Culinary Correctness: Jerry's Place Restaurant

"Have you been to Jerry's Place yet?"

"What's that?"

"Oh, you mean you don't know and haven't heard about it?"

"No, I haven't! What's that, and what are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the latest Nigerian joint in town. There, the food is great and you will love it. You will be glad you did.

"Oh yea'?"

"Oh yeah, man!"

"Hmmmmm, so, where is this new restaurant located? Is it around my neck of the woods?"

"Yeah man, in Hawthorne!"

"Where in Hawthorne? I know the one on Imperial and Hawthorne Boulevard run by the Cameroonian lady had been out of business a while ago. So, which one, and where exactly in Hawthorne?"

"It's 'past' the one on Imperial and Hawthorne, all the way past the police station, on the corner of El Segundo and Hawthorne Boulevard."

"That use to be my hood until the spooky bad cop image Hawthorne Police began their tussle with civil society to raise money by all means for a desperate, broke, City of Hawthorne, remember?"

"Yeah, long time ago, I remember."

"So, you want us to go there now, on your tab?"

"No, I'm busy, maybe next time."

"No wahala! Nothing spoil!"

"I'll let you know when I'm ready."

"Ok now, we go holla!"

That was the 'kinda' chit-chat I had on the phone with structural designer, Ben Tokumbo Obafunwa, who had in the past called me all sorts of names when I criticized the horrible services of Ronke Bernadette's Lagos Cafe.

A couple of days after our chit-chat on Jerry's Place, Obafunwa called me again to find out if I had stopped by the newly arrived Nigerian eatery in Greater Los Angeles everybody is talking about:

"You don go the place?"

"Which place?"

"The place wey I bin tell you naw."

"Nooooo, u know say na money now for dis kain economy wey don dabaru kpatakpata!"

"Ah, you wey be baba nla."

"I see say you won begin run your mouth again! Basket mouth!"

"Ah, make man no talk o before you begin your wahala."

"Ok now, we go yan!"

It was like a must that I should visit Jerry's Place even though for some reason -- doctor's warning of high cholesterol, greasy Nigerian dishes -- that my intake of anu ewu, goat meat, nkwobi and all that ngwongwo stuff be limited. But 'man must wack,' you know! Also, there was no mention of a do-nothing, jumbled and bellicose Nd'House of Los Angeles gathering in this new eatery, which showed an indication of originality.

However, as it happened, and for a new eatery much had been said and talked about, I made up my mind to check it out. Not much of a drive though, and placing my order of okra soup, midly spiced, coupled with mixed meat and a bowl of pounded yam, I called Obafunwa to join me, on my tab, at Jerry's Place. Obafunwa ordered olugbo soup, bitter leaf and a variety of meat with dried fish and said "I will be there shortly." He arrived in about twenty-five minutes and his food was ready. Mine, too, was in order as justice was done the normal way -- eating with our fingers and swallowing the pounded yam, orishirishi soup pasted. It's tasty, Obafunwa would say, and I would agree.

Jerry's Place Restaurant, located at 12631 Hawthorne Boulevard in the City of Hawthorne, is run by Nnobi, Nigerian-born Geraldine Chinwe Okafor. Growing up in Uruala where she attended secondary school, she was friendly, showing an element of dignity on how to operate an effective and efficient eatery by way of engaging her customers into relative discussion, knowing who they are, and getting to ask questions about her service.

On my second visit, I had called and ordered a combination of okra and egusi soup to be swallowed with cooked, ground oat flour. "Your food will be ready in twenty minutes," she said. I arrived on time and my food was ready. Without a doubt, I liked the food and service, which is what I had looked for in a typical African-related restaurant, excellent customer relations. Practically, customers were trooping in picking up their orders of rice and stew, Jollof rice, fried akara, olugbo soup, porridged yam, ogbono soup, cooked, sliced cassava roots, what we Nd'Igbo call akpunkoro or abacha depending on dialect, and other varieties of menu too numerous to mention.

So far, Ms. Okafor, owner of Jerry's Place Restaurant is not doing badly, and for a start-up, and in these hard times, a B+ in my assessment.

Jerry's Place Fine African Cuisine is open from Monday to Saturday and closed on Sundays. For contact:

Jerry's Place Fine African Cuisine
12633 Hawthorne Boulevard
Hawthorne, CA 90250
Tel: 310-970-0411
Fax: 310-970-0042
email: jerryplace13@yahoo.com

Rapper Yo-Yo and the Million Marijuana March

Rapper Yo-Yo being interviewed by one of the leading advocates for marijuana.


