SOLA ADISA
full name: omorinsola "sola" fisayo adisa
pronouns & gender: she/her, cis woman
birthday & birthplace: june 8, 1996 (29); lagos, nigeria
location: ocean crest apartments
time in aurora bay: since june 2019
sexuality: bisexual
occupation: food truck owner/chef
@aurorabayaesthetic
about.
sola was born in lagos, nigeria to a big extended family but is an only child. her dad owned a restaurant serving nigerian standards — her mom never understood why people kept coming when they could just make it at home, but her dad always said it was because his food was just magical. sola grew up totally believing that, and she basically spent her childhood in the kitchen. when her parents wanted better tips or were dealing with a difficult table, they usually sent sola out with the food because it was adorable to have a tiny person just toddling up bringing plates carefully to the table, one by one.
she was born while a pretty brutal dictatorship was in place in nigeria, and she's fortunate not to remember any of it. her family laid low during the whole thing, just making their food and keeping their heads down, even though her mom hated that they had to. she wanted to be out in the streets, protesting and fighting, but having sola is the only thing that held her back. abacha, the dictator, died in 1998, but on a day-to-day level things got harder for the adisas because the country was going through so much structural change. almost the entirety of their extended family had already left, so when sola was seven, her immediate family followed.
they moved to flatbush, a neighborhood in brooklyn, and things were hard. her family had spent a lot of their savings on the move, and her parents had a hard time finding work because of a stigma around immigrants and like...general racism. sola is an incredibly chill person now, but she does have an acute sense for injustice and is very sensitive to anything she perceives as prejudice. things settled down eventually, her parents found blue collar jobs that were enough to pay the bills. her dad never opened a restaurant in the states, but he kept cooking all the while. the fundamentals of her knowledge of food came from him.
sola is a slacker. she realized from a pretty early age that she didn't need much, so she didn't ask for much. she could've spent her entire life at home with her parents, but she'd been raised by two strivers and achievers, and they would never allow that of her. so they got her through school and told her they would help her do whatever she wanted to do, she just had to do something.
so, of course, she chose food. nothing else felt so natural to her. after graduating high school, she took a gap year where she really just fooled around the city and worked to make her own money, and then she picked up and shipped off to the west coast for culinary school. at first, she hated being so far from home but eventually settled in, made friends, and reveled in the fact that she got to do what she loved everyday.
before graduating, she and a friend decided that the world of haute cuisine and pretentious food wasn't for them, and they resolved to the best goddamn food truck together. sola brought her background in nigerian food, her friend brought her background in south indian food, and they pooled their money to buy and fix up a truck called "jolyani," after their marquee dish: a goat jollof/lamb biryani fusion plate. they cooked up a lot of weird, fun, wonderful fusion dishes together, and just drove their little truck around southern california, selling at street corners, food festivals, wherever the cops wouldn't chase them away.
her co-owner was from aurora bay, and sola didn't care at all where they went, so they made AB their home base right after graduation. so she's just been moving and grooving ever since! she's a lil weirdo who's totally uninterested in anything serious except her food. she loves her work because she basically makes her own hours and, recently, after some tiktokers in LA found the truck, it's just been growing in popularity.
family.
mother: tianna adisa (nee king)
father: ifechukwude adisa
tidbits.
she owns a small turtle named "shell" because why not
will literally eat anything. she's gotten food poisoning so many times.
she's pretty different from her mom, but the biggest thing she took from her was that little fire inside of her, an anger at the fact that some people just think they're better than others, and all the things in the world that reinforce that belief — racism, classism, what have you. every month, a cut of her money from the truck goes to a food justice organization that she likes, and every other saturday she parks the truck in poorer neighborhoods and subsidizes prices for her food.
connections
roommate of @buddywellls
culinary school ride or dies with @cricketcampbell
gets seafood from @clint-bennet in return for free food
friend of @ulyflynn, @maura-cortes
frequent bakery interloper interrupting @thelizaxlevin's workday
new york city rats with @mackmontgomery
wants @samucl-kane to adopt her
internet turned irl friends w/ @ziggykyeons
