Chef My Story

This story belongs to Illani and Somoraa

and their nanny, Geraldine.

It's a tiny tale about Nanny Geraldine

and the things she used to do.

Now it's time for her to share her memories and take Illani

and Somoraa on a journey of discovery.

Nanny Geraldine lives in Cardiff, which is in Wales.

Illani and Somoraa have gone to visit her.

And they're all in Nanny Geraldine's favourite place. Her kitchen.

-What are you two doing?

-Making music.

-Making music with my pot!

And my bowl! This bowl is older than me. This was my mummy's bowl.

-And do you know when we used to bring this out, Llani?

-For Christmas.

At Christmas. And what did we make, Somoraa, in this bowl?

-Erm, Christmas pudding.

-Christmas puddings, yes.

We used to mix all the Christmas puddings in this big bowl.

-What does Nanny do?

-Cook.

-Yes. In my family, Llani, we had lots of cooks.

My grandad, he was a chef. And my mum, she used to cook.

And now I cook.

And they talked some more. And Nanny Geraldine told them

about the old days, when she was a little girl.

Look, you can see where she grew up.

I was born and brought up in Tiger Bay.

Food was very different in this community.

We had Chinese shops, Spanish, there were Norwegians,

a lot of Africans, a lot of West Indians, a lot of Asians,

so you can imagine when all those smells mixed together,

you'd walk from street to street and smell the most amazing smells.

My mum and dad got married in this church a long, long time ago.

And they were married for 70 years.

My mum and dad were the longest-married couple

in this community.

It was my mum that taught me to cook

and when I was younger, it was the thing you did.

Every mum taught their daughters and their sons to cook.

The food that Nanny Geraldine loves to cook

doesn't just come from growing up in Tiger Bay in Wales.

Nanny Geraldine's grandpa and daddy were born on an island

in the Caribbean.

It's very far away from Tiger Bay, and very different, too.

Though she wasn't born there, Nanny Geraldine

went to the Caribbean to live for a while

and her children were born there.

Oh, look, there's Nanny Geraldine with her dad when she was young.

What a lovely place to live.

Now, let's go back to Tiger Bay in Wales, where Nanny Geraldine

has something exciting for her granddaughters, Illani and Somoraa.

-Girls, what's Nanny's most favourite thing that she likes to do?

-Cooking.

-And what else does nanny like?

-Dancing.

Oooh, when I was a little girl I used to watch my mum cook

all the time and I would always be in the kitchen.

In our house, we used to have lots and lots of music,

lots of jazz music and reggae music

and we played calypso music.

Now the calypso music, that is the music from the carnivals.

-Do you know what a carnival is?

-Dancing on the street?

-Yes.

And what would they wear? The most beautiful costumes.

Carnivals are big, big street parties with lots of music,

singing and dancing.

People get all dressed up in bright costumes

and they have a great time parading down the street.

They are great fun to watch,

and we have street carnivals in this country, too.

-What's your favourite colour, Somoraa?

-Red.

-Ooh!

-And what's yours, Llani?

-Yellow.

Ooh, they'd make lots of big, big costumes.

You'd see lots of yellow and lots of red, and big, big headdresses.

Everybody would look special. Shall we pretend we're in carnival?

-Shall we dance?

-Yes.

Come on then.

CALYPSO MUSIC PLAYS

Wow, how much fun are the girls having with their nanny?

All that dancing is making the girls hungry.

So Nanny Geraldine is taking them to the market to shop for food.

A market is very different from a shopping centre.

Instead of shops, there are many brightly coloured stalls

and they sell lots of different things.

When your mummy was a little girl I used to bring her here.

And when I was a little girl my mummy used to bring me.

And her daddy used to bring her!

Because this market's been here a long, long time.

Ooh, look!

Look at all the fish.

Oh, look, Somoraa. We're going to buy some fish now.

Will we buy some saltfish?

Nanny Geraldine will use the saltfish to make fishcakes,

which is a Caribbean dish.

It reminds her of when she lived there

and a dish her dad loves to eat.

That piece of saltfish, there, please.

See, we're going to buy that big piece of saltfish.

OK, thank you.

Thank you, Nanny.

NANNY CHUCKLES

There's so much more for sale in the market other than fish.

Have a look at this.

Oooh, look at all this fruit. Shall we make some fruit kebabs today?

-Yes.

-Shall we buy... What's that, Llani?

A mango. Yes.

And where was Mummy born?

-Barbados.

-Right.

And my friend used to have the biggest mango tree.

-Shall we have two of these?

-Yes.

-And what else shall we have?

-Shall we have strawberries?

-Yes.

Shall we have strawberries?

-OK, shall we have... Do you know what these are, girls?

-No.

-Do you know what these are?

-No.

-These are kiwis.

-Shall we have some?

-Yes.

