There are some connections I never make. I start in a certain place and move on and up from there, so the discovery of a fundamental aspect of the thing that leads to a discovery is amazing. Like Bitter Kola – seen on street corners, in trays, papery brown skin wrapping creamy, bitter white crunch...
Becoming comfortable with progression is one of the best things to happen to me as an adult. Starting a thing and then making periodic changes to improve it. Often, we are loathe to begin because we don’t have it fully fleshed out and we believe the world might not be as accommodating of our step-wise...
Mangoes. My favourites and this variety from Ogbomosho has me so stoked. It is pretty early though for these mangoes to be out. I mean, agbalumo is barely here and Nigerian mangoes, especially this variety normally show up in the first few weeks of February. Global warming? Climate change? For a fact, this harmattan season was the warmest...
Travel. Broadens the mind. Teaches you so much that you might not have known. That’s the story of my learning to make good and proper passion fruit juice, all thanks to Nairobi. Read: Favourite Drinks in Nai I’ve been a passion fruit lover since forever. It grows in Nigeria, is nutritious and delicious. At the...
Yayyy to progress…. Oh my word, the journey, to catalogue, standardize, document Nigerian cuisine never stops! After four years of cataloguing what’s in season and when across Nigeria, I’ve finally put together the first version of the first ever seasonal produce calendar for Nigerian fruits and vegetables. This is one of the tenets of the...
The rains are here – heavy with juice and thick with grey, thundery clouds. It seems like it rains every day. Green tea with orange has been my remedy for the running nose and itchy eyes the rains bring me – allergies of some sort. But that’s alright. This is life. For the last few weeks,...
So, a number of friends have told me about Iyeye, a particular orange fruit. Some have mistaken kumquats for it at first glance, similar as they are in colour, shape and size. One day at work, I had kumquats on my desk and T, my colleague came by. She tried one and was surprised it wasn’t...
I love to repurpose things in the kitchen – whether its turning zobo flowers into sauce after making an infusion or making a crumble with leftover tigernut chaff from making kunnu aya, the milk. It works. Rather beautifully too. Here’s what you have to do. Take your favourite crumble recipe and switch it up a bit...
Desserts & Presentation – two ways in which we should progress Nigerian cuisine :). This week, I will focus on Nigerian desserts. And yes, I dare say we have a class of them, if budding. Truth is, dessert for a long time was fruit salad (with milk), ice cream and cake. Enter The New Nigerian...