My country people and abroad brethren, let me just tell you that what God cannot do, does not exist lol!
See ehn, this babe typing to you was such a cooking slob with almost no interest in cooking. Infact, thinking about my first official cooking experience has me bursting into bouts of laughter. Ill’d be sharing that story in a bit.
One thing I remember vividly as a child is getting upset about the gender roles women are born into, It felt like punishment back then. I remember the rude awakening by my parents on my supposed gender roles as a teenage girl.That day I was watching a tv program with my brother before I was summoned to the kitchen. Hehehe why wasn’t my brother needed too? Why me?
The level of injustice I felt I was being dealt at the time by my parents was comparable to no other. I grumbled sadly to the kitchen, watching what I didn’t even care to understand.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved and still love food o, but the thought of making it never crossed my mind back then. All I wanted was to spoil my taste buds without being the actual cook. Little did I know that Adulthood was looming, and like that viral song goes……..Adulthood is a big scam!
As I proceed with this post, I would like to give a big shout out to my mum for introducing me into the blissful world of cooking, and also acknowledge YouTube for doing the most with teaching through yummy tutorial videos.
Story time……..how it all started
In my Secondary school, every student was required to make a choice between the Foods/Nutrition (F&N) class and the Agricultural class. As expected, most boys ran to Agric because they won’t be caught dead cooking like Sisis.
I on the other hand didn’t find Agric appealing. Pardon me, but it seemed like some hard labour, dirty venture, I opted for F&N instead for the wrong reasons. After all, it won’t hurt to have some extra meals at no cost during school hours, or so I thought.
At the beginning it was fun, our teacher did most of the cooking while we assisted and got to share the yummy meals after classes. But as we progressed in class levels, the responsibilities became more.
We were to make our debut into self cooking in groups of two. The reality of my non existent cooking life hadn’t dawned on me yet o. I partnered with a very dear friend by name; Oyinkan for this task and we decided to make Ofada sauce and Plain white rice.
She was to make the sauce, and I was given the simple task of cooking up the white rice. My people come and see my mouth back then when Oyinkan asked if I could handle the task. I remember saying with confidence……”is it not just ordinary rice.”
Lo and behold, Ordinary rice turned into hard boiled, inedible rice. It ended in premium tears and embarrassment. By the way, Oyinkan did an amazing job with the ofada sauce! O dun baje baje (it was super delicious) If only I had come through with the edible rice, we would have been the class sensation.
One thing I took away from that class though was to improve myself where cooking was concerned and avoid future embarrassment. Thanks to my mum and my strong determination to do better, I started to learn the basics.
Then I tapped into the world of YouTube with literally thousands of mouth watering recipes and began to experiment. Like I have mentioned before, some recipes make the hit and others don’t but it is always worth the try and such a joyful feeling.
The purpose of this post is to encourage anyone out there who thinks being a great cook is beyond him or her. This was once my school of thought, till I realized that you can do great at any and everything you set your mind to.
It might not be perfect at first trial, but if you keep at it, the sky is only your footstool.
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