I cooked!

I have a couple of strong points, especially on the home front. For example, I am good at keeping the home clean and looking after kids; although there was a time when a neighbour’s 2 year old that I was supposed to look after found itself in the middle of the road pursuing its ball, I still believe I am good at looking after kid as that was just a one-time incident. And in case you are wondering, the kid didn’t die! Unfortunately, of all my numerous home front strong points, cooking was just not and has never been one of them! I hated cooking to the bone and I just can’t fathom why. I just know that it was one boring chore that I hate – along with doing the dishes actually.

Now, in a couple of weeks, I would be celebrating 6 months in full time bachelorhood* and in all the 6 months, today would be the first time I would be making my own meal. Strange right? This should prove how much I hated cooking. What I usually do is to buy breakfast and lunch at work and then munch some snack for dinner. Sometimes though, I do a one-one-zero (if you know what that means). That usually was my style during the weekdays. During the weekends, Mary or Blessing (depending on my mood), was always there to satisfy my cooking and other needs (no pun intended please, I don't want trouble). Mary was good, but blessing was da bomb… Okay, let me stop here!

As I was saying, today, I was forced to cook – I know you want to know why! I started my annual leave on Monday but could not go home to see my parents because I still had some things to handle. This meant that I had to be at home all day long during the weekdays (boring ehn??? yeah). To make matters worse, Mary was out of town and Blessing, let’s just say was messing up. So as it happened, I was forced to cook; I couldn’t afford doing fast food all day for one week! I started by doing a list of possible meals that I could make without poisoning myself, and after a while, I decided to make stew. This seemed like the most plausible option as the process seemed pretty straightforward and easy in my mind – I already did the cooking in my mind.

After the ruminations in my mind, I picked up a bag and headed to the market; I didn’t tell that going to the market was one errand I hated with maximum hatred. As a kid in those days, I saw it as punishment each time my mum beckoned on me to escort her to the market – it was torture! My mom would walk round the whole market, pursuing a N20 bargain difference; sometimes the bargain gain was even lower. I think every Nigerian woman, or a large population of Nigerian women have this problem. At the end of the day, we would have spent hours buying just foodstuffs. Another reason why I hated the market was the clumsiness and rowdiness of the whole place, not to mention that it was usually messy each time it rained – and it rained today! I got to the market and found a woman that sells everything on my list at the front of the market; Praise God! I shouted in my mind, this is a testimony, I wouldn’t have to go through the rowdy, messy environment. I felt the woman may have cheated me on some commodities, but I didn’t care, she was meeting my needs in every way (please, no pun intended) and deserved to be rewarded handsomely.

I returned home and started the process, just the way I had arranged them in my mind. I started by preparing the chicken, following the normal procedures – wash, add salt, onions (I cried ehn…), maggi, curry, thyme, whew, it wasn’t easy at all. I just kept slotting my hands in my kitchen cabinet and pouring whatever came out into the pot of meat. I slotted my hands one last time and grounded pepper showed up!  pe… pepper???? I paused. “I don’t think pepper is added o”, my mind spoke. “Sharrap, what do you know” I responded. I took a spoon, then paused for a while and tried to remember if at any time, I may have stumbled on blessing adding pepper to chicken but none came to mind. I took the thought further to my childhood but couldn’t see my mother adding pepper to chicken, but it looked like I saw my younger sister adding pepper sometime. I was confused and angry. The way I arranged the procedure in my mind was being threatened by common grounded pepper. I decided to cry for help. I took out my phone, dialed Blessing but ended the call immediately; she had been misbehaving and I didn’t have time for nonsense. I couldn’t call Mary either cos the last time we saw, I boasted that I could cook better and was doing her a favour by allowing her cook for me. In fact, I told her that I was helping her horn her skills ("chai… I get bad mouth o…"). Ah… mama; I dialed my mom.
(The following conversation has been narrated in pure Pidgin English)

Me: “Mama mi a, me gwo” (I hope I spelt that Urhobo well?)
Mama**: “Ma voh”
Me: I dey o… (My ability to speak the language ends with the greeting – shame on me abi?), how you dey na
Mama: I dey o. This one wey you remember me today so. I hope all is well o
Me: Mama mi a. Why you dey talk like this na, I no dey call you? Abeg e get wetin I wan find out
Mama: wetin?
Me: If you dey boil meat, you dey add pepper?
Mama: Jesus! So Victor you no fit boil meat? How you take dey cook since? You dey buy buy abi?
Me: Mama no be so na. I dey cook, I just say make I just check other methods.
Mama: Sharrap! Na me you wan deceive. No wonder you no gree increase the money wey u dey send every month. You just dey spend anyhow
Me: Oooooo… tell me na, this thing go soon don o
Mama: Okay, you go answer my query later. You no need to add pepper.
Me: Thank you mama.

 

I hailed her one more time and ended the call. My mind was right after all. I proceeded with my cooking and it went so smoothly, I wondered why I hadn’t been cooking. The aroma was nice too. I was dancing in my kitchen, celebrating my success when I discovered another problem – the stew was not near ready but was getting burnt. “Na wa o” I murmured. I dialed mama again.

(The following conversation has been narrated in pure Pidgin English)

 

Me: Mama mi a

Mama: Wetin happen again?
Me: Emmm… the stew ehn, e dey burn o, but e never don
Mama: (My mom laughed for like 5 minutes before replying) Mumu, you dey turn am?
Me: Yes na, so that e go sweet. Abi no be so?
Mama: Chai… this boy no go kill me with laff o. You no suppose turn am until the tomato don na… which kind pikin you be?
Me: I forget na. Okay wetin make I do?
Mama: (She laughed some more) Papa Victor kon hear your pikin o.

 

I ended the call angrily. I need to solve this problem myself. I thought and thought, and as I thought, the situation got worse. Then it hit me; mama said the problem was that I stirred it at the wrong time. If I changed the pot, it could solve my problem. Viola! Problem solved. I quickly changed the pot and continued. “Today na today”. After about 15 mins, the nice aroma I was getting was beginning to wane and I didn’t know why. I couldn’t call mama again. I was tired of her “wahala”. I added more curry and thyme and the aroma returned. “Ahh, I good men…” I said to myself. At that point, I had used more than half of the curry I bought. I tasted the stew, “hmmmmm, no salt”, I quickly added 2 more spoon fulls of salt and 2 more cubes of maggi – “that should do”, I thought. After five more minutes, it looked like it was ready so I turned off the gas and prepared myself to majestically taste what was generating the aroma. I dipped the spoon in the stew and touched the tip on my palm, just the way my mom does it. “Jesus” I screamed, Salt…….! I quickly dialed mom

(The following conversation has been narrated in pure Pidgin English)

 

Mama: Hello, wetin happen again, you never cook finish?

Me: Mama abeg, I need your help abeg. No laugh o…
Mama: Okay, wetin happen?
Me: Salt too much for the stew o…

My mom didn’t stop laughing…



*According to a friend of mine, a full time bachelor is an unmarried man (not a divorcee) who lives on his own. He might have someone squatting with him though, but he owns the apartment. Every other kind of bachelor, is part time, including those still leaving with their parents. His definition sounded stupid, but you see, even stupid people make sense sometimes and that definition made sense for the purpose of this post

** Mama is stressed as "/ma \ma"  and not  "- ma - ma"