Why does everything taste like Freetown supermarket?

I have been in Sierra Leone for over three months now. The rains have come and stayed - yes I know it is sunny most of the time but it still rains at least once a day (mostly at night). It is the middle of November and still the rains are heavy with hurricane type winds that force me to shut the windows which I truly hate, even more than the mosquitoes. Last night I shut the windows only for the winds to open a few of my not so good windows and my dining room got soaked, good and proper!
Speaking of dining rooms. I have notice a phenomenon here in Freetown. By the way I say Freetown simply because I haven't used any supermarkets outside the city. In the past few months I have been trying to recreate meals I have in the UK - spaghetti bolognaise, fish pie, pizza, stir fry with noodles etc. This has meant that I MUST shop at one of the many supermarkets in the west of Freetown - Select, Monoprix, Atsons (why did I even go in there?), Essential, Freetown, St Mary's and so on. Everytime I buy flour or pasta or biscuits or bread from any of you these supermarkets, these products taste of the supermarket I bought it from. I can't explain it to you but if you live in Freetown and shop in any of these stores you know what I mean. Is it that these things take so long on the shelves that they have absorbed the smell of the place? But then that means that the packaging itself is poor. Is it the heat? All of these places are air conditioned. What is it? Somebody scientific please explain.
By the way Freetown Supermarket, we know that you erased the best before date off the big Thousand Island dressing bottles. I do hope no one buys them!!!

I'm Going Home

I woke up this morning with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. You know the mixture that brings on nausea. I used to get this feeling around my birthday every year until I was about 10 years old. I was always too ill to enjoy my birthday parties. After a while, my parents stopped having them. No one wants to watch their child wretch while other people's children are eating the expensive birthday meal you've prepared.
It's funny. I was born in England. I have spent more time outside of Sierra Leone than inside, I have only ever carried a British passport (until recently) but I'm going around telling everyone that I'm going home. People understand me. Before I explain, they know what I'm talking about. After all they can see Sierra Leone inside and out.
I am talking about going back to Sierra Leone. And everyone seems to understand why I have chosen now to go back to a Sierra Leone without electricity and water and roads and hi-speed broadband and Sky TV and NHS and Tetley tea and Jones the Bootmaker and MAC and so much more. But yes, I have decided to go home.
So I'm packing my possessions and I'm buying more. Where am I going to put them all? I don't know. In eight days I will be on a flight to Sweet Salone. But I'm going to miss organic broccoli.

Blood, Sweat and Nonsense from the BBC

This post has nothing to do with health (or maybe it does) and it has nothing to do with Sierra Leone but it does have a little to do with globalisation and development. I have put up with the constant crap that TV executives have been doling out to us over the past three years. Since Bob Geldof and his posse decided to 'make poverty history' there has been a mob of people making money out of the poverty of others in one way or other.
Last night recovering from a bout of poisoning (which I suspect was tuna-related), I settled to watch a couple of TV programmes which had been billed as educational. Firstly, there was Blood, Sweat and Takeaways a BBC documentary which claimed to expose how workers in developing countries are exploited so that Westerners can have their exotic meals. Six young Brits - four white and the two obligatory ethnic minorities were sent to Indonesia to work in a tuna factory. Olu, the black boy is expelled from the programme after a violent episode which involved breaking glass at the factory. I fully expected him to be thrown out mid-programme as production staff seem to have found a way to weed out the best young black people out of their programmes so that only the stereotypes remain. The rest of the programme continues without him and these young people proceed to catch, clean and can tuna for two days. I was hoping the education will come but it never did.
This programme failed to educate. What the programme did show us however, was how spoilt and ill-educated British youngsters are. It was sad to see that even the immigrant children had no cultural education, whatsoever. The programme left me with the feeling that I had just wasted one hour of my life which could have been better spent playing Solitaire.
Here goes BBC execs:
1. Poverty is everywhere.
2. Poor people are being exploited daily. You needn't have sent those young people to Indonesia to show that poor people are being exploited daily. All you needed to do was send them to a vegetable processing plant in the UK where illegal immigrants are employed and paid below the minimum wage because they cannot cry foul.
3. Having a toilet that flushes is not what makes you a human being. Some of what makes you human is overcoming adversities and learning to live with other people.
4. If you really want to make a programme about what it is like to live and work in a developing country, use the people of that country to show it. Unfortunately, sending 'white people' to a developing country to show injustice somehow feels like injustice.
5. Next time think about how you can help the viewer make a difference. Don't just tell her what you know that she knew already, tell her how she can make a difference in that situation.
By the way, I don't think I can be bothered to watch the episodes on producing rice and processing prawns. I'm bored already.
That's all folks. Next time, I will tell you a little about A Place in the Wild, the other programme I watched made by ITV. Another patronising pile of .....

