World Cuisine - My Culinary Journey Around the World Volume 1, Section 4
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491_9780990939337
Cooking and entertaining have always been a passion of mine, and how could they not be, given that I grew up in a home where dinner parties, which took the place of camping trips, were organized by a hostess who was the magna cum laude of her graduating year at Le Cordon Bleu Academy in Paris…My mother…my inspiration – Lady Jane Kobani. Why Paris? That was one of the many places we had the pleasure of living in when my father, Ambassador George Kobani (now retired), was a diplomat representing the Nigerian government. Hence, my international traveling career started at 7 months old. In Nigeria, the art of cooking and eating food is a very important and central part of family life. It is considered an abomination to visit a relative or friend and not be well fed before you leave. I still have very fond memories of lovely evenings spent with my family at the dinner table, with Mum’s delicacies and Dad’s great conversation, and classical music playing in the background. It is not surprising then that my cooking career started rather young - when I was 4 years old and just barely letting go of Mum’s apron strings. My Mum gave me a very pretty set of red pots and pans in which I relentlessly made my own dinners while Mum prepared the actual edible dinner for the rest of the family. The first time I got anyone to try one of my concoctions; I was 8 years old and had cooked a soup from a Nigerian vegetable known as ‘bitter leaf’ (so called because it is literally really bitter!). What I did not realize at the time is that the leaves need to be thoroughly washed in order to remove the excessively bitter taste and develop a slight sweetness, which results in a rather delicious soup. I did not do this, and yet my poor big brother humored me by eating an entire bowl of my soup! I only realized what had happened about 5 years later when I became a very proficient cook, occasionally making the evening meals for Dad and my brothers
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