Kaddumukasa Kironde II lived on his own terms

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WHAT'S UP!

I remember the first time I called Kaddumukasa on the phone, he answered, “wanji”. I was not sure that I had heard right, so I said ‘hello’ again. He still answered “wanji”. I had never heard anyone answer the phone that way, and it kind of threw me off my stride.

I introduced myself and what I wanted from him, and he went: “Gwe Kabuye, tomanyi Luganda?” We would both, in later years, laugh at it, but it had introduced me to the man who lived largely on his own terms, the rest be darned.

Kaddumukasa was for a long time the food correspondent for the New Vision, writing restaurant reviews and also sharing recipes in his column. He was never bothered with the thought that a traditional Ugandan society saw cooking as a woman’s job, and was suspicious of a man who took cooking as a career and professional life.

Somehow, we clicked. I don’t know if he saw in me a younger him, or maybe a younger brother, because I had gone to school with his younger brothers Senteza and Kalibbala, with whom we were also good friends (Kironde would name his sons Senteza and Kalibbala, after his brothers).

But he always looked out for me, especially when I had just started working at the New Vision. He would give me pointers on how to handle my workmates, some of whom were notoriously fickle; and at times how to deal with some difficult bosses. When he learned I was also a photographer, he insisted that I would be the one to do his food photography. I actually learnt a lot about food photography from him, and one of the photos I made of his food won several awards. Some people thought we were related, and there were times I have even been asked if I was Kaddumukasa. Weird, uh?

I also happened to be a good friend of his wife, Annette Kironde, who also loved my photography. So much so that when her son Senteza ‘Sentie’ Kironde was getting married in 2015, she insisted that I do the photography at both the kwanjula and the wedding. I also did the kwanjula photography for their other son Mpagi, at the Bitature’s residence in Kololo. Sadly, that was to be the last time I would see Annette alive, as she soon passed on after a protracted battle with breast cancer.

Incidentally, Sentie is now a full-time chef in Boston, and runs the very popular Sentie’s Kitchen.

Surprisingly, for such a celebrated chef, Kaddumukasa never studied cooking formally. And he swore to never do so as long as he lived. As he told it, he got the love for cooking from his stepfather who was a chef in New York. Originally from the Caribbean, Chef Henry Hawkins reportedly carried generations of recipes in his head. All the influences of races and cultures that descended on the Caribbean throughout history joined to make for some memorable recipes.

And the young Kironde absorbed it all in. In a memorable quote, he likened cooking to sex.

“Cooking, like sex, offers immediate payoff of sticky beaters to lick and adulation and praise for a superb cream caramel and that sort of thing,” he wrote in an article.

From New York, he travelled to Europe and was very impressed and influenced by the French and their attitude to food. He also came to appreciate the Chinese and their extensive menu, where nothing went to waste.

In the end, he became an ‘accomplished cook at ease with French, Chinese, European, the best that America had to offer and of course African food’, he wrote.

During a shooting break at Sentie’s wedding, I got into a long discussion with Kaddumukasa’s sister, Katiti Kironde, which resulted in an article run by the New Vision. While still a student at Harvard, Katiti became the first black girl to feature on the cover of a major US fashion magazine, Glamour. Controversial, right?

Considering it was 1968 and Jim Crow was still a major factor in the lives of Americans. But that cover became the magazine’s best seller, with over two million copies sold worldwide.

It was during that conversation that I learned about their family history. Their father was Apollo Kironde, Uganda’s first ambassador to the United Nations, and a son to Buganda’s famous Katikkiro and regent, Sir Apollo Kaggwa.

That is as blue blood as one can get in Buganda without actually being a royal.

Did that bloodline make Apollo Kaddumukasa Kironde II arrogant? I don’t remember him as arrogant at all, although he never suffered fools at all. He was quickly dismissive of people Ugandans refer to as ‘unserious’, and wasting his time was almost a cardinal sin in his book.

Unfortunately, the vagaries of life meant I did not see him often of late. The last I remember was a video of him visiting his son’s kitchen in Boston. That was as happy as I had ever seen him.

Then on Monday came an announcement that Apollo Kaddumukasa Kironde II, a resident of Rubaga, had passed away. Reports have it that he had actually walked to Rubaga Hospital for a minor procedure, but the 79-year old unfortunately never made it out alive.

He fought the good fight, he has finished the race, and he has kept the faith. Fare thee well, mate.

You can follow Kalungi Kabuye on X: @KalungiKabuye