My Food odyssey Between NC and U.K

My Food Odyssey

I am humbled to be heading to Elon University for the 3rd time on a two-day residency. I am especially thankful to @omolayonkem for a long and productive relationship of mentorship and collaboration that started at Elon. She and her late brother treated me to a special dinner over 5 year ago while they were in town. I have followed Omolayo as she went from Elon to Nigeria as a volunteer, then on to graduate school at SOAS and then to Ireland where she settled with her family.

I am especially thankful for her recommendation for me to speak at SOAS during a World Food Program at SOAS. It was a memorable experience. My experience with the panelists as well as the African students as SOAS was greatly enriching. Yet being in England was very difficult for me. Being around the people there was even more difficult. I couldn't keep my mind from the painful history of my family and the falsehood of what outwardly appeared like a prosperous society. The British colonial rule devastated my family and my country in irreparable ways. Food features prominently in that agony. Whether the role of food has been big or small, I have made a conscious decision to understand that painful relationship through the lense of food.

Abdullah, the Moroccan driver who picked me up from the airport, told me an interesting story of a rich man who was so obsessed with his wealth that he wanted to be buried with all of it. I wanted to stop him midway to as if the person was an Egyptian Pharoah, I held on my question. He looked me and asked me if I knew how the family got around losing their inheritance. I was even in the mood to guess. Abdullah turned back slightly and faced me in the backseat of the Mercedes cab and announced that the family buried the man with the a check of the value of his estate. I felt as though Britain then, and America now are like the man in the story, they want everything for themselves. Indigenious people are being infected with the same disease of valuing objects over life.

Omolayo is my hero for she exemplifies what Africa lost and badly needs: self-love, dedication and excellence. Empires lack that too

Chef Kabui

The Hex Kitchen is a collaboration between Chef Kabui and the Hex community in a bid to promote food literacy, mindful eating and wealth creation. There is a natural connection between those who are fighting against fiat currency and those engaged in the struggle against fiat food. The two social ills of fiat currency and fiat food are at the heart of the tyrannic global world system we are now living in. That tyranny is directly connected to the climate crisis we face and there is no way we can solve one part of the problem without being mindful of the whole system, For a start, the Hex Kitchen is keen on addressing the issues of real money and real food as a basis on regaining our sovereign power. It is no accident that the struggle for food justice would find allies in cryptography and more specifically cryptocurrency. It is not a usual collaboration but yet it is one that makes sense on many levels. Chef Kabui has been studying and applying the power of food literacy, mindful eating and food justice in the struggle against oppression in general and specifically to people of African descent.

Chef Kabui has studied the disciplines of politics, anthropology and culinary arts and has designed a cuisine or rather an approach to food that is informed by the above experience and the indigenous knowledge that he gained from his Kenyan family’s history as sustainable farmers for generations. The combined experience and education resulted in the creation of a cuisine called Afro Futuristic Conscious Cuisine. It is a combination of the most sustainable practices in the growing, preparation of food with the goal of causing the least damage to the environment and maximizing the health benefits of the food. Those two conditions are necessary for a mindful community that ensures that justice thrives.

Chef Kabui has been pushing organic food and healthy eating based on his research and his own experience. The idea of healthy food and justice is not something that chef Kabui got into but was born in it. His family operated a farm and his father ran a restaurant in the capital city of Nairobi. Kabui grew up in the village with his mother where they grew almost all the food they consumed. It was at his family farm that he Kabui developed a love for fresh food and the art of consuming food following the natural cycles of seasons.

The collaboration aims to share the skills for healthy food to the Hex community and beyond. No community can survive without food and the Hex community is no different. The Hex Kitchen is another assembly point for the community to be nourished both physically and socially. While wealth is private, food is social and having a kitchen for the community to assemble is a great option for a community that is causing ripples across the world.

What to Expect

The Kitchen will have virtual classes, content on Youtube and other social media presence for a start. The goal is that the Kitchen will have a physical place that will have a kitchen in a farm that will grown food and have space that guest can visit. The farm will have a demonstration farm for the vegetables, fruits and herbs,

For the schedule of upcoming classes please visit our events section and find a class that is fit for your schedule.