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olori ade-john

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🌶️ Storytime, the smoky red rice that taught me what a party was.(Full version + recipe on the Substack 👉 link in bio) It was 2004. My fifth birthday. My parents had decided to throw an owambe, the kind of party where everyone comes: family, cousins you didn’t know you had, your mum’s friends, your grandparents’ friends, and at least three uncles nobody can quite place. I was the celebrant. I was, therefore, the pageant. Cream gown with little gold detailing (felt like gold to me). Cross necklace. Hair clips. Small sandals. I was serving. But before all of that, before the guests, before the gifts, before the pageant, my mother took me to the market. To blend the pepper. 🫠 Because when you’re cooking for an entire owambe, home blenders won’t survive. You go to the market women with the big industrial machines that grind everything down into a smooth, thick, red base. Faster, better, non-negotiable. Five-year-old me did not understand this. Five-year-old me was being a BRAT the entire day. There are photos. The face is doing everything. But then. The pot came out. The jollof came out. And even I, celebrant brat that I was, understood immediately that this was something else. Party jollof does not taste like home jollof. The smoke sits in every grain. The bottom of the pot has that char aunties will literally fight for. It’s in the same family as Persian tahdig and Spanish Socarrat, deliberate scorched rice, celebrated as its own thing. I ate three plates, I mean, was the celebrant. Nobody could stop me. Somewhere between plate one and plate three, I forgave everyone. Since then, every time I see jollof, I know I’m about to party hard. 🍚 - Full story (the market, the history, the Jollof Wars, the Confession from the Kitchen) is on the Substack. Link in bio. 🌶️ #NaijaNoir #Jollof #PartyJollof #OwambeJollof NigerianFood
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Five years today. I still hear your voice calling my name. It catches me off guard sometimes, even in my dreams. I talk about you a lot. I tell your stories so often that people say they wish they had met you. You taught me so many little things. Real life things. The kind of lessons I still use without realizing where they came from until I stop and think, oh… that was you. I didn’t always see it back then. I see it now, and I am glad you took the time to teach me. You raised a kind, loving person, and I carry that with me every day. Today isn’t about sadness. It is about remembering you as you were the good moments, the laughter, the love. Five years later, you are still here in how I live, how I speak, how I move through the world. I miss you so much, Dad. 🕊️🕊️
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