Club du Chim

So I was imagining the scenario that’s been playing out in my stomach/digestive system over the last month. It’s week 5 of the low G.I diet that I am piggybacking off my friend on and probably the most radical thing I have done food-wise since I left my mama’s house at 17. The scene is played out in Club du Chim, a members-only establishment, and the actors are all the different foods that I’ve been eating.

February 21st 2011: There is a new notice outside the club doors following a massive refurbishment.

Under new management: Previous memberships have been revoked and everyone will need to be re-evaluated for membership under the new regime

Messrs Potato, Rice, Noodles and Pasta walk with the swagger born of being lifetime members of the club. They smirk at the crowd queued up neatly outside the nondescript door that is the entrance. Rice being the most charismatic of the lot smiles as he recognises one or two people in the queue – Carrot is standing in a lovely trench coat looking uber trendy and clearly trying to impress, Aubergine’s wearing a nice green hat to complement her wonderful colour. “She must just have come back from a holiday or something” he mutters to Noodles. “She’s looking pretty dashing”.

Potato smirks and says loudly “I don’t know why you come here week after week, you are never going to make it in. You just don’t meet the cool factor” to the simpering Cauliflower, Broccoli and Mushroom. They barge their way through to the front of the queues flashing their platinum cards at the bouncers.

Bouncer: Hi sirs, you’re going to have to join the queue for me. Have you seen the notices on the door?

Noodles: Yeah we did but we’ve been VIP members of the club for 10 years now. Surely it’s only academic for us four. You couldn’t possibly survive without our patronage.

Bouncer: Hey, I don’t make the rules, OK? I just apply them and right now everyone is equal. There are no VIPs until registration is complete

All four move reluctantly to the back of the queue with Broccoli saying just under her breath “grace to grass for some, eh?” The bouncers check ID and let the guests through two at a time. Some of the clientele get turfed at the door – Peas just didn’t meet the dress code and was told not to bother to show up again, Potato shouted out “Don’t know why you even bother matey, this is just not your scene!”. Noodles was feeling a bit embarrassed now hanging with Potato and hung back from the group a little. He catches the eye of Aubergine and they start chatting while the queue steadily declines.

“I can’t believe how difficult it is under the new rules! I heard something about low G.I required for membership” Cauliflower is saying anxiously to Mushroom. “I mean this is the hottest place in town and I have been dying to get in for years but the last time I made it in must have been a decade ago and my membership was revoked with no explanation when Chim took over running the club from her mother”. Mushroom nodded, grimly adding that he only managed to sneak in sometimes when he was with Chicken or Lamb.

Lamb, Chicken, Pork, Sausage, even Bacon all made it in but they were told that they had to get their act together under this regime as only lean meats were allowed. Lamb bragged to the others “ha! I bet if I’ve got some old spice on, they’re going to let me in whether or not I’m lean”. Chicken was a bit nervous since she had been rather hit and miss over the last couple of years especially when she turned up with cleavage revealing clothes. She had a miniskirt on today as she’d noticed she was far more successful with some leg on show and it seemed to have paid off.

The line continued to move and Carrot noted with happiness that some people that he hadn’t thought would get in hadn’t been thrown out – Rocket, Watercress and Spinach to name a few. Carrot suddenly noticed the short person hidden by the massive frame of Cucumber was Hummus. “Hey Hum, it’s been ages since we met up. How are things these days?” Hummus turned round and they did the man hug thing and exchanged details of the latest in their lives. Turns out that Hummus was well known to bouncer lady and seeing that they appeared very close, Carrot was waved in and registered easily.

Pasta looked nervously at his watch. It was strange for him to be in a queue at this club. Many years ago he always got dumped in favour of Rice or Noodles when spaces were limited but since he ditched his Nigerian dressing for an Italian makeover, he’d become a massive favourite. He watched Cauliflower, Broccoli and Mushroom arguing furiously that they met the low G.I requirement plus had very desirable high fibre content. The bouncers adamantly maintained that they’d filled up the quota already for their category. “I can’t believe I got a nice afro done this week. Look how big my head looks. It was supposed to make me more desirable” Cauliflower cried out in despair. Broccoli just wondered why he’d been suckered into coming with his wife again – ever since Chim took over, he knew that the pair of them were blacklisted and just because Cauliflower snuck in a few months ago covered in Indian attire didn’t mean that they were going to bypass the new rules.

Potato: About time we got to this point. I should complain to management you know. I’ve never been treated this way before

Bouncer: Hey, we told you that everyone has to go through this today.

