I came, I ate and I conquered…a food fear.
For crying out loud, I learned to bake from the Food network Channel. Thank you, Ina Garten! So much so that my girlfriend Muimui gave me serious and lengthy advice on beginning a baking business. I felt no fear when I started trying out some of Avartsy.com’s recipes which have since increased my recipe repertoire. In fact, by the time I came across another fabulous cook, Dunni Obata (dooneyskitchen.com), I had grown in confidence and adeptness in following cooking instructions on the internet! So why, why did the mere thought of cooking my very own traditional Owo soup and starch leave me frozen? For one, it is no mean feat to cook this soup. The intense arm cardio it requires calls for stamina and proper preparation. This soup is not for the fainthearted. Then there’s the ‘entering your hand’ syndrome. A phrase I have heard my mum and several relatives refer to when talking about this soup. In other words, if you didn’t have it in you to make the soup a success in terms of taste, consistency, look and smoothness, it didn’t enter your hand. Naturally, I was afraid to attempt this soup because of my fear of failing at it. What if it didn’t ‘enter my hand’? It didn’t taste right? Didn’t look right? Came out as one big blob of yellow, sticky mess? I didn’t want that to happen because I knew if I failed at it, I would feel utterly miserable. I would have let myself, my mother and, indeed, my people down. I believe I am supposed to be skilled at making the delicacies of my tribe, not just in eating or craving for them. I believe a good and true cook begins and perfects (even tweaks them to her/his own signature style) her/his very own traditional delicacies before mastering others. It seemed the other way around for me. The fact that my beau and T absolutely love this food combination should have been an incentive to make it. The fact that I have watched my sister –”more
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