Kitchen advice

What you need to know:

  • If I get the chance to support a bride in the nutrition domain, this is what I’ll tell her

A few years ago I was invited to participate in a ‘leaving home’ party for a young lady who was about to wed.

I hear that these days, Kenyans call this a ‘hen’ party. (I always thought the female equivalent of a ‘stag night’ would be a ‘doe evening’ but here we are.)

Anyway, the moment that I dread at such gatherings arrived: This is the time when the older ladies present are invited to advise the bride.

For the older married woman, this is a chance to paraphrase the book that she has been longing to write: Everything about marriage that I wish my mother had taught me.

However, for the senior spinsters, this is a nail-biting moment. As sage directions are given on what the bride should do to make her new husband happy in the various rooms of the house, the only location where I can hold my own is the kitchen.

However, given the flimsy bits of lingerie that are being passed around and the raucous laughter, no one wants to hear me transform the hen party into a kitchen party. (And yes, I do expect you to pronounce that word in the normal way and not as ‘kicked hen’.)

However, if ever I get the opportunity to support a bride in the nutrition domain, this is what I will tell her:

Doe evening maxim no.1 - You can never have too many teaspoons. Teaspoons are just about the most useful piece of equipment in the kitchen.

They are good for stirring our favourite beverage and for lots of other things as well. When you are slimming, eating with a teaspoon slows you down.

Teaspoons are great for levering off a tight lid, and the back end can sometimes be used as an impromptu screwdriver.

Cheap teaspoons (which usually have sharper edges) are wonderful for slicing up fruits, especially mangoes and watermelon. Indeed the only minus about this handy piece of cutlery is that it disappears so easily.

It seems as if no matter how many teaspoons I buy, the kitchen elf makes sure that I always end up with an incomplete set of five.

Doe evening maxim no.2 - Invest in the biggest vacuum flask that you can afford. Visiting is one of our favourite Kenyan pastimes and brides, babies and all the other b’s that follow a marriage are our best-loved visited.

No Kenyan visit is complete without a steaming cup of tea. Therefore, unless you want to spend the early years of your marriage making and serving endless cups of tea, get the flask and use it!

Doe evening maxim no.3 - To get your food to the table on time, parboil some things in advance. Every young man believes that his Mum cooked her meals from scratch every day.

The truth is that any person who follows this approach will spend more than a quarter of her waking life slaving over a hot stove (and I have observed that the exhaustion that follows such activity will probably make you ineffective in other domains).

So use the restaurant method. Plastic containers of parboiled ingredients, vegetables washed and chopped by the house help, sauces purchased in jars from the supermarket and dried spices are Superwoman’s best friends.

You can enjoy all the glory of producing the meal without the blood, sweat and tears (caused by chopping onions).

Doe evening maxim no.4 - Get a very sharp knife. Nearly everything else can be improvised or done without if necessary. However, ever since the Stone Age human beings have realised the importance of a cutting tool in the kitchen department.

I appreciate that, in these days of Nyerification, wedding guests hesitate to gift the happy couple with a potential weapon. However, it is a necessary evil. Have knife, will cook.

In our local traditions, they say that the quickest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. So why not hold that pre-wedding bash in the kitchen?