Yewande Komolafe in conversation with George McCalman • My Everyday Lagos: Nigerian Cooking at Home and in the Diaspora

Yewande Komolafe is a Berlin-born, Lagos-raised food writer, recipe developer, and food stylist based in Brooklyn. Her professional career began as a pastry cook in classic French pastry kitchens. She moved on to work in fine dining restaurants in Atlanta and New York, where she was one of the first employees of Momofuku Milk Bar. Yewande’s writing and recipes have appeared in the New York Times, Whetstone, Food & Wine, Munchies, and the books Sheetpan Chicken by Cathy Erway for TASTE and Lindsay Gardner’s Why We Cook. Yewande has also appeared on a James Beard Award–nominated episode of The Sporkful, WNYC’s All of It with Alison Stewart, and Milk Street Radio with Christopher Kimball.

George McCalman, our moderator, is an artist, creative director and Co-Principal of McCalman Co. His background in the editorial world is a foundation of his storytelling, and his fine art practice has reframed his perspective on the importance of design. A culture columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, McCalman’s first book Illustrated Black History: Honoring the Iconic and the Unseen won the 2023 NAACP Award for Outstanding Literary Work as well as profound accolades by The New Yorker’s Hilton Als, NPR, New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Fast Company and many others.

My Everyday Lagos - The city of Lagos, Nigeria, is a key part of a larger conversation about West African cuisine and its influences throughout the world. My Everyday Lagos consists of 75 dishes that are all served in Komolafe's fast-paced, ever-changing home city of Lagos. These recipes reflect the regional cooking of the country and reveal two complementary qualities of Nigerian cuisine—its singularity and accessibility. Along the way, through informative essays that place ingredients in historical context, Yewande explains how in a country where dozens of ethnic groups interact, a cuisine has developed that transcends tribal boundaries. To those in the African diaspora, this book highlights food that may have been adapted and integrated into the cuisines of the places they live. The recipes, including classics like Jollof Rice, Puff Puff, and Groundnut Stew, are a starting point for the home cook, allowing them to trust the ingredients and achieve the variety of textures and flavors Nigerian food is known for.