Till then, Amiex

What Being a Sierra Leonean Really Means

This weekend you will find that there are Sierra Leone Independence Day Celebrations all around the world whereever you find a group of Sierra Leoneans. Sierra Leoneans like to party and don't really need an excuse to do so. 27 April 1961, Sierra Leone won its independence from British colonial rule. I can understand the celebrations in the first two years after we gained independence but what are we celebrating now? Before I lay into the waste of money that Independence day celebrations are, let me give you a brief look at the life of the average Sierra Leonean. Here are links of what Sierra Leoneans go through everyday. This article http://tiny.cc/Zbg2Z or this http://tiny.cc/SBWPe give you an idea of the state of healthcare in the country.
Then you have the statistics which are: Nearly 6 million people but only 168 doctors. Which means 1 doctor for nearly 50,000 people.
70% of adults can't read or write and the same number is unemployed. The average life expectancy of a Sierra Leonean is 42 years.
70% of people live on less than 50 pence a day (anyone living on less than 50p a day is classed as extremely poor by the World Bank). This means that 36% of people cannot meet their daily food needs and 60% of children are chronically malnourished
Not forgetting that Sierra Leone has the highest rate of children dying and pregnant women dying in the world. It is also ranked the poorest and most under-developed country in the world. So I ask you again. What are we celebrating? Would life under British rule be as bad as life is today? Would we have had the 11 year civil war?
Given the choice I wouldn't want to be under British colonial rule with its rascist policies and unfair actions. And perhaps that is what we celebrate - the freedom to make our own mistakes. Shame we can't seem to do anything else.

Better Antenatal Care for Sierra Leone

I have just come back home from looking after my friend's three children. She was in hospital for two weeks after having a baby. She developed complications during pregancy which meant that her baby had to be delievered by caesarean section and she spent a week in a High Dependency Unit. It made me think. Had she been in Sierra Leone where 1 in 8 pregnant women die during pregancy and childbirth, she certainly would have died. It is true that most pregnancies go without a hitch and only about 15% of women develop complications during pregnancy. But the problem is that in Sierra Leone not many women have proper antenatal care. So those women who are at risk of developing complications are missed and also because there is a critical shortage of trained/skilled birth attendants, many women are giving birth in dangerous situations. Of course we at HealthySalone do not just point out problems, we also plan to tackle them.
We are launching our Buy a Brick Campaign to raise £2 million to build a state of the art Women and Children's Centre in one of the biggest hospitals in the capital city. The centre will have an antenatal care unit, a fetal medicine unit, a delivery suite, post natal care suite, specialist care baby unit and a community midwife service. We will train needed maternity and paediatric staff. In fact this will be the first time in a long time that will Sierra Leone will have trained paediatric nurses.
The future is bright for healthcare in Sierra Leone. If you want to help us please go to www.healthysalone.org.uk or email kushe@healthysalone.org.uk for more information.
Together, we can change the future.

Here's to prove to you that Sierra Leone is a beaut!

That's the Atlantic you can see Sunset on Lumley Beach
That strip of yellow you can see between the blue and the green is Mama Beach. Did I hear you say unspoilt, deserted....

I think Lakka Beach (shown here) is the best beach in Sierra Leone and possibly West Africa. I know about River No. 2 and all that but I won't change my mind. Lakka doesn't have quick sand, so I am sticking to it.

