Maybe it's just the allure of free food.

First off, it's rice and beans.The word "waakye" is from the Hausa language, and is the contracted form of the full name "shinkafa da wake," which means rice and beans.

This explanation is supported by origins of the dish being placed in Northern Ghana with the Hausa communities, whose staple crops are rice and beans.So waakye is simply "rice and beans."It's made with fragrant basmati rice or jasmine rice and beans (usually black-eyed peas or cow beans), cooked together with waakye leaves (sorghum leaves or stalks) that lend their pink-reddish brown hue to the rice.

Oftentimes limestone or baking soda is added to bring out the subtle flavor of the leaves and deepen the coloring.The leaves are usually removed before serving, however I always retain the dramatic architecturally sharp edges of the stalks poking out for aesthetic reasons.

Who said Scorpios were dramatic?!.

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is a Food & Wine staff writer specializing in product reviews and kitchen equipment.Before writing, Nick was a restaurant cook for almost a decade and knows firsthand the woes of subpar appliances.