#missyandthebuffet

Lunchtime. Missy pays for her food, proceeds to pick a plate while remarking about its size. That today it is small. Anyway …

First dish is matooke. “Put a ka-little… ahah that is too much, sooka you remove this.”
That done, she sashays onto the next dish.
Just then she notices a ka-string of ndagala peeping from the matooke mound.
She barges into the person behind her to tell the server to remove it.
Server meanwhile is in the middle of serving that next person.

With the piece of annoying ndagala removed, Missy takes two generous helpings of rice while commenting loudly to the server, “Naye, why didn’t you cook brown rice, y’know the one which is fried, the one which is like pilau? Like what you cooked on Friday, you remember?”
Server doesn't say anything.

Next dish is posho and in the other platter is a variety of tubers - lumonde, cassava, arrowroot.
Miss Choosy lives up to her name. “Oba what can I eat? Hmmm…. hmmmm….”
Meanwhile, she is holding up the line, at least three people behind her have had their serving of matooke and don’t want it to go cold.
She turns to the guy behind her. “Wamma, ndye ki?”
The guy (and here, I have to bow to him) tells her to take lumonde and mayuni because cassava will make her sleep. She lets out a silly giggle and pokes into the food.

Moving on - to the serving platters containing groundnut sauce and fresh beans.
Another war in her head begins, “Groundnut sauce… but nga it doesn’t look ready. She scoops a spoonful and brings it close to her nose. “But I think it doesn’t smell that bad. Let me take some.” Generous pouring over the minuscule mound of matooke.
Very soon, we are the witnesses of another internal argument about the beans. “Fresh or dry? Wamma Chef, you come here. (BTW this is the same person serving the matooke).
(Now elevated to) Chef is visibly irritated and so are the hungrier people in the queue. Audible sneers and jeers, yours truly inclusive.
Someone orders chef not to move and to continue with what brought her to the serving table in the first place.
Miss Choosy decides against the beans, her nose in the air.

Next - a choice between boiled goat stew and a heavily spiced beef mix.
Another battle in the mind.
Silly smile pasted on, she seeks advice from her longs-suffering colleague, “Eheh! Casper, tulye ki? Wamma, you come and tell me.
All the while she is spooning through the boiled goat stew, fishing for the hugest chunk of meat.
And when it is finally located, “Casper, I think the goat is the thing.”
Meanwhile, she is spilling boiled goat stew all over the thick beef stew and muttering to herself.

The line has grown to nearly 15 hungry, and angry individuals. This woman could soon be boxed.
Casper, probably sensing trouble, gently pokes her in the back as a signal to hurry.
She quickly spoons some thick beef soup onto the already packed plate.

I fear she is about to ask about the missing greens and extol us with their health benefits.... But thankfully, she doesn't.

Finally to the oh-so-glorious deep-fried chicken.
There will be no debate about this one.
She pokes about the dish, discarding a measly looking wing, a not-so-meaty thigh, and finally emerges with an extra fleshy breast.

Next - Fork, knife, serviette.

Then… a lightbulb moment. “A second piece of chicken wouldn’t hurt!”

Unwrapping the serviette for the fork, she swiftly returns to the chicken platter which her colleague is attacking with the same gusto.
She digs it into the previously discarded thigh.

But as she moves to find a seat, a matter which has elicited another loud debate (from her), the thigh slips off the plate and bounces to the floor.