Life Gets in the Way

If you read this blog and were waiting for something to happening last year, I am sorry. Life happened and then I didn't have time to write so much. Well maybe I did have time to write but I didn't have the strength to do so.
Anyway, I intend to make an effort this year to post something every week. Here's this week's post.......
Well this time last year, I was busy working on my African food products, finding markets, looking at packaging etc. when I was rudely interrupted by life. First I was in a little car that was hit by a London taxi (and those are really heavy!!!), I had chest pains for a mighty long time and couldn't really work. Then my father was diagnosed with lung cancer (well that wasn't a surprise because he was a very heavy smoker for most of my and his life, but had quit though) and then he died. That was a surprise. Firstly, I didn't think he would die so soon and secondly, I never thought my father would die. I had never thought about my parents dying, never. Anyway, my father's death took me back to Sierra Leone. That is when my life changed. I saw people and places that broke my heart.
Thanks to Leonardo DiCaprio and his friends, everyone knows about Sierra Leone. And before you ask, the war ended in 2002 and no I haven't seen it. I won't bother telling you about Sierra Leone about how beautiful it is and how warm the people are. Suffice it to say that war destroyed most of the country and now we struggle with electricity, water, health care, everything that you probably take for granted. Sierra Leone is positioned 177 on the UN Development index...oh, alright then...we are last. Worse than Iraq and Afghanistan and Congo who still have ongoing wars. Which means that we are regressing and we are one of a few countries actually called underdeveloped. Hospitals don't work, there are not enough doctors or nurses and here we have my interruption. I felt like I had to do something.
So here we are, I have taken a sabbatical from business and I am now working full-time for HealthySalone, a charity organisation that I set up to change the face of health care in Sierra Leone. Our aim is simple - to reduce the number of Sierra Leoneans dying from treatable and preventable diseases. If you would like to support us, you can go to www.healthysalone.org.uk and you will find all the details there. If you want to volunteer, yippee!! come join us. We are working to change one hospital at a time. If you are a Sierra Leonean health care worker who lives abroad, watch out for the official launch of our Desperately Seeking Talent Programme.
I will continue to update this blog but you won't hear about Simply African for a little while. Sorry.

Amiex

Willie Walsh and His Missing £700K

British Airways announced pre-tax profits last week that were up 45%. This after the fiasco at Terminal 5, and the fiasco with passengers bags and the fiasco with the unions...anyway after a number of rotten things that happened with the airline in the past year. The profits of nearly £900 million means that there is £35 million to be shared amongst the staff. Everyone of the 42,000 or so employees will get some money...except Mr Walsh. Infact even shareholders who have had no returns from BA in 7 years will receive dividends.
Mr Walsh decided to forgo his £700,000 in bonus because of the T5 fiasco. What a shame! If anyone deserves that money it is Willie Walsh. Why? Because that man and his team are so focused on their strategy that nothing not even something as big as what happened in T5 or the quarrel with different unions or any thing for that matter has stopped him from making BA profitable. I am, however, disappointed that he would let the media dictate whether or not he accepts his bonus. I feel that he chose not to accept the bonus because of what he perceived to be a media fallout if he did.
Mr Walsh, you are a leader but not a true leader if you let outsiders determine how you run your life or company.

The Importance of Diversity

I am back to The Apprentice today. After seeing the show a couple of weeks ago, I thought I could catch up with BBC iPlayer. Wonderful invention by the way and it's free! Last night's episode was a good example of why companies need diversity, why people should be forced to learn other languages in school and also why people should be taught about cultural diversity.
The candidates were taken to Marrakesh in Morocco, a mostly Arabic and French-speaking Muslim country. Firstly, most of them had no knowledge of Morocco, not an iota of French or Arabic and there were a number of them swearing their way around the city. What I was amazed by was that some didn't even know the difference between kosher and halal. And one of them claims to be Jewish! (When pressed by Sir Alan who is Jewish, Michael suddenly became half-Jewish). It is crazy that these are supposed to be a few of the best people in corporate Britain.
Lee had the best team for this task because he had the most culturally diverse team. Raef and Sara knew how to deal with traders in the souks because of their backgrounds. Consider how many companies would do better if they would only take advantage of the diversity of cultures and people in this country. Britain is in a better position than any other country to take advantage of the human resources it has but many companies fail to take advantage of that. There are companies who employ the bare minimum of ethnic minorities because the law says they should. Even when they employ ethnic minorities they prefer to treat them like the plague. Imagine a lance corporal in the British Army being allowed to call another soldier 'a black bastard' or 'nigger' without any consequences. How desperate, how sad.
Until Britain starts to make full use of its culturally diverse workforce and companies stop employing people based on the colour of their skin or which school they went to or because they see certain people as cheap labour, Britain will continue to lose out in this global economy.

