#BecauseCravingsMustBeSatisfied

I’m baking again!

I haven’t baked in more than a year. I thought I was done with it. I even returned Mum’s baking tins [and had to use one of my handy steel pots this time!] I find food and the making of food to have a completely satisfying and soothing effect. As such, my recent disinterest scared me. I remembered the times I tinkered with my meagre pantry, making Thai curries out of everything because we had curry paste and coconut milk. Yoghurt always meant a creamy soup or sauce. Margarine or cooking oil always meant baking had to happen. I still have yeast from my bread making days. Then suddenly, on a cool Sunday morning in early June 2016, it stopped.

That morning I had attempted another strange recipe. I figured that since my ancestors used shea butter to cook and it is a kind of butter, I should be able to use it to make pan-crepes [thin crepe-like pancakes because I’m not a fan of thick American pan cakes and crepes tend to be too eggy for me]. I thought the batter smelt funny but thought it was just the nuttiness of the shea. I tried to mask it in chocolate and vanilla essence. However, when I threw up all of my breakfast and part of the previous night’s dinner, I knew something was definitely different about my innards.

As it turns out, I could not keep anything in my stomach for the entire first trimester. Nothing worked. Not fruits, vegetable salads, matooke n’ebbyenda, porridge, spicy food, bland food. Nothing. Everything smelt aweful. I was forced to stay indoors or risk throwing up all over the unsuspecting citizens of Kampala. I could not face my puppies. I could not drive – because the smell of fuel was something mighty fierce. I could not use public transport. I could not even walk to the nearby supermarket without worrying about the smells of food emanating from people’s homes. I discovered that one of my neighbours cooked a meat curry every day. I spent most of my days washing, ironing and folding the laundry. It was my only solace.

Ivan says I developed the nose of a hound. I could detect all manner of scents and describe their content, origin and age. This was particularly difficult for him since he played rugby thrice a week and always run home after practice. He and I had to work out a schedule for who could be in the shared house space in order to avoid conflict.

Eventually, nausea gave way to a high level of irritability. I was not happy, ever. The sun was too bright in the morning. My feet were too big to fit in my shoes. None of my clothes made sense. I was tired all the time. I could not stop eating but could not stand to be in the kitchen and could not stay standing long enough to make a meal. Poor Walker was stuck trying to guess and pre-empt my unpredictable cravings. For a while, all we ate was salt and avocado. Then we moved on to mangoes and cassava. We eventually got to fruit salads and yoghurt by the 6th month.

At about this time, we had the crazy idea to increase our business efforts by ten fold. As the chief juice master [I have been working on that title for a while] that meant I had sleepless nights – for a month. I went from irritable to mad – all the time. I was either shouting at people or completely shut up and refusing to talk for hours. My feet were swollen. I walked with a limp. Of course, I was as round as a cow and ate half of one each day. I moved into the parents’ house, to be closer to work. That meant I no longer had a kitchen of my own. I could not experiment as freely as I did at my own home.

We hired more help, which meant I was less agitated, at least not by the work. However, my shrinking brain [apparently pregnancy does this to you] lead me to do silly things. For example, I thought it was a good idea to have 3 people, myself included, on a motorbike. Of course, I fell off. No one was injured, thankfully, though, I am petrified at the thought of what could have happened. You see, the street we were on has a constant traffic of trucks, buses and kamunyes/matatus who are not very familiar with traffic regulations or patience. I was lucky.

I decided that I wanted a break from the monotony of working and living in the same compound. I decided I was going to commute – all 90kgs of me and my bundle. On the day before the 18th of February 2017, I went to work, like any normal day. I walked up to the nearby supermarket and bought my daily dose of cake and yoghurt. I continued to the taxi stop in front of the mosque. It was a Friday. It was just after one. The stop was crowded with Moslems looking for a way in, in order to catch the end of the mid-day prayers. I hopped onto a matatu, like all the other clients and off we went, bumping and swaying along the pothole madness that Ugandans call roads. I cannot recall for certain, but I am almost sure we got stuck in the traffic jam at Spear. It always takes an hour to move a mere 10 km at that time of the day. In Nakawa, I crossed the highway to get a connecting matatu to Luzira. For some reason, Portbell taxis do not reach the park. 

Eventually, I arrived at the Portbell stage, and afraid of another motorbike accident, I chose to trek up the hill – another 15 minutes of glorious sunshine. Thankfully, the juice crew was working steadily. They only needed a little nudge to get them to reach the day’s targets. As soon as they left. It started. The wetness, the pain, the unsteady breath and the wonder at what my body could endure. 

Iko is a great joy. I did not believe what the books said about forgetting the pain. But now at 3 months, he’s learning to smile and poop [he tends to perform these actions simultaneously]. My not-so-little, totally edible, human marshmallow is attempting to make me forget. I struggled with a lack of appetite and interest in all things culinary – that is, until this week. 

We had pasta the other day. Although I am still exhausted all the time and feel like there are a million things that need to be done and not enough time or hands to do it, I made pasta sauce, like we used to back in the old days. In addition, today, I woke up wanting chocolate cake and – I BAKED A CAKE!

Eggless wholewheat chocolatey goodness