Design | Philosophy | Influences| My Favourite Utensils

Design

Open, open, open. True confessions – I have an open kitchen.Yes it is bright, airy and what not, and no I’m not yet fully used to it, even after 2 years of cooking in this space. Please don’t blame me – I’m Nigerian and we don’t do open kitchens.

    

Act 1, Scene 1. Enter family Sokoh and our move to the Netherlands. When we moved here and were house-hunting, my first must-have on the list was closed kitchen, alas, that was not to be. Impossible to find. I like it though more now because

 1) I’m close to the laptop and google and thus can cook direcly from recipes, online

2) I can keep an eye on the brood and the screams thereof

I do hate the smells though, especially the way they permeate through the house, when I cook a particularly fragrant (not smelly) dish, often following me to bed and asssaulting my senses and nostrils.

 Philosophy

Combine. Experiment (except with Celery, which I’m not too keen on). Share and forgive – absolutely (in cases of recipes gone awry, forgive thyself O determined cook), because with food, tomorrow is another day. Oh and measure with kitchen scales… when you can! It took me a while to get the hang of it – proportions are sometimes (not always)  the key to success

         

Influences

Numerous and varied. Born-Nigerian, lived in the UK, was addicted to Thai cooking a few years ago. Have a few great cooks for friends, who are Indian. Now live in the Netherlands. Had a gastro experience in Rome recently. Have always loved the food of France.

Where do I begin to distill which one has had the most profound effect? Not one I’d say, but all. Each in its own way lends a nuance to the complexity of experiences that are rolled into me. I know for a fact that my love for chili is linked to my birthplace; of fresh food to a lot of the places I’ve lived and visited. Rome gave me pure and simple aka Ling cartoccio; France reawakened a love of Mustard; and Holland continues to shine through with quick and easy meals. Not to mention the cookbooks, the TV programmes, Google and all the blogs I read. And btw, though I’ve been cooking since I was 13, its only a couple of years ago I got kitchen scales. I do use them often enough too.

But whatever the flavours, where ever the source, I hope you enjoy my musings on food and all related to it. I love food. Talking, feasting, seeing, photographing, writing, dreaming, scheming, shopping, reading. I love all action words to do with food. And as my man says, since the inevitable is unavoidable – here I am.

My Favourite Utensils

I love my chopper. My onion chopper. And my chili chopper. My nut chopper and the chopper for my ginger and garlic. And it’s all one and the same. I bought it at one of my fave shops ever – Ikea. Laugh if you must but Ikea is great for a lot of basic stuff. And cheap too.

  

My chopper is almost 2 years old and it comes out a few times a week – when I need to chop chilies and not worry about getting my hands ‘hot’, I get it out and chop up my frozen chilies, which I buy by the bag and freeze. It is perfect because they’re hard when they come out of the freezer and so chop up a treat.

And at the weekend, Nuts aren’t safe from the chopper too (though I do resist chopping them right after the chilies). The bottomline is it works out great as well. I put my nuts in, press down on the black top with one or two hands. It moves in half turns and in a few seconds, the chopped up nuts are ready to go into my pancake mix  (my husband loves nutty ones) or my cereal mix.

Then comes my knife, my bread knife which I use for everything. It is serrated and was originally intended for the yeasty creatures (bread)  but hey, who makes the rules. As long as it works well, we should be happy. And did I mention my zester, great for getting the skin of citrus fruits in little strips – perfect and easy to use.

 

I have loads of other utensils but I stir my soups and stews with my growing collection of wooden spoons. For now, I rest my case here.