Business and Pleasure

The early stages of business can be difficult. I earn a lot less than I would be earning had I stayed in my job as a Senior Scientist for a major pharma. However, there a lots and lots of perks of working for a company I own. I am doing what I love and I am fully motivated to make it successful.
I now like business trips because they give me a break from the routine. This week I went to the beautiful spa town of Harrogate. Harrogate reminds me very much of Bath but of course it is not as beautiful as Bath. It is difficult to beat Bath. I stayed at the Crown Hotel in the centre of town and it is a lovely hotel. My room was huge. It had a double bed, a sofa, a coffee table, a work desk and a very large bathroom and still there was so much space to move around. The service wasn't bad either although they had no bagels to make me my smoked salmon bagel I ordered from the menu. The girl at reception (I won't name her here) was a little stroppy probably because she doesn't sleep much. She was at reception when I arrived at 5pm and was still there when I came back from the theatre at 10pm. 8am the next morning, I came down to breakfast and there she was again. The worst bit was that she was with another colleague moaning about guests even though I was sitting in the lobby. Sadly, these are things often missed by businesses especially those in hospitality and leisure. Your staff are only going to give as good a service as they receive as employees. You cannot expect an overworked person (and often also underpaid) to treat your customers well. They probably don't even treat their children well. The other thing is that staff may have no genuine way of voicing their opinions and grievances. And if you don't give them a forum wherein they can talk about things that are bothering them without fear of reprisals, they will air them in public.
Its not about your equal opportunities policy, it is usually the little things that make a big difference.

Amie

The Apprentice

The beautiful one has been fired! I can't believe that you can't go far in business just because you are good looking. It just doesn't seen fair. I think beauty and grooming should count.
I hadn't been watching the new season of Sir Alan's The Apprentice. I am never at home when its on and when I am at home I am on the computer. Just as an aside, people are definitely spending more time using their computers than they are watching TV. At least I am. Anyway back to Siralan (as he is called). The task: two pubs for two teams to create theme nights. Make some profit, he who has the most money wins. Simple, yes? No, not quite. There is the small matter of 'the team'. These are not really teams because they are competing for a job. Everyone wants to look good. So when your idea seems better than mine and you are in charge, I will do my best to undermine you. This is the philosophy of the apprentices. Anyway, no matter. The girls won and the boys had to deal with Siralan. Sir Alan fired the good looking one. Now there is no point in me watching because the majority of those people are there because they want to be on TV not because they are capable of running anything more than a bath. I am more upset because I later found out that the boy fired lived in a pub from age 14 and his dad still runs the kitchen in the pub. Oh the irony!

Not laughing, Amiex

Farmers Market Here I Come

I didn't realise that starting a new food brand was going to be as tough as this. Most of my problems stem from the fact that this is not the only thing I do. I currently run a catering company which always requires my attention. I am also working on an online portal, SAFARAMagazine.com which will have recipes, travel news and interviews from Africa and Africans. So perhaps I have taken on much too much. But I am coping. The effect has been that I have had less and less time to work on my spices. I still haven't chosen the recipes I like and the one I am going to use but I am determined to start selling my spice blends at the end of February. I have got a name, which is a step forward. I have also decided that I will take my wares to a couple of farmers markets near me, which would serve as market research anyway. Even going to the local market requires a lot of preparation. Thankfully, my kitchen has been registered by the local authority and it is easy to get insurance for selling at the market. I still need to choose packaging, choose the logo I intend on using and print the labels. But not to worry...I like the pressure. I will get it all done by the end of Feb.
Look out for a range of African spice blends, next time you are at the farmers market.

