Chapati Queen

My shirt reeked of sweat and sunflower oil and flour speckled my nose with inverse freckles. I peeked across the kitchen at the chapati on the gas cooker as my hands kneaded the dough mixture mechanically. There was a small pile of harmless bugs I had picked out of the flour to the left of my compact workspace, which was framed by three variously sized containers of oil. I carefully placed the dough I was kneading outside my work space, but away from the bugs before turning to spin the cooking chapati with my palm. Spin, spin, spin – flip! A spoonful of oil, another flip, and now it’s time to knead again. An army could not have stopped me from making my chapati this morning.

 It was my second time making chapati from scratch. Mama said I make it better than many African women. I am preparing for a fundraiser I am hosting at home where I plan to make it for my guests. Mama taught me how to make chapati about a week ago. She showed me one, then we did one together, and then I made the third. Since, I have made one batch of four chapati and this morning I made a batch of five. I love cooking it. It’s time consuming, but it’s so…authentic. It’s cooked from scratch with oil, water, flour, sugar and salt. It’s so tasty that it is hard to believe that these are all the ingredients. Pri snapped some pictures of me as I worked this morning. He now calls me Chapati Queen.

  I planned to make the chapati for him and Charity because they loved it the first time and asked for more, however we had some unexpected guests come by today as Princely, Mama and I worked from home. One of them was a local pastor (who took the chapati we gave him and praised the chef) and the next was a 98 year old man (wow!!) who is also a pastor, still healthy preaching in his old age. He had some and enjoyed it as well. By the time our guests ate their share and our new house girl, Angel, and boy, Theo, got some it was all gone. Maybe I’ll wake early tomorrow to make some more…