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I don’t know when orange “season” is. You would think that I would know by now. My mother has mentioned it to me, several times actually, but I don’t really know. All I know is that whenever I see oranges, I think about her Almazya – that delicious orange pudding that brightens my day. It’s like sunshine in a bowl. Or perhaps I exaggerate. To make it you need to find the non-navel variety of oranges. The ones that you juice because… I don’t actually know why. All I know is that you don’t really squeeze navel oranges and for this recipe you need two glasses of orange juice. 

I have a love-hate relationship with oranges. I wish they were more accessible. I wish that after I squeeze them, they don’t leave those yellow and orange stains on my fingers and that my fingers don’t smell like stale oranges. I love the smell of oranges and even the zest right after it’s zested but there’s something about the contact of orange ‘oil’ on skin that transforms it into something unpleasant. 

The orange juice is put in a saucepan on low heat and then sugar – to taste - is added. This is the part where mum and I usually have a bit of a discussion. We don’t need that much sugar to sweeten it, she says, but I always sneak it a bit more. My sweet tooth – 1, me – 0. While the mixture heats up, dissolve three tablespoons of corn flour in about 150 ml of juice. “Not heaped spoons – flat” my mother reminds me. The slurry is slowly added to the juice to thicken it. 

“Stir it, don’t stop,” she says. I comply but she then – inevitably – comes around, takes the ladle from my hand, and stirs a few times. I used to think that she does that because she thinks my stirring is slow, incorrect, or just somehow flawed. She would leave me for a few minutes while she attends to something else in the kitchen and then looks at me and says: “Stir stir, don’t stop, balash dala3.” I think part of why she takes the ladle and stirs it is that she wants to sense how it feels… the thickness – weight – of the pudding around the ladle to figure out if it is thick enough and if it’s time to take it off the heat. There’s nothing wrong with my stirring, I decide.

Now it’s time to pour it out into bowls and wait for it to cool down before we can move it to chill in the fridge. I am keen on doing that myself because – unlike cake batter – my mother has no problems with me licking the ladle clean. There’s no risk for salmonella there. We then leave the kitchen –switch off the lights, but I always go back to grab a bowl and enjoy the warm pudding in the living room while she says: “I should have done more than two glasses of orange juice.” 

Should’ve, would’ve, could’ve. It doesn’t matter, this is delicious. 

Today, whenever I visit home, and when it’s orange season, she makes sure that she makes it for me. There’s something so enjoyable and cuddly about this dish. I don’t know why I don’t make it for myself. Perhaps because the child inside me wants her mum to spoil her and make it for her? I’m 46 years old. It’s time to do it for myself. 

In the first session of Rewilding the Kitchen, Lamya was prompted to think of a dessert that represented her life and upbringing. For Lamya, it was enjoying her mother’s orange pudding, Almazya. 

In this tablescape, Lamya encapsulates and celebrates a revisited creamy version of Almazya that oozes with maternal love and zest, folded into the velvety orange pudding. Perhaps it’s the childhood memory of sipping refreshing orange juice or the pleasure of enjoying a cold, comforting dessert after a day on the beach, but for Lamya, oranges evoke memories of the sea. Lamya believes that a vivid childhood memory is at the core of every person, finding their ways into the stories we tell as adults.  

Here, she asks visitors about the sea and what it means to them prompting them to revisit significant memories of the sea. In return, Lamya uses the stories as an inspiration to customise each serving of Almazya for every storyteller.