Grilled Beef Ribs with Vegetable and Mushroom

Most of us, myself included, believe it's not a proper meal if there's no carbohydrate involved. So most of our meals feature a starchy element either as the main meal or a side. If you're a typical Nigerian like me, it had to be the main dish jare, at least by size.

So the eba/poundo/amala has to be bigger than the efo, the rice has to fill the plate, then you'll add a jot of stew or sauce to the top, if you're eating moi-moi or beans, there has to be akamu/ogi/custard or you drink garri with plenty sugar. If you've seen the moi-moi post you'll know I really have a ways to go myself on this issue.

But last year while on the Bouari program, I made a realization. The program promotes healthy eating and calorie counting and wherever possible, all their menu and recipe samples asked for me to quit the carbs. While on the program I did, afterwards, I regressed. But I had learnt some things and they stuck.

A Woman Tries to Kill Husband Through Oral Sex

Or Death by the Poisoned Vagina Chronicles. SMH. An allegedly murderous wife tried to kill her husband by putting poison in her vagina and asking him to give her oral sex. The Mirror UK reports;

"A woman is being sued by her husband for allegedly trying to kill him by putting poison in her genitals and then asking him to perform oral sex. The Brazilian wife is accused of planting a toxic substance on her genitals before luring her husband to bed. Reports in the South American country suggest he was ready and willing, and only escaped death because he noticed a strange smell. The curious husband then took his wife to hospital in Sao Jose do Rito Preto to find out the cause of the unusual odour. The alleged attempt on his life was exposed when tests on his wife discovered traces of a poisonous substance down below."

When I hear news like this, or some episodes of Dateline and 48hr Mysteries, I wonder. What drives a partner to murder, or plot to murder their spouses? In this woman's case, wasn't she scared that the toxic stuff she put in her vagina could poison her too? This life, na wa!

5 Things to Consider Before Becoming a Housewife

I'll use my personal experience here. I wrote about changing careers after marriage and how I had to move from the UK to the US to join Atala. Making that step was not a simple, light-hearted decision, or one that we took for granted. And that was why I said at the beginning of this article that contrary to most other women, I planned to be a housewife.

We had several conversations about the issue, and contemplated several scenarios, which apart from the option of living in the US together, included Atala moving back to the UK, both of us moving back to Nigeria, only me moving back, or remaining in the UK. None made as much sense as the one we finally went with, moving here and being a stay at home wife.

And though we didn't think it would take this long, a stay at home wife is what I've been for the past few years, and that is the easy part. For the stay home mom, the workload increases exponentially with each child. Add child care to the housework, and you may be working round the clock, especially if you decide to home-school the children. So what should you consider before you jump in?

Would you Get a Husband From Your Village?

In a recent interview, a Nigerian musician - Eva Alordiah - expressed her dream to marry a Nigerian man stating, "I am single but not searching. My mother is working on that. She is going to get me a husband from the village. I don’t know how the search is going for her though. I think Nigerian men are fine, we have the best crop of men in Nigeria."

One would immediately assume she must have been joking about the "husband from the village" part, but it's not so far fetched. We have discussed getting husbands and wives from Nigeria on this blog, but taking it a step further by having parents find a "virgin" from the village is exactly what some men and women in Lagos and other cities or outside the country do. The question is, as a woman, would you?

How to Make Moi-Moi and Corned Beef - Eat with Pap

Moi-Moi is one of those meals I forget to cook because I think of it in my head as too difficult to prepare. This is because when growing up, and for a long time after that, we used fresh beans and had to clean it by hand before making moi-moi. When I tried that here the first time, it broke my blender, and since then, my wariness of moi-moi increased. I do cook it once in while a with bean flour, but either the taste doesn't come out the way I want it, or the texture is off.

My mom reminded me of the meal during her last visit, and at our visit to the African store, I bought a pack of the ground bean flour. This one had a recipe and method of preparation on the label and turned out to be the best moi-moi I had prepared in years. I've since bought several packs more of the same kind and moi-moi has more regularly been on the menu.

Kim Kardashian, Nashville and the Divorce Dilemma

When Kim Kardashian split from ex-husband Kris Humphries 72days after their wedding, people started tallying up the shortest celebrity marriages. In a quintessential art-imitates-life episode, Nashville, a show on ABC, had one of the series music stars, Juliette Barnes (Hayden Panettiere) set a new record for the shortest celebrity marriage ever.

