WARNING: For the Jola's, Serahullehs and Serrer reading this, please don't
soak your keyboards. Easy on the Domoda folks!
Read on and pardon me for any unnecessary inconvenience this enticing
reading may have caused.....

-BambaLaye
 ==========================================================================

ONE COOK'S BEST DISH | GAMBIAN PEANUT STEW
Slow and spicy wins the raves
By Jane Dornbusch, Globe Correspondent  |  September 27, 2006

Isatou Jack has worn many hats in her life -- farmer, teacher, and
doctoral student among them -- but her favorite role may be cook. ``I
enjoy cooking," says the 49-year-old native of Gambia. ``I don't find it a
chore; it's therapy. When I'm stressed, I go into the kitchen and create."

On a recent Saturday morning in her Roslindale kitchen, Jack was preparing
domoda, a popular and traditional Gambian dish, as her 15-year-old niece,
Amie Jack, visiting from London, looked on. As Isatou Jack moved
unhurriedly but deliberately around the room, she good-naturedly teased
her niece -- sometimes in English, sometimes in Wolof -- about learning to
cook the food of their country. Domoda, says Jack, is so well loved that
it's ``the first dish Gambian men learn to cook when they travel overseas.
At home they are not domesticated. But it's so easy to cook, all Gambian
men know how to cook domoda."

The dish is essentially a spicy peanut butter sauce used for chicken,
lamb, or fish. Back home, says Jack, dried conch adds a smoky undertone to
the dish; here she substitutes smoked turkey legs and smoked whiting,
which she buys at BJ's Wholesale Club. Hot pepper and lime juice also
enliven the dish. Simple as it is, domoda requires many steps and a long
cooking time; it's not quick weeknight fare. ``In Gambia," says Jack,
``it's all slow food. Women spend a lot of time in the kitchen." Here, she
prepares large batches of her time-intensive cuisine on weekends and
refrigerates or freezes them to serve through the week.

The Republic of the Gambia is a tiny, narrow sliver of a country in West
Africa, with a geographic area that's only about 4,000 square miles. Jack
seems accustomed to meeting Americans who know little about her homeland.
When it's suggested that the country is surrounded on three sides by
Senegal, Jack remarks with a smile, ``We prefer to say we share three
borders with Senegal." The fourth border is seacoast, and Jack has vivid
childhood memories of traveling from her home in the capital city, Banjul,
to visit fishing villages along the coast, watching the boats come in and
sometimes purchasing some of the catch.

``I don't think anything beats Gambian fish," she says a bit wistfully,
recalling the native tilapia. By contrast, she says, tilapia she buys here
``tastes like wood." Fresh fruit and vegetables were also first quality,
she says. Jack should know. After earning her undergraduate degree in
horticulture at the University of Florida, she returned to Gambia to work
as a vegetable farmer and extension-service researcher. Soon, she became
involved in teaching local women how to farm more profitably. ``I moved
from the technical aspects of farming to the social ones," says Jack. ``I
did a lot of work with small farmers."

Along the way, she honed her cooking skills. ``I learned a lot from
watching my mom and practicing. We start at an early age," she says. Her
mother, she says, is a good cook who made a point of passing along her
kitchen wisdom to her daughters.

Later, Jack returned to the United States to earn a doctorate in adult and
extension education from Cornell University, which she has nearly
completed. She's not sure yet where that degree will take her, but at
times she's considered opening a Gambian restaurant in Boston. While the
domoda simmers, she casually prepares a feast that also includes a tart
spinach side dish and perfectly cooked rice. To serve the meal, she
changes into Gambian garb.

It's easy to imagine Jack, with her warm smile and sure hand in the
kitchen, presiding graciously over an eatery of her own. To hear her
speak, it's a role that comes naturally: ``Where I'm from," says Jack,
``the women take pride in how they cook."

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