I’ve always loved Thanksgiving – the purpose, the feast, the celebration. Many gathered around tables, scattered around states and cities, homes, safe places, corners. Thanksgiving came to us by way of my children going to the American school in The Netherlands. Since then, we’ve celebrated it. This year, I’d like to serve up a Nigerian-inspired Thanksgiving menu....
Because bacon, salted caramel and beignets are an amazing combo. A photo-essay (or photographic essay) is a set or series of photographs that are intended to tell a story or evoke a series of emotions in the viewer. A photo essay will often show pictures in deep emotional stages. Photo essays range from purely photographic...
Notes: From a Proud Mama. I grew up writing compositions on every topic under the sun – no thanks to an English teacher of a mother. It is therefore of little surprise that I write now, and that I – like my mother before me- encourage my children to write, even when they are weighed down by reluctance....
Carob – Locust beans, Ceratonia siliqua, used in many forms, as replacement for cocoa powder and as a gelling agent. Not to be confused with the African locust bean, Parkia biglobosa (Iru, Une, Dawadawa) – different plants altogether. I spotted the thick pods in the spice souk in Dubai…in December and marvelled at the almost crystalline core. I...
There are some things that are confined to the highways and express ways of Nigerian roads. Certain delicacies you’ll find at Junction towns – a special kind of fried yam and chicken at Saminaka, Bush meat (game to you) and Pounded yam at Ore, Kpokpogari and groundnut at Ughelli. We wait for them with excitement....
The New Yam festival is a harvest festival celebrated across Nigeria and many parts of Africa. When I made Ofe Nsala, my Igbo friends mentioned that this was the perfect soup to feast on in the village square during iwaji/ irijiohuru, which celebrates the start of the harvest season. I think one should praise God,...
No, I’m not in Philly. No, the memory of grits isn’t what has shocked me into silence these last few months. Yes, I’ve finally been to a Diner. Yes, my curiosity has been deeply aroused by Guy Fieri and his ‘Diners, Drive-ins and Dives’. No, I haven’t done the other two but you bet I’m...
Road trips. Just like our mothers. Just like our fathers. I can’t count how many times I’ve been on the receiving end of a parent’s travels. How we’ve heard honking horns and have welcomed them back with some measure of joy, thanking them ever so kindly for not ruining Saturday night fever by returning halfway...
I have a friend who is obsessed with pounded yam. A few days ago, we were talking about plans and dreams and hopes, about the evolution of kitchen utensils as we know it, the hows and whys. He wanted to know how pounded yam became a thing, and then we moved on to mortars and...