THE MICROWAVED WORLD I LIVE IN.....This is a piece by the delectable Miss Doreen Yamah. Pls enjoy

                         

Do you remember those days when bad daughters were their mother's children and good ones their father's? When only intelligent, obedient and hardworking daughters had their father's gene.lol....... Imagine a twenty year old girl who can't successfully cook white rice? Yea, I know what’s running through your mind, and yes, it's me and you are free to say my mother did not train me well, you can decide my gene, it's your opinion.

I  grew up in the computer age where everything is 'microwaved', even schools now have sandwich courses. Going to the farm to get firewood is now forgotten history (my grandma Aina never failed to drum in her tales of the firewood experience each time we visited), blowing charcoal behind the house for it to "catch" is so 1980. Kerosene took over when I was younger. I and my siblings knew food was ready when smoke from the stove filtered into our rooms from the kitchen ,that was the only part of the cooking routine that I got to witness and sometimes, I helped mama quench it too.

 Then I went to the boarding house and everything happened so fast, I grew and there was the infiltration of landlines, GSMs, smart phones, laptops, iPads, etc. We didn't have to queue in banking halls to withdraw the money papa sent from Istanbul, we now had our ATM cards. Everybody was in a hurry.

 Welcome to my world. An era of gas cookers, microwaves, rice cookers, ovens, deep fryers, dish washers, etc. All mama did was go to the market once a month with Lami the house help, to shop for groceries that will last a month and together they'll cook different soups, stews and refrigerate them. While they were busying themselves in the kitchen I was either in my room skyping or out with friends, all I had to do was microwave anything I wanted and that only happened when Lami was out on errands. There was never a dull Saturday or any day at all.

Then I met Taiwo, the love of my life, he was just my perfect dream man, however, there was a 'but'.  My Taiwo has a very large appetite and he loves to keep in touch with his  traditional roots. I felt I could handle it and would always find a way around it so I didn't let it bother me. He was sure I was the woman for him, so we planned a 'microwaved' wedding...lol, well, there was nothing keeping us, we both wanted to settle down and trust my mama and his mum, they were up to the task, I didn't have to break a nail to do anything. All our meals were prepared for us by my mum up until we got back from our honeymoon mostly because we had such a great inflow of visitors bringing congratulatory messages. This wasn't surprising as I am the only daughter of my mama and I got married to the son of the Oba of Ikare.

 My fairytale life was soon over and I was left alone with my husband and all the duties. Did I mention he has a large appetite? The day finally came when my Taiwo said he was craving semovita and egusi soup with the snail his mum had brought for us .There was nothing left to microwave. Hot sweat rushed through my body. I thought to myself 'have I ever seen the food? Yes of course. I even used to eat it when Lami prepared it at home.' I tried to think of ways to make it, but I couldn't come up with any. Then it struck me, my marriage would fall apart over a plate of semovita and egusi. I know Taiwo, when he wants something, he wants it.

A lot of things came to my mind, I couldn't call my mum, she had gone for a women retreat in her church and they had to turn off their phones. I thought about rushing to a nearby eatery to buy the food but no way, Taiwo would find out. My last option was to call Lami to give me direction on how to cook this food that carried the fate of my marriage or pack my bags and go back to my mama to teach me those things that every woman must know. Anyway, I think I'm doing a good job as I'm right now sitting in the kitchen waiting for my semovita to boil and typing this on my blackberry, it doesn't look like Lami's own but it's not totally bad. Pray for me that my husband doesn't complain. I'm definitely resuming cooking classes ASAP. God bless Lami and the day we bought her a phone.