299: Yewande Komolafe

0:28This episode is brought to you by Resi and American Express. I loved being able to speak directly to Nigerians or West Africans in general. Like, I don't want to explain. I don't want to have to water it down. Sanitize, yeah. Yeah, or sanitize. Like, I want to speak to a Nigerian who knows exactly what I'm talking about when I'm saying, like, the soup draws. This is Taste. I'm your host, Matt Rodbard.

0:59Yawande Komalafa is a Berlin-born, Lagos-raised food writer, recipe developer, and food stylist based in Brooklyn. Her new book, My Everyday Lagos, is one of our favorites of the year. Man, it is terrific. And in this episode, we catch up and hear all about the book and about Yawande's work at the New York Times and many other publications. It's such a great conversation, and I hope you enjoy it.

1:30Yewande Komalafe, welcome to This Is Taste. How are you? I'm good. Thank you so much for having me. Exciting times here. Your book is out soon. It is. It's like a month out. Ah! So how are you feeling? You know, I'm trying to remind myself to be present in the moment. I've worked on it for about three and a half years. It's almost as old as my oldest child. and so it's strange to see it out in the wild to see like other people holding it and to see other people looking through the thing that was like so secretive for so long but it feels good I just want to stay in the moment it's so great and like small victories celebrate like you know it coming out like getting an article you know doing a podcast so like doing things like this makes it real because it's just been like this thing floating in my head for a while How many trips did you take to actually for the photography?

2:25Because a repertoire of photography is really nice. And I love how you fold that into the story. I took zero trips for photography. Yeah. I worked with a location photographer that's based in Sweden, but had a catalog of photos from Lagos. Yeah. So I worked with Lola Akemade. She is Nigerian. She grew up in Lagos just like me. Yeah. And she had this wonderful catalog of photos from Lagos that really that when I saw her catalog of photos, it was also like deep in 2020 when we were having all these discussions. It was like a trip was out the question. Yeah, I know. But when I saw her catalog of photos, I was like, this just makes me feel like I'm back home.

3:09Like that one photo of like the man with like the fishing net. Like I've seen that image so many times and it's like it has a way of like just bringing me back to like to Lagos. Yeah, I just think it's a credit to you and the vision just to have that location photography in there. And then like the cover, it's such a beautiful cover. It's definitely like non-traditional in terms of like illustrated covers. And we talk about it a lot in the industry. And Paula Forbes in her great newsletter, St. Page's News, she wanted to – she's always been pro-illustrated cover. And so how did that happen? Because it's beautiful.

3:45Gosh, the cover. I struggled a lot with what to put on the cover. I knew that I didn't want it to look like a traditional cookbook. But I'm not an art director, so I had no idea what it should be. But I brought on a wonderful team, McCallman Co. So I worked with George McCallman. And I already had an illustrator, Diana, who was working on some illustrations within the book. And the cover was like George's idea. I know that the publisher wanted me to be on the cover and I'm like, oh, that doesn't feel like me. But this is like a way to like be on the cover, but not or like be on the cover, but in my way.

4:24Oh, my God. I love George's work. I'm such a fan. I love his work. And yeah, you are on the cover. So I know I am on the cover, but like this feels like a safer way to be on the cover. We'll get into Lagos and the book. But I do want to talk like like what's good in New York right now? What are you up to? Oh, what's good in New York? Because I just want to tap in with what you've been seeing restaurant-wise, where you've been going. I have just gotten back to New York, so I'm like a week in. Oh, okay. So I'm actually finding out what's good in New York. I think, you know, the farmer's markets are still amazing.

4:57I just wrote a story about Concord Grapes, and I want everybody—I mean, well, by the time this comes out, like, Concord Grape season might be gone. We're going to try to get it up. But, like, listen, it is such a short season here. Yeah, like, Concord Grape season is really short. But the farmer's markets are still excellent. I mean, they're always excellent. But like in the summer, like you can't replace that feeling of just being surrounded by the bounty of like fruits and vegetables and like spinach and all that good stuff. Restaurant wise, I have to confess, I haven't really been out recently in New York.