Rapper Yo-Yo signs autographs as the event unfolds.


Yo-Yo and a cast of marijuana advocates poses for the camera.


Anambra State-Nigeria-born Chi Chi performing one of her favorite tunes "Chukwu Nyere Anyi Aka" to wrap up the event.


An advocate wearing the Home Grown T-shirt and a performer on stage.


Kelly Love Jones holds her baby while entertaining the crowd as the cameraman takes his shots aground the stage.


Los Angeles, CA -- Saturday, May 08, 2010: It wasn't like the 2010 Playboy Jazz Festival Community Event Series I had attended a week earlier at the Beverly Hills Civic Center Plaza, on Rexford Drive and Santa Monica Boulevard, which featured the Grammy-award winning pianist Ben Cunliffe and his Septet, or the swinging big band vibes of Johnny Crawford and his Orchestra, courtesy of Resonance Records.

It was the "Million Marijuana March" held on the grounds of the historical Leimert Park with an amazing crowd. Female rapper and hip-hop artist, Yo-Yo was around. Born Yolanda Whittaker, who back in the early 1990s exploded in Ice Cube's single "Amerikkka's Most Wanted" and a year later with her own debut album "Make Way For The Motherlobe" and the smash hit single "you Can't Play With My Yo-Yo?" featuring Cube, was obviously the center of attraction in an event of its own kind.

Chants of legalizing marijuana was in the air as in Peter Tosh' "Legalize It":

Legalize it; don't criticize it
legalize it, yeah, yeah
and I will advertize it

Some call it tampee
some call the weed
some call it marijuana
some of them call it ganja

it's good for the flu
it's good for asthma
it's good for tuberculosis
even umara composis;

And the music, too, was loud with a legendary Bob Marley's vibe:

One love! One heart
Let's get together and feel alright
Hear the children crying' (one love)
Hear the children crying' (one heart)
Saying give thanks and praise to the Lord
And I will feel alright
Saying let's get together and feel alright
Wo wo-wo wo-wo

Let them all pass their dirty remarks (One love)
There is one question I'd really love to ask (One Heart)
Is there a place for the hopeless sinner
Who hurt mankind just to save his own beliefs
One love! what about one heart? (one heart)
What about - ? let's get together and feel alright
As it was in the beginning (one love)
So shall it be in the end (one heart)...

Nevertheless, what mattered was the stuff that Rapper Yo-Yo does -- giving back to the community where she was raised with her youth foundation, "Let Your Light Shine Youth Foundation" along with Lana Moore. And my credo on that, is, by her foundation mentoring, educating and engaging in all kinds of social programs by way of providing positive influences to the youths of today.

Yo-Yo has worked alongside producers and artists in the likes of Missy Elliot, Keri Hilson, DJ Quik, Ceelo, DJ Toomp, Eric Sermon, The Lab Rats, Raheem Davon, among others. Also, her acting career sprang from the 1991 film "Boyz N The Hood" to "Menace II Society," etc.

So you go girl! It was all good!

Hoha! (Pointblank): The Talkingheads on South Africa 2010

"I'm more of a realist. I don't think it will happen in 2010, but it will be something special if an African nation can win it because it's on the continent. I think if it was somewhere in west Africa, with the heat, then you could have said an African nation could win. But in South Africa it will be winter, so it will be more in the favour of the Europeans."

-------Steven Pienaar, South Africa/Everton midfielder predicting with certainty no African team will win the World Cup that begins next month when asked if he thought an African team could win the World Cup


"I think we can go far. Why not? First, it is imperative to go through the group stage. We need to concentrate on this target. We have three matches. First we need a win, and then a draw. This can send us through. Seriously, I think we will go through the group stage. Afterwards, I don't know how far we can progress."

-------Kafoumba Coulibay, OGC Nice/Ivory Coast midfielder when asked by Goal.com on how far he thought Ivory Coast will progress in the World Cup.



