Men in the Kitchen

A lady friend on Facebook recently lamented that men are disasters in the kitchen. This got me thinking. Are we being attacked for nothing or do women have genuine concerns here? Although my friend claimed to be asking for a friend, I got the distinct impression that her own kitchen had ‘suffered’ in the hands of a man. There are many instances where men are bashed by women with good reasons. When it comes to their wonders in the kitchen however, I believe they receive unfair judgement. “How can the Layman be such an expert on matters to do with men?” you might ask. Well, I have been a man all my life so you can say I am better experienced on men matters more than, say, the average woman.

Creativity Galore

There is no argument against it. Men are more creative in the kitchen. Whatever they do is based on constant reasoning out. A man will not let the onion burn before adding tomatoes merely because his mother and grandmother before him did the same thing. He will ask himself, “why let it burn” and, “why not let it cook just right”. It is this constant questioning of long running but unreasonable traditions by women in the kitchen that makes men more innovative in the sacred room.

Keenness

My own wife concurs, almost accusingly, that I make better and more uniform rosettes than her when we are

decorating cakes. Men are known to be sticklers when it comes to measuring ingredients and sizes of food items. It is probably for this reason that most professional chefs and food production specialists are men. For men, a pinch of salt is a vague measure. They prefer to work in grams and pints.

Utilisation of All Available Tools

This is one of the most emotional ‘accusations’ that men face in the kitchen. I have often heard women complain how their men ‘dirtify’ all the cookware during the making of ‘award winning’ cuisine. The women claim that the ‘mess’ men leave in their kitchen make it hard for them to appreciate any hard work and indisputable results men may have achieved in production of exotic and tantalising dishes. On behalf of all the men in the world, I would like to ask women one question, “Why are you so keen on buying (sometimes through specialised chamas) all those dishes if you never intend for them to be used?”

More Tiredness

Due to the above outlined keenness and creativity by men in the kitchen, it is reasonable to say that they get more tired after being in the kitchen. It is therefore impossible for a man, unless he is an undercover agent, to have the energy to clean up after his adventurous forays in the kitchen. I think any woman whose man is liberal enough to work in the kitchen should not complain too much about the small collateral damage (dirty dishes).

Mobilisation for Cleaning Up

Everybody has to agree that inasmuch as many men are often unable to clean up after performing their magic in the kitchen, they also seem to have the special gift of mobilising women to help them in this most undesirable activity. I know women will complain about this on social media but are probably secretly happy to be among the few whose men are secure enough not just to step into the kitchen, but also to produce amazingly tasty food. It is for this reason that at the particular time, they happily oblige their men by doing all the cleaning up that is needed.

A Case of Jealousy

Methinks that women are needlessly jealous of men who seem to know their way around the kitchen. Complains about small messes in kitchens appears to be a flimsy excuse for those who venture into their hitherto unpenetrated turf. If men were to start frequenting kitchens with abandon, it would render previously popular stereotypes obsolete. In my small Layman’s mind, I can almost understand where women are coming from. I would however ask them to look at it positively and support more men to enter and do something useful in the kitchen. That way, their years of lobbying would not have gone to waste. But then again, I am just but an ignorant Layman, what do I know about the complexities of delegation of authority by unwilling women?

Plastic Bag Ban Bad for Environment

It will be illegal to manufacture or use plastic bags in Kenya from September. This declaration was made by the environment cabinet secretary, Judi Wakhungu. The government hopes that this move will help to mitigate against the harmful effects that the bags have been seen to have on the environment. I beg to differ. I think the ban will cause more harm than good to the environment.

Limited Alternatives

Back in the village where I grew up, there was virtually no plastic. Stuff like sugar, after being weighed, was packed in khaki paper bags whose end would then be folded neatly and stuck on the side with a paper tape. The tape itself was made of similar paper and the adhesive was made from a sugar solution applied and dried on one side of a rolled strip. The tape dispenser used to have a dam with a sponge soaked with water over which the shop keeper would slide the sticky side of tape so as to activate the adhesive. The whole process of weighing, packing, and taping up sugar was a ritual which we watched amazement every time we were sent to the shops. Then; plastic happened and as they say, the rest is history.

I don’t see us going back to that beautiful, ceremonial, and bio-degradable way of packing groceries. I also don’t see modern Kenyans, all full of swagger, carrying their woven sisal or straw baskets to the shops the way we did. If that were to happen, it would take more than lacklustre declarations by the government with dates on which everything would go back to the way it was thirty years ago.

Elusive Forest Cover

In 2013, the then Environment Minister, Noah Wekesa, claimed that the country had a 7% forest cover and not less than 2% as previously estimated. In February of this year, Judi Wakhungu, the current environment CS has claimed that Kenya has a forest cover of 7%, having grown 5.3% from a cover of 1.7% in 2013. The big question is; who between a Cabinet Secretary and a Minister is more likely to speak the truth on what the forest cover was in 2013?

This indeterminate forest cover is expected to provide the alternative to plastic in our vibrant retail and wholesale industries. Every village shopkeeper and hardworking mama mboga is supposed to have a stack of environmentally friendly khaki paper bags to pack our groceries in. I foresee a serious problem of both an inadequate supply of paper and high cost of such packaging to the extent of it competing with its own contents.

Depletion of Forests

The expected sharp increase in demand for paper will obviously have a negative effect on our ‘uncertain’ forest cover. It will make it harder for the government to grow it to 10% as required by the constitution (this constitution thought of everything!). The only other alternative to cutting our own trees to make paper is importing from those countries who took their environmental issues more seriously. In that case, there will be a serious depletion in the pocket cover of our treasury.

