Potato-salad aunt shares secrets

Tor Ajanaku’s mother wasn’t vegan. Yet the Knoxville chef credits her with teaching him how to make plant-based meals that eaters line up to try.

“She showed us different ways to improve our flavor profiles,” said Ajanaku, who with his wife, Romoke, started experimenting with meatless cooking as a pain management strategy following a serious car crash. “She’d say, ‘How about you do it like this?’ She said we should do a restaurant for all the dishes we’d been cooking.”