Signing out, It's Amie

Meeting Suppliers

I haven't written in a while. For two reasons: one is that my catering business has picked up and two is because I am just plain lazy. Anyway, I am back now and I think I will try and make at least a couple of posts a month. I think a post a fortnight is not a bad idea and won't kill me. Lots has happened since I last posted,but I will concentrate on a couple of biggies.
I met one of the possible suppliers earlier this week. It was a wonderful and productive meeting. We spoke for three hours with me telling him about what I wanted to achieve and him giving me advice on how best to proceed. It did require me going back to the drawing board on some counts but I am pleased about the changes he proposed.
I also know now that I will need about £35,000 a month for the amount of stock I want to buy and for warehousing and salary costs.
I am also starting an African food magazine, so that people who currently don't know much about African food will have a portal where they can download recipes and also read fabulous travel reports. It is a good way for me to introduce people to African food and also my products. It isn't up yet, but when it is (which I hope will happen later on this month)you will find it at http://www.safaramagazine.com.
Let me know what you think about the magazine.
I'll write soon.

Amiexx

Networking

I having posted in over a month and I don't even have a good enough excuse as to why I haven't done so. I have been busy is just not good enough as I am always busy and it just requires me setting aside time to do the things which matter. I am learning so much about business and how juggling, especially at this early stage, is one of the techniques to master.
Yesterday, I went on a fantastic marketing course put on by Business Link in London. It was also a wonderful place to meet different types of people some who have already started trading and who have been trading for a while and others who are just at the ideas stage. As you get to talking to people you realise that you are the same in some things and different in others. Funnily, I have never met anyone who wants to do the same thing I want to do since I have been going on these courses.
One of the things I learnt at this course was the importance of networking. Your success or failure in life and business can be influenced by who you choose to associate yourself with. When we talk about networking people suddenly think of the best way to meet customers. But networking events can also be good places to meet suppliers, new friends or just someone who can lead you into another business. Talking to some of the people at this course, I realised that there a few other businesses I could try and get into once I have got this one up and running.
I also learnt yesterday to make use of all these email addresses I get. I work with a couple of charities as a volunteer and I know that some of these people I have met will be able and willing to either give their time or effort to these charities.
I used to think that networking was a cheesy thing but I am learning that networking is a useful thing and the more you go to these events, the better. One caveat - there are now a number of organistaions that charge you to go to these networking events. Go easy, if you are a start up with very little money. Business Link and GLE oneLondon and people like that will bring you together with even more contacts for free. Try them first.

Amiex

Bookkeeping and Accounting

Do you know the difference between bookkeeping and accounting? Do you know what depreciation is? As an NES scholar, I am lucky to have a number of free business courses available to me. I spent this week at a marketing and finance course and the finance part was just brilliant. Firstly, I learnt that bookkeeping is the day to day log of money coming in and going out of the business and accounting is the year end look at how much money was spent and how much money was made. In short, bookeeping deals with the minutiae and accounting deals with the big picture. So the accountant can show that the business is profitable whilst the bookkeeper knows that there is no money to pay anyone.
It is a funny thing when your father is an accountant and your brother is also and you cannot do a cashflow forecast to save your life. Actually, I can do a cashflow forecast, I just don't like doing it. I am a trained scientist and we like precision. There is no such thing as guessing. When you guess as a scientist, it is called a hypothesis and people do not take it as gospel. What you do with that hypothesis is continue to work on it until you can prove that it is correct. What I have been told by many people is that when you do a cashflow forecast, you are guessing pretty much everything especially if you have never had a similar business and there isn't someone close by who is doing what you do. The guessing is not as bad as people telling you that whatever your forecast, remember that it will cost a third more, and you will sell a third less and it will take a third longer. Well why don't we just put those assumptions into the cashflow forecast? Well if you do the proposition might not look so good for a bank or an investor. Anyway, I'd given up with the whole thing.
Now, however, I know the difference between a balance sheet and a profit and loss statement. I also know not to buy any equipment which depreciates, i.e. loses it value. So if you can lease things like kitchen equipment, photocopiers, printers, computers, pretty much everything. Not only is there a tax benefit to doing it but you can avoid the depreciation which can be up to 40% of the initial value in 3-5 years. I know how the difference between costing and pricing and how my competitors price their products. So now I am ready to roll. All I need to do now is to find out how much everything costs!

