Coming soon to a store near you (or maybe already there!)

I was delighted to find our local Wegman's has begun carrying Julie and Albert Ndjee's West African salsa-like organic, preservative- and msg-free marinade/sauce "Neilly's Ultimate Seasonings" which bottles the flavors of the cuisine of Julie's homeland Cameroon. While my nephew from Ghana liked the pepperiness of the hot version (along, I'm sure with the onions and garlic) he found it "too tomato-y" and wanted more salt and less lemon, and, frankly, would have preferred the pounded dried shrimps and herrings of his familiar sheeto (or shito, shitor) from Ghana to its chicken-based flavors. Both the mild and the hot version had a pleasant complexity beyond the southern African "peri-peri" sauces I've had. Apparently there's also a vegetarian version that hasn't made it into our store yet. Ultimate Seasonings is working its way from the northeast westward in the U.S., and is available in a number of stores, ranging from Whole Foods Markets to Ukrop's and Kroger and ACME. For more information, click on the Ultimate Seasonings link on the right.

It's a fast, convenient, healthy way to get a taste of West Africa. Also, another sign that African cuisine is on the move into the mainstream consciousness.