Noodles: Well here’s my platinum card, I’m obviously loaded and my friends and I have always been favourites round here. In fact, I think I recall Chim saying that she couldn’t imagine life without any of us.

Bouncer: Oh my days, I’ve just looked at the blacklisted folks. It looks like under the new rules none of you four is allowed.

Rice: There must be some mistake. I mean how can we be banned? Is it for life?

Bouncer: It says here on the list. Look. Plantain, Yam and the four of you are among the Carbs group that we cannot allow in under any circumstance. You’re supposed to re-apply in May, there might be a limited membership option available then.

Noodles: Absolutely not! I’d like to go in with the lovely Aubergine here. Can’t you see how nice a couple we are? I was hoping to spoil her with some Cristal or Ace of Spades in there.

Bouncer: Oh no, no, no. Aubergine is listed as an undesirable here. In fact she’s got a lifetime ban since last night when she was invited to the preview opening with Courgette, Beetroot and Tuna. Courgette was very surprised to finally be let in after many years on the blacklist.

Noodles: OMG, you let that heffer Courgette in? I am suddenly uninterested in going in even if you begged me to. The standards of Club du Chim must have gone down!

Bouncer: Sorry about that but rules are rules. As I said, come back in May. There are limited membership options. Lentils and Yoghurt got those today. They can only show up two or three times a week. You guys were such party animals. Club du Chim is tired of you turning up every single day with all your demands.

Potato: I think I’m going to sue. This is ludicrous and massively discriminating. I saw Cheese, Mayonnaise and Butter (Butter!!!!!) sauntering in like they owned the place. They only had limited memberships before. How come they are now lifetime members?

Bouncer: You didn’t think that when you were sitting cosily while Courgette was turned away week after week. Rules changed. They are low G.I and that’s the key requirement these days.

Noodles turned away in a huff and ordered the valet to bring his limited edition Bugatti. He let Aubergine in and went round to the driver’s side. “I am off to find somewhere else that’s more welcoming. Pasta went to this really trendy place called LNK on Monday. It’s definitely the place to be now”

Help, I'm a cat!

I woke up Friday morning and signed in immediately into my work laptop only to be greeted with messages from my friend that she’d called a couple of people up in Japan as well as her friend in Italy. Of course the significance of these calls was lost on me as I enquired if it was her “long distance calls” day. It took only a few minutes, as I signed in to see what was going on in the land of Facebook, to realise that something had occurred in Japan (from the very astute status message “2011, stop trying to be 2012. First it was New Zealand, now it’s Japan”) and I read in horror about the earthquake and consequent tsunami on the BBC website.

Five days on I’m still reeling at how much of a disaster there has been out there. I’ve also found myself thinking about New Zealand, Australia, China and other countries where there have been so many natural disasters and countless deaths as well as displacements. I think about the orphans and the homeless people. I was even quite upset when I heard about the heart wrenching news of dogs waiting patiently outside houses for their humans.

This morning there was an email thanking us for expressing interest as a company in helping colleagues out in Japan. Yesterday I got an email asking for donation of my Hilton Honours points to help families in Japan. All the news channels are trying to outdo themselves in painting the grimmest picture of the situation out there. Thus I was quite amused when in the middle of all this information about real human disaster, an appeal to save “big cats” came onto my TV screen.

I love dogs, am indifferent to cats, like other pets from a distance, am not crazy about the zoo, don't wear fur and certainly don't go hunting. I eat meat and usually look upon vegetarians with disdain. I went into a mild panic when I was out in India and didn’t eat any meat for nearly three days. Let’s just say that while I am not a fan of torturing animals or treating them badly, I think that this is really not a great time to save a tiger or jaguar.

Io sono Nigeriana

I find accents and languages fascinating. I l have often thought that most people speak faster in other languages – my Spanish and Italian friends seem to speak at rapid fire pace. My friend E is probably the only person I know who speaks English as rapidly although my sister speaks pretty quickly too if she’s not deliberately slowing herself down. You’d think that I would be fluent in 2 or 3 languages at least given my fascination with words, having learnt 3 languages in primary and secondary school and coming from a family with bi and multi lingual members. Sadly this isn’t the case.

I think my English is fluent, almost native, and I could speak Igbo (well the Ohafia dialect) pretty fluently before I turned 7. What happened then, you might ask. We moved from Aba in South East Nigeria, part of the Igbo stronghold to Lagos in the South West, former capital and very much dominated by the Yoruba tongue even though it’s technically the most diverse and tribe neutral city in Nigeria. While vernacular was forbidden in school, the Yoruba kids spoke sometimes.

