Testing Team: Spotlight on Corinne

Testing Team: Spotlight on Corinne

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In this series of posts, I’ll spotlight a member of the Testing Team. Our Team cooks from their home kitchens all over the world. Each member brings a unique and valuable set of skills to the table.

Corinne (Coco) Sengwe lives in Harare, Zimbabwe. She and I met as graduate students at UNISG. When we were living in the same city, I loved hanging out in Coco’s kitchen while she cooked and learning about the foods that she grew up eating.

For this Testing Team, Coco tested two recipes: the first is a platter with lemony scones and other treats, and the second is a breakfast oatmeal with sweet toppings.

I didn’t expect all of the same ingredients to be widely available in my hometown of Berkeley and in Coco’s hometown of Harare, but it turns out many are. For her first recipe, Coco made the glaze for the scones using hibiscus flowers, which she grows in her garden and calls rosella. She mentioned that she first knew about hibiscus from Nigeria, where she called it zobo. Aren’t both of those names beautiful? I can’t decide which of the two I love more.

Her second recipe, the oatmeal, did require a substitution. Steel-cut oats weren’t for sale in any of the grocery stores and health food shops she checked. She swapped rolled oats, but she told me that she usually makes breakfast porridge out of a couple of other common grains: maize (aka corn), finger millet, or pearl millet. I wish I could sit in her kitchen and taste that porridge.

Cookbook: First Pass

Cookbook: First Pass

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