-Yes, we'll have some kiwis.

-And, shall we have a melon?

-Yes.

-Who likes melon?

-Me.

-Which one's the melon?

-That one.

That one up there, yes, we'll have a melon, shall we?

Who's going to carry this one? Somoraa? OK.

That's £3.80, please.

-Oh, lovely, thank you. Who's going to hold this big, big bag?

-Me.

-Somoraa, can you hold it?

-Yeah.

-And 20 pence change.

-Thank you.

-Thank you.

-Say, bye!

-Bye.

All that fruit looks scrummy.

Nanny Geraldine loves cooking and eating outdoors.

It reminds her of the Caribbean where she could get fruit

straight from the trees.

And buy fish fresh from the fishermen on the seashore.

Eating freshly-caught fish on the beach is the perfect evening meal.

Now Nanny Geraldine is going to show the girls how to cook

her dad's favourite Caribbean fish dish.

And they're going to prepare it outside in the sun.

-What are we going to make now, girls?

-Kebabs.

We're going to make fruit kebabs, and we're going to make fishcakes. OK?

First, Nanny Geraldine needs to take the skin off the fish.

Are you watching while I take off the skin? Oooh.

Look, Nanny Geraldine is using her favourite old bowl again.

We're going to take a piece of fish and this bowl, yeah?

I'll come round here. We're going to break off

-little pieces of fish like that. Can you do that?

-Yeah.

-And can you do that, Somoraa?

-Yes.

-So shall we all do that?

Into the bowl. OK, we'll move the bowl in the middle.

So we're going to do little, little pieces, yeah?

And break them into the bowl.

-There you go. Take a little piece.

-This is a tiny piece.

That's a tiny piece.

Right, we've done all our fish

so that's ready for making our fishcakes.

Oh, what's in that bowl? There's onions, pepper, thyme and parsley.

And Nanny Geraldine is adding it to the fishcake mix.

And then, we're going to add some flour, yeah?

-So we're going to add some flour.

-It's funny. Looks like snow.

It look likes snow? And then, we're going to mix it in.

Urgh, it's horrid. Green.

And then we're going to mix it in.

Then we're going to add a little bit more water, like that.

-Green again.

-It's going to be very green.

-What do you think makes it green?

-The water.

No, the parsley, yeah.

Yeah. This is ready for us to cook now, to make our fishcakes.

Are you ready, girls? Let's get cooking.

-OK, girls, are we going to fry these fishcakes?

-Yeah.

-And are we going to eat some?

-Yeah.

-Who likes fishcakes?

-Me.

Right, let's get frying.

Somoraa, can you see?

Wow, look at the fishcakes sizzling away in the pan. Hot, hot, hot.

Be careful, Nanny Geraldine.

Yum, they're good to go.

-Look, fishcakes are ready, girls.

-Wow, they look good!

-Do they look good?

-Yeah.

-Do they look yummy?

-Yeah.

-Oh, smell them, Somoraa.

-Oooh, shall we let them cool before we eat them?

-Yeah.

I can't wait to have one, can you?

Now it's time for pudding.

What does Nanny Geraldine have in store for the girls?

Let's find out.

-Now we're going to make some fruit kebabs.

-Kebabs!

-Oh, yeah!

What colourful fruit the girls picked from the market.

Juicy, fruity kebabs. What fun!

Illani's finished first and it looks yummy.

The fruit kebabs are looking good, the fishcakes have cooled,

and now the taste test. Over to you, girls.

-Look what we've made. Are we going to have some fishcakes now?

-Yeah.

-Ooh, Somoraa, do you want to have a fishcake?

-Yeah.

Go on then, you take one. And put it on your plate.

Llani, are you going to have a fishcake?

I knew you were going to take that double one.

-I'm going to have a fishcake, too. Shall we eat them?

-Yeah.

-Very soft.

-Ooh, do you like them?

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

-How does that taste, Llan?

-Nice.

-Hmmm, are they yummy, Somoraa?

-Yeah.

-What was the best thing you've done today, Llan?

-Making fishcakes.

-Making fishcakes? Did you like making fishcakes?

-Yeah.

You have to teach your mummy, now, to make fishcakes.

-And you, Somoraa?

-Making the fruit kebabs.

-Making the fruit kebabs?

Thank you very much and what was the best thing for you?

Well, spending the day with Llani and Somoraa,

and going to the market, cos I love going to the market shopping.

Can we have a nice big hug?

What a fabulous heap of fun.

That was Illani, Somoraa and their Nanny Geraldine's tiny tale

about the things Nanny Geraldine used to do, and the fun she had.

And why she has a big, old cooking bowl.

Nanny Geraldine has shared her story with Illani and Somoraa,

and now Illani and Somoraa are starting their own story.

Do you know someone who has a story to share?

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd