Salut! hi! holla! I was thinking about something random to post and finally came up with this. (mind you, this was a long time ago people lol)
Okay so as an African woman, you're taught from a young age to cook because apparently in the African culture that is supposedly one of the qualities of a good woman. I started trying to cook at about 9 or 10 years old i'm not so sure but that was even probably late compared to other girls I know. We had aunties staying with us plus my mum loved cooking so I didn't have to, I would only sit and watch and do the hard work like washing plate :'( which was the one I disliked the most.
One very beautiful holiday though mum traveled with my little sister for a few weeks and my aunties we're also not around so guess who had to cook? Me! Okay no biggie right? I've watched them do this so many times so this should be easy, all I had to make for dinner was jollof.
I per boiled my rice and brothers and sisters that was when it got real. The rice was looking way bigger than it was at first and I was starting to get confused but I told myself "don't worry Jo if it''s plenty they'll eat it tomorrow morning or something" so I went ahead and chopped my onions and tomatoes got everything ready and that was when the mixing started. I then began to realize that I didn't really pay attention while I watched my mum and aunties cook, and I didn't know what went in first or even how much to use. I decided not to bother, telling myself it will definitely still come out tasting good I mean i'm dumping all these things in it so it can't be bad.
I was done with the sauce and it looked small for my rice so being the smart girl I am I thought why not add water eh? So I did, a little too much in fact but it seemed just right to me then I dumped my rice in the mixture and let it boil. A few minutes later I returned to check on it, still a lot of water, okay i'll check back soon... 15 mins later... still water and now my rice is not looking like mum's jollof rice at all, in fact its almost looking like white rice, what's going on? I'm scared what am I going to do? I decided last last i'll add palm oil so the color will change. But there is till too much water, how is my father going to eat this thing? People, that was when I truly started panicking. I almost started crying wondering why the water in the rice has refused to finish, my situation then got worse when my older brother came in and started laughing at me. I was so frustrated I sat there and watched the pot like a hawk till the water finally finished by then i'm not even sure you could call that rice anymore because of how mushy it had gotten. I was so scared about what my dad would say, I kept wondering if i should serve him or just tell him I didn't cook, and note that I am the one who had told him earlier that I can make jollof.
Long story cut short I ran to my room when he came to eat but I heard him asking my brother who cooked the food (if you can call it that) they told him it was me and after he reminded me of how I said I can cook he joined my brothers to laugh at me and we had to buy food to eat for dinner.
I must say though, that might have been the first but it definitely was not the last time I messed up food, one time the parents were out of town and I was having a sleepover and decided to cook again and forgot to put salt in the macaroni sigh. But that's a story for another day people. I have finished with today's story, that was a day i'm pretty sure i'll never forget.
Thanks for reading! xx