FEATURES : Tiyan Alile : The Female Chef
By Motionviu
A woman whose profile boasts of amazing things like Executive Chef at Tarragon, founder of the Culinary Academy and president of the Culinary Arts Practitioners Association in Nigeria.
In her opinion, this fact was true in several professions—oil and gas, music, technology—and not just hers. She mentioned that when she was coming up in the profession, she did not have anyone to look up to as a woman. She said, “Women have their peculiar positives—they get pregnant, they have children, they stay at home, they have to look after the husband and the children and, because of that, many women do not have the time, the energy and the resources to do what I am doing. It’s a very exhausting and exerting profession.”
In her experience, the women she has met in the profession are a lot more reliable than the men.
With these restrictions in view, she spoke about some of the sacrifices she made on this journey. Among them included quitting high-flying jobs as a lawyer at Gio and a consultancy and legal advisory job for Verity Consults in DC, United States. She also had to forgo paying much attention to her fashion sense. With her cropped hair, she has a shower in the morning, washes her hair and jumps into the kitchen to cook or teach her students.
Yet, she made it clear that she doesn’t see these decisions as sacrifices. She said, “They were all things that needed to be done to achieve my fundamental objective which was getting people trained, getting people empowered and building capacity in the hospital space.”
The subject of her brainchild, the African Young Chefs’ Competition (AYCC), she had a lot to say.
The first edition of the competition was held last year, and the second edition will hold on May 5th. Alile explained in detail the reasons she began the project in the first place.
“When I decided to start the African Young Chefs Competition, I had a few things in mind. I’m here in my school on some random street in Ikoyi and in a year on an average, I’m imparting knowledge to about 500 people. I told myself I can play globally.”
The decision to go African-wide was also influenced by her trip to the Young Chefs Olympics in India back in 2016. The Culinary Academy represented Nigeria and she said, “I noticed while getting ready for it that we had to deepen the knowledge of our students. We selected students, started training them and they obviously became better than the ones that were not selected because theirs was intense training. The person who finally went to represent us is currently one of my top star students that have graduated from this school.”
From this experience, she was able to gather that the students who were coming to compete at (AYCC) will have the same preparation experience.
Alile has a book to her name. She is the author of Tale in a Pie, which is called “the most scandalous story cookbook out there”. Her major inspiration for the book came from her blog, Tiyan Cooks, where she talks about all sorts of things that usually culminate in food.
“Usually I take things from my experiences and discussions I have with people and create a story around it and, at the end of it, I write a recipe relating to that story. It is undoubtedly a very vocal book because its bold in areas of life that people don’t necessarily talk about,” she noted.
A woman whose profile boasts of amazing things like Executive Chef at Tarragon, founder of the Culinary Academy and president of the Culinary Arts Practitioners Association in Nigeria.
In her opinion, this fact was true in several professions—oil and gas, music, technology—and not just hers. She mentioned that when she was coming up in the profession, she did not have anyone to look up to as a woman. She said, “Women have their peculiar positives—they get pregnant, they have children, they stay at home, they have to look after the husband and the children and, because of that, many women do not have the time, the energy and the resources to do what I am doing. It’s a very exhausting and exerting profession.”
In her experience, the women she has met in the profession are a lot more reliable than the men.
With these restrictions in view, she spoke about some of the sacrifices she made on this journey. Among them included quitting high-flying jobs as a lawyer at Gio and a consultancy and legal advisory job for Verity Consults in DC, United States. She also had to forgo paying much attention to her fashion sense. With her cropped hair, she has a shower in the morning, washes her hair and jumps into the kitchen to cook or teach her students.
Yet, she made it clear that she doesn’t see these decisions as sacrifices. She said, “They were all things that needed to be done to achieve my fundamental objective which was getting people trained, getting people empowered and building capacity in the hospital space.”
The subject of her brainchild, the African Young Chefs’ Competition (AYCC), she had a lot to say.
The first edition of the competition was held last year, and the second edition will hold on May 5th. Alile explained in detail the reasons she began the project in the first place.
“When I decided to start the African Young Chefs Competition, I had a few things in mind. I’m here in my school on some random street in Ikoyi and in a year on an average, I’m imparting knowledge to about 500 people. I told myself I can play globally.”
The decision to go African-wide was also influenced by her trip to the Young Chefs Olympics in India back in 2016. The Culinary Academy represented Nigeria and she said, “I noticed while getting ready for it that we had to deepen the knowledge of our students. We selected students, started training them and they obviously became better than the ones that were not selected because theirs was intense training. The person who finally went to represent us is currently one of my top star students that have graduated from this school.”
From this experience, she was able to gather that the students who were coming to compete at (AYCC) will have the same preparation experience.
Alile has a book to her name. She is the author of Tale in a Pie, which is called “the most scandalous story cookbook out there”. Her major inspiration for the book came from her blog, Tiyan Cooks, where she talks about all sorts of things that usually culminate in food.
“Usually I take things from my experiences and discussions I have with people and create a story around it and, at the end of it, I write a recipe relating to that story. It is undoubtedly a very vocal book because its bold in areas of life that people don’t necessarily talk about,” she noted.
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