"The beautiful game in High Definition is truly a remarkable thing to see. Any football enthusiast will tell you the difference between standard definition and HD is night and day. World Cup 2006 was the first to be shown in HD, but it was rare. It was far less common for someone to own an HD television than it is now as they were more expensive and people had yet to see a need. HD programming was not yet easily available to everyone, let alone on ESPN. It was more common on the networks, which is why World Cup 2006 games being seen in HD were mostly on ABC . HD was still in the beginning stages just four years ago."

-------Jake Islas, European Premier League (EPL) Talk podcaster on one of his five reasons why South Africa 2010 World Cup will be the best tournament.


Ever since we first bid for the World Cup, this is a road we have travelled. There have been doomsayers, but we have so far proved those people wrong and we will prove them wrong again.
From the moment Nelson Mandela walked out of prison, this country was written off. But we have struggled hard. You cannot determine your lives by having people say, 'You cannot do this'. Because if we were to have taken that position, I would still be living under apartheid. There is only mild hyperbole in this invoking of history. The World Cup is a massive chapter in the development of the democratic South Africa, an event of infinitely greater significance to its hosts than to Germany in 2006 or to France in 1998. And it will continue to have its doomsayers, but you can only hope that in 49 days they are wrong."

-------Danny Jordaan, Chief Executive of South Africa 2010 on the critics and his organizing committee about the World Cup.

Photo-Up: World Cup Update

Didier Drogba (Chelsea/Ivory Coast) and Christiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid/Portugal) covers the June issue of Vanity Fair Magazine.


Sulley Muntari (Inter Milan/Ghana) and Samuel Eto'O (Inter Milan/Cameroon) pose for Annie Leibovitz of Vanity Fair Magazine in June 2010 issue.


I'm not sure why as a die harder and one who has in-depth passion for the sport from childhood not to have made any commentary on the world's most watched sport, all along. But like the saying goes, "nothing spoil," and I will be definitely popping up with some detailed analysis. So stay tuned!

Nigerian Jungle Blues and Sunday Cartoons

The ACF, Sunday Vanguard can also reveal, is insisting that the zoning arrangement of the PDP is a sure panacea for the evolution of equity in the country. A source in the party’s Board of Trustees, BoT, told Sunday Vanguard that “what we are hearing is that the Acting President wants to contest the presidential election of next year and it is dividing the party....MORE @ VANGUARD


SOURCE: GUARDIAN


SOURCE: SUNDAY TRUST


SOURCE: SUN NEWS ONLINE

2010 Time's 100 Most Influential People

It's no surprise that the leader of the free world, my man, President Barack Obama was the opening shot of Time's 2010 100 most influential people in what dramatically is changing the world and how close, as the world becomes smaller and smaller with a fast-paced technology. Clearly, David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker and author of The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama points it out simply about the man who made history and have influenced us that "we can" under any circumstances. Remnick writes;

"When Barack Obama was still in his 20s and ran for the presidency of the Harvard Law Review, he won not least because he was able to attract conservatives as well as liberals. His capacity to project a receptive political personality attracted students who, although they saw themselves as ideological opponents, thought they could get a fair hearing from him. That habit of mind, which Obama made so conspicuous in the 2008 campaign, came up hard against the realities of U.S. politics as they are lived in the furious here and the partisan now."

Time's 100 list in "the people who most affect our world" has people from all walks of life which is quite fascinating. The list includes "Bad Boy" Bill Clinton, J.T. Wang, Don Bloom, Didier Drogba, my girl Liya Kebede, Prince, Lady Gaga, Oprah Winfrey, Lea Michele, Elton John, David Chang, James Cameron, Zaha Hadid, Atul Gamande, Victor Pinchuk, Lee Kuan Yew, Deborah Gist, Lisa Jackson, Sonia Sotomayor; among others. Interestingly, social networking made the list which brings to the fore the powerful effect of Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo and all the numerous networking families.



David Remnick on President Barack Obama


Humanitarian and Rock icon Bono on Bad Boy Bill


Tom Ford on My girl, Liya Kebede


Phil Donahue on Oprah Winfrey


Ebel Harrell on soccer maestro Didier Drogba


Jeff Koons on Steve Jobs


Nate Silver on "Social Networking Influence Index"


