The reality that we do something so well today means that we were once first-timers in it. It means, there was a time we had to take up the initiative for whatever good or bad reason to do something, go somewhere, or even not do something. Yes, because there was a time we might have failed to engage in the rituals that we normally do, which makes that a first time as well.
The beauty of life is sometimes in the first times. Like watching a baby walk for the first time, talk, and then eventually go to school. It's a thing of beauty and joy for the parents. Many even make the effort to capture such first times and keep them for memory's sake. This is to show how much such times or moments mean. Yes, even to us as grown-ups, doing a thing for the first time is one that comes with a lasting impression.
I cooked for the first time in my life, and that day remains memorable. After several culinary lessons from my mother, I took the step that day. All ingredients were handed over to me in the right proportion, and I was left to the display of what I've learnt. I must say that it wasn't totally easy. I wanted to make a tasty first impression and so, I was concerned about the outcome.
Every necessary step was in my memory and I followed accordingly. What should come first came, and what should follow followed till the moment the pot was dropped from the fire. Did I mention my first time doing this wasn't even on a gas cylinder? All of that was done with the traditional firewood method. So, even the work of lighting the firewood was somehow on me.
I remember how I washed and sliced the tomatoes and onions, pounded the pepper, parboiled the rice and beans. The seasoning unwrapped, crayfish ready, a little salt and whatever was necessary. All of that was poured into the pot at the appropriate time as I had learnt. Red oil (palm oil) was what I used that day.
With all that, you should know that rice and beans was the first meal I cooked－jollof rice and beans. What better way to start? Before I tried it, cooking felt like magic or something. How can the coming together of water, fire, pot, foodstuffs and the necessary ingredients birth something sumptuous that could leave one salivating?
It was a long time but I remember well. Today, I have done several dishes; those I learnt physically either intentionally or by observation, others by instructions I got online or physically from someone close to me. All of what I have cooked in this life; the good and bad, edible and inedible, boils down to that first time on the firewood cooking space.
