I’ve always associated these walnuts with road trips since I was a child. Now, I see them on trays, little bags tied in cones, part black, part glistening. While in traffic a few weeks ago, I purchased a bag, tore it open and cracked a shell after ‘cleaning” it. It split in half, and I...
The first time I heard of a fruit with a name prefaced by ‘Monkey’ was in 2011, when I encountered ‘Epapa‘, which turned out to be one local name for Cola lepidota, aka Monkey Kola. It didn’t seem peculiar to me – I put it down to ‘things monkeys also ate in the forest’. Till...
It is the season of pepperfruit. It is. I find them on trays all around Warri – my birth city, where I spend Easter. I’m a fan only of the red ones – sweet tooth and all. But back in Lagos, I spot the green ones and buy some to compare. What I find is...
Fresh Cashews, pitanga cherries, mulberries, carrots, agbalumo, mangoes…these are a few things in seasons Cashews/ Cashew Apple Woo hoo, sooooooooooo happy to get my hands on some. Which I plan to juice, bake and do a host of other things. We shall see. Mulberries At least in the North of Nigeria, they’re in season. I...
If you ever want to know what’s in season in Nigeria, look at the streets. You’ll see the colours set before you of all that’s fresh and gorgeous and right now, it’s a really long list: Tiger nuts This are my fruits/ nuts/ tubers of the season – I can see manyyyyyy explorations already, from drinks to...
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...
This is the season of waking up to storms – skies thick with grey and streaked with silver. Thunder, lightening, all are part of the rainy season. I need to equip myself well – ditch blue flannel blankets for tartan ones. Find good books to bury my head in, not necessarily buy but dig up...
The season’s coming to an end. At least for the variety of mangoes I hold dear. They are going fast out of season. The mangoes are smaller, softer. Fewer trays are out. Stacked high before, they are now plateaus. I’m holding on hard. Its slipping away fast. I’m doing everything I can to keep it...
Its been two weeks or three even since I spotted pepperfruit, ‘shaded’ in small piles of green and red, set on the corner of a busy street on the Marina. The Lagos Marina. I’m heading to a buka lunch with my besto, D who is visiting from Port Harcourt. I spot this ‘mama’, seated on...