Welcome to 2011: “Sometimes it’s easier to act your self into a new way of thinking, than it is to think your self into a new way of acting.” {Jo Berry, author}.

Small chops in Nigeria are all the rage – tiny, tasty bites of jazzed-up traditional recipes, served at parties of every sort. Think of them as the ‘tropical’ version of Hors D’Oeuvres: Dundun – fried yam, cooked in a mixture of hot oil and sprinklings of water, Mosa – mashed plantain fritters, Chinese style spring rolls, king prawns, puff-puff and fish, peppered snails and many more dishes.

The first time I tasted the combination of puff-puff, round fried balls of nutmeg-scented dough and crisp fried whitebait at a friend’s wedding in Lagos when I was fresh out of university, headstrong and single, I was pleasantly surprised – they went together like a sweet-savoury house on fire. Strange pairing but one I think which can be likened to a fishy sandwich on some European coast, or perhaps a Bajan fish cake, even if deconstructed, lessy fishy and much more tasty.

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