MAKING OUR LIVES MAGICAL BY ROMANTICIZING OUR EXPERIENCES: GUEST ARTICLE BY GLORIA ODIGWE KITANAA

Hello everyone!!!. I have not written a new article since September 2023 (I have done some updates on a few existing articles). Your girl has been going through a lot!!! and is still going through a lot on a daily basis which some of us may know about. Since last year, my dear Gloria has been trying to encourage me to start writing again. Last week, she said, you know what, I want to write a guest article for you. I said okay, cool, maybe I also will get my own mojo to start writing again. This will be an interesting read, thank you Gloria.

and in addition to making culinary magic, there was also going to be Karaoke, movie night, toasts and wine too. After work the next day, Friday, I hit the road to the mainland. For the movie night, I was supposed to pick up popcorn from Jaya House but when I got there, they had already run out of popcorn for the day. That threw a small wrench in my plan because I had not wanted to stop on my way but Faith begged me to, so how was I supposed to show up empty handed without the popcorn. She had hyped their other products to high heavens and wanted to try their new popcorn option.

I was sceptical that no popcorn could be all that and low key, I was also curious to find out what the hype was about but , getting there and they had none left, we would never find out that weekend. That is bad enough but now also having to deal with  showing up without them, could raise suspicions that I never stopped in the first place. To vindicate myself, I took a picture of the entrance and the show glass for proof and sent to her.

She was so touched…  Lol, I know I am a good person.

Thankfully, there wasn’t as much traffic as I had anticipated, meaning I got to her place a little before 6pm. It was the perfect time to arrive; I could not be guilt-tripped into any chores or errands. (By the side, if you are ever visiting anyone, make sure you arrive a few minutes before or after 6. It is the perfect time to be treated as a guest, especially if the person you’re visiting is a friend).

That evening, we made potato chips with blue cheese, onion sauce and scrambled eggs. I thought it was special and it is for the simple reason that I can count on no finger any day I have ever gone that length for my own meals. It was just not something I ever did.

That night, we also made popsicles, yoghurt and Oreo flavour. We estimated 6 hours for it to be thoroughly frozen but I think I checked on it twice every hour before the 6 hours was up. You can’t blame me; I have never tasted popsicles I made myself…It was new. Now I think I can give popsicles by hh a run for their money.

Somewhere past midnight, we were taking it out of the freezer and pulling it out of the mould. It was such a proper popsicle; I could wrap it to sell and nobody would suspect a thing. It was just yummy, I won’t lie.
Though it was really late, we managed to squeeze in our movie night and true to my Lover girl core, I made them see To Every Boy I Loved Before. Right before everyone retired for the night, we prepared another batch of popsicles for the next day, obsessed people’s behaviour.

Next morning, was the main day and trust me, we cooked up a storm. We made a pancake tower,

and had it with yoghurt and Oreos pourings. Then, we made banana bread. (You can find interesting videos of this experience on Gloria’s social media pages, the links will be below).If I am being honest, I was skeptical about the outcome. The oven was out of service so we researched on improvising with the Air Fryer and I was not very confident about how it would turn out because I don’t trust most DIY videos on Tik Tok. I have been burned enough times that I now wear my wariness like an armor but 30 minutes later when our first two batch of banana bread came out looking like something out of a Gourmet Twist bakery, I had to concede. I had mine with coconut shavings and oh my God, “Banana bread never tasted better in the history of banana breads”.

Next, I made my mother’s signature pepper soup, whose recipe I will guard with my life. There’s something about my mom’s pepper soup that I can almost never replicate. As a kid, it was the only silver lining to falling sick. You could be shaking and throwing up and have no appetite but the moment she brought her special pepper soup; you will seat up and finish it. I can’t remember anyone in my house being too sick they were unable to eat my mother’s pepper soup. To avoid anyone finding out how we did it, I sent everyone out of the kitchen but tell me why it was that moment this girl chose to tell me they had run out of red pepper, and if I could manage their store-bought black pepper? My plan now ruined, I told them to get a couch in the kitchen if they wanted, because there was no way I was going to call whatever I was going to whip up with that black pepper, my mother’s recipe. It would be insulting and there was nothing to hide anymore, anyway.

