The Shallow and Incomplete Guide to Cooking flour, meat and rice for people who live alone or with cats an are tired of eating ugali and eggs every night.

Cookies

First, a story.

When I was five or six my neighbour's grandchildren would come visiting from an exotic sounding town called Molo. Since their last born daughter was my age, we would hang out.

Those were luxurious day for a villager.

They had tea at 10 o'clock and at 4 O'clock.

At 3.00 pm her mom and aunt would bake cookies in the big mabati oven that stood between the outhouse and the kitchen.

Big cookies that when you took a bite into one you then had to chew slowly and swallow pole pole.

This was served with masala tea.

How do you get to be so posh like that in Kieni West and why didn't we ever try to construct that oven at home? 

I Donno.

But I guess certain people have a certain stylish way of doing things.

Or maybe I am biased towards anything that seems even remotely British.

Here I curtesy.

So today I am thankful for this cookie recipe by Jen Phanomrat

Because when I tried it, they came out exactly as those cookies from my childhood.

What you need:

1 egg+ 1 yolk

1 and 1/2 cup of flour

1 teaspoon baking powder 

3/4 cup of sugar

1/2 teaspoon of salt

2 teaspoonful of vanilla extract

8 tablespoons of unsalted butter/ Margarine.

I didn't use all that sugar nor that amount of magarine but go ahead and use all the sugar you like.

Now what?

Mix the sugar and butter first until smooth, then everything else goes in.

Then end result should be a thick cream.

Scoop out using a spoon and place them on your hot pan.

Turn then around when firm on one side until both sides are cooked.

Leave them to cool down.

They won't be crunchy or pancakey they will be just right.

Serve with masala tea

This Chic: This is not my year, I give up.

And anyone who wants to get in line please do.
Every once in a while I hear someone scream 'this is my year y'all better watch out!!!'

Ok
I tried it, when I was 25 I said to myself ' this is your year, it has to be.'
And I got into a frenzy Doing this and that.

I was straight out of Digital Film Uni and I had an ego from here to Cyberjaya.
And in my first job interview, for a editing post I said I preferred to be an assistant editor. He didn't get why, but I got the job in 20 minutes.

I had spank but I was holding back a lot.
I wanted to tame my ego and my feelings of entitlement.

I also didn't  have any enthusiasm
For the work, writing about furniture wasn't exactly my main goal in life.

I just wanted to write books.
I wanted East African Book Publishers to call me and ask if I could work as a tea girl. Then I would interact with writers at lunchtime and sneak in my manuscript to a friendly editor one day and she would read it and be amazed that a tea girl could write so well and she would say
'We must get this published.'

And we would co-write a book and soon I would be signing my book at Sarit Centre.


After three months I asked if I could work as a staff writer, which they agreed and I moved from Nairobi thinking how I would wow them with my articles about 'Neglected colonial houses'
Or
'Colonial houses that would be as good as new with a bit of coating'

'The white highlands' monuments'

Blah blah

I was the only one interested in run down wooden structures from the past but I told the stories to my family and they laughter a lot .

Especially about one that was formerly a honeymoon getaway but now occupied by a religious minister and his wife.  When I had asked what the house was used for before he looked this way and that and shaking his head in sorrow  he said ' it had been used for unholy purpose.'
My aunt laughed out loud when I asked her what unholy purpose had been happening, supposing maybe it had been a brothel.

' No, it was a hotel and couples around here would book it on their wedding night.'

Cool.

I had thought.

It overlooked a great valley with flowering aloe vera and at the time of my visit, there were seasonal flowers, scattering the surrounding ground with white and blue.


So I started writing about Onion farming instead.

At 29 I told myself 'this is your year'
And I became a content consultant, whereupon landing a handful clients I settled into this relatively easy life Doing what I was trained to do and enjoying every bit but the pay.

At 30 I declared
'This is my year.'
But pretty soon realized it wasn't and every single time I said it after that, it wasn't.
(After 30 you don't count year by year. Every month counts)

So I declared, 'this is not my year !' two months ago, when I lost (every bit of everything I care about though that is a bit of exaggeration but it is true to some extent. I'll explain, by and by)

I decided to give up.
And to care less
And to lower my rubbish tolerance to about 1%
And to stop being nice

And I seriously recommend giving up.
What giving up does to you is not head you off to a hang line.  But I will talk about that another day.

'This is not my year, ' said I two months ago.