We had to learn Yoruba in school as well as French but from my young and very prejudiced perspective it seemed that the language was for the seriously uncouth, involving opening the mouth to incredible widths and much yelling. If you know me, you’ll know I have a small mouth and tend to mumble. Thus Yoruba was the only lesson in which I performed consistently below par as I wanted nothing to do with it. The differences in the two languages also meant that my siblings and I often got laughed at for the way that we said particular words – owing to our Igbo influenced accents. Things like oya, favourite, said, and ate come to mind. Gradually I went from speaking Igbo very well to, twenty years later, being barely able to scrape together a coherent sentence.

I am often sad when I’m in the company of my Nigerian friends or family and want to say something in public that I would prefer that no one else could understand and I can’t. I am often sad when I think about the possibility of having kids and having no hope of raising them with Igbo and/or Yoruba at the heart of their cultural heritage. I am often sad when attempts to converse with my siblings in Ohafia result in our dissolution into fits of laughter. The two people who forced me to speak these languages are now dead – my next-door-neighbour and great grandmother who were both unable to speak any English.

I bet you’re wondering why I am suddenly nostalgic about a skill lost and opportunity missed. I saw a video today that put me to shame.

Titi does a fabulous job of speaking Yoruba there. I mean I didn’t even know ferese was window. She’s right that many people mix in a lot of oyinbo these days and we probably need a body of academicians and elders to help us retain the richness of the local tongues.

Anyway, I am in love with Italian, Spanish and French – and their accompanying accents. I studied French for 9 years in school but lost hope when we started conjugating intransitive verbs. The R is also a massive problem so I’m leaving the tackling of that till I get a chance to do an intensive and resident course for 6 months in Paris. Spanish seems easy enough – like what you see is what you say - but so is Italian and that’s the clincher for me. It also turns out that I have a great Italian accent (according to a lovely Milanese family I know) so I’m currently on a mission to make a video in a similar vein as the one above by the end of the year. I’ll also squeeze in getting fluent again in Ohafia but alas, I fear that might be one plan too many.

Three to Thirty

I hear that us Librans tend to procrastinate. I don’t know whether that is also to blame for my love of plans, lists, resolutions, etc that never translate into action. When I thought up this plan, it was supposed to coincide with the start of a new month. Since I’ve missed that boat, the next best thing is to kick things off on a lovely (not sure if it is yet but it sure feels like) Spring Monday morning.

I’d love to blame my current proclivity towards doing nothing on my genes. Several members of my large extended family are famous for their laziness. Alas, I know that isn’t the case because when I was younger I played every sport that was available in my school: I ran 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m (albeit it just once because I came last but one – only because the girl who came last was about 4 years younger - was denied by my younger brother and thus never repeated the humiliating experience); I did field athletics including high jump, long jump, the javelin, shot put and discus events and I also played football, basketball, volleyball, netball and table tennis. In fact, I got to about 15 and my mother declared that I could only do one sport because she felt the sports were interfering with my academics. So no, I am not naturally lazy.

However, I did the solo events as a representative of my house in the inter-house sports for school and the team events for fun. I love sports – they are competitive and social. The gym is just a bore and feels more like a chore - ask anyone who knows me and they’ll tell you I have never been a fan of doing things that I feel mandated to do. Since I moved to England, I’ve only had solid spells playing Badminton, for 15 months, and football for 2 years. The rest of the time I have made repeated attempts to fall in love with the gym or at the very least make it a part of my routine and I have failed miserably!

This time though, I intend to appeal to the competitor in me on two levels. One, I am stupidly incapable of refusing a dare. Two, I hate to fail. I realised earlier in the year that I tend to set myself grand and completely unachievable goals because I'm trying to do things like everyone else. I set myself a small challenge of doing a low G.I diet for as long as I could. So far I'm on week 3 now and have already exceeded my expectations for how long I would last without rice and noodles so I'm giving myself another small challenge. I’m going to turn my three minutes of running to thirty minutes at a stretch by April 1^st and keep track of my progress weekly.

On a related note, I now understand why healthy people look smug when they eat their healthy granola bars or while doing their daily 5 mile run. I’m typing this with a smug look on my face because I’m having a healthy breakfast – natural Greek yoghurt with one braeburn apple. I don’t know if this is the healthiest thing out there but it is way healthier than my regular breakfasts of the full English fry-up variety. I am doubly smug because I went for a run this morning. OK, so  I did about six minutes of running in total and walked the rest of the time but hey, I’m out there and moving OK? I can shake my head at the thousands of couch potatoes who didn’t get any exercise this morning.