Inside Adam & Eve’s Men Who Cook and Art Exhibition

From November 5, 2021, there will be a collage of ‘Men Who Cook’, exquisite artists and females reading the Nine Lessons. In an exhilarating event put together by Adam & Eve, the public will be treated to life’s effervescence like never seen before, writes Bayo Akinloye

It’s not the avant-garde event. There’s no bling. But its zing fills the air, fits the mood and permeate the ambience. It rings of rapture, pleasure and closure to everything routinely rambunctious. It opens the eyes, cleanses the soul and sets the mind at ease. It takes you away from the riotous moments of Lagos and anywhere you may have come from. It transports you to experience and embrace the glimpse of life’s paradise: family, comfort, convenience and some luxury. It leads you to beauty with a choice to beautify your home, your space and rejuvenate your relationship with those beloved to you.
Welcome home. Welcome to Adam & Eve.

Amidst the preponderance of despondency thrown at humanity by the COVID-19 pandemic, Adam & Eve’s CEO, Mrs Modupe Ogunlesi, is convinced much can still be achieved with the celebration of the oldest structures of humanity — the trilogy of family, arts and worship. Creatively crafted, Adam & Eve will begin a laundry of exquisite activities captured in the trinity of an art exhibition, cooking competition, and a carol. The event begins on November 5 and runs through November 28.

“We pick things that are beautiful, not only beautiful but must be functional, and it must make that job easier to do. So, you look at it from these three points; beautiful, functional, ease of use, and then we went further so that in your space you can have the beauty to elevate your mind, to make you feel happier,” says the Adam & Eve matriarch.
After years of trying to put products together that will actualise these dreams, Adam & Eve started with The Content, an art exhibition. “Because there is something about original art on your wall that increases the beauty and also, of course, your feeling, your emotional well-being,” says Ogunlesi.

About the cooking competition — Men Who Cook Competition —, the homeware mogul notes that there is something emotive about a man who can cook.
“It means that it doesn’t matter how well the wife cooks, but that occasionally for one reason or the other, you can say, ‘take a back seat today. Relax, I’m doing the cooking’. Or it means your wife has a commitment outside the home, and you can say, ‘Don’t worry. Children, let’s have fun together. I’ll do the barbecue, or I’ll do the cooking’. So, this is to encourage men to cook.”

Ogunlesi adds, “So, we are encouraging men, especially younger men, to see that there is nothing wrong in saying I can cook. So, this is an addition to Adam and Eve because it is part of our bigger picture. Always, it is to make the home a home. Even when it’s occupied by one person; it’s occupied by two people, the children, it doesn’t matter. And anyway, at one point or the other, the children will go, and the original two will remain, and these are the things that the original two must enjoy their space. So, that’s where I’m coming from.”

The cooking competition starts November 6, opening with the elimination series that ends on November 7. “We pick the best 20 from the videos they’ve sent and then elimination series 6th and 7th. On the 13th, the semi-final because the elimination series will whittle it down to 10 people. Then, on the 13th, the 10 are whittled down to four,” explains Ogunlesi. “These four on November 28 will have their finals. In that finals, all four are going home with a prize. The prizes — there is no cash prize — should enhance your lifestyle; t’s not about the cash. The prizes will enhance their lifestyle.”

In that case, the first prize is a complete outfit from Sofisticat, “you go in there, and it’s bespoke for you.”
“You get a bespoke, complete Nigerian attire from Sofisticat, and you get dinner for two at Latavana — it’s a Chilean-Spanish restaurant on the Island. So, they’re giving them a meal for two. Now, after that, you just have a general Aladdin Cave because each person, you know what you value,” she further states. “You have an Italian ceramic pot set, five-piece, that is also in the Aladdin’s Cave. You have a German briefcase. It’s a briefcase that doubles as a backpack, and you can put it on your travel luggage. It’s right on top of your travel luggage. It’s your cabin luggage.”

The Adam & Eve executive also mentions there are two nights at Esporta Hotel, “two nights and breakfast for two at Esporta Hotel.”
“We have a pressure cooker by Inuviya. Inuviya uses surgical steel for its pots, so that is top-level stainless steel. So, the procedure is that the first person gets the agbada or whatever they want from Sofisticat and the dinner for two, and then they go into the Aladdin’s Cave and pick one of these prizes,” says Ogunlesi, shedding more light on ‘Men Who Cook’. The second person comes in and picks something from the cave, whatever they like best. The third will go in, pick something. The fourth will go in; pick something. Then, the first goes back and take a second present, the second goes in next, takes one, third and then fourth. So, that everybody will get two prizes apart from the first who goes home with four prizes.”

The theme of the art exhibition is ‘The Content’ is fitting and absorbing, after all, content, they say, is king. Besides, the exhibition boasts of kingly artistes within range though not as popular as world-famous creatives, but they hold their own any day. The art exhibition will feature Hamid Ibrahim, Segun Aiyesan, Wande George, Clara Aden, Emeka Nwagbara, and Elizabeth, with the “versatile, meticulous, engaging, and widely explorative character Lekan Onabanjo, whose curatorial proficiency and eclectic tastes, bringing his experience to bear upon the event.

