vegan Maafe

I’ve cooked vegan maafe for my new GHC family, all of whom have already been in the studio for us to talk and share our heritage and stories around why/how are we in Augsburg? Everyone speaks French, having heritage from Benin and Senegal or growing up in France. I spent three life changing months in Senegal when I was 25 after which I had a bolt of an epiphanic realisation that my mission on planet Earth was to be a musician. I haven’t looked back, and haven’t yet returned there, but suddenly, it seems I am reconnecting with my African core. Awake at dawn I decided that I was African in a former life. But of course Kaffe ! laughs Salome when I tell here this a few days later,  ‘We are all African inside!’

Shocked to realise that I’d forgotten how to make maafe, (learnt from Aissetou in Petit Kandé, Ziguinchor). Or is it that I am using peanut butter from DM, I have no bright red peanut oil or juicy fat chillis and garlic bought by the clove at the market that morning, and that I’m using sweet potato, tomatoes and aubergine from Aldi?  At least my French brain has re-emerged and the maafe will be better next time.