BAWO!
Welcome! To start off, this will be a lengthy read because aside from cooking, I also, love to write and I get carried away, lol! So here we go:
Hey There!,
Let me introduce myself. My name is Bawo (pronounced as Bah-wor or Bah-war). Bawo is an abbreviated Itsekiri name, the full name is Onetoritsebawoete. I am one part Itsekiri and one part Ilaje. Itsekiri is one of the tribes in Delta State and Ilaje is one of the tribes in Ondo State both in Nigeria.
Do you know that Cooking is a very unique art form? Everybody makes a particular dish differently. It doesn’t mean that their way of cooking is wrong, it is just how they make theirs. It is all about the end result and the taste. So, enjoy the uniqueness of your cooking method and how others cook. Be slow to draw conclusions. The taste is the key.
For me, cooking is fun and enjoyable if it isn’t presented as a chore or duty, I know, I hate chores like most people. But you see, cooking is a survival skills, I have always known how to cook from a young age watching my mum cook over and over and over again for the family. I know how, I just don’t want to do it. Mum was so great at it so why should I, right? Wrong! She still made me cook every chance she got. Looking back now, I am grateful to her for not letting me lazy about while she made meals for the family. (I know what you are thinking, which African parents will let their kids watch Tv or play while they cook well? Well, not mine lol and I am grateful regardless).
Developing Recipes and Experimenting with Ingredients and Recipes is the Absolute Best Feeling!
With Love, Bawo! of Bawo’s Kitchen Journal
When I went to university in Ghana, I only had just a few familiar Nigerian ingredients available to me at the time (later on with the help of my Personal Ghanaian “Tour” Guide, Rou, I was able to discover more ingredients of which some have different names from what I knew them as but they were the same ingredients.) Let me tell you, buying food as a student is so expensive and to be in a new country with their different cuisines, I wasn’t ready for that. Anyways, I had to start cooking much more than I did when I was back home in Nigerian (plus mum wasn’t here to make sure I ate. So, eat or starve my choice. You guessed right. EAT!) and I started noticing how much I loved cooking. Not too long after, I also started cooking some Ghanaian dishes as well (with guidance of course, from Rou).
Then, I realized how much cooking means to me. I don’t stress when I cook, it actually relaxes me and declutter my mind. I don’t have to worry when I cook. In fact, when I need clarity, I cook. Cooking makes me happy, it is my happy place, my calm place. Food and cooking is home.
I feel like most of my life, I have been away from home from boarding school in another city to university in another country to post graduate and relocation to a different country half way across the world. Actually to be more accurate, in a different continent, I haven’t spent a lot of my life at Home. So, those memories I have of my mum cooking are some of the many reasons I continue to cook. Whenever I cook, I feel like she is here with me. I feel like I am in Nigeria with her in the kitchen cooking. We still exchange picture of food and new recipes all the time and she always has the best compliments and ideas. To read more about the inspiration for my food journey, check here.
My all time favourite thing about cooking is the ability to develop and create my own recipes, experimenting and enjoying them. To be able to mix and match different recipes, flavours and ingredients together to create one wholesome awesome dish, like they are meant to be combine, is the best feeling ever. I love it.
I love experimenting with recipes, not because the classic and traditional way isn’t good enough but to know what else is possible with the classic and traditional? What else can be made out of the recipe or dish? And I quickly found out that the outcome can be limitless! Your imagination is the limit. If you can think it, you can make it!
I am by no means a trained chef or cook or whatever, I am “Just An Itsekiri + Ilaje Girl Sharing Her Love For Food! ” through her experiences from cooking with her mum, experimenting and practice, practice, practice. My recipes aren’t gospel nor are they final word. I can assure you that there are at least 5 to 20 other ways of making a particular dish. The dishes I make here, are just how B! makes hers. So, Be Kind. Enjoy. Explore. Try new recipes. Try new dishes. Be adventurous. Be you and then some more. Have fun. Cooking, creating recipes, snapping pictures of everything are just a few of my fav things.
Thank you for reading!
