My phrase for the year 2013 is ‘Peace in Fulfillment’. I will: Go to church and take my children to church. Get ‘serious’ about food. Really serious. Continue to build on the great things we’ve accomplished as a family on eating balanced diets. Read. Write. Go to bed early. Be comfortable with spontaneity. Continue to trust myself. Remain passionate about people. Well and truly. Fight for a cause. Any cause for good, for meaning, for life. —–00000—– I love New Year’s Resolutions. In them, I distill some of the things that I seriously desire to accomplish. It brings me focus, aim and...
Fried Prawn Heads
When I watched Justin serve up fried fish bones, in ‘The Next Food Network Star’, I cringed. ‘Another one of those recipes’. Someone was bound to write an open letter to the world about how fried fish bones make you a star. Or how instagram makes you the photographer of the year. Warner is referring to one of his final challenges in which he fried fish bones like potato chips and fed them to restaurateur, Food Network t.v. personality Guy Fieri, who loved them. “It’s been done in other cultures for many years, but in America, bones have always been...
Popcorn Cake: The All-Round Party Favourite
Neighbours. They’re the angels next door – not quite family, mostly friends and altogether special people, without wings. The ones God uses to teach us, to give us salt and sugar when we run out, to learn new dishes and how to hold a pencil correctly, share stories, talk about life and growing children, about marriage and about futures. I love my neighbours and I wouldn’t trade any one of them for anything. From The Netherlands to Nigeria, we – our neighbours and us, have established traditions of partying often. In the estate where we live now, in Port Harcourt, we’ve...
Our Gingerbread House – Breaking into 2013
‘Make a gingerbread house. In February. Or at Easter. Whatever happens, before Christmas 2012!’ Well, we didn’t make it before Christmas 2012, but we certainly did it before January the first, 2013. I think it crowned the year for my entire family – as in husband, myself and the children as we built the gingerbread house from scratch. First of all, I used up half my US luggage allowance to ferry back candy. Then we made the dough, baked the house parts, cemented them with Royal Icing and got us a house. Or rather, a gingerbread home. We broke it right after...
Twelve (12) Dishes For a (New Year’s Day) Brunch
…And a few more. Happy New Year (English). Gelukkig Nieuw Jaar (Dutch). Bonne année (French). Have a wonderful ones dear friends. I hope 2013 brings us closer, forges new relationships and sees us fulfilled. I’m drawing up my resolutions, which must include partying. As in hosting more parties, and get-togethers with families and friends. And so for New Year’s Day, we started on that one in style – by hosting a Brunch for two families, in line with our new family tradition of Sunday Brunch. My key priorities were twofold: recipes that could be made-ahead – days before and on the...
Malta-Maple Bacon Jam
Bacon jam. Because of left-over bacon, from our Christmas bacon-bird, which led me on a path that has seen bread pudding and finally has ended up here – as Bacon Jam. Most of the versions I read about had maple syrup in the mix so mine progressed to Maple Bacon Jam. And finally, because I’ve been looking for ways to cook with Malta, it turned to Malta-Maple Bacon Jam. This jam is a cinch to make, and emerges from the cooking pot dark and glistening with colour and flavour.
Preparing for Christmas: Nigerian Salad
Nigerian salad. An oxymoron. One I think about, sitting in the lounge and waiting for the boarding announcement for I am well and truly on my way home. Home to Nigeria. To my husband, and children and the December heat. To a Christmas feast, of gifts and presents and maybe even food, which may not be cooked by me with my Christmas eve return. I didn’t do half the Christmas food shopping I wanted to do here – I wanted to take back fresh cranberries and brussel sprouts, Meyer lemons and Philadelphia cheese. But……its fine. I’m learning to live…with without disappointment...
Preparing for Christmas: Nigerian ‘Stir-Fried’ Jollof Rice
Here’s an update on a Nigerian classic: Stir-fried Jollof rice. And this isn’t to buck tradition – this is about how travel shapes who we are, opens up our eyes to new possibilities and redefines our boundaries. For Nigerian Jollof is typically ‘stewed’, not stir-fried or oven-baked. Right now, Nigerians the world over are planning their Christmas meals, and clothes. They are wondering how they’ll spice the fried chicken, and how the Jollof (rice) must have that ‘smoky’ flavour, thanks to socarrat, or bottom pot as we call it in Nigeria. They have also picked out special clothes and shoes for the day. The...
Filipino Fruit Salad: Virtue in a Can
I know, tinned foods aren’t virtuous, especially from ‘self-proclaimed’ foodies. Mind you, that’s not me talking, that’s the ‘Voice of the world’. Because I know better. I know that virtue can be earned in a myriad of ways: fresh, frozen and canned. Like everything else, they have their time and place, their season.