Within that one episode, the upcoming star elopes for a quickie registry wedding with her footballer boyfriend, Sean Butler (a Christian who happened to be waiting till marriage to have sex). After she has her way with him in the wedding limo, he wants them to meet his parents, and there, things fell apart. His mother wants a Church Wedding to put God's blessing on the marriage, and within a week, Sean is waiting for Juliette at the altar.

At that point, she couldn't follow through, and still in wedding gown, flies off in her private jet to start a concert tour. And so ends a marriage. Before I go on, let me state that I love Sean, and hope Juliette gets her act together so they resume their cute TV coupledom. Ain't they cute?

A Birth Story, Preeclampsia and Eclampsia

Hmmm..sometimes, pregnancy is just so scary, and when a woman goes through and has a healthy baby, it is really a thing of joy and thanks to God. Downton Abbey is, like any soap worth the name, without its twists. Last night we had one of those shocking episodes that reminded me of Grey's Anatomy, not only in the way it made me cry but also that I went hunting webMD and Wiki. For those who haven't watched it, there may be spoilers ahead.

On Sunday , after the two weddings of the first few episodes, there was a death. Sybil Crawley went into labor, but the joy of having a baby was stifled when the family doctor, Dr. Clarkson, noted that she was suffering from symptoms of preeclampsia - she had swollen ankles, her mind was muddled and there was excess protein in her urine. However, there was a know it all medical man, Sir Philip, who insisted the symptoms were just normal signs of labor.

As they were debating rushing her to the hospital for a cesarean, (her father and Sir Philip preferred a home birth befitting nobility), Sybil goes into labor. She gives birth successfully and there we were thinking it was all over, and was well that ended well. That was not to be.

Sign Fireman Speaks on his Hot Girls in Lagos Poster

I was surprised when the slightly light-hearted post I made last year about Sign Fireman and the Hot Girls in Lagos poster went viral and was published and syndicated by various media outlets. It remains one of the top posts on this blog with the #1 keyword for search, showing that it's an issue on the public mind. Today, this comment below was made on that post by Whitney Chad, who I can only assume is Sign Fireman's PR person. For those in Nigeria, read and see if Mr. Fireman has a point.

"The point is that God sent me to bring Twenty-First Century innovations that will change Christianity and make it have more results! Let me give you an example.

Recently, believers do soulwinning among believers! Churches “wins souls” from another church! That is not soul winning! That is souls transfer! They are fishing in the frying pan! Real soulwinning is reaching out to SINNERS and getting them saved! To do that, one has to go to where sinners are!

Labaran Maku Versus Transparency and Accountability

Former Nigerian Minister, Oby Ezekwesili, who was also at one time "Madame Due Process is stepping up the national conversation. Last weekend, in her remarks during the convocation lecture at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, she accused the Nigerian government of squandering about $45 Billion in foreign reserve account and another $22Billion in the Excess Crude Account left after the last administration. Following the reports of her speech in the press, the Minister of Information, Labaran Maku, accused Mrs. Ezekwesili of misinforming the Nigerian public, insisting she has doesn't have sufficient understanding of government finances.

According to SaharaReporters, "although Maku made these sweeping statements, he did not provide any substance to his attempted rebuttal of Mrs. Ezekwesili, who was briefly the Minister of Education before her departure for the World Bank. But Minister Maku did say of Mrs. Ezekwesili that she “collected” N352.3 billion as Minister of Education, suggesting that Ministerial budgets are normally “collected” by Ministers."

Dear Myne - My Boyfriend Does not Have a Degree

I met this guy of recent early this January. We've just been friends and from all indication he wants to be more than a friend with me. Anytime he is around me he keeps talking about marriage and all. The issue here is that I feel this guy did not attend a higher institution though his English is OK. He is a very nice guy with a good character.

To some extent, one can tell the kind of person a guy is with his relationship with his present family. I have seen him with his family and the way he cares for them. He is the first child with four younger ones. The way he relates with his family shows they are so close. The guy is God fearing.

I have not really had the liver to ask him about school issue, I don't want him to feel bad. There was a time we were talking and I was like for me, I want to go for my PGD this year and then my masters. He didn't say anything towards that so i sensed it and decided not to talk about school with him. I am the sensitive type so I acted sensitively that day by keeping quiet and not talk about school again till when am sure about his own school status.