Cooking interviews

Rojo Gardiner

· How did you learn to cook?

I have mainly learnt how to cook by watching and helping my mother in the kitchen. My mother never really follows a recipe, so it is sometimes hard to ask to remake some dishes exactly the same, but I do love my mother’s cooking. Our dishes vary from pasta dishes to curries and good Malagasy food. Since we have grown up in many countries, I am lucky to have had the chance to try dishes from nearly all over the world.

· What do you love the most about cooking?

I used to bake a lot when I had time and I enjoy cooking I find it quite relaxing. Often when I had a bad day and I needed to get my emotions out, baking a cake such as a good apple crumble would be my favorite thing to make. Although I am not such a sweet tooth person, I loved seeing my brothers and sister gobbling the crumble in one day!

I enjoy mixing spices and seasoning a dish, I also like to help a lot others and working together to make a nice meal or a cake with my children really strengthens our bond and time together.

Cooking demands a lot of patience and lots of creativity, I feel it is important to start young and today I try to spend some time with my daughters cooking. I love to try recreating a dish that I liked as I feel it is a real challenge and satisfying when it turns out well. If it does not turn out well, try again and again! You can always give it a twist too and it becomes “your family favorite”!

· What is your favorite dish and some recipes?

I enjoy a good Tiramisu. We grew up going a lot to Italian restaurants and I liked to always try their Tiramisu-some are not as smoothy, one can really tell the difference between a good homemade Tiramisu to one commercial one. I have tried to imitate a Tiramisu; you need to beat a lot of eggs!

One of my favorite dishes is a good Malagasy chicken soup. We always had this chicken soup after coming back from a long trip (either a road trip or a flight) and it just makes us feel at home. It is nothing fancy but the smell and taste of ginger with the chicken is just soothing and of course a good bowl of rice. Malagasy eat a lot of rice!

We eat rice three times a day if we can. Often in the morning, we make red rice it is quite watery, and we eat it with any left-over meat/chicken or with fried dried little fish called “Pirina”. The smell of the fish is quite strong but so good and comforting!

A good Malagasy dish is Vary Amin'Anana. It is rice with ginger, garlic and greens(spinach and watercress) and with Masikita or Kitosy which is beef grilled on charcoal. You have to leave the meat in the sun for a while, so it becomes tender, cut it into strips and then season it with salt, pepper and garlic. Then cook it on charcoal or with cooking oil.

As you can see Malagasy cooking is quite simple and that is the wonder of cooking it can be so simple but if you have the right ingredients it turns out great!

Finally, I love curries and spicy food, one of my favourites is Ethiopian food. Doro Wat is the national dish of Ethiopia and one of the most famous of all African dishes – it’s fabulous! Doro Wat is served with an Ethiopian flatbread called injera. It’s kind of a spongy pancake made with teff flour. The best part is sharing a whole big plate with everyone and just digging it with your hands. I enjoy eating with my hands and probably why I love Indian and African cooking too. There are so many dishes I enjoy, from a good prawn curry dish to simple porridge with honey. I try to not be picky. I think it is important to try a national dish when you travel and so grateful as I suppose some of our favourite moments happen around food with those we love.

André Lopes

· How did you learn to cook?

My mom taught me most. Then when I started living alone, I began experimenting and trying (and burnt a lot of food ). My sister also gave me some cookbooks and whenever I am not sure of something, I call my mom or see some YouTube videos too. I also see some cooking shows on tv to try and learn some different things

· What do you love the most about cooking?

I specially like cooking for others. I also like the sense of accomplishing something and being surprised when it actually tastes good

· What is your favorite dish?

Some of my favourite dishes are Pica no Chão (also known as Frango Cabidela), Arroz de Marisco e Tamboril; Pizza, Picanha, Prawn Curry; Tuna Steak, Tacos, …. I could go on forever – guess I love food