Day 4: April 2021

#APRIL2021 My 12 days of deliciousness continues…

For so many of us, myself obviously included, food if not cooking has anchored and sustained us during an otherwise topsy-turvy, mind-bogglingly insane, frightening, surreal and uncertain near two years. People baked sourdough. Others made banana bread. And remember that frothy coffee thing? I don’t know what it was, but I know people were into it.

I cooked for comfort. I planned meals for structure. I organized grocery deliveries for stability. And I sought out, in cooking, a way to escape, if only for a meal, the confines of my home, my neighborhood, my adopted country (so aptly dubbed “little plague island” by an American journalist). And in April 2021, I escaped to the eastern coast of Africa, courtesy of @hawahassan and @turshen ‘s gorgeous “In Bibi’s Kitchen.”

I was hooked even before I had a copy of this incredible tome in my hands. I was drawn to the book because of its grounding in and highlighting of the women who cook and nourish and feed and sustain their families, communities and cultures, but whose contributions to food and food history are so often neglected. Plus, like me, Julia Turshen is a @barnardcollege alum, whose lentils from “Small Victories” saved me and Ed during the early months of Theo’s infancy. Buying the book unseen was a no-brainer. And then I opened it…and I opened my taste buds to flavors and spices and combinations I didn’t know existed. And then I was gone— Theo and Ed too— to the coast of Africa, away from Little Plague Island, to Bibi’s kitchen, to the tables of women who, like me and so many of us, are just trying to hold ourselves and our families together, to nurture, feed, love and comfort as best as we can.