Ngemi Keda

I prepared a beautiful salad made with 9 ingredients in solidarity with the inaugural Ngemi Na Ndũhio Festival as it was taking place . This festival celebrates and invigorates the Agĩkũyũ culture. The recipe is a representative of the Agíkùyù Diaspora and the different ways in which we are influencing our second homes and how we too are influenced by existing in a duality of cultures. My interest has always been the interpretation of that duality through food. The ingredients selected are 9, a very important number in the Agǐkuyu culture on many accounts. But my recipes is geared towards cultural practice of welcoming a newborn at birth, a concept also captured in the first name of the Festival. Whenever a child was born among the Agĩkuyu, the women would welcome the newborn with five ululating 5 times for a boy and 4 times for a girl child. Each ululation had a specific meaning. The boys got one extra ululation for courage as they were the gender that formed the security of the community. The other four ululation represented gift or talent, intelligence, upright character and wealth.

I used nine to represent the combined ululation for both boys and girls to represent a renewal of a nation facing many challenges. One of those challenges is that of food sovereignty. I dedicate much of my time on this issue. I was eager to support this great initiative for many reasons but also to both revisit the recess of my memory and its attendant nostalgia of the oldest keepers of our covenant with our ancestors whom I can remember from my childhood. Amongst those people are my grandparents. I am equally eager to share what we are doing on the ground to heal a sick nation following an elaborate effort by the colonial forces to turn these once proud and politically astute people into creatures of prey to hunted and exploited by foreigners.

At the center of this recipe is pomegranate fruit, accompanied by root vegetables and fruits. The other ingredients are pears, persimmon, rainbow radish, watermelon radish, purple beet root, parsnip and sweet potatoes. Pomegranate is the most influential fruit in the history of man. But I don’t want to get ahead of myself. We will cover that later. If we are to counter the oppressors narrative of an original sin that resulted from the wayward primordial couple eating a fruit, our journey might rightly start by eating organic salad whose ingredients are fit for the gods such as our ancestors and ourselves.

Either way I look at it, the 9 ululations are expression of both the need and the consequences of food justice. Any newborn is a symbol of the continuity of a certain lineage and the presence of peace political and domestic tranquility in the community to allow for the community welcome of a newborn. In other words each ululation must be an affirmation of food sovereignty. That is exactly why the number 9 is a perfect number for ululation as it is highest number that represents energy and constancy. If the sum of any number multiplied by 9 ends up being 9, food too is a constant in our existence.

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.