Food

I Fell in Love With West Africa in Midtown

It was fate after all

My Super Suya Bowl with rich and spicy marinaded chicken (credit: Monica Ray)

It was completely unexpected. I was simply walking, blending into a late morning NYC midtown crowd, when I saw a bunch of officegoers chatting loudly and turning into a building. Being curious, I looked over, and there it was.

So here’s what led up to that moment.

Last year, I was very lucky to have met and worked with students from Mali and Senegal. They were new arrivals in NYC, with zero to limited English, and were placed in a multilingual high school with many new immigrants.

While teaching them English, we exchanged notes on American and West African food. I wrote about that encounter in detail here:

She’s From One of the ‘Stans’, I Think

The students and I looked up pictures like Yassa chicken and Jollof rice. Everything looked colorful, tempting, and delicious. I was seriously starving and drooling as they described their foods with love.

A few months later, I found myself in a market in East London, and I spied a small…