Peculiar Kenyan Habits

It is properly Kenyan to throw away those things that we no longer have the use of irrespective of how long we have had them. We throw smoky wrappers after taking the last bite which is only second from the first and takes place two seconds after buying the smoky. This results in a garland of plastic wrappers around every smoky seller’s trolley in town. There are also long ropes of plastic lining every road in the country, thanks to motorists who, in the interest of keeping their cars clean, throw their trash out the window. This habit will not die with the ban on plastic. It will take an environment conscious dimension. Kenyans can now proudly tell themselves, “At least it’s bio-degradable!” as they continue littering their highways, footpaths, and other open spaces.

A New Kind of Criminal

When something gets banned, it does not disappear. It changes status from legal to contraband. There will probably be a big black market where you will be able to get your beloved plastic bags. If you get caught, you will probably land in the same cell as a person caught with bang. At the stroke of midnight on some day in September, majority of us will become the latest kind of criminal. Police will search our houses for hoarded plastic and soon afterwards we will be raising our clasped and cuffed hands and declaring, “If you want my plastic, you will have to go through me!” to which the police will readily oblige.

A Bullying Reminisce

His name was Teresia. We had to carry him in his bed all the way to Kiandutu dorms (so named after the slums in Thika due to their general direction from the rest of the school). We did this every other evening after night preps so that he could have a chat with his friends in Kiandutu. We used to resemble a funeral procession with two rows of solemn-faced Form ones (Njũkas) painstakingly manoeuvring the rough and unlit path between Nile House and Senegal. Although I was small then, I was not the smallest Form one. The smallest never served as a pall-bearer. He had the important task of gently patting Teresia who would be sleeping cosily under the covers as the rest of us belted out soothing lullabies.

Teresia (whose real name we never got to know) was in Form Six when I was in Form One. He was diminutive but he made up for his size with violent fierceness. Although he never beat us physically, he made us do things that make me laugh when I look back today.  

Head Shock

A guy would place one his hands, palm-down, on your head. He would then use the other hand, clenched into a fist, to hit the one on your head. The result would be numbing pain that travelled like an electric shock throughout your body and exit from your toes. A head shock was one of the most dreaded forms of punishments given to Form ones. Just the thought of getting one would make even the most hard-headed Njũka obey all kinds of ridiculous instructions.

Driving a Bag

In the mid eighties, myriad bags with interesting and hitherto unseen features flooded the market. One of the most popular then was the now ubiquitous bag with wheels. In those years it was considered a real luxury to own a bag with wheels. It was therefore unfortunate for any Njũka to bring such a bag to school. We used to sleep in those long dorms which were un-partitioned save for two cubes at the end for A-levels (Form 5 and 6). The corridor between the two rows of beds on either side however, ran the entire length of the dorm. It was on this corridor that form ones would drive the unfortunate owner’s bag, filled to bursting with dirty clothes. They would have to drive fast and make all the sounds that a car makes (including changing gears) as the perpetrators sat on the beds above and cheered. This activity would occupy the better part of Saturday morning after general cleaning.

Messenger Services

“Give me nine quarters!” This was a common call by form ones at the canteen. This was because Njũkas also doubled as the messenger and courier service in our school. The sad thing about the one buying nine quarters of bread above was that they all belonged to different people and it would be a problem reconciling the respective change. Any shortage would be paid by the messenger. To avoid becoming messengers, we would hide at the dark basket ball court until people went to bed. Many times however, it was difficult to avoid being sent all over.

Backfiring Revenge Attempts

In addition to bread at the school canteen, we used to buy mandazi from one of the workers who sold them from her house in the servant’s quarters after prep. Here again, the form one messenger services were required. Due to the hatred we felt for our senior brothers, some of us came up with crazy ways of revenging against them without their knowledge. One of the form ones in my class had a very big mouth. Whenever he was sent for a mandazi, he would unwrap it and put it in his mouth. He would then remove it, wipe the saliva and rewrap it before taking it to the owner. Other form ones would tear-up in mirth as they watched him do this.

Another form one had the habit of placing the mandazi on the dusty path and kicking it all the way to the dorm outside where he would dust it off and rewrap it in readiness for eating by the bully. Watching the form three eating that mandazi knowing where it had been was something I found very fulfilling in a diabolical sort of way. There was one day however, when the revenge mission went awyrily wrong. As the Njuka was kicking the mandazi along the dark path, it got lost in the bushes. Try as he might, even with the assistance of other form ones, he could not find it. He also didn’t have money to replace it. He was forced to conduct an impromptu harambee among his fellow form ones in order to buy a replacement otherwise he might not have lived to tell the tale.

Promotion

The year I spent in form one was equivalent to three normal years. I could not wait for it to end. The end usually came in dramatic ways for most form ones. In our dorm, there used to be a battered sufuria (aluminium cooking pot) on the ceiling of the captains cubicle. Towards the end of third term, it would be retrieved for the purpose of promoting the outgoing form ones. One evening before supper, one of the form threes called me to where he was sitting in a circle with a bunch of other boys. The old sufuria was placed in the centre. “Pick it up and fill it with water”, he said, pointing to the sufuria. I went to the bathroom and filled the sufuria to the brim (I later wished I had not done that).

When I brought the sufuria back, I was asked to drink all the water. I did amid a lot of laughter and cheering. After that I did not feel so well. I was all sweaty and burping loudly. Needless to say, I did not go for supper. Movement was a problem because every time I stopped suddenly my now visibly protruding tummy would sway from side to side pulling me along with it. I had now graduated.

P.S. Recent reports about form ones at Alliance High School being made to sleep on a grave made me look back at my time in form one. We were fortunate there was no grave at our school otherwise we might have been made to do worse than sleep on it (like dig up the bones!).