It didn't make me feel despondent as you would expect.
I looked at what I had lost and decided well, it could be worse.

By my age my mother had a teenager to pay school fees for.
And She must have worried about her aging Mother and her growing daughter.

And here I am worrying every year about my pay check.
Yet I have more than many my age and circumstance can claim to have.

I have always known I have stamina, confidence, beauty,positivity, cynicism  and  Intellect (this could be argued on depending on subject)

But I live in a society that wants you as a citizen of Venus to disregard what strengths you posses and highlight the one that requires the least effort.

But I learnt early that in spite of the big letters in blue ink, ' you cannot keep a cow if you are not going to kill it.'

And that was my loss, at least for many a formative years when I should have slung a Mars citizen on my shoulder to get me across the bridge. Rather, should have slung myself on their shoulder not the other way.

I'm glad for it though. I cannot be said to owe anybody other than those to whom I should without being coerced.

I mean my family .

Gosh. I was reading David Copperfield last night. I sound like a  classic costume drama.

Anyhow.
I took my strong qualities apart and thought ' if this is gonna end let it end in flames. Let it burn as brightly as we are.'

Thus the rebirth of my 60hour work weeks.
I work 10 hours a day
I sleep 7 hours a night
I do my usual shenanigans the rest of the time.(like this blog post; though very important it falls under the category of non-profit making activities of human occupation)

Admitting that this is not my year helped me to shed off the weight that one has to bear after affirmative resolutions.

And it not being my year doesn't mean now I'm a failure it just means my method are not working let's try another method.

It also brought me back to the question I've always asked myself, what do I really want to do with my life?

Being able to answer that question has propelled me to sift through job applications with a needle point.

I don't want to just work because I am a  30something and I should have a job and should earn this much and should have a plot in Kamulu and I should have at least a two burner and I should stop buying roasted maize in the street and I should try to act like A lady, a little? Maybe a little? No I will not.

I don't have to act anything
And you don't have to act anything when you are around me either.
Coz this is not my year and I expect nothing.
Nothing but the real real stuff.

Coz I got this.

Middle Age Alert: For the love of healthy eating.

I have a health freak living inside of me. Actually let's just say I have been held captive by a -whole grain, white 

meat, salad, and soup eating goblin who is here to make me pay for the uncontrolled
 sugar intake of my younger days.

 Gosh, I can't even look at the flavoured yogurt counter without the voice shouting 'that's processed sugar!'

 My friend and I are in the supermarket, I came in to buy powder soap and remembered I need yogurt.

And he says 'come, the yogurts are over here', and I say 'actually the one I want is in this fridge.' 

'But Creambell has a new flavor, see it' s peach flavored I think I'll try it. '

He says

And I say 'oh yeah well. Enjoy.' Without glancing at it. 

I cannot even eat kale and spinach like an ordinary Kenyan anymore.. nohhh it has to be kunde and sagaa and 

nderema, greens that don't even have English names.

other people are drinking cocacola mimi niko hapa nangoja juice ya miwa

The other day I was in the house and around 4.00pm I started to feel like a snack.  When you have had ugali 

Omena for lunch your mouth starts to want sweet things. I looked around the house and the only thing I could 

snack on was a bunch of carrots. Carrots yaani.

Or sugar cane which I have to peel myself, 'to strengthen thy teeth.'

Because this crossbreed of a 50-year-old mother in law and a 24-year-old young wife (kuona mbee) won't let me 

eat store-bought biscuits. 

If you want a cookie you gotta make it yourself she says and then stocks my pantry with flour and nuts and 

other stuff so I don't find any reason ya kukimbilia Mandazi mbili pale kwa Maasai in the morning.

When people are buying sweet flavored teas, zile za Kericho gold,, she goes and buys me a packet of neem tree 

tea bags.

Honestly. 

In normal homes, people are sipping passion and strawberry infused teas after dinner mimi niko hapa na 

kikombe ya murubanne.

Sometimes, when I am considering buying whole box of ginger nut biscuits I feel like one of those husbands in 

their late fifties who have to hide from their wives so they can eat some nyama choma., but I stop myse'f 

before giving in to the temptation coz I know it won't end well. I will be forced to knock at every door in my flat 

distributing the biscuits.

Ati ni maturity and even if my Shushu came to visit she would wonder whose great aunt's house we are visiting. 

Coz I mean, Gathoni where did you learn to ferment porridge?

