Romance – budding or not A glass of crushed ice (must be beaten. To ‘crushes’ with a rolling pin) Must Fragrant lime cheeks, off the slant. Squeezed for juice (Held and inhaled. Transported to green hill far, far, away. Romance again) Yellow ginger. Fresh. Peeled with a spoon then sliced thin. Juiced too. The heat...
Our ‘dining room voyages’ begin with mint tea – thanks to Morocco and its famous tea culture. We drink our Nigerian version, out of a rather English teapot from Turkish tulip glasses – evidence of our global identity. We love it. Mint is somewhat vital to our family’s happiness. For months, our garden blooms with...
I’ve always loved tea, but never considered it more than a drink, hot or cold. Recently, that has changed. And two things have done that for me: a book – ‘The Art of Blending by Lior Lev Sercarz’ which has nothing to do with tea, and everything to do with spices and one man’s passion;...
Northerners in Nigeria are famous for many things, culinary-wise: they are tray-bearers of dates, kolanuts and alligator pepper; suya merchants of everything from meat kebabs to jerky-style beef kilishi and pounded, shredded Dambu Nama as well as wonderful drink makers. Sometimes I wonder what the repertoire of Nigerian drinks would be like without our North....
There are some recipes that stop you in your tracks and require few words. This is one of them – a ‘genius recipe’ in the new column by Kristen Miglore, senior editor at food52.com where weekly, great recipes are unearthed from the worlds cookbooks.This recipe thrilled me to no end because
I wonder if prehistoric men ever felt the thrill of foraging for food. Perhaps they, in that ancient manner of men viewed their hunting and gathering with purpose and nary a hint of frivolity: to sustain and to provide for themselves and family. These days and modern times, we forage, not for sustenance but for...
As soon as she opened the jar to show me what they looked like, I found myself breathing in the fragrance of my Nigerian childhood (while standing in a Parisian shop on a cold February day): hot, sweaty, scented days; all the intensity of my youth, captured in a few black Tonka beans.
Surely, any drink that has a double-barelled reference to men in one word is worth a closer look. Enter Chapman. def. Chapman – an archaic term for an itinerant peddler