But it turned out nice and yeah, I am as surprised as you are. I guess I am simply my mother’s pepper soup protege- black pepper or not. I had intended we have it with white rice but I was overruled 3 to 1 and we had it with Jollof rice. Does that not sound weird? Pepper soup and Jollof rice. Anyway, so long I did not die from eating it, I could write it off as a culinary adventure. We had it with fried plantain and corn pepper sauce, another delicious culinary adventure. We also toasted with wine in plastic cups.

Somehow, this turned into a late lunch/early dinner situation because we were too full to make anything else for the night.

Later, when we had our karaoke night, we just snacked on our banana bread, some cookies and soft drink, feeling soft and bougie. Our playlist included Taylor Swift, Lewis Capaldi, Katy Perry, Rihanna, Adele, the song from Frozen was a special number… We danced and whipped our hairs back and forth, letting the stress of adulthood, Nigerian politics and Senator’s Natasha Akpothi’s bullying fall away as we sang about how the cold never bothered us anyway.

Then we played charade till 2am.

We slept in, the next day, Sunday. Personally, I dragged myself out of bed by 11am. I did not have breakfast because we planned to eat out that afternoon on my way home. By 2pm, we were out of the house but we did a little sight seeing of the mainland. I visited Chinatown before we went to eat banga soup at Miss Pam’s kitchen, my first taste of the Urobho delicacy in 2 years. After, I was treated to Boba (Bubble) tea at Qjoy for being an amazing friend and fun guest.

And that was the end of my very fun weekend…

Now, if you are wondering why I described in so much detail, I want you to know what goes on behind the scenes of the things you admire people for. When you watch fun videos and people talk of fun things they do, this is how they do it, they build it, inch by inch; brick by brick. When I think about that weekend, I do not think of the different things I did, how I used black pepper instead of red Cameroun pepper for my pepper soup or how Jaya ran out of popcorn at the very moment I gave in and stopped to try it or how I used an air fryer to make the most delicious banana bread in history or how we built a wobbly pancake tower or how I dramatic I sang Frozen at the top of my voice. What I will remember will be how I felt like a kid again, how it felt like Christmas used to feel when I was kid, when my aunties and cousins would turn up for the holiday and the house would be bustling with energy and so many delicious smells coming from the kitchen and how I would tease my little cousins with stories I made up just for them. I will remember my giddiness when the popsicle turned out right and how proud I felt when we pulled out well formed banana bread from an air fryer. I will remember my friends laughing when I fell asleep halfway into the movie, I forced them all to watch, how they asked me if I was a Swiftie. I will remember the heated debates we had in the kitchen about men and love and marriage, how we traded the names of restaurants we had been and gave personal reviews to each other. I will remember the conversation, I will remember being accompanied to China Town because I was curious about it, how I was allowed to take a bite of everyone’s food. I will remember playing Anxiety by Doechii and making them do silly dance videos with me.

And this is not the first time I will be creating magic for myself. Last year, I organized brunch dates and dinner dates and people had the best time (side note: even Faith that was not at these events commended them when she saw the pictures and videos). In February this year, I had new people join me on a weekend at Takwa Bay, where we had the most amazing times. When we were kids, Christmas was magical for us, our birthdays were magical because our parents were responsible for the details. As adults, we create our own magic and that is what it means to romanticize your life.In a lot of ways, I have made a lot of beautiful, magical memories even from the seemingly mundane experiences of my life because I decided it would be so. I have made so many videos and some, I have compiled into reels on Instagram and Tik Tok.

Your life is memorable because you will make it so. You will have fun because you will step out of your house and meet up with friends, because you will try something new for the experience.

Don’t overthink it; for the experience.

Around us, are the ingredients to make memories out of the moments of our lives.

And that is something I have taken seriously in recent years. I hope you do too.

But until then, ciao and don’t forget, to it for the experience. Do it for the plot.

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To connect with Gloria on Tik tok, Click here

Thank you for reading, what do you think? will you be trying out a cooking date?