Why can't you just get ujimix ile ya exe?

So this is where we at. I'm sitting at this restaurant and the only thing I can order is tea, because "how do you 

know they don't make their cakes with mafuta ya kupima?' 

And then maybe I'll have the arrowroot soup.

Adulting 101: How to Recover from a Burn Out.

Around this time last year I experienced a major burn out.

A Burn Out is defined as : A Feeling of physical and emotional exhaustion, due to stress from working with people under difficult or demanding conditions. Burn out is followed by signs such as chronic fatigue, quickness to anger and suspicion, and susceptibility to colds, headaches, and fevers.

The only symptom I didn't have was the headaches.

I was doing everything I was meant to be doing but I was always tired.

Daudi, one of my fathers noticed and asked what's up Cici.

I explained how my months were running into each other and how my weeks were running into each other and how I was out of breath most of the time.

He said maybe there is something sucking your energy and we sat and we wrote down everything I did on a seven days week.

'No wonder you are tired,' said he.
'I'm always tired.' Said I
'When did you last watch a movie?'
I couldn't remember the last time I had watched a movie.

My days were packed with running this direction to work and running that direction for more work and coming home to do a bit of washing before settling down infront of my laptop to get some work done before I slept.

As a web content manager, I of course need to spend time online but that time had become all the time.

I would be on Facebook responding to comments and on Twitter looking for tweets to retweet and on YouTube checking how many views the latest video was at.
Then I would be on my phone reassuring clients who had missed an appointment that they could still come in next week.(I was side hustling at a mobile clinic).

So Daudi said we needed to plan out a sample week I could stick to for a while then adjust as time went by.

We aligned all similar activities to fit into one day. And all activities in the same direction fit into similar days. I talked to my boss too about my monthly,weekly and daily job allocation.
I had blank spaces in my week where I could decide to watch a movie, paint my nails or chat.

I started to seriously make a list of things to do monthly, weekly,daily.
Contrarily to the assumption I had before, making lists doesn't make you an -over scheduled -ADH-Maniac.

It has the advantage of making you know what you really need to do, what can be postponed and what is urgent .
Urgent vs Important.
That's a theory I read somewhere but can't remember where.

Having lists and planning out my month doesn't mean I've got my life together better than the next person, but I am less rushed.


I take time to reflect on things.
I don't rush through things just to get them done (I now have three White items that are not off white..  )

I have changed the weekly schedule many times to suit my needs.

But the wonderful outcome is I am not the half crazed burned out  irritable human being I was at some point.
I have also come to appreciate the importance of sticking to a job until it's done.

Daudi said why do you go home, make some tea, chat, start to read, stop, cook, take a shower, study some more....

Or why do you start to work, get on Facebook, watch a video, start to write an email, get up to make tea.
 Finish that email!

Work will stretch to fit the time you allocate it.

There are days I write a 500 word article in under one hour.
There are days it takes me the whole day and part of the night to write a 500 word article.

We all need a little help.

Sometimes we think we know everything we need to know about life and the affairs of existence but it helps to have someone with more years and experience guide us along.

Tips
1. Make a to do List
2. Use mornings or late nights to organise the day
3. Learn to say -no I can't handle this right now-
4. Watch a movie/ read/ listen to music
5. Reduce the time you spend on tasks- learn to do them faster

How to cook food: An incomplete and shallow guide for cooking rice, flour, meat and vegetables among other basic meals

Lesson 4

omena fry

Omena's nutritional facts
Protein
Calcium
Vitamin D
Iron
Zinc

How to cook Omena
Wash them
Boil them for 5 minutes
Lift the out of the hot water
Dip them into cold water
Heat them on a pan to Dry them
Add oil and fry until crispy
Add onions and stir until the onion is brownish
Add Tomatoes
Stir until soft

Add a pinch of salt
Add hoho and stir
Throw in some dhania
It's ready to eat with your ugali
You can squeeze in lemon for taste.

I never considered omena a food item until I went to Malaysia and found out that Omena is a national dish, rather part of the national dish. In one month I had eaten enough omena meals to compensate for a whole adulthood of not eating the fish. They call it ikan bilis and nasi lemak, the national food has omena in the red paste, and on its own. You also eat omena in kampong fried rice and as a snack you can buy in the supermarket to eat in the bus on your way home.

their nasi lemak

our omena with ugali

their omena 

Our omena


I googled the three beautiful pictures, asanteni sana.