“We’ve never met, and Odusanya doesn’t know me from her thousands of other fans, but as she explains the proper way to boil kpomo — cow skin — I perk up.” — Elazar Sontag
I felt better, crammed between two wide-shouldered men — both of them well into their third and fourth tequila flights — at the restaurant’s bar. I watched as three cooks stood working hip-to-hip in the open kitchen, flattening golf balls of masa, and laying them on the griddle. I drank something strong and sweet and when my glass was almost empty and there wasn’t much coming through the straw but air, the bartender slid a small glass of mezcal in front of me, eye-openingly smoky.
Four months after that meal at Los Mariscos, as restaurants slowly begin to reopen, I’m not ready to be in anyone’s dining room but my own — the risk imposed on waitstaff and cooks still feels far too high. Instead, I relive these scenes in my head, wondering if I’ll ever go back to a restaurant without mentally measuring the space between me and the next person at the bar.
Cocooned beneath blankets on my couch, shoveling popcorn into my mouth, I listen in rapt silence as she explains from her kitchen that boiling the cow skin will help rid it of its funky aroma. Next, egusi seeds need to be blended before crayfish powder is added to the mixture. But first, Odusanya — or Sisi Yemmie, as she’s known by her fans — peels each melon seed herself.
I walked away from meals like these immensely grateful that a cook, a waiter, a restaurant owner remembered my face, or paused in the rush of incoming orders to wave hello from the kitchen. There was joy in being cooked for that went beyond the immediate satisfaction of a meal being placed in front of me, fully realized. To sit in a familiar restaurant was to be part of a tiny community, a neighborhood hub, a gathering place that remained seemingly unchanged as each season gave way to the next.
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