Amiex

Finding Premises

Like many small businesses, Azizzi was started in my kitchen. This means that I am currently working from home. So far it has worked well because I have managed to establish a routine and create boundaries. For example, I make sure I have got my day's exercise out of the way before I turn the computer on. I also make sure my Blackberry is turned off at 10pm and is turned back on at 7am. This means that I am not answering calls and emails late into the night. However,it is now time for me to get a 'real' office.
Having decided that I needed an office outside my home, it now seems that finding an office with low rent and overheads is a near impossible task in London. As I currently own a business which has not produced anything and has therefore, not made any sales, it is important that I don't get myself tied into a very expensive space. Of course, I would like Azizzi to own its premises if it could afford to.
It seems equipping the office is also another expensive venture. I made the mistake of visiting a photocopier sales room. Leasing a photocopier will cost over a thousand pounds every year and I am scared when I even consider it. I certainly have to sit and think about what would be the best (buying or leasing) when one takes into account the tax benefits and so on.
So what does a small business owner do when she is faced with all these issues? She seeks advice from all those who are in the know. If you are running your own business, make sure you have a good accountant and a very good lawyer and together they will save you a lot more money than they cost.
Good luck!

Amiex

Suppliers Supply

Yippee!!! I am truly happy today. Things seem to be moving after a few weeks of just doing paper-based exercises. I had a really nice meeting last week with one of my many mentors. I am just beginning to realise that people are a lot nicer than I thought. And I always think people are nice. OK. Maybe it should read that there is a lot of help available out there if you ask. I am now an NES Scholar. "What is that?" I hear you ask. Well it is the New Entrepreneurship Scholarship programme which helps people in disadvantaged areas start businesses. It is funded by the Learning and Skills Council and it involves getting proper business training from business schools. So I am now a member of the University of Westminster. Never thought I would be going back to uni and sitting at a desk in a classroom. It was a little weird, I must admit. Another nice thing about this scholarship is that you get 12 hours of one-to-one mentoring with a business adviser. This is important for me because my mentor is an ace with accounts, something I am not very good at. He will also help me fine tune my business plan, which can be submitted to a panel who will let you have £1500 towards your start-up costs. It is not a lot of money but it will help towards travel costs.
Also last week, I had a life-changing meeting. The meeting led me to make big decisions as to which of my proposed products were more important, which ones I would launch with and where I will get them made. I decided to speak to some spice blenders and such in South Africa and Swaziland. I was a bit worried about using factories that far away but I can now see the benefits. Firstly, Britain (that's me) will be doing trade with Africa (that's them). Trade Not Aid - that's something I believe in. Then there is also the benefit of knowing that these people are already making similar products and they are already producing them to some British regulations and the packaging they use is top-class. So really I am killing two birds with one stone. In case you hadn't noticed, that is my new phrase. I have even been known to kill four birds with one stone. Fantastic or what! What hunter, bird-killer (actually what do you call people who kill birds for a living?) would say that they have killed four birds with one stone?
Back to business...I had a call from the first supplier in Swaziland. Lovely woman and they are doing a brilliant job, employing women (yeah!!!) in the local surrounds and their factory benefits the whole community (another yeah!!!). She will send me some samples of the recipes I am interested in, I will taste and test and then I will get back to her. But we have both decided to do all that we can so that we can work together. I am still waiting to hear from the guys in South Africa, but I am also hoping it is positive. Next thing will be to organise a trip to the Southern Hemisphere, back to Africa (the motherland or if you are German, the fatherland).
The excitement is already too much to bear. I'll be back soon.

Love, Amiexx

It all begins now...

I am a little annoyed with myself for not posting anything for two weeks. I have to say that although I have been busy, I think it is partly due to laziness.
I was away for most of last week and when I came back I had a bad back which laid me low for a couple of days. In the Netherlands, I managed to kill two birds with one stone. I looked at the Dutch spice and condiment market and I spent some time with a really good friend of mine. He is actually an expert in sales and he was able to advice me about the Dutch market and we were also able to have a good laugh, which we hadn't done in a while. I found out that there really is a lack of good spices in the Dutch market and the products which I aim to sell would most likely do well there. The question was whether there really is a gap in the market or whether as the research suggests, the Dutch may not need these spice blends as less food is now being cooked in the home. It seems the Dutch are now keen on ready-prepared foods and so the cooking sauce and spice market has kind of flattened in the past few years. Having said that, there is less choice in the Dutch market and maybe just maybe, if more fabulous choice was available they would make use of it.
Also this week, I made the final list of the first products which will be available at launch, I contacted two factories which I may use for the production and I am now looking at where and how I will raise investment. I am also putting together the marketing and media plan, because the most important thing right now is too prepare people for the launch of these products and also to convince them to try it. I could make the best products but if nobody knows about them or wants to try them, I have failed.
My aim was to launch in September of this year but I think that will be cutting it fine and will now aim to launch in April of next year. I can't wait!

