African Mothers, Their Daughters, Love and Marriage

Below is a great article by China Okasi for CNN in which she asks African moms, especially those in diaspora or with daughters who are more educationally accomplished than their peers, to have patience with their daughters. In the article, she called out the fact that women don't have to dumb down to attract men, and how these days women want love, and not just marriage for the sake of it. I agree with her mostly, especially on the issue of respect and compatibility. But I know also that love is not a magic pill that guarantees a successful marriage. What do you think? Let's discuss!

Moms everywhere like to ask their unmarried daughters dreaded questions like: Why are you still single? Are you married yet? Anyone catch your eye? Especially around Valentine's Day.

Sure, we've seen Carrie Bradshaw agonize over the issue, watched Bridget Jones' awkwardness around it, heard Amelie's lamentations au Francais, and we've even heard from the lovable Mindy Kaling vis-a-vis her Indian-American perspective. But, we haven't heard the modern African woman's story.

Being an unmarried African woman in her childbearing years is like being a manicurist with a hand tremor: very odd and rather tricky. She is expected to marry early and marry well.

Have You Been Eating Horsemeat?

It has been in the news for several weeks now, and new details are revealed on a daily basis. I am talking about the media frenzy about the "Horsemeat Scandal" where it has been alleged and proven in some cases that horsemeat has been used fraudulently in processed meat products like sausages, mince and lasagne.

Usually beef, pork and chicken are the meats listed on such products but health officials and inspectors have found horse meat in them. So yeah, if you live in the UK and Europe, and you are a fan of processed meat, you may have eaten horsemeat. Tesco was my second shopping destination while I lived in the UK, so maybe I ate it back then, who knows?

I was discussing with some people and they said, so what? I mean, they say they don't mind eating horsemeat, after all people eat frogs, snails, kangaroo, alligator, dogs, monkey, snake etc. In Nigeria, if you don't know the source of the animal you're eating, you call it bushmeat :)

Okechukwu Ofili - February Man Candy #20

Okechukwu Ofili is a writer, designer, author, and all round creative.

Plantain Porridge with Shrimp and Spinach

I love unripe plantain and cook with it more than the ripe one because I tend to stay away from fried foods and ripe ones mostly lend themselves to dodo. Like I said in this plantain with Afang soup post, the sugary sweet taste of ripe plantain means they don't play too nice with most sauces, in my opinion anyway.

For this meal, you cook it just the way you would yam porridge, or is it pottage?

Ingredients

3 Fingers of unripe plantain
2 tablespoons of palm oil
1 pack of frozen shrimp
Four medium sized tomatoes, blended
Half a medium sized onion, blended
1 tablespoon of ground dry crayfish
Ground pepper,
Salt and other condiments to taste.

Michelle Obama Cut Her Bangs Because of Mid-Life Crisis

Michelle Obama got her new hairstyle with the bangs earlier this year and officially debuted it at the President's Inauguration. President Obama loved them saying, "I love her bangs... She looks good. She always looks good". LOL...of course that's what he would say. IMO too, and that of several people who tweeted or blogged about it, it looked great, though some wondered why?

Now, Michelle has confessed the reason for the switch up in her hairstyle. I would have thought it was the usual black woman's "I get bored with one hairstyle", but in an interview with Rachael Ray, airing tomorrow, Michelle Obama who is 49 years old, though she looks at least a decade younger, said;

“This is my mid-life crisis, the bangs. I couldn't get a sports car. They won't let me bungee jump. So instead, I cut my bangs.”

Kate Middleton Glows in Baby Bump Pictures

After some pictures of her in a bikini during a private vacation were leaked, I guess Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge decided to just do her. In an official capacity to visit Hope House, a charity for improving alcoholics, she wore a wrap dress that showed off her baby bump. Her pregnancy is definitely looking good on her so far, she is glowing :)

Love is Way More Than Sex - Two Men Speak

I have said it before that I'm tiring of the relationship between Olivia and the President in Scandal, an American TV show. At first, Atala wondered if it was my conservative side kicking in because they were basically committing adultery, but it wasn't it. I explained that since the first few episodes where they were portrayed as star crossed lovers living separate lives with broken hearts, these days their relationship was all about the sex. For a romantic like me, love is more than sex. If I cannot connect with you emotionally, then the sex is just a physical urge any other man, or even a sex toy, can satisfy.

In his review of the episode of Scandal that put a stop to my Ollie/Fitz fanclub membership, Harry wrote about the dangers of tying love too close to sex,

...I think the Writers should explore other angles to their love. 80% of the time we see Fitz and Olivia expressing their love to each other is when they are having sex. To me, it just means that Mellie is bad in bed and Olivia is compensating. The writers should explore dialogues and use events to show that the love they have for each other is way more than the sex... because to me I feel once the sex starts to suck, the love won’t prevail.

Abstinence and Love - From a Man's Point of View

Yesterday, the dear myne post went up and brought in some really illuminating comments from Chukky Eboka, who went into a lot of detail to explain his stand. While I do not completely agree with him, I do see many valid points he makes, some of which I've blogged about before. I have shared some excerpts from his view point below;

Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. I'm offering up opinion from a male perspective- but here we have all these women telling us how we should feel. I'm quite sure the guy in question will be in the same age range as me, and he is in the UK just as I am. I can share a lot of how he feels- and i am explaining it to her. but the problem with relationships is that we never listen to the opposite side.

Pray tell me of some other way an upwardly mobile, intelligent, fast paced lifestyle young heterosexual male has to establish his territory around a particular female he fancies. any way you come up with will no doubt be some vanilla experience that only a woman can devise and which a man can replicate with his multitude of friends male or female.

Giving Love A Second Chance - Short Story

“Eyamba?” He called.

I didn’t respond. I wanted to scream, hit him – anything to dispel the raging emotions I was feeling. How could he come back after all this time and ask this of me. Just when I was picking up the pieces of my broken heart, just as I was getting my life back on track. In that moment I considered all the hurtful things I could say to him – to give him a taste of how I felt and what I thought of him and his stupid request. In a flash my mind went over the course of events that had led us to this place- the threshold of divorce; the death of our beautiful baby boy.

The night he left, I remember sitting at the dining table thinking about how much he had changed. About how in the 3 years we’d been married or in the 2 years we’d dated I’d never seen this side of my husband. It’d been 8 months since we lost our son and I still didn’t know what my husband was thinking or how he was feeling; in all that time I’d tried to reach out to him, but he treated me like the enemy, like it was my fault our little boy was gone. I knew I couldn’t stop trying, so I walked up to where he sat on the couch and stroked his head, like I used to do when we first got married.

Chiwetel Ejiofor - February Man Candy #19

 Chiwetel Ejiofor is an actor, and will be playing Odenigbo in the Half of A Yellow Sun movie.