5:29I love desserts. I love sweets. I love cake. So like anything I recommend would be along those lines. Yeah, right on, right on. What was the piece that you wrote about Concord's? What was the takeaway? It was for the New York Times, and I love pieces about nostalgia. I'm such a nostalgic writer. I love food memory. I will talk till the day I die about, like, food memories. But I wrote about working at Pies and Thighs and experiencing Concord Grapes for the first time and having experienced grape flavor as a child in Nigeria, like, realizing that grape flavor was Concord Grapes. It's so cool that you bring that up.

6:07It is. It is because I grew up in West Michigan in Welch's. We have a big plant there in Pawpaw, Michigan, where I grew up, near where I grew up. And like the flavor of grape and the grape soda is Concord. Yes. Because when I moved here and I had supermarket grapes, I was like, oh, this doesn't really taste like grapes. But then I was working at Pais and Thighs and I had a Concord grape. I was like, oh, my God, this is where it's from. That's a great flavor. So I wrote about that. I want to get into your professional career and your classic training. And you worked at Pais and Thighs, which I didn't actually know until now.

6:34I did. Wow, that place rules. I love. You loved working there? It was amazing. It was an amazing experience. But like at Milk Bar, you worked there, you were in recipe development. And like, let's talk about that, like in terms of some of the codes you were cracking. Because like that's such a, I mean, that's such a big job to develop recipes at Milk Bar. Of course. I worked at Milk Bar when it was like a tiny little bakery in the East Village. It was like really early on. I was like pastry cook number five that was hired there. And I came to Milk Bar with a lot of like classic French pastry experience.

7:11So I had only worked in like French restaurant. I had learned viennoiserie. I had learned pastry art. I had learned how to temper chocolate, all of that stuff. And I had learned that recipes were not to be messed with. I had learned that like my chef, Gerard, his father wrote down this recipe with these specific metric amounts. and you do not change them, you know. And so I got to Milk Bar and at that time, and I mean, they still do it now, but at that time, some of the stuff that we were doing was like, let's take kimchi and fold it into butter and make a kimchi butter croissant. And my mind was just blown.

7:52I was like, how dare we take this classic French recipe and, you know, fuck with it. Can I say fuck with it? You sure can. And you absolutely want to fuck with any kind of laminated dough. It's going to make any French guy just his skin crawl or her skin crawl. But it was just like, oh, my God, that was a resistance because I am such a Virgo and such a perfectionist that it was like, oh, my God, what are we doing? But then I came around to it and I realized that I loved it. I loved seeing how far I could push a recipe. And I feel like that's what I really took from Milk Bar. Bartosi really allowed us to play with ingredients and play with food and know that the limits of a recipe are just that.

8:37And whatever is in the middle could be whatever. It's really, really smart. Yeah. And that's like an approach that I still use to this day. It's such a smart way to say it. Can you look at like a corn cookie anymore? Can you even like look at those things or did you just have – would you overload on those? I still love the corn cookie. It's my favorite. It's buttery and salty. And yeah, I still love the corn. It's my favorite. Yeah. It's my favorite. You're at The Times now, New York Times. I am. The Times, Grey Lady, New York Times. You're a columnist in food. What is that role? I love reading you in The Times, but tell me a little bit about that role.

9:09It's wonderful. I'm a staff writer. I get to write about food. I get to write about—I always wanted a job where all aspects of my training could meet. and I feel like it's doing that at the times. Like I get to write about pastry. I get to write about Nigerian food or West African food. I get to write quick weeknight meals, you know? So it's this like confluence of like all the experience that I've had in the food industry that I get to write about, which is so much fun. How does it work in terms of story ideas with those guys? Are you in general story meetings and pitching? Yeah, there's like pitching.

9:46We have like meetings where we pitch. We have meetings where we just like talk about ideas. it's um what are you working on right now i holiday stuff yeah like it's like i don't really celebrate the holidays so it's like kind of funny so i'm like shit what can i write about thanksgiving as a as a person who doesn't really celebrate thanksgiving um so i usually with the holidays try to like bring other people into my stories and just write about like what they're doing with the american holidays i like that because you talked about memory and writing about nostalgia and you probably have a real opportunity to do that.

