Picture of myself arranging meals
The very first time I manned a kitchen was a very exciting experience for me and I cannot forget it. While some of my other mates enjoyed being cooked for by the adults, I handled a kitchen all by myself at the age of 11. I would not write about this without highlighting how trilled and delighted I felt.
My aunt and her friends who were student nurses back then in the early 2011 got posted to a government hospital in my town for clinical studies so they lived with my family and I for the period of their stay in the town. I was in junior secondary school class one(1) then too. On one sunny day, I returned from school and met my aunt together with her friends seated and busy with their assignments in the living room and looking all tired. It started off as a joke when my aunt suggested that I make them food to eat, in fact I thought she was pulling my legs until she took me to the kitchen to discuss the quantity of food I’d cook.
My parents were not home, she and her friends were so busy with assignments and tired from the day’s work coupled with my eagerness to cook and the incentive she promised to get for me the next day, I accepted the deal.
I looked around for the raw foods present that I could try my hands on. I then decided to make jollof rice and beans, it may sound uncommon but that was my choice and that was the first time I thought of eating that. I prepared the meal from scratch to finish using my church mind, I then served the meal to my aunt, her friends and myself, I even left some for my parents and brother as proof that I actually made the meal. My aunt and her friends were left in awe as they ate the food. I didn’t learn it from anywhere then but I made it perfectly with my discretion. When my parents came back, they found it so hard to believe I made it especially my dad who has always thought I was too young to be in the kitchen and requested that I make it once more. I did again that night and we all enjoyed the meal.
Moving on with my life, I began to join my mother in the kitchen whenever she cooks then on. When I got to senior secondary school class 2 in 2015, I joined catering crafts vocational class and continued till I graduated from secondary school. I even carried out a food project in my senior secondary school class 3 West African Senior School Certificate Examination in 2016 where I prepared a three course meal and was inspected by my vocational catering crafts teacher, external supervisor and food tasters.
I prepared beefdodo as an appetizer, jollof rice, fried rice, dodo (fried ripe plantains), vegetable salads as main meal and cupcakes and natural fruit juice as dessert. All of these meals were graded based on time management, resources available and ideas and the results were added to my final results in school.
Moreover, during my second year in the university, I began to cook for sale. My target costumers were my schoolmates but I also made Nigerian dishes (especially moimoi and finger foods), soups in bowls and food trays to both far and near places in exchange for money. I opened an online restaurant and marketed my cooked meals via WhatsApp, Instagram and Twitter. I also got contracts to make meals in large quantities for parties, gatherings and some other events.
This actually describes part of my cooking journey since I was aged 10 going on 11. I actually did start cooking since I was 10, sold cooked food in my university, joined the catering crafts vocational class in my second year as a senior secondary school student meanwhile finishing this vocational class was a lie, I never continued with it in my senior secondary school class three (3), I did not make any three course meal in school, I opted out for garment making and finished with it in my West African Senior School Certificate Examinations.