(Book 137) Chris invited us to her home with the following email:
BYOB. Bleach, that is, not Booze/Bottle. Korede will take care of the latter, as she takes care of everything.
Korede (and Ayoola, who will contribute nothing but trouble) cordially invites you to the book club meeting on Wednesday, September 29 at 6:30 p.m. (It will be 12:30 a.m. in Lagos; please reset your clocks, because the party will be long over by the witching hour.) The kitchen girl will do her best to whip up some semblance of West African food, but there will be plenty of wine and beer just in case that doesn’t work out so well or Korede needs to leave to do an emergency cleanup somewhere.
Please leave any males in your possession at home, because, well, Ayoola. You never know what might happen.
My plan is for us to sit on the deck before dinner since it looks like it will be nice out, but we may eat indoors since it gets pretty cool after dark. Please bring a sweater or jacket in case everyone wants to stay outdoors.
Who’s in?
The meeting was small, only six of us were there; poor Linda was supposed to be there but she was stuck at Heathrow. This was the email summary I sent of the evening:
A small group of the Secret Society of Sister Serial Killers met last night at C’s home (no names — this is a secret society after all.) First on the agenda was determining who would be on the Killing Committee and who would be on the Clean-Up Crew. By a show of hands we had more killers than cleaners but there may be one or two members who can do clean-up in a pinch. Our hostess, for example, told a frightening story of having done a practice clean-up when her husband had an “accident” in the kitchen which required a trip to the emergency room and stitches in his hand. We are all thankful that M is doing well and there was no exposure of the society.
We discussed the book that gave rise to our group: My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite and the response to it was all quite positive. We appreciated that the book is written so that the reader is never quite sure what to think about Ayoola’s predilection (?) and exactly why Korede is willing to help her. We were disappointed (but not surprised) by the depiction of men who are so very interested in a pretty face, but have no psychological or physical barrier to stop them from hitting/punching/slapping said pretty face. We were in agreement that by the time all is disclosed about their father, there is an “aha” moment for all that has happened before. C mentioned that she loved Korede’s interaction with the coma patient, but G said she felt a little bit bad for his wife. I have no such sentiment for a wife who only wants her husband’s money but I might have some baggage.
Now to the best part of the meeting: After wine, three kinds of Stamper cheese, crackers that M discovered, fresh figs, dried cherries and fun conversation on the back deck we were served the most delicious West African meal! I seriously feel bad for those of you who weren’t there to enjoy it with us. C served tamarind glazed ribs with lime zest, a vegan ground nut stew with sweet potatoes, green beans and kale, and wedged heirloom tomatoes. Because I am so slow to action, the meal has already been discussed and recipes have been forwarded to us all. I’d really like to thank C for all of the time she spent looking at recipes for this event and especially for the choices she made for us to enjoy. Incredible! I would also like to thank her for the Bittersweet cupcakes that we had for dessert and for sending the rest home with me because I was the most recent birthday girl.
I’m going to reiterate here that this was an incredible meal and just for future reference, I’ll add the recipe links
https://www.olivemagazine.com/recipes/vegan/west-african-stew-with-sweet-potato-and-greens/