10:19Exactly. Exactly. Well, you know, one of your Times pieces that I think is really, really like struck me when it was published was the 10 essential Nigerian recipes. I mean, the package is gorgeous. I was talking to Eliza, my colleague and co-host about it. And like really for both of us, it felt like a really big moment for food media to offer that in 2019 to like the New York Times readership. I'd love to hear a little bit about how you picked the 10 recipes and how that story came about. Yeah, gosh, it was so difficult to pick 10 recipes. I think it was working on that piece that I discovered there's not really a thing called Nigerian food.

10:55Like the concept of Nigerian food is, it's sort of like a great, like this grand illusion. There's Yoruba food. There's Ebo food. Like Nigerian food is so regional that the idea of like an umbrella term for it is only so that it can be easily digestible in this market. You know, and so picking the recipes, I wanted to try to get recipes from all the regions of Nigeria. I wanted to make sure to be inclusive across the board. But I also just wanted to include things that I loved and things that I missed about Nigeria because by that time I had only been back to Nigeria once. And so it was, again, food memory.

11:39It's like, what did my grandma make? Or like when I think about Nigerian food or when I go out to eat Nigerian food, what are the things that I ask for? And so that those are like the things that like led me to my decisions for those 10 recipes. Yeah, I'll link to that in the show notes. And when it was published, what was the response like? I mean, 2019. 2019, I think it was amazing. Great. Yeah, like people just loved, you know, one thing I tried to do with my writing is speak directly to my audience. I loved being able to speak directly to Nigerians or West Africans in general. Like I don't want to explain.

12:12I don't want to have to water it down. Sanitize, yeah. Yeah, or sanitize. Like I want to speak to a Nigerian who knows exactly what I'm talking about when I'm saying like the soup draws, you know. But yeah. Yeah. So it was the reception was wonderful. It was it was great. I think in your book, too, it seems like there's like the uncompromised approach to it. And I feel like there is no like that's why I learned a lot from it. And I feel like you were you were really educating. And then the 19 piece, the 2019 piece did that as well. Thank you. Let's go back and talk about growing up. What was food like growing up for you?

12:50I didn't think much about it. Like I didn't – I know that I loved being around food. I loved ingredients. I would inspect ingredients. I learned that from my mom. My mom was a food scientist and she would have all sorts of ingredients in the house. She would like read the labels, like want to know what's in things. So I learned that from my mom. But I also know that I was drawn to cooking and baking especially. But I didn't really consider it, you know. We had, we lived in a city, kind of like New York City, but my dad had like a working farm. Like an urban farm? What city? Yeah. We lived in Lagos.

13:32Lagos. But like my dad had, we had like chickens and pigs and goats and like we would grow spinach and all kinds of leafy greens. And I remember one moment I remember was that, like, my mom would be like, oh, can you go get some spinach from the backyard for dinner? And I would be like, why do I always have to go pick spinach? Like, why can't we just get spinach from the market? Or why do we have to squeeze orange juice out of oranges? Why can't we be cool and get orange juice in cartons? And now I, like, miss that life. We call it an urban oasis. You write about it in the book. Yeah, it was totally.

14:11And I, you know, when I go back home, I'm like, oh, my God, this is so great. Like they still they still do that. They still have like plantain and banana trees growing. Yeah, it's like so green. It's not the same house, but it's the same like vibe. Yeah, yeah. Well, you moved to the United States in 1998 as a student. And, you know, I'd like to know when you arrive in the 90s, what's it like for you as arriving in the States and feeling, you know, a new type of energy and new reality? I'm piecing that together now. Got it. I feel like I moved here. I was so young. I wasn't really making any decisions for myself.

14:51It was like I was kind of a robot being told what to do. And I was like, okay, I guess I'm going to the U.S. And, like, I'm going to go to school there. And so it was just a flood of emotions. I remember being afraid, but I also remember saying, like, I'm here. I fucking have to do this. And I, like, did it. And I kind of just like that was my focus until I would say about 2015, 2016 when I like broke myself away from that. And I was like, OK, let me deal with the past like 15 years and like start parsing through. And the book is kind of it goes into that. And it was it was difficult to write because I had to like revisit a lot of things that I hadn't in so long.

