I like to say that my mom taught me how to cook, although she didn't do it the conventional way most of you might be used to, you know, your mom sitting you down beside her in the kitchen and directing you on what ingredient to add next into the cooking pot. What my mom did was that she would come into my room early in the morning when she was about leaving for work and I was still in a deep sleep that could be mistake for a coma, and she would wake me up with her voice and then proceed to instruct me on what to do before eventually leaving.
Back then, everyone at home had something doing that always made them leave home in the morning, my mom had her shop, my dad had his job, one of my elder brothers was at the university and the other one had his job while my little brother had school to attend. I had just graduated high-school at the time so I did nothing but stayed home all day. And whenever my mom left instructions for me on what to cook before leaving for work, that mostly only meant one thing, that she won't be back home on time to prepare dinner for the family, so all of that responsibility was now on my shoulders.
At first it felt like work, but then I began to get used to it and in no time, I saw myself making some really nice foods. Although my mom made sure not to ask me to prepare the complicated ones, like soup, it was mostly just rice, beans, yam and all of those simple stuff.
Then I left home for school and I found myself being grateful that I had learnt all of that at home because during my first few months here, I had no female friends to help me cook, so it was just me performing all of the magic in the kitchen. I was staying with elder brother at the time and he too was a good cook, so it was almost as if I was lacking nothing when it came to food.
But my second year came and now it was just me in school, my brother had graduated but I now had female friends at my hostel, friends who were more than happy to help me cook as long as it meant that they would have some of that meal to take to their rooms. So I found myself getting help for something that felt like free of charge because I didn't see the food they were collecting as payment, I would have given it to them anyway if I had prepared the food myself.
This went on for about a year or two and all of a sudden I found myself being lazy to even turn on the gas cooker. Whenever none of my friends were around to help me, I would go out to get food from restaurants and fast food joints. And at first I didn't see this as a big deal because it felt like a temporary thing but then when all of my female friends left due to them graduating, I found out I still couldn't lit up the gas cooker and was also suffering from partial amnesia because for some weird reasons, I couldn't remember anything about how to cook.
I tried some few times but after they all ended a disaster, I gave up. Now, unless I have someone over, I spend all of my money buying food outside, making me not just lazy but broke too.
