All About Nim’s Din’s Presents…. Cham Cham Supper Club

Beyond wanting to share my recipes with you, along with reviews and pictures of what I’m stuffing my face with, I love cook for people.

Over the years I have always been encouraged by people to start up my own catering business.  Even when I was in sixth form, studying Food Science (which I sucked at), a friend and I had talked about running our own food business.  We named it Japfra – it was meant to be a fusion of Japanese and African cuisine – we never got past creating a name for the company but maybe we should have pursued our dream.  Who knows, we could be giving the likes of Sushi Samba and Chotto Matte a run for their money!

A couple of years after completing my degree in Hospitality Management with Culinary Arts I moved away from working in the catering industry. However I continued being obsessed with food, always reading about the newest restaurant, stall or pop up and adding it to my ongoing, long list of ‘places to eat & drink’.

I only ever took the opportunity to cook for friends and family but I finally bit the bullet  when taking on a job to cater for 50 people at a christening.  This reignited my passion for wanting to go back into the catering industry and I began noting down business ideas and attended a Guardian master class on food start-ups.

One of my ideas led me back to the idea of cooking West African food.   In particular cooking Sierra Leonean and Liberian food I had grown up eating and watching my Mama and Aunts cook over the years.   Like many cultures, Salone (Krio for Sierra-Leonean) and Liberian life centres around food – there the market life and street food, and then the many family gatherings to attend. My friends can tell you the about legendary parties my Salone family have thrown where food is in such great abundance that there is always ‘takahway’ for whoever wants to take a selection of fine, flavoursome food away with them!

With the Ebola crisis escalating at such a fast pace I thought there was no better time to start a Salone and Liberian supper club and help in whatever way I could by donating part of the ticket sales from some of the supper clubs to an Ebola charity.

The supper club runs once a month (sometimes at my home or at a pop up venue), giving guests the opportunity to taste a variety of delicious food and drinks from the West African countries of Liberia and Sierra Leone. You’ll have the opportunity to discover how the dishes are prepared, the meaning behind the name of the dishes and the tradition around when and why some dishes are served at a meal or gathering in Salone and Liberia.

I look forward to meeting you at one of my supper clubs where a different menu is served each time!

xxx

 “If I haven’t eaten rice today, I haven’t eaten anything” – Famous Sierra Leonean saying

 Email me at nimsdin@gmail.com if you have any questions.