Legendary Bruce Onabrakpeiya will be there too.
“He will be here. So, we’re celebrating Bruce at 89. Then we have Lekan Onabanjo, who is, of course, also the curator. They’re all presenting five pieces each. Very interesting, very diverse and very interesting because we have much more than that,” Ogunlesi enthuses. For her, the message of the exhibition is quite simple.
“If you have your space, you should try and put an original work because, in your interpretation of that work, your emotions get involved. And it’s a nice thing because what other investment can you describe as low maintenance and enjoy it on a daily basis and the value does not drop,” says the homeware mogul. “It’s an investment, and you can enjoy it; you can enjoy it every day. It needs no maintenance, you know, and the value does not deplete. If you have a home, you must maintain it.”
The artist will be on the ground on November 5 (Friday) and then on November 7 (Sunday).

“And the time span is long, 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Sunday,” adds Ogunlesi. “We will be open 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Sunday. That first Sunday, the artist will also be here. So, it’s your chance to actually talk to the artist, if you like artwork, to be able to ask what was the artist thinking when he was painting? Of course, we will have the wine. We will have some little bits to nibble on, you know. But, always when you come in, the hospitality of Adam & Eve is part of what you should look forward to, especially if you’ve never been here.”
“We picked Friday for the opening of the art exhibition,” says Ogunlesi because “if you walk around Ikeja, it is easy for you to drop in on your way home. So, you will see it on that day.”

So when you come in, in the first day, the second day, by the time you’re coming in on the third day, the better pieces you would have loved might have gone.”
She adds: “Anybody is welcome to come in and look at the art exhibition. The men who cook, their cooking, we have an observation point. We’re planning to have an observation point which is you’re sitting here, you have that, the projector there, and you can see what they’re cooking. And you can see how adept they are at what they are doing. And we’ve got lovely judges. We got five judges, three females and two males.”

Then, there is what she calls the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols — first held at the King’s on Christmas Eve 1918. It was planned by Eric Milner-White, who had just been appointed dean after experience as an army chaplain; this experience convinced him that the Church of England needed more imaginative worship.
“The festival of nine lessons and Carol is actually something that King’s College Cambridge brings out every year with BBC. And I thought, for us, Christmas is the most celebrated festival in most countries. And why? As things get not as good as we hope, Christmas is a time to look and think about, to give hope of a new beginning,” Ogunlesi reasons. “I always think of that in the new year. It is a new beginning. Hoping for a new beginning, for a better year. So, when people say may the years ahead be better than all the years gone by, that is Christmas.”

She further states, “We want to make it not just a commercial Christmas but the real message of hope which is the real Christmas message. That it doesn’t matter what has gone on before, a new beginning, a new year, a message of hope. So, I looked at it that how do you send out this message? So beyond the commercial, we have these nine lessons which run through the fall of Adam, the rise of Abraham in offering his son, the angel visiting Mary to announce the coming of her son, our saviour’s arrival.”
There will be nine lessons, eight being read by females “who have established themselves” then, the ninth lesson will be by either a bishop in the Anglican Church or the Catholic Church.

“Because each time you hear the message, it’s a new message, and that’s what the Christmas Carol is about. The music is good, the carols are nice, we have a proper choir, and then after that, we have a reception to herald in Christmas,” Ogunlesi explains.
Real fun lies ahead. And in this case, seeing is believing.
With the passage of time, Adam & Eve has kept looking forward into the future. As the global community begins to “live” again, move freely, Ogunlesi knows what products to offer in the coming years.

“More outdoor. More outdoor. Yes, more outdoor products. More kitchen gadgets. And all these are geared toward ease of living. As you work harder, you must never forget yourself because it is only one life, you live it only once, and that is why you must give yourself a treat,” she discloses. “That is why you need to visit Adam & Eve because what we have is to ensure that you enjoy this one life.”

Where does she see the homeware giant in the next five years?
“Well, probably more online, but I believe very strongly that nothing can beat a physical look. Humans are meant to interact physically. I always say something that, when your child is far away from you, it doesn’t matter how often you FaceTime, you would like to see your child face-to-face because there are nuances that you will miss over the phone,” Ogunlesi notes. “I want to see how well you are.”

She continues: “In the same way when you come to Adam & Eve, and you walk round, there is no way even if you don’t have money, when you’re going out through that door, your heart must be lighter because the way things are, there is so much research going on in everything that they are putting out: there is something about coming here and touching and having a face-to-face conversation. I can feel your emotions. You can feel my emotions.”

She points out that this is not the same with robots and other digital applications.
“I think this is something that within the next five years we are going to find, and we’ll probably in five years’ time retrace our steps,” Ogunlesi predicts. “So, at the moment, that’s why we’re not opening branches. People are saying, ‘oh no!’ They prefer to shop from home. Fine. So we have one branch that I can assure you when you visit you will go out there, and you will feel lighter. It doesn’t matter what burdens you came in with.”