This is how you first eat starch, with your grandmother’s fresh fish pepper soup, thick with Tilapia and the noon day Isoko sun. Usi, she calls it – softly, slightly hissing the s . You are in your Sunday best – every mothers dream of a princess child – frilled hems and checked belts tied behind waists so small. You’re miles from home and you feast on the light starch, coloured orange and without seed/ koko. Served in an enamel plate, soup in clay pot. This is how you ‘cut’ starch. Balls pinched off the stretchy orange mass in take...
Banga Pottage
The mind wanders, not in defiance of boundaries but in search of meaning and truth. An exploration, not confined to history and culture and societal constructs. After all, the mind isn’t community, it is per person, per head, per brain to think and create and share. I’ve had Banga with ‘starches’ – pounded yam, garri, ‘starch’ and yes, the collective name for staples, the main accompaniment to soup is also a personal name for a specific type of starch, known simply as ‘starch’. Extracted from cassava, from shredded, fibrous flesh leaving the thickened white starch behind. For clothes, and eating. I’ve had Banga...
Amala & Ewedu at Nike Art Gallery
Now I know that my mum said ‘Never take food from strangers’ and all but when Nike offers you lunch, you sit down and eat. Don’t you? You don’t disobey your mother but you thank her silently for raising you well. For giving you the ability to make wise judgments – teaching you to know what to do and when. And so you sit down and remember what you know about this woman, who stood for a few minutes before you, crown on head and blue boubou. You remember your days in Ife, a few kilometres shy of fifty from Osogbo were the Nike...
The Art of the Quickbread
Banana bread? Cornbread? Pumpkin bread? Muffins? Irish Soda bread? Scones? Yep, you thought it right – all quick breads. There are arguments aplenty. What defines quick breads? Well, all the quick breads I know are yeast-free, using a classic base-acid combination, aka baking soda and yogurt/ buttermilk/ acidulated dairy to produce the rise, I like to think of them as a cross between bread and cake. Take Banana bread for instance, I enjoy it on its own, with cream and blah di blah but I know people who swear by slices of it toasted, like you would do yeasted breads so…...
Agbalumo Cream Puffs
Once the cream puffs were cool, I whipped up some cream, stuffed and drizzled chocolate over the top. I had some beautiful syrup from macerating Agbalumo :), the same one that formed the base of our Agbalu’lade. I folded the agbalumo syrup into the whipped cream. By then, the choux buns were cool and ready to be halved like bread buns. And filled the puffs which were hollow and crisp shelled, Sliced in half, topped with cream and dollops of agbalumo ‘syrup’ And capped. Because chocolate is essential for profiteroles, and life, I drizzled some over the top. And thus was a feast...
The Art of The Cream Puff
Cream Puffs are one of life’s greatest gifts. Everything about the way they are composed to how they are quaffed make them worthy of odes and sonnets. I think. And believe me, I’ve had some of the finest ones so I know what I’m saying. Made of Choux pastry – cooked pastry, they are the stuff of which many bakes are made. Light, crisp and airy, I’ve had profiteroles in London, and soesjes in Holland, Choux buns and chouquettes on Paris streets. I’ve baked Churros, after enjoying friend versions on Barcelona’s tree-lined La Rambla. First, let’s understand how choux pastry bakes. Choux...
Beard Papa’s Cream Puffs – To Live For
Of the front seat of New York Taxis and the most delicious Cream Puffs. It’s not the first time we’ve gone on holiday with full intentions of tracking down a read about, heard about or watched about restaurant or place. Ref. the Churro adventures in Barcelona. Another sort of Choux pastry. And Momofuku. This time – our last visit to New York, we had Beard Papas lined up. My children had watched ‘Fast Food Gone Global‘ on Food Network and practically dragged me there in a taxi on our last day. With our last twenty dollars, we ‘feasted’ as much...
In Season: Soursop Frozen Dessert
Soursop is in season and I’ve finally made the frozen dessert I’ve longed to since forever. These days, for creamy fruit, I tend to go with condensed milk as the ‘dairy’ of choice. Why? Well, condensed milk is rich and thick and the tiniest amount seems to work wonders. In Mangoes, With Mangoes & Passion Fruit and much more. This recipe is so easy to accomplish that I suggest you bump it up to ‘must-make’ status immediately. There are a few things to do before though: Select some fine ripe fruit – The flesh should be green, and free from squashed/ blackened...
Chop, Chop, Chop
A Collection of ‘Chop’ Words, just because. Because you can chop up wood, fish, beef. Because you can chop, wack your food…aka eat with relish. Chop (Dictionary) verb ˈchäp chopped chop·ping 1 a : to cut into or sever usually by repeated blows of a sharp instrument b : to cut into pieces —often used with up <chop up an onion>c : to weed and thin out (young cotton)d : to cut as if by chopping <chop prices> <a bridge chops the lake in two> 2 : to strike (as a ball) with a short quick downward stroke 3 : ...