Ma's sweet tooth

 

Now I get it. How inconveniencing it can be to leave for work in the morning, then just before noon, get a call from your child’s school that they are unwell and you have to take them to the hospital. This is the early 2000’s in Nairobi, pre-superhighway so we can’t even talk about the expressway. That means as an adult Nairobian, who works far from home, a good number of hours in your day are spent on the road, certainly not in the musician's way. But bless my mother, the few times when she got those calls from my primary school, she would come for me.

I remember her  coming for me and taking me to the hostol (nang’o my Luo peeps). On our way back home, we’d pass by the supermarket and as a ritual she would get me Delmonte juice or Dairy Fresh and a slice of Swiss Roll. She introduced me to Swiss rolls, and for the longest time, that was our thing.

 

As a young child, I have vivid memories of watching her make banana bread in the kitchen using a food processor and then letting my brothers and I lick the batter off the paddle fixtures. We would always fight over it. Kids are almost always fighting over something. She didn’t know it then, neither did I, that her simple act of making banana bread with so much love was inspiring a whole career: mine.

 

There’s a supermarket which we frequent with Ma, that has a section of desserts and on the wall it's written 'Temptation Corner'. She is always tempted by it. By always, I mean just that. Always. Btw, I'm glad to report that she received her slice of cake the other day, that Steve didn't get to it. So alikula both story and cake.

Perhaps you can already tell from this that Ma identifies as a sweet tooth hehe. (Okay and as a good Christian pentecostal lady. Added that for her incase she ever reads this blog) Anywayz. When I started my baking business and had to name it, it was a no-brainer for me that I’d either name it after her or by something inspired by her. Sweet Tooth was what was most obvious but there are 54 thousand other businesses called that. Because I’m Luhya, you guys already know that we love our Kiswahili, ndiposa I translated sweet tooth to Jino Tamu, ilimradi the essence of it being inspired by her remains.

Running that business has been one the most challenging things I’ve done in my 20’s for a number of reasons. I'll definitely get into those with you guys some day. On the flip side, it's had its fare share of exciting moments. Till today, I still enjoy the act of baking; measuring the ingredients and mixing the batter. Pouring the batter into the baking dish then inserting it in the oven. (Wait, do I sound like Aunty wa keki? Damn.) You get the drift. A business is however more than that and involves washing a lot of dirty dishes if you're solo. 

A few years back, I used to teach people how to bake, the innocent act of it. And I used to have a lot of fun. It would take me back to the days in the kitchen watching Ma bake for us and being amused by how the cake would rise in the oven then settle into a beautiful golden brown color and come out smelling heavenly and tasting really yummy. Over the years, I've developed my recipes especially so that they don't use so much sugar. Some cakes can chock you from being too sweet which takes away from the experience of enjoying a treat. Americans are wild when it comes to sugar and really everything else lol.

In short, I'm back to teaching again, and I wanna share the fun. If you're interested or know someone who's interested, let them hit me up. Especially Gen Z cause Gen Z are fun to be around. Haha. But even baby boomers are welcome.