Comedy of Cooking Conundrums

There were leftover greens (soup) from the day before, so I had told Mrs. Thomas that I could simply make some more semovita (starchy rice substitute that is kind of like cream of wheat) and eat that for dinner. My friend Helen asked me if I’d made semovita before. I asked her, “Really, how hard can it be? Add some of the powder from the bag to some water and heat it.” She just smiled.

I’ve now mastered the “off” position and the “on” position on the gas tank, so the gas was on when I tried to light the burner. One would think that Nigerian matches are the same as American matches…and they are the same with one minor difference…Nigerian matches don’t LIGHT! I’ve done some mini-scientific studies trying to isolate the faulty variable. Is it the fact that the wooden part breaks as I try to strike it along the box? Is it the tip that just maybe doesn’t have enough of the activated phosphorus coating? Is it the striking surface of the box that doesn’t activate the tip? My conclusion: all of these are contributing variables to exhausting half a box of matches every time I have to light a burner.

Since I was heating the greens and making semovita, I had to go through the match ordeal not once, but twice! I thought I had been successful when I realized that I hadn’t made enough semovita (but it was, may I add, a perfect consistency!) So, I innocently thought, I’ll just make the same amount again. Ha! I had to light the burner again because by trying to conserve fuel I had turned off the burner prematurely. Once I finally got the burner re-lit, I added more semovita and more water.

By this time, it was getting pretty dark, so I went outside to turn on the generator. As I tried to turn it on, it wouldn’t start. I confidently went over to the gas can (which I had checked earlier that afternoon) to add more fuel. It clearly wasn’t enough because it still wouldn’t start. No problem, I thought, I’ll just go buy more fuel right outside the compound. As the man was measuring out 3 gallons, (yep…Nigeria measures everything in metrics including fuel, except when you buy fuel from men on the street…then it’s in gallons…go figure!) I realized that I had left the semovita cooking on the stove…whoops!

When I returned, I hurried into the kitchen to check the status of my second portion of semovita. It was most definitely burnt, not that I could see this, but I used my sense of smell to detect this outcome. I grabbed my handy lantern, turned off the burner then went back outside to fill the generator with fuel. Once I came back inside and washed the gasoline from my hands, I realized that I had failed to cover my initial portion of semovita which had becoming quite cold by this point in the process.

Needless to say, my independent cooking endeavors are not overly successful, yet. However, I’m still going to try to bake my groundnuts tonight, and I looked up bread recipes on the internet as I found out from Mrs. Thomas this morning that I had initially misunderstood her and I can use gas to fuel the oven! I’m sure there will be more adventures!