Eat your way around the world
"WE YU YεRI PIKIN SE "MAMA DE KUK כKRכ", PAPA BIN DכN TכK AM. If you hear a child say "Mama is cooking okra," it's because Papa said it."* When I read this old proverb from Sierra Leone, I get goosebumps. The truth is, children pick up everything from their parents, from what's for dinner to more serious considerations, like world views, either loaded with prejudice or full of grace. While sipping soup or nibbling rolls, they overhear snippets of conversation; verbal jabs … [Read more...]
Imagine sitting by the sea one lazy afternoon, focused on the tattered nets of nearby fishing boats, when something big and hard bumps against your foot. When you look down, you see a giant, two lobed coconut has washed up, onto the sand. From end to end, this coconut is as long as your forearm, with tufts of hair poking out between the brown, oblong lobes. She would have traveled hundreds (thousands!) of miles to reach you, all the way from the Seychelles. And you'd know she came from … [Read more...]
When the sun dips low and spreads her rouge all over the sky, I enjoy knowing that this glorious watercolor of light travels around the world like a comet, leaving behind a glowing trail for all to see. No matter where they are from, or where they are going. The sun has universal beauty. It makes me smile to know that, somewhere in the Seychelles - half a world away - they, too, see her rose and curried colors curl through the clouds, right before bedtime. And I imagine that maybe, … [Read more...]
Although the air still hangs crisp with winter, seed sowing season is nearly upon us - that time of year when the window sills of the industrious are stocked with small, peat lined plastic containers. With careful gifts of water and radiant window light, small seeds will crack open and send vivid green shoots through the black, crumbling soil, into the glow. In a few months time, these brave seedlings will make their way outdoors, into the deep, hot sunshine, where they will mature into edible … [Read more...]
Every once in a while we need chow down on good, ol' fashioned home cooking. The kind that reminds us of mom, checkered aprons, and creaky kitchen chairs. We all need this edible comfort, especially when the wind chill drops down into the single digits. Keith informed me that, against all odds, I happened upon one such recipe when I selected Potato Musaka for our Serbian Global Table. "This is kind of like my mom's 'Hobo dinner,'" Mr Picky said, after his first taste. "Hobo what?" I … [Read more...]
If there was a giant table strewn with every cake, brownie, custard, and pie, ever, I'd be the first in line. But I wouldn't be there to eat them. Not initially. I'd be there to soak in their beauty, to enjoy the geometry. Circles, rectangles, towers of truffles. Cubes, even. I'd languish to revel in the colors - chocolate browns, raspberry reds, vanilla-cream whites, mint-leaf greens, passion fruit golds. I'd eat with my eyes until ever bit of my spirit was nourished. Then I'd … [Read more...]
In Senegal's villages, which dot lazily between scrubby fields, life is slower. People gather barefoot on stoops, pounding millet or boiling rice. Talk and dance reverberate in rhythm with hide-covered drums, around outdoor fires, as though there were nothing more to do with the day than to live. There's a popular proverb: Yarude seesa haɗtaa yettaade* or Going slowly does not prevent you from arriving. The words make me wince a little. Even with this Adventure I'm often in a hurry, … [Read more...]
In French, Cinq Centimes means Five Cents. Don't be fooled by the name. This isn't the sort of recipe that must be studied like a terrible, paragraph-long math problem. This is not a prerequisite to calculus, or even rocket science. This is a snippet - a slice of a dream from Senegalese street vendors. A one-two-three treat worthy of any snack time. No more. No less. Every step is ridiculously easy. The hardest part will be keeping your sweet, adoring Mr. Picky from sniffing the … [Read more...]
