Bake Around the World; Write in the Kitchen: Gabon, Beignets and Book Proposals

This year, I am endeavoring on a monthly challenge to bake around the world; write in the kitchen. The idea is inspired by Erin, my friend and author of The Footprint blog who participated in a cooking challenge for every country. Each month, I will randomly select a country and make a vegan version of a traditional dessert from that nation. And, each month, I will put intentional time into writing at least one non-Smile Project related piece. I look forward to expanding my confectionary acumen and baking around the world. And I look forward to sitting closer to home, writing for myself.  

I was laying on the sofa in my apartment when I typed “random country generator” into Safari. Why not? Gabon.

Gabon is located on the west coast of Africa and is bordered by Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon to the north and Republic of the Congo to the east and south. (The Atlantic Ocean sits to its west.) In the late 1800s, France occupied Gabon and in 1910, Gabon became a territory of French Equatorial Africa. On August 17, 1960, Gabon became an independent nation. Because of this, French culture is prominent throughout the country. (Source: Brittanica.)

My knowledge of Gabon prior to it appearing in my country generator was the capital (Libreville), its location on a map, and maybe, on a good day, the flag (I’ve been studying!). I knew I’d have to do some digging to learn a bit about the food of the country. According to WorldTravelGuide.net, “Gabonese food is a distinctive and delicious blend of traditional African ingredients and French flavors… Having maintained strong links with France since independence, French staples such as croissants and baguettes can be found in the cities.”

I next searched “Gabon traditional desserts” and two things kept coming up—baked or fried bananas and African beignets. 

I’ve had beignets three times in my life—once with my friend at Cafe Du Monde in New Orleans (pre-vegan) and twice at a now defunct Cajun restaurant in New York that, miracle of miracles, sold vegan beignets. I’ve never made them nor am I a huge fan of deep frying. But beignets sounded more exciting to me than baked bananas so off I went to find a recipe.

Enter Polka Dot Passport. I found a recipe for African Beignets from Gabon. The recipe wasn’t vegan so I subbed out cow’s milk for soy milk, dairy butter for vegan butter, and egg for some Just Egg egg replacement. On that sleepy Saturday morning, I whipped together some dough and then plopped on my sofa for an hour of reading and relaxing while the dough rose. 

When it was time to roll out the dough and cut into the beignet rectangles, it was super easy to work with and I was so pleasantly surprised by how few dirty dishes I was creating. The beignets are deep fried and my one note (as someone who doesn’t historically love deep fried things) would be to see if I could make them in the air fryer next time. 

When I dusted them with powdered sugar and called my partner in to try some, the warm dough soaking up the sugar, the puffy pastry scent filling our apartment, I felt something akin to divinity. 

But of course, Bake Around the World; Write in the Kitchen is not solely about baking. There’s a writing component. After I polished off my serving of beignets, I grabbed my things and headed to QED Astoria, an amazing community space that serves as a performance venue, education center, and cafe offering shows and classes in comedy, dance, art, and more. The founder, Kambri Crews is the author of Burn Down the Ground: A Memoir and she was hosting a class on nonfiction proposal writing. 

After the class was one of their usual “Shut Up and Write” sessions and so I did just that. I started a new document on my computer dedicated to the “Writing in the Kitchen” part of this challenge. I’m going to continue to polish up my January fiction piece about Margaret and Margo for the rest of these January days and then I’m going to write something new in February. And I don’t immediately know what I’ll do with them but even if they never leave the Google doc, I’m working out my writing brain in new ways. And I can already feel the benefits. 

January: to beignets and book proposals. 

Picture taken after we'd demolished many, many beignets. These are the leftovers.