FOOD BLAH BLAHs OF A LAGOS WEIRD GIRL

Most of you might not know how much of a foodie I am. Well at least as much of a foodie as I can be without actually eating lots of food. And not for lack of trying. And yes, I have tried. I might not eat platters but I’ll do rat sized bits of bliss. I’ll drink tons of cranberry juice and wine and coffee and tea, pee like a waterfall in-between, but I’ll force myself to finish a really small bowl of rice or cereal. I’m not anorexic. Eating is just something I do when I’m hungry and sadly, I’m not always hungry. I can enjoy food, but I can’t do it in epicurean proportions. I’ll get sick for days afterwards. I’m used to it now. And so is my mother, bless her heart.

 
So yes, I am interested in all things food. Cooking a meal is more than just getting fed to me. The utensils… are they the right ones? I remember doing a small dance of joy at work when I saw a frying pan online that I had been searching a long time for. My colleague then was like “this girl is not okay”.

 
The ingredients? I have to be the one who shops for them. I have to hold them in my hands, ‘connect’ with them. Make sure their coloring, feel, and scent, is just right. I have to be the one to prepare them. I am a “from scratch” person. There used to be a time when I made all the bread we ate at home. From the flat-breads to the more complicated twisted types. Never ate the store bought ones. In my kitchen, my oven is the Pope and everything that comes out of it is blessed. Heh heh. I am not sure that I am one to hire a cook. Becoming a human walrus(pregnant) is not even an excuse for me to do that (though how do I know? I have never been a walrus before! Silly me!). In my kitchen, I am god, and the utensils are my minions(I have always wanted to say that, by the way).

 
Overtime, I have been researching cheap food. Not just cheap and basic, but cheap and really good tasting food. You see, what if there was a global melt down one day and food was scarce? What if I was broke and married a broke man and we lived in a shoe with our thirteen kids and had to scrimp and save? What if I married a wealthy man and he gets involved in espionage and his accounts get frozen by the all seeing eye of Sauron called the government? What if my accounts got frozen too? What if I never got married and one weekend I was too lazy to go to the ATM and had to make do with what I had in the house? Will I be able to survive with the stuff I see around? Can I make a meal out of anything? If I walked into my chicken and saw just palm-oil, rice, black pepper, salt, and old shrimp… would I be able to make a mad meal out of it?

Would I?
Could I?
Of course I would.
Here is proof.

When you’ve decided you can do without dinner because you feel lazy and you’d rather drink coffee and read in bed but then the coffee turns on you and begins to rage at the walls of your tummy and you run into the kitchen with wild eyes like a madder than mad animal ready to eat anything to stop the raging.
Yes.
That was me the day I made that meal.
Palmoil rice with shrimp sautéed in garlic.
The end.