After all the excitement of being a first timer in Italy, I finally boarded my plane to JFK airport (John F. Kennedy). I had all imaginations of my big brother picking me up. You know we are meant to think that our big brothers are cool and all that stuff. So I am here dragging my bag on the floor as my eyes wonder all over the crowd looking for a tall, dark n handsome guy with flowers (hahah)

3 hours later, still contemplating what went wrong, my eyes still undecided on whether to cry or not. I could not reach my brother because the Wi-Fi was not connecting. I gathered courage and requested one of the café ladies’ if I could use her phone. Found out my brother was at the airport all this time just at the wrong terminal. Talk about being at the wrong place at the right time. All along I knew, he knew where I’d be, he is my big brother, remember!! Free advice; never assume it is good to confirm.

So Sunday is here, and my brother goes like ‘you cooking chapati and ndengu (green grams) for dinner’. I thought he was joking, because I still had jetlag. But there’s something about Sunday and chapati, even at home, my dad would hear none of it if you tell him you did not cook chapati. He can even leave the house at 7pm just to go get the flour, Sunday = chapati.

Once my nephew heard I was making chapati, his taste buds were up in flames. He came to the kitchen, pulled a chair next to the where I was mixing the flour and climbed to help. “Aunty, isss cool!!” came his exclamation after touching the dough. So we started rolling the dough and folding them to make ‘ball-round’ shapes. He insisted with the rolling pin and he was the one doing everything. Our 3yr old chef had stomach all covered with flour which for some apparent reason he called sugar – ha-ha.

Another thing is that he was not losing interest in whatever he was doing. Because you know kids lose interest for an activity quickly, but him, he was all in. spoiler alert, all did not end well. I cannot even describe the shapes he was rolling. They looked funny so I decided to help make them at least look circular. This is where all hell broke loose because he was screaming whenever I touch the rolling pin. My brother had to remove him; sadly he ended up getting ‘papau’ and sleeping without benefiting from his hard labor. Sadly mt sister in law too missed all this action as she was still at work.

On the other hand it was all merry for my brother. He called his friends to boast about eating chapati. #KenyanProblemsAbroad

Simple recipe for chapati and ndengu

Chapati

3 cups of All Purpose Flour ( not self rising) or your normal chapatti flour, Plus extra for kneading and dusting
1 ½ cups of warm water
1 tsp of salt
1 tsp of sugar
Enough Vegetable oil for frying

Directions

• In a bowl, measure three cups of flour.
• In that same bowl, mix salt, some people put sugar too sugar, 2 tbps of oil and 1 cup of water. Start mixing
• Keep adding the remaining water until the dough becomes soft.
• Knead the dough for five minutes and add flour if needed.
• Add some oil and knead to mix it up until it soft and not sticky.
• I normally start cooking immediately
• Pinch a good amount of dough depending with the sizes you want for the chapati
• With a rolling pin, roll it to a circular shape.
• Brush the circular chapati with oil on top.
• At the side that faces you, start folding and rolling the oiled chapati with both hands as if you are rolling a rode away from your direction.
• Once you have a shape that looks like a rope, create a coil like shape.
• Make a coiled ball and with your palm, press the ball down to make it flat.
• Next, with a rolling pin make a circular shape again.
• In a hot pan, place the rolled out circular chapati and fry each side until its golden brown on medium heat, Put your cooked chapati in plastic wrap or container and cover..

Green grams

Boil your desired amount of green grams till well cooked. Then just fry as you would your other stews like beans etc