The Recipe for Attraction

Ru taught me how to cook. She was eight time zones away, propped against a pile of pillows with her phone wedged into a mug on her kitchen counter. I was in my bedsitter holding my own phone at an angle that made my face look like a potato (or poteto), trying to figure out which of my three dull knives counted as a "chef’s knife."

"Just start," she said. "You're overthinking the onion."

"I haven't touched the onion." I said, despite being raised in a Congolese household.

"That's the overthinking."

We were online besties. And when I say besties, I mean besties. She was Muslim, properly Muslim, and the most skin I’d ever seen was her beautifully oiled face, always framed by the brightest smile.

Our entire friendship existed inside a small rectangle on a screen. And this is where I have to give Mango 4G its flowers for unlimited internet, because every Sunday night turned into a cooking lesson. She’d walk me through a recipe while I stumbled around my “kitchen.” And before you picture the one in your house, lower your expectations. Mine was basically a table next to my bed. This is the part where you start singing, “Dear Mashuka…”

That particular night it was a simple tomato (or tometo) pasta. She talked me through the garlic: how to smash it with the flat of the knife so the peel slides off, how to know it's ready by smell instead of the clock. She caught my flame running too high before I noticed the smoke. She heard the sizzle change pitch through the phone and said, "Turn it down, you're about to lose the garlic."

A few weeks in, I could make rice so well you could count every grain. She taught me the formula: rinse the rice until the water runs clear, getting rid of the starch, a word I’d only ever heard in school, then pour in enough water until it reaches your first knuckle when your fingertip is resting on top of the rice. I used that exact method the first time I cooked for Keza yaje kunsura. The rest is history.

Eventually, I reached a point where I could cook just about any everyday meal. Then Ru introduced me to the world of flour-based foods. I don’t want to call it baking because we started with pancakes and crêpes. I still mix the two up, but I can make both of them now. And before anyone argues with me, I believe they should have so much sugar in the batter that you don’t even need Nutella or honey afterward. I made them for Keza and a few days later, she asked, “So... what are we?”

I answered her, I promise. I’m just not going to tell you what I said. But that night, I realized something: Ru was turning me into a very attractive human being. I’d always heard people say, “The shortest way to someone’s heart is through their stomach,” and for the first time, I was watching that theory work in real life.

That was all the motivation I needed.

My Pinterest feed became nothing but recipes. I started buying spices I’d never even heard of. I bought a couple of nice knives. I took cooking far more seriously than anyone had asked me to. What happened after that is between me, my guests, and maybe the bed sitting right in front of my “kitchen.”

I still cook things exactly the way Ru taught me: turning the heat down a little before I think I should, tasting twice, and salting until my ancestors tell me to stop. Every time I’m in the kitchen, I think about her.

Recently, I started baking cakes too. My last one was a chocolate cake, and I was honestly proud of it. I ate half of it that same night, but that’s beside the point.

I think being able to make food for another person is one of the most thoughtful and intimate things you can offer. There’s something beautiful about taking simple ingredients, putting your time and care into them, and saying, “I made this for you.”

So if I ever tell you “wansuye,” trust me, I’m not talking about boiling eggs for you. I’m making you a four-course dinner, serving it with apple juice (I saw someone on TikTok with the username applejuiceispee, by the way, and it still makes me laugh), and we’re watching Rye Lane together.

I’m kidding, I will not invite you into my home. Mbana n’intare.

P.S. Do you also know that girl who never eats, the one who tells you she only had an apple all day? Where can we find some juju to boost her appetite?