15:31But it was also like therapeutic. Yeah. I mean, getting those feelings out. Yeah. Where did you go to school? I went to University of Maryland. Yeah. Baltimore County. In Baltimore County. In Baltimore County. Yeah. So what was that like for the weather and the food like there? I remember experiencing, I mean, I was born in Berlin, so I had seen snow before, but I didn't really remember it. So I remember experiencing snow for the first time and thinking I could go out in a T-shirt. Yeah. Nope. Yeah. You know, I remember being just like amused by grocery stores because everything was so sanitary and so sanitized.

16:07And like, yeah, I remember looking at like packs of like chicken thighs and being like, where's the rest of the chicken or like the fish? Like, where's the like, where's the fish? There's no heads. Yeah, there's like no head. Like, what do they do with the rest of it? Things just tasted weird. Like, I don't remember liking food in the way I did or enjoying it in the way that I did at home. So I remember thinking that I think I had like a burger or something and I was like, this is kind of interesting. Like and I had heard of burgers from TV. Right. But like having it was a completely different experience.

16:45Of course, it looked nothing like it did on TV. Well, no, of course, you probably had fast food and you're like, oh, what is this gray material? What is this? But I remember also being like so – I was like, oh, my God, all the candy, all the like Coke, like soda, all the soda I want. Like the candy was fascinating. I was just like, oh, my God, all the candy I want, all the baked goods. Like I remember going to Dunkin' Donuts and like ordering donuts. Yeah, getting like a dozen donuts in a box. Yeah, or like the little munchies. Oh, munchies. Yeah, like donut holes. Munchkins. Yeah, being like, oh, my God, I have 12 of this to myself.

17:20you know yeah so there was that like experience too wow i mean i i can't i mean this this this like introduction to american food through through munchkins is really it's got to be a little bit of a little bit of a shocker yeah and that summer there was like dunkin donuts was running a promotion on culottas i don't know if they even have them yeah now but it was this like slushy type drink and it was like fascinating. So how did you get into food as a profession in culinary school and learning the trades and then ended up working in professional kitchens? Yeah. So after college, I graduated college and I had come across a flyer for like a culinary arts school and it occurred to me that I could go get a degree in culinary arts but be a chef.

18:11Yeah. And I was like, yes because I knew I wanted to work in food um my mom as a food scientist had done like biochemistry and aced it and I tried taking some chemistry classes and I like I hated it yeah um and so I switched my major to biopsychology um so I knew I wanted to work in food and when I came across that flyer I just sort of like held on to it and I was like I'm gonna apply to culinary arts school and there was one in Baltimore so I applied there I started working at a Nigerian restaurant because I needed like restaurant experience to go. And kind of the rest is history. Like I went through culinary arts school.

18:48I aced culinary arts school. I was so good at it. Yeah. Like for the first time. What were you drawn towards? What part of the culinary program? Oh my God, everything. I was just so excited to be there because I felt like I understood the language. You know, I think the first four years of college, I was still processing like being torn from Nigeria and just like trying to process the culture shock. And I kind of I feel like I just kind of passed through college like I was just doing it to do it. Yeah. And it was your parents wanted you to go. Yeah. Like my parents wanted me to go. They both have like master's degrees and, you know.

19:24But yeah, I remember being at Culinary Arts School and finally being able to speak that language and understand it and I was like oh my god it's like this has been waiting for me I love um and I just worked in restaurants after that you just worked in restaurants yeah was that Nigerian restaurant did you did you connect with the food there was it your style of yeah yeah it was it really taught me how to make Nigerian food in America yeah and all the substitutions that you had to do to to because this was like back in like 2002 2003 so I think ingredients at that time were not as available as they are now.

20:00So we did a lot of substituting. But it was still great to see. I remember asking my friend, who she's like my friend now, just like my sister. But I remember asking, like, where do you get these ingredients from? Like, oh, my God. Like, how are you doing this? So it really opened my eyes to, like, the Nigerian community in America. Well, I want to talk about your great book because it feels like it's a moment right now to have these recipes codified in a cookbook. And, you know, we talked about the difficulty of picking the 10 for the Times piece back in 2019. So let me ask you, the recipe selection, how did you come up with the list of recipes for this book?

