Asakiyume mita

Hi Flo! I am fortunate to have grown up with the opportunity to try foods from several cuisines, without being pressured to eat foods I didn't like, as long as I tasted them. Add to that the many wonderful writers who describe food with such love, and so begins a search for "exotic" ingredients and rare spices.

An interesting one is someone that actually saw the ingredients in a traditional market, bought them before Googling the recipes he will use them for.

This one makes me laugh. I have learned from experience that I don't do well when I buy ingredients without knowing what they are or how to cook them, just because they look interesting. This is especially true when the people selling me the food don't share a language with me. Mostly because when I can't identify the fruit or vegetable I just bought, I am lost when it comes to figuring out how to prepare it.

I used to long for a cook who would prepare meals from all over the world for me. Now, not only have I raised sons who somehow survived all my experiments and grew up to enjoy cooking and trying new things, but I've married a man who passionately loves food and cooking, and who has raised sons who are the same. So, I am surrounded by men who cook. Our meals borrow from cuisines around the world, and I can't imagine how boring it would be to restrict myself to a typical American diet.

I wasn't familiar with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's work. Thanks for mentioning her; I just ran upstairs (in the middle of writing this post) to the library at the college where I work, and checked out a copy of Half of a Yellow Sun, which was the only one of her works on this campus. I will read this and share it with my husband, to help inspire our exploration of Nigerian food.