Africanne on Main

As a young child growing up in my hometown, Monrovia, Liberia, West Africa, I knew that cooking was destined to play a major role in my adult life. With my grandmother as a constant companion, I learned the fundamentals of womanhood; domesticity, discipline, spiritually, love, self-reliance, determination, faith and also a sense of humor. It was very easy to be taught by "Mommie", my grandmother, as I am naturally creative. Cooking is one of the most important traditions for young Liberian girls who usually begin honing their skills by age ten. By the time I was eight, I had begun to collect different sizes of empty cans and create recipes from flowers and plants. I recollect bringing cans of different flowers and plants to my grandmother and asking her to taste dishes I had created especially for her. Upon sampling my creations she would invariably respond by saying, "That's so good! Where did you learn to cook like that?" I would simply say, "It just came to me, Mommie!" My grandmother was gifted with powers of spiritual insight and envisioned that I would someday leave my homeland and practice my skills in a new country. I often recall how she held my hands very tightly, raised her head, closed her eyes and predicted, "I can see my baby in a strange land cooking to her heart's content!" I, in turn, would march around her proudly singing, "Yes, I will be a cook someday." My grandmother sat on the porch about fifty feet from the kitchen and instructed me how to cook. I was required to bring the pot to her each time I needed to add ingredients and stand at the pot the entire time the food was cooking. Her favorite byword was "You have to get to know your pot; you have to sense what stage your food is in by the smell." Today, it makes a great deal of sense to me. In addition to learning the "art of cooking", I can truly say that the most important lesson learned is not being afraid to make dreams a reality.