20:43And really, like, how did you think about progressing it? Because you call it every day or my everyday Lagos. So you got to, like keep with that that thesis right yeah no totally um so I started writing this book right after my last trip to Nigeria which was in 2020 we flew back into the pandemic and we had spent three weeks there with my husband and my daughter my first daughter um and it was like I really got to experience Lagos because I was doing a bunch of paperwork I needed a new passport so I would go with my dad in traffic and sit and, you know, and like we would order food from like the buka while we were waiting for this passport to be done.

21:25And I got to experience like a Monday through Friday, just like as an adult in like commuting. Yeah. And then on the weekends, this was pre-COVID, we would like go out to events or like my parents would have like friends who are celebrating something. And so when I came back and I was thinking of the structure of the book, it made sense to me to go from like Monday through Sunday. Also, Fela has this great song, the Afrobeat King. He has this great song that's called Monday Morning in Lagos. Oh, yeah. Like after the weekend and after all the celebrating and partying, like Monday morning in Lagos is just as hectic, but in a different way.

22:11That's such a great song. Yeah. Did you see the musical? Like maybe 15 years ago? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a while ago. Yeah, like 15. Yeah, I saw that. That was so good. I wish I would redo that. That was a moment. That was a moment. I love doing the music. So good. But yes, when I came back and I was thinking about the way to structure the book, again, because the concept of Nigerian food didn't really make sense, I decided to focus on Lagos. One, because I grew up there. Two, because that's where I have the most food memories from. and three because Lagos is a strange little place in a way because you find people from all over Nigeria there.

22:50It's like a seat of commerce. It's always been. And so you find food and culture and just like the social fabric is made up of people from all over Nigeria. And so you find regional specialties in ways that you don't find in other parts of Nigeria. Yeah. Going through it in the sense of a week kind of like gave me that feel of like the chaos and the energy, which I was really trying to bring into this book. I see that now and I appreciate you kind of articulating the vision for it and going day by day. Let's zoom out a little bit. Talk about the just the flavors of Nigerian cooking. I think many of our listeners may not have ever been to a Nigerian restaurant or Nigerian dish, but what are some of the like cornerstone flavors and maybe ingredients that we're thinking about?

23:40The first thing that comes to mind is red palm oil. It's an indigenous crop that and it's, gosh, there's nothing to describe the flavor of red palm oil. It's like floral, but it's also got some depth to it. And it just adds, it just coats every dish that you make it with, with like this like floral, this like very distinct floral flavor. It's like a seasoning. Yeah, red palm oil is kind of like a seasoning. Yep, yep, yep. But that's one thing that I would say is a cornerstone. Also, iru, which is also called fermented locust bean, it's a fermented product, a fermented seed. So it's got a really strong and deep flavor.

24:30And I think that's what I appreciate about Nigerian food is the ability to layer deep flavors and still have it make sense. Yeah, right on. You know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because we have palm oil, we have iru, we have stockfish, which is a dried fish. We sometimes use crayfish. So there's a lot of like deep, floral, earthy, musty flavors that all get put in one dish and the dish still makes sense. And it's like that technique. Definitely. You know? And I think it's like really you have distinct – and it's obviously delicious. Yeah. That's the number one thing. Yeah. People want to eat it, but it's also distinct.

25:06I mean I think about tamarind paste. Tamarind, yes. In your book, you come back to tamarind paste and, you know, let's talk about that, having tamarind paste around and cooking with it. Yeah, tamarind paste. Tamarind paste, I feel like, is an ingredient that adds body. Yeah. But, like, not body in the, like, butter sense, like body in that it just, like, enhances the dish and makes it rounder. I think of flavors as, like, shape sometimes. But, yeah, it also has this gentle sourness that I love. It's, like, earthy and gentle. So if you need a sourness but you don't want it to be as bright as lemon or vinegar, tamarind paste is like a lovely way to go.

25:47And how do you buy it and store it and how do we cook with it more? You can buy it in different ways. You can buy it as whole pods and then shell the pods and soak the seeds inside it. So when you buy tamarind whole, it's like there's a shell on it and then there's like a meaty, fleshy seed on the inside. and to extract the tamarind paste, you just pour hot water over it and soak it and then extract the liquid from it and that's your tamarind. That's what you use. You discard the seed and the shells and all that. And strain it out, okay. But yeah, you can buy it as a paste already, like that step's already done for you at the market, or you can buy it as a concentrate, which I found.