I am a gradual learner. In the case of coffee, I’ve progressed from instant to cold brew from grounds. Next step? Buying a cafetière and grinding my own beans because I’m now an aficionado :). After all, do you know all the things I do about coffee? No? Well, grab a cup let me tell...
Interesting, I find – Jollof goes by only four names across the coast of West Africa, three of which are repeated in use – Jollof, Riz au Gras (aka Riz Gras), Thieboudienne; one – Benachin is used in only one country – Gambia. I looked at the names in 16 of the 18 countries, excluding...
The ‘Around the World’ series is my way of showing and sharing all the ways we are similar even in all the ways we’re different. Rice tables, Rice buffets are some of my favourite things, ever. I am very much a ‘buffet’ person but the idea of this focus – a central dish around which...
Smoke as a flavour is alluring, hardwired into our DNA, the DNA of homo sapiens since the discovery of fire. It’s why bottom pot is present as a desirable dish in many cultures around the world. From the discovery of fire to the preservation of food, it’s wormed its ways into our palates but for the longest time,...
..Or how the star apple and it’s monikers got their names, from star apple to milky breasts to ‘vagina’ fruit … Star Apple For the pattern you see when you cut a cross section through the fruit, due to the arrangement of the seeds which cluster into a five point star. One of the most...
The idea that we are as much the same as we are different is what slays me about food, what binds my heart to the cause of eating, feasting, of discovery. That though we are set apart by seas and oceans, by mountains and plains, valleys, plateaus, essentially we are the same – we eat the same...
…or Twelve (12) Shades of Jollof Rice. Jollof rice in the simplest terms is a beacon for West African cuisine. Texturally, it’s half way between the separate, not mushy grains of a pilaf and the ‘sauced’ creaminess of a risotto. Here are twelve (12) takes from classic to not. 1. Classic: Nigeria & Along the coast of West Africa...
When I first wrote about tomatoes, before the Marketplace/ Tomato post, I confess I’d never seen tomatoes sold anywhere else in the world in the same way. Until I woke up on a Saturday morning and came across a photo – of baskets of tomatoes in an Italian Piazza while flicking through ‘Waitrose Kitchen’, the...