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Princess BASHIRAH BUSOLA GIWA, CEO, LADHIDH Kitchen
Her name is Bashirah Busola Giwa. She is the CEO of Ladhidh Kitchen. She is also an event planner. She is an Entrepreneur, a writer and a philanthropist. She is also a mother, a self-taught chef, a culinary teacher, and a hospitality and tourism business consultant who has developed proven business models for top hotels and restaurants all around Nigeria. She has a degree in Chemistry from the University of Ilorin, an award degree in food safety from AOSH UK, and a post graduate degree in hospitality and tourism management. She has lots of certificates from different courses Environmental management training certification from kwara state university. My passion for food safety development and hospitality development flows through in my culinary, coporate teaching, food catering and hospitality business and extended to the birth of “MY LITTLE COOKERY BOOK”, which is intended as a guide on basic cooking skills for both kids and passionate adults. City People Online Reporter, Olusola Abiodun recently interviewed her, based on her newly launched book. And she talked about what parents of this day can do to teach their children how to cook. Below are the excerpts of the interview.
Tell us what you do…
Princess Bashirah Busola Giwa is a Chef, a Hospitality and Tourism Consultant. And an Author.
What prompted you to write your book “My Little Cookery Book”?
I had a lot of things in mind that inspired the book; my children, nieces and nephews always ask me questions while cooking and they always beg me to teach them things in the kitchen. Another thing is that I want to teach people how to find their ways around the kitchen, and teach them what they did not know about kitchen safety rules. Because there are some mothers who send their children out of the kitchen fearing they may get hurt. But if they know the rules, they won’t get hurt. And also, those that do not know what most of the kitchen utensils are called, that’s the reason I introduced “MY LITTLE COOKERY BOOK” for them to have basic knowledge of the kitchen, kitchen safety rules, and the names the kitchen utensils are normally called.
Why did you target the young ones on how to cook and is not gender based?
Cooking is never gender based . I started young and I believe in the saying “CATCH THEM YOUNG” I started baking at the age of 6 and my children started making food for themselves at their early age. I believe children should be introduced to the kitchen at their early age in other to know who will have interest in it as a profession like being a Chef, a nutritionist and who will love to belong to the culinary industry.
At what point did the urge to go into commercial cooking start?
Actually, I read Chemistry in the university, I wanted to be a Doctor. Because of JAMB my father advised that I should not continue to write JAMB just because I wanted to be a doctor so he said that I should go for another course so I went for Chemistry. Now I have a B.Sc in Chemistry. As time went by I opened a company where we were importing computer hardwares and softwares and were doing internet connection for people, as well as installation of systems and cameras. Something happened along the line and I had to quit the business. So I went into culinary.
When I was 8 my sister was getting married we baked all her 27 cakes together. Anybody that wants to get married in our family we always bake the cake at home. From there I picked interest in culinary. I started to be pastery chef. I am a person that loves reading a lot and my mom has a lot of recipe books, cooking books, home and nutrition books at home so I started training myself on how to cook everything in the book. May God bless my father’s soul in heaven, my father supported me, anytime I wanted to cook anything and we didn’t have the ingredients at home and I should show him the thing I would love to cook, he would asked how much I needed to buy the ingredients and I would tell him, immediately he would give me the money to get those items from the market to make the food. My father was the person that used to taste my food. So I think my father loved me so much, he wouldn’t tell me if the food was good or not. I will cook for my family and send some to my friends to get an honest review of it. Then I started making pastery as a business, I started selling pasteries to people, hospitals, schools, because it has become my passion. I love baking, that’s how I started this career.
Being a Chef, what other ways can someone get to have good knowledge on how to cook as a boarding school student?
The culinary industry always believe one thing, that if you can read, you can cook. There are lots of recipe online that you can google, you can join the community of people that cook and drop their recipe and from there, you can know how to cook. If you want to cook watch videos, go on YouTube, go on Instagram, you will see people posting recipe of food and how to make it. But you should be careful of what you are putting together make sure whatever you are putting together makes sense, because you will see people online combining things and if we are not careful we would learn the wrong things. The way people are blending different things together online is outrageous and alarming. Everybody is blending anything and is not done that way. There are some things that if you get them wrong everything is wasted because it is meant to be done in a certain way.
What are the challenges you face as a Chef?
There are lots of challenges that we face as Chefs. You have to be careful for people not to eat poisoned food. You want to make sure you make a perfect food. It is not easy, for instance I’m just going home at 11th hour of the night, compared to people that are not Chefs they may be sleeping now unlike me that is just going home. It is not easy being a chef, you need to have passion for it. Feeding people, you need to put a lot of planning and perfection when it comes to the profession called chef. That’s part of the challenges of being a chef.
When was your breakthrough as a Chef?
I don’t really remember when I had a breakthrough, I’ve always been consistent. Whether I have customers or not, I have always been consistent. I may not document it by posting online, but it is something I always do. People around can testify to that. My consistentcy is showing people what I can do and how best I can do it had endeared me to the heart of many.
I have gotten to a level in my career that I do not beg people to patronize me, I do not give discount unnecessarily. I always tell people that “ BETTER SOUP NA MONEY KILL AM”. if you want the best, you need to be able to pay for the best. That means that you should pay us well and we will deliver the best to you.
You have a culinary school; how did it start and when (year)?
I started a culinary school in 2009, I closed it down when I divorced my first marriage but later I started again. What I started now is the culinary training, it is the normal culinary school type. The training is on site training, whether an establishment employs me to upgrade their menu and train their staff or a person that wants to become a chef comes and work with me and understudy me and I train them till I can certified them to cook for people. I get them a job or send them somewhere to go and work.
What advice will you give to parents who send their children to boarding schools and what method can they use to teach them how to cook?
I am a product of boarding house, I was in the boarding house in my primary and secondary school days. Although, I did not finish as a boarding house student. With children in boarding house, whenever they are on holidays they could join summer culinary school or training and if they buy my book “MY LITTLE COOKERY BOOK” they can practice what is in the book during their holidays. The fact that a child is in boarding house school doesn’t mean he/she can not learn how to cook. The child that went to boarding house will definitely come home during the holidays. So they can train them to cook and do house chores when they are at home on holidays.
What can parents do for a child that doesn’t have interest in cooking?
If a child does not have interest in cooking, let them be left alone but if she is a female child let them be forced. Yes we said the kitchen is not gender based because there are lots of male chefs in town that are making waves. But it’s a must for a woman to know how to cook. Because a woman will become a mother and the only way a mother nurtures her child is to feed her child. So, if the child is a girl, she must be forced to go into the kitchen to know the basic cooking technics. They may not be Chefs, they may not be culinary experts but at least they should know how to do basic things in the kitchen. And remember the saying that the only way to a man’s heart is food so it’s a must for a female child to know how to cook.
What other means are you looking at to reach more parents and children on how to cook and know basics things to be done in the kitchen?
I’m trying to seek partnership with large bodies, and politicians that can buy the books in bulk and share for free. The book is not expensive. We are looking for people that can partner with schools and encourage them to put it in their curriculum, it’s a vocational book. That is what we are working towards right now.