Life Is Oh So Dandy

Chilli Lime Salmon Tacos with Roasted Mango Habanero Salsa

T-11 days to Cinco de Mayo! Unbeknownst to a seemingly large population of Americans that celebrate the holiday, the 5th of May commemorates victory of a small Mexican town in a battle against the French in which they were both outnumbered and inferiorly armed. I dive a little into the history of how Ethiopia pulled off a similar defeat of the Italian army in their bid to expand their empire.
As an African, I’m choosing to celebrate unlikely victors in battles against European colonisers. Grab a margarita with me and cheers to unlikely victors with this recipe!

Why is Leaving a Place I Hate so Hard?

I spent the first 19 years of my life in Harare and in the 5 years since I’ve lived in 5 different cities across 3 different continents. The constant change has repeatedly invoked the question of what it means to call a place home. How do I find comfort in places so far both geographically and culturally from where I grew up? What does hominess mean to me? This piece explores finding home away from home and finding comfort in places that you don’t even like.

Eggplant Bulgogi Pizza with Kimchi Hot Honey

#2 in the series of fusing Italian food with non-Western cuisine. I’ve been meaning to do a veggie pizza for a while and this idea has held me in a chokehold for the past few months. Initially, this was going to be an iteration of the Ultimate Skillet Margarita Pizza I posted 6 years ago,…

Finding Love Around the Table #1: The First Homecooked Dinner Date

A little more than a year ago, I prepared to host someone I’d been dating for 2 months at my apartment for dinner. He would be the first to dine at the new IKEA table I’d painfully spent 2 weeks assembling by myself.

Jollof Arancini

Disclaimer: This is NOT about which country has the best jollof rice. As a Zimbabwean, jollof rice was relatively unknown to me until my arrival at college in the United States. Feeling homesick, I joined and became an active participant in the Society for African Internationals at Penn (SAIP). SAIP provided a safe space for…

Welcome to the Rest of Your Life: 3 Lessons from My First Year in the Real World

‘welcome to the rest of your life’, and what a welcome it was. losing my first job and an injury that left me unable to walk for 2 months were the overtones in the symphony of the debilitating global economic/political/climatic outlook.
I started writing this piece about life’s setbacks around the 1 year anniversary of my time in the real world (last August) but have invariably delayed because the setbacks did not stop coming. Keri Hilson said it first (and said it best),
#justgetbackupwhenitknocksyoudown, this post is a reminder (to myself more than anyone else) that transitions are tough, tough times never last and to remain confident in your ability to come out on top.

Warm Spiced Lamb Hash with Sweet Potatoes

Breakfast woes be gone. Breakfast is one of the meals I’ve been struggling with lately. A cup of coffee is just enough to turbocharge me to lunch without collapsing, but that charge has a very strict time limit. If I can’t get to lunch by 12:15pm, it’s the people around me that will suffer the…

Spring Onion Pancake Jerk Mushroom Wraps

People often ask me what my favourite post is: it’s officially this one. Spicy jerk mushrooms get wrapped in a soft green onion pancakes with crunchy carrots and cucumbers.

London Fog Affogato

Turning one of my favourite drinks into a delectable dessert! Creamy earl-grey lavender ice-cream gets drowned in piping hot coffee in my take on this scrumptious Italian dessert. In truth, a London Fog latte doesn’t contain coffee at all – it typically is comprised of earl grey tea, steamed milk, vanilla syrup and a hint…