get any cooking lessons or recipes left behind from my grandmother, I do have what she represented in the kitchen.”

📖 The backstory: Keith, Louella, and their family lived in the Watts projects, which were riddled with drug and gang crimes. "The drug game and the gang culture, just has always been a part of my life," he said. "There was really no network to plug me into besides [it]."

After getting roped-in to drug dealing at a young age, Keith found himself in prison three times. And it was there he found his passion for the kitchen.

Keith spent much of his ten total years in prison in the cafeteria, cooking up whatever he could with the ingredients he was given. 

Depending on what the prison had available for the day, he would substitute ingredients and play around with spices and flavor combinations until things were Goldilocks-approved – juuuust right. 

• It wasn't until Keith started cooking professionally that he realized just how much he learned during his years behind bars. 

👨‍🍳 The next chapter: Upon his release, Keith got a job at local restaurant for $13/hour. He tried to quit multiple times, but his team and friend Daniel Patterson wouldn't allow it. So Keith started to think: "what if I opened a restaurant of my own?"

⏭ Fast-forward... Keith is now the owner and head chef of Alta Adams, an LA restaurant serving his unique take on California soul food.  

And his impact is also felt outside the kitchen. The chef published a memoir in 2022 about his journey from his grandmother's kitchen to prison to restaurant owner, and hopes his story will inspire others in similar situations:

• "I want to be the person at the end of your tunnel that you can look towards and say, 'This guy came where I came from.'"