Billie Jean King on Serena Williams


Robert De Niro on Ben Stiller's amazing charity work in Haiti


Tom Dascchle on Atul Gawande

Nigerian Jungle Blues and Tuesday Cartoons

Palpable tension has gripped the House of Representatives, over plot to remove the Speaker, Dimeji Bankole. Bankole is among some notable Nigerians including no fewer than five governors who are currently stranded in Europe due to the volcanic ash, which led to cancellation of flights.
As members of the Nigeria First Forum (NFF) who are pushing for Bankole’s removal confirmed the plot and the scheduling of a meeting for last night to fine-tune their strategies, there is uncertainty over whether the House, which had been on Easter vacation would sit today... MORE @ SUN NEWS ONLINE


SOURCE: DAILY TRUST


SOURCE: SUN NEWS ONLINE


SOURCE: GUARDIAN

WE ARE INCUBATING LEIMERT PARK VILLAGE, SAYS BEN R. CALDWELL

I had watched on Saturday evening, April 17, 2010, the resident drummer, Cornel Fowler, perform with a visting group of jazz musicians at the World Stage Performance Gallery before heading to 7th Street Bar on 7th and Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles where grafitti rock and things like that is now the order in an amazing, evolving generation of a new era.

But on Sunday, April 18, 2010, I had to come back to Leimert Park Village, the hood I have known for many years now, with a whole lot of stuff going on. As it happened and as usual, I bumped into filmmaker, motivator, and founder and director of the Kaos Network, Ben R. Caldwell, who spoke at length on how to keep the historical Leimert Park Village moving. He talked about everything related to the neigborhood. He talked about Laura Mae Gross, founder of the quintenssential blues bar and restaurant in Leimert Park who died last October at the age of 83 and why no major event had been scheduled in rememberance of what she did for the community besides extensive stories written about her by the Los Angeles Times, and the curiousness of tourists who troop the park to find out more about her.

Caldwell talked more about how the younger generation should carry on with the legacy of keeping Leimert Park Village afloat in meeting up with the challenges and what he called "incubating the park" positively and engaging activities. Caldwell is just a cool cat and was serious on what he was talking about.


Sika Dwimfo's Alley Catwalk Models Fashion Show behind the vacated Vision Theatre parking lot as part of the festivities that kept Leimert Park Village activities moving yesterday.


Rastafarian and performer, Jamaiel Shabaka and friend pose for the camera at the park while brisk business was being made. Jamaiel's friend prepares African health-related traditional dishes for patrons and tourists who troop to the park.


This is one of my favorites as I walked around the park and in my conversations with Caldwell. It's kids stuff and inspiration...


Local ensemble The Hurricane Band entertains in "Blues at the Park."


Like a spiritual revival, Rene Fisher Mims leads the women group as they stomp and dance to the vibes of the hand blasting drums of Najite Agindotan and the Leimert Park Village Drum Church Circle.


Leimert Park Village hairstylist, Sherrie "Sirena" Tamu (left) poses with a vendor and a friend who made brisk business selling homemade old-fashion way variety of juices as part of encouraging small businesses in the community.


A motivator and parent instructs the kids as they begin to learn crafts in a variety of disciplines.


Shobiz promoter/model/poet, and resident 27th Street performer, Storm da Poet, poses with a vendor who traded in a variety of authentic African accessories.


Former Chief Priest Fela Kuti's hand drummer, Najite Agindotan and the Leimert Park Village Drum Church Circle entertains the audience at the park.

Afro-Cuban ensemble on the sidewalk featuring Wadada and Horold Lott on the sidewalk of Degnan Blvd and 43rd Street entertaining tourists.


Complete bargain and the provision of services, the African way.


Ben R. Calwell making his point on the incubation of Leimert Park Village.


One of the vendors is all smiles as brisk business is being made.


Motivational speaker and activist, Sista Paula Robinson who will be speaking on "Empowering Our Community" at the Los Angeles City Hall on April 22, 2010, invited by Councilman Bernard Parks and sponsored by Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs had a field day at the park speaking on "sisterhood and brotherhood" to make our community the best it could be in meeting up with the challenges ahead.

Nigerian Jungle Blues and Sunday Cartoons

When a religious crisis convulsed the city, a handful of fundamentalists were hot on his trail. They stormed his office and dragged him out by the scruff of his pastor’s collar to the back of his office. After beating him unconscious, his assailants crudely cut off his testicles with a sharp dagger and plucked out his right eye. They went away triumphantly with these vital body parts as a trophy and he was left to bleed to death. More @ Sun News


SOURCE: Sun News Online


SOURCE: PUNCH


SOURCE: Guardian


SOURCE: Sunday Trust