Amiex

Hmmm! Foooood!

Today's post will be short and sweet. I am going to let you have a recipe for a bread which people in Sierra Leone and Liberia love to eat. It is called Rice Bread and it is made with rice flour, bananas and sugar.
Bananas are cultivated in West Africa, they produce fruit year round and are a staple of the West African diet. They fry, boil and bake bananas and people can sometimes get sick of them.
Bananas start off with a lot of starch and very little sugar. As they ripen, the starch turns to sugar. As the sugar starts to increase in the fruit, it shows up as dark spots on the skin. So the darker the banana, the sweeter it is. This is why with this recipe, you add the sugar to your taste. The bananas themselves contain a lot of sugar; the riper the bananas are, the less sugar you should add.
Because there are always a lot of bananas available and it is hot, they tend to become overripe very quickly. And also because it is plentiful, very few people eat the overripe bananas. In Sierra Leone, the fruit traders in the market will give away the fruit at the end of the day because no one in their right mind will buy overripe bananas. Even now I still won't eat overripe bananas (I find them far to sweet). I will, however, eat them baked or fried or in fritters. This recipe is one of my favourite ways of using them.
Here we have a recipe which will give you enough mix to bake a loaf of about 20cm x 10cm x 5cm (8in x 4 in x 2in).

A Recipe for Rice Bread
You will need:
6 large overripe bananas
1.5 cup rice flour
3/4 - 1 cup sugar (depending on the ripeness of the bananas)
1 whole nutmeg (grated)
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
90ml vegetable oil

What to do
1. Mash or blend the bananas into a smooth paste.
2. Mix in the flour slowly to avoid bumps.
3. Mix in the sugar slowly. Add enough sugar to your taste.
4. Add in the grated nutmeg, cinnamon and oil.
5. Make sure everything is mixed in properly and pour the mixture into a non-stick loaf tin. If you are using a loaf tin that sticks, rub in a drop of vegetable oil.
6. Bake for 45-60mins at 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4. You can put a skewer in to check for doneness.
7. Leave on a wire rack to cool.

Now go off and make some rice bread. This is your time to try something new. Enjoy a slice or two of rice bread with a nice hot cup of lemongrass tea or with very cold ginger beer (I'll show you how to make a good ginger beer soon).

Amiexx

Thank God for Weekends!

Phew! It's the weekend and it is a long one! Well when I say long I don't really mean long. What I really mean is that we have one extra day of rest should we wish to take it. A long weekend for me would probably be something like five days but I think that is called a Work Week.
I love weekends because you can avoid people if you so choose, that is if you live alone. During the week, people expect you to get things done and if you don't, they'll think you are lazy. You also feel you should be getting things done because most people are only available to work Monday to Friday.
This week has been quite busy as I moved from one meeting to the next, getting advice from this person or the other. Even for someone like me who loves learning, it can all get a bit too much. I had planned to write this earlier but I was so tired that I couldn't even bring myself to turn the computer on.
I did achieve quite a bit this week. I have decide on the name of the brand. I have secured help with all the food development work that needs to be done and we (myself and the brand guy) have finalised what the logo will look like including the shape and colour. Of course, it is all going to cost money which I currently don't have enough of. I have also managed to put together a PR plan and a market research plan based on advice I got from some very nice people on Tuesday. I then spent most of yesterday (Friday) at the British Library putting together my media list. I love being at the British Library especially now that they have really developed the Business and IP centre. There are always workshops going on which are really useful for new businesses.
Next week will certainly be a lot busier than this week has been because I have to put together a presentation which I will be giving in Rotterdam, prepare some food samples to take with me on my trip and talk to people about things which will happen later on in the year. I also need to do a last edit of a cookbook I've written and must attend a couple of useful seminars; problem is, it is a shorter week.
I have found this one of the 'joys' of working on my own. If there are twenty-two things which need to be done in a day, I am responsible for doing all of them. When I was a child, my parents told me that I could do anything I wanted to. I am beginning to believe them now.
Amiexx