Alica’s Pepperpot: An Interview with Alica Ramkirpal-Senhouse

By: Bridgette Jeonarine

For Alica Ramkirpal-Senhouse, food has always been more than a daily intake but rather a deep connection to culture, home and family.

“Guyanese food has always been part of my life. I grew up cooking with my parents, extended family, and even at the temple with my grandmother,” she wrote in an interview with ICB. 

Though Alica was continuously surrounded by her Guyanese family members and traditions, she did not realize how deep her connections were to Guyanese cuisine and culture until she moved out of her home and out of the comfort of New York’s Guyanese community for employment and to complete her M.S. in Market Research at the University of Rochester Simon School of Business. 

“Some of my earliest memories are being in the kitchen with my parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles, prepping vegetables, watching curry cook on the stove, helping make roti, or serving food at our jhandis or at the temple,” she wrote. “Being away from home meant I wasn’t doing any of these rituals around food and the disconnect felt like pure loneliness.” 

As a result of this loneliness, Alica decided to start a food blog, originally named The Inner Gourmet, Culinary Musings of a Guyanese-American Girl, to document family recipes and make Caribbean cuisine more approachable. After some time, she formally changed its name to Alica’s Pepperpot, which is now a food blog that has been dedicated to preserving Guyanese and other Caribbean cuisine for the past 16 years. 

“Starting my blog became a way for me to reconnect with home and build community in a new way, especially during a time when I felt very far from it all,” she said. Through posting these recipes, Alica realized that many individuals were searching for this content especially at a time where there were very few food bloggers focusing on Guyanese cuisine. 

“As my platform grew into a full-time career, I became more intentional about the role my work plays in preserving Guyanese and Caribbean food culture,” she wrote. “What started as a personal outlet became something much bigger, a way for people in the diaspora to connect or reconnect with home.”

The desire to preserve Guyanese culture through shared recipes was rooted in experiences that stretched back in time before the existence of her blog. While attending high school in the late 1990s, Alica said she became very aware of difficulties in explaining her Indo-Caribbean identity to others. 

“I remember feeling embarrassed going to school with my skin stained pink after the Phagwah parade, while also feeling proud because it represented the joy I felt with my family and friends the day before,” she wrote. At the University of Rochester she became more aware of the nuances of her identity when her South Asian classmates found that her cultural experiences differed from what they believed to be traditionally “Indian.”

“To be honest, I never tried to fit in with them or over explain my identity, I just accepted that they couldn’t understand and that was good enough for me,” she wrote. “The explanation was just exhausting.” Over time she learned that "being Guyanese-American is less about fitting into a clear definition and more about embracing the journey and complexity of living between cultures.” Instead of focusing on the negative emotions surrounding identity, Alica said she focused on cultural pride and shifting toward a more positive mindset.

Like many first-generation individuals, Alica’s journey of self-discovery didn’t end at her fitting into broader American society, but also left her grappling with what it meant to maintain a relationship with Guyana as someone who is disconnected with its lived realities. “As I got older, especially during my teenage years, I became more aware of the differences between being a Guyanese-born native and Guyanese-American, and at times I struggled with imposter syndrome because my experience of Guyana came through visits and family stories rather than growing up there full-time,” Alica wrote. 

Alica accredited her food blog for bridging gaps between these two worlds.

“It also connected me with people in Guyana and across the diaspora who shared memories, stories, and recipes, which made my relationship with the culture feel more meaningful,” she wrote. She recalled one trip to Guyana where she visited a popular puri shop and saw one of her cheese roll photos on their digital menu. 

“I remember laughing and thinking, “Okay, maybe I really am legit Guyanese after all if my cheese roll is good enough for a popular restaurant in Guyana!”

Though her food blog has aided her in this understanding, Alica wrote that her most recent trip to Guyana also provided a deeper sense of belonging. Here, she traced her ancestry back to her earliest paternal relatives who arrived in Guyana in 1868 and her maternal relatives who arrived in 1911. “[This trip] made me see Guyana not just as my heritage, but as part of my family’s living history,” she wrote. 

Aside from being a cultural connector, Alica said that her blog has forced her to face fears surrounding visibility and self-worth, especially with being featured on camera for her newer content. Alica said that she has made it a routine to get ready and show her best self on camera to feel prepared for the day. 

“If I could go back, I would have started showing up on camera sooner and trusted myself earlier,” she wrote. “I think I spent a lot of time working through insecurities and feeling like I had to be “ready” before fully putting myself out there, but I’ve learned that growth often happens while you’re doing the work, not before.”

In an interview with ICB, Alica said that she believes this habit also comes from being around a family and a subsequent larger community that takes pride in presentation, a value which extends to food as well. “In our family, food was never just about the meal itself; it was how we showed love, prepared for gatherings, cared for people, and stayed connected to our culture,” she wrote. 

As a mom, Alica also said that in addition to preserving meaningful cultural values, she has also been intentional about leaving behind harmful beliefs. “I think many of us in the diaspora are unlearning, but also learning how to honor our upbringing while creating healthier, more thoughtful paths for the next generation,” she wrote. 

In addition to breaking toxic cycles, Alica said that she wished she could tell her younger self to embrace the qualities that once made her feel outcasted. “I’d tell her to trust herself more, stop worrying so much about fitting neatly into categories, and not to shrink herself because of fear or criticism,” she wrote. 

As she continues to grow and develop her online presence, Alica said that she hopes that the younger generation of Guyanese-Americans come across Alica’s Pepperpot and feel seen and celebrated. 

“I hope younger generations understand that our food carries stories of resilience, migration, creativity, joy, and survival,” she wrote. “More than anything, I hope they feel inspired to connect with their culture through cooking, because food is often one of the most tangible and meaningful ways to stay connected to identity and family history.”