Its amazing how we sometimes call ourselves food enthusiast while there is sooo much out there that we have not tried or are not even willing to try. I find that as Kenyans we live in our own little box of food. We have fixed notions of what food is. To us food is rice, ugali, chapati, mukimo served with meat (chicken, beef and fish ) and sukuma wiki, spinach, cabbage and our local veggies. Rice should either be white or a pilau and if you’re a kikuyu like me you can mix everything including the kitchen sink into your rice or stew. Beef and chicken in stewed. And most of us rarely leave this box.

This box annoys me. I have called people over to my place here for tea and later the boys later go and say I made them “magic” WTH magic in this sense being mini pies, German style pancakes, churros etc just because I did not serve tea with bread and mandazi everything else is “magic” I know they mean it on a light note though. I also made my brothers a bacon and cheese burger (where everything in the burger not on the burger, ill post the recipe soon) and can you imagine what one little bugger called Nyaga said “Aaaiih Wangeci mimi nimezoea burger halafu bacon na cheese juu” ( I am used to having the burger with the bacon and cheese on top) AAAARRRRRG I was so upset but the annoying young man went ahead to eat 3!!

Anyway long stories aside, I am in that kind of box too. Just that my box is for extreme foods. And its not that I won’t eat them it’s just that I am scared of trying them eg snails, frogs, snakes. A few years ago though had I known that Calamari was actually cut up squid I probably would never have tasted it off my girl’s Waringa’s plate. A fish with tentacles is not anything I’d ever imagined I would love, actually it took me a while to get of my box on my hate for seafood. But I’m sure glad I did. I love calamari, it takes the flavour of whatever you put in it. I hope you will love this recipe as much as I do.