Champagne and Blueberry Muffins

“I drink champagne when I’m happy and when I’m sad.  Sometimes I drink it when I am alone.  When I have company I consider it obligatory.  I trifle with it if I’m not hungry and drink it when I am.  Otherwise I never touch it unless I’m thirsty.” Madam Lily Bollinger

It was a Friday, a public holiday and Kofi invited us over for champagne.  At the time I was heading to a kids’ birthday party to take photographs.  Jay was at work preparing for a show that night.  Joselyn was getting her daughter ready to go swimming and Frimpomaa was heading to the supermarket to get blueberries for the muffins she had promised to bake for me.

Wondering who all these people are?  Kofi Mensah is the co-founder and partner at ABM Attorneys of Law.  He is Frimpomaa’s cousin.  Frimpomaa I am sure you are familiar with.  She has been mentioned in my previous blog posts so you may refer to them 🙂  I am not cheeky!  That might make you read my older blog posts.  Well only if you are interested enough to know who she is.  She is worth knowing.  Trust me on that one.

Jay Jay Jay!  Where do I start?  Her official name is Joyce Adwoa Abrefi Gyebi.  Long enough?  Just about right especially when it is abbreviated as Jay or double barreled as Adwoa-Kisser.  She is both a talent and a scout.  What do I mean by that?  She is a TV personality.  She is the concept writer and one of the four stars on the Ghanaian TV show “Meet The Girls”.  That’s the talent.  The scout?  She manages other stars.  Imagine that!  I am not allowed to say which stars she manages.  Their lawyers might come looking for me if I do.  But what the heck? I have Attorney Kofi Mensah to represent me in court.  He is one of the finest and most successful young lawyers in the country.  If you ever need a good lawyer, don’t look far.  If you are aspiring to becoming a celebrity and need a manager, speak to Jay.  And I am the manager’s manager!  You just can’t go past me that easily.   Jay also owns an eatery in Osu, Accra called Shebrews.  She makes the best Jollof Rice and Grilled Chicken, Yam Balls and Spiced Steamed Gizzards,  Quiche Lorraine and for dessert Chocolate Brownies with Ice Cream.  You can check her out on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/SheBrews/289280067784782?fref=ts) She also blogs and you can find her posts on http://mukasechic.wordpress.com/ It doesn’t end there!  She also has a full time job working as an Account Executive for Big Ideaz Consult, one of the leading event support and branding specialists in Ghana.  Talk about hard working!

Joselyn Dumas is a Ghanaian talk show host, a corporate MC, an actress, a brand ambassador, an amazing mother and daughter to “Lady’s” grandmother.  If you don’t already know who she is by now, check her out on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/JoselynDumasOnline )

The beauty of this is, these people are all my friends!  Don’t I have awesome friends?  Anyway, with Blackberry instant messages and a couple of phone calls, we agreed on a time to meet that night.  7 pm at Kofi’s house.  Poor guy, ambushed by four powerful women.  I am sure he won’t invite us over again.  Well we are waiting for Nana Pokua his beautiful fiancé to come back from her travels so that we have five women on his case the next time.

Purpose of this visit:  Champagne Party.  Accompaniment:  Blueberry Muffins.  Champagne and Blueberry Muffins…And Great Company!

Kofi brings out the nicely chilled Champagne and Frimpomaa hands over the freshly baked Blueberry Muffins.  She also brought along Maxwell which Jay collects from her and hangs around her neck.  Who is Maxwell?  He is the “guy” that has been trying to get Nicki’s attention for a little while now but Nicki has a way of turning away love until her heart tells her it is right.  I wish I was like her.  I am a moving jar of hearts.  I just keep them all. The good, the bad and the ugly.  All in the jar!  Why didn’t I introduce you to Maxwell and Nicki?  I apologise.  Maxwell is Frimpomaa’s brother, Onasis’ Nikon SLR camera and Nicki is my Nikon SLR camera.  Why do we name our cameras?  We have a living relationship with them.  I named mine and Frimpomaa and I named her brother’s.  I am sure Onasis doesnt know his camera is called Maxwell and any photos his sister takes with it is called “Pix by the Frimps” with a slogan that says “Enuaa ner kor!”.  No more questions on this for now. Thank you!  So I get snapping whilst the rest warm up for the night.

Below are Maxwell’s End-2-End shots of the Blueberry Muffins.

How did they taste?  Next you will see photos of the tasting session.  Pictures don’t lie!  Well that’s what they say and I agree with the sayers.  I can spot fake smiles a thousand miles away from the photograph.  And I can tell if they are photoshoped or Lightroomed photos too “he he he”.  Were they ugly cupcakes?  No!  They were just  nude cupcakes.  Muffins are not ugly cupcakes but are nude cupcakes!  How about that?  Ok that sounds a bit x-rated.  Let me rephrase that.  Muffins are not ugly cupcakes but they are undecorated cupcakes.  I think I prefer the word nude though.  That is more like me:  Sexy 🙂  They tasted amazing!  Oh how I had missed eating muffins.  Frimpomaa is sweet to me though.  Apart from making her bring me an entire suitcase of shopping from London lately which most people would hardly do, she saved the Blueberry Muffin she was served on the plane for me.  Well she also made more than a dozen free Blueberry Muffins for this mini party.  She made me an amazing Chicken and Bacon Salad for my birthday and handed two new Dune shoes over to me.  She bought Waakye one morning from “Katawudiesu” and drove across “town” to my office with it to satisfy my craving.  I must make sure she is around when I am pregnant 🙂

We discussed every topic under the sun during our party.  We took turns to fall asleep on the couch and left Kofi’s house close to 4 am.  Did we overstay our welcome?  Errr….I am sure not.  Did I tell you that Jay, Joselyn, Frimpomaa and myself went to Golden Tulip Hotel the night before for dinner and as we walked into the restaurant, we saw Kofi sitting on his own having a full English breakfast for dinner.  We didn’t just say hi and leave him in peace.  Nooo!!!  That would have been too normal and polite.  We joined him on his table uninvited and started talking about hair waxing, totally ignoring that he was sat there.  He finished his meal, paid and left us to our very important conversation. At this point, I am sure you have gathered that Kofi is used to us and even invited us back the next day. What was he thinking eh?  All in all, it was a great night!

Nathaniel Hawthorne in his quote said “Easy reading is damn hard writing” and I couldn’t agree any more or less.  Too hard!!!  “Ha ha ha” truth is, it is 2:35 am and I need some sleep so I am going to sign off on this note but I will be back again soon.  Next, I will posting a special dedication to the cake lady that loves Golden Tulip Hotel’s Apple Pie and Ice Cream and truly appreciates treats to Labadi Beach Hotel for Sunday Lunch.  She even makes a total event out of it including a new outfit each time she is going there.  When I commented about that, her reply to me was “but I have to look good!”  Can you guess who that is?