Pubs, Brassieres and Honey Glazed Potato Wedges

I was headed home one afternoon recently. I had had this mutura craving the whole day and I finally caved, I went by the mutura place to get myself 50 bob worth of an herbivore’s intestines.

There is a path I take from the mutura guy to my humble abode. The path itself is a delight. A total gem. On either side stand buildings; some semi complete, some fully complete, others just structures put together with sand and ballast. Most of these buildings are shops, salons, churches, you name it. Any money-making enterprise that can fit a 21-square-foot room. Further along the path, there’s a broken sewer pipe. That part is perennially wet. Come rain or Maji ya Kanjo rationing, this place is where the hydration is happening. If this part of the path were a person’s skin, then trust you me that would be one heck of a hydrated face. Glowing to the high heavens and not even one break out.

Right after this small oasis, stands my favorite feature along this path. THE PUB. I don’t know its name. All I know is they play really soothing Rhumba music at 8:00 am and there is always a group of well clad men and women seated at the mouth of the pub any time of day or night. Yes, you read that right. I did use the word ‘clad’. Yes I am a pretentious cow. Is it just me or are my sentences rather short today?

They (the pub people aforementioned) always look super cool. Like the cool children in high school who had the whole school in awe of their coolness, their chill, their seeming lack of care, the exact opposite of your existence and then some. These men and women always look like they are having a good time. Like they paid their children’s school fees, paid off all their rent arrears and still had enough left over to buy new inner-wear. I often envy them. They have me wishing I had saved up enough money last month to be able to afford that nice overpriced jacket at Mr. Price pale Archives.

Walking past them is for me always a struggle. I get all sweaty and my mouth goes dry. My eyes start to water and I can only think of how my walking style is changing making me look like a middle aged woman with a broken heel walking through town while still trying to keep her wig on without adjusting it. In that moment the air goes still and I can hear my breathing do that slow-mo version we hear in Bollywood movies when the parents of the bride realise their future son-in-law isn’t as hairy as they’d been made to believe.

I avoid looking at one place because in my mind, that would appear forced, unnatural. Rather, my eyes dart all over the place. From the ground, to the roofs of the buildings ahead of me, to the second-hand bras hanging from the limbs and neck of the man approaching me whistling a popular Kikuyu tune. A Shiru wa GP one. I can almost hear Shiru’s shrill voice pounding in my eardrums.  I also decided that clenching my teeth was merely attention seeking. So I don’t clench my teeth. I leave my jaw all loose and ready-for-whatever. It swings ahead of me like a man and his rabid alien jaw.

There is never chatter as I pass. There settles this… quiet. A sharp, unsettling quiet. A malicious quiet. The type of quiet Chuck Norris would know meant an intruder with ninja skills was in the house (I recently watched a pathetic movie where this exactly happened and believe you me I suffered acute liver failure). In the distance however, I can hear the soothing pitchy voices of Rhumba musicians. Rhumba men, whose singing voices always seem higher or at least on the same wavelength as Mama Nico’s, our high-pitched soprano soloist in the church choir. These sharp voices, singing about a myriad of things; from sex to love, money, Christianity, Zaire, the second coming. I hold on to these voices for my life, lest my knees give out and I sink to the ground in weird open-jawed glory. The sounds of the singer stretching out his vowels at the end of each line, accompanied by the electric guitar, like so:

Ooooh mama, nakupenda kama Bolingo nayo o-oooh *Cue Electric guitar.

These sounds come into one with the whistler’s tune and this collision of sound makes me dart my eyes even faster, I look at the man for a mere fraction of a second. He has a calm collected appearance, his lips stretched out to form a conical shape to support his whistling, his nostrils flared to accommodate more air, his brow tightened and I knew it, he was constipated. Either that, or he believed it so much it became his truth. Suddenly, an outburst of laughter and bottles rolling around. Are they laughing at me? If they are, then I curse their lactating heifers and ewes. I pass, I get home and I type out these words for your consumption. On this occasion, they had on Samantha’s Bridal ‘My Dream Wedding’ and I could hear excited voices from within the pub. I wondered, did the brassieres guy ever get a laxative?

I love potatoes. I do. I think potatoes are a gift given to mankind for having made it thus far. So today, with Sade’s Sweetest Taboo playing on repeat in the background, let’s have Honey Glazed Potato Wedges shall we?

Ingredients

¼ kilogram of potatoes

1 tablespoon Mixed Spices

1 tablespoon Honey

2 tablespoons Margarine/ butter (I used margarine because, this is my blog, those are my potatoes and finally, my digestive system demanded it. Let’s just carry on…)

1/8 cup water

Method

Peel and wash the potatoes and cut them up into wedges preferably into quarters. Put them in a sufuria and cover them with salty water. Bring these to a boil. Boil them for 8-10 minutes. You can drive a fork through them to see if they are done. If they are, the fork will go through with ease. Do not boil for too long or else they will turn into mash.

Drain them and add in the mixed spices. Coat the potato wedges with the spices until they are all well coated. In a pan, melt the butter/margarine and add the water and honey. Put in the potato wedges and cover. Let them simmer for 5 minutes before turning over. Make sure each side has turned brown before taking off the fire.

Serving suggestion: Being the obese pancake eater I am known to be, I decided to serve my potatoes with Scrambled eggs and sautéed spinach. I love how bourgeois that makes me sound. I should use the word sautéed more often. Sautéed bread.

*I didn't use manufactured spices. I ground mine using mortar and pestle. However, if you prefer using manufactured ones, it's fine still. I however suggest that you use one with a grinder.

There you have it folks. Yet another edition of me acting like I know what I am doing when in real sense I just enjoy running my mouth on the internet. While you are here, I invite you to take a look at my previous pieces.

Asante sana and Kwaheri.