November 3, 2008 at 2:15 pm · Filed under Stuff
Lunchtime
I spent an hour on lunch today, which is about average for my main meal of the day. Most days I toss random ingredients together and hope the result is edible, today was no different. However, apparently the clouds parted and heavenly light rained down at just the right moment, and Yea, Verily, edible bliss ensued. Because something so delicious demands to be shared, here’s the recipe. Enjoy:
Easy Bread & Awesomeness in a Skillet
“So Easy A Caveman Could Do It”-bread:
2 cups flour
1T oil
1/2C Water
1L Nalgene Bottle
Explosions of Awesomeness in a Skillet:
Garden Eggs (or eggplant/aubergine)
Tomatoes
Onion
Garlic
Agushi (neutral, adds protein. Dried squash seeds.)
Lime
Dried Mint
Oil
Salt
Stupid-easy bread:
Mix 1.5C flour with oil, add water gradually until it looks like bread dough. Divide into 8 balls. Chase cat off table, flour rolling area, roll balls into flat rounds with Nalgene bottle (hint: fill bottle half-way with water for added oomph). Cook in pre-heated, ungreased skillet for a few minutes, flipping half way.
Skillet Block Party:
Chop onion & garlic, put in hot pan with oil & salt - the floury bits from previous enterprises add flavour. Add diced garden eggs & tomatoes, cover. Clean up mess from making bread. Stir skillet, add dried mint sparingly because it’s bloody expensive from Accra. Squeeze lime, pick out seeds because you’re a doofus. Add salt again because salt & lime adds to the awesome. Stir. Turn off gas. Eat with bread.
OM NOM NOM NOM.
October 19, 2008 at 12:21 pm · Filed under Stuff
Mind dump, because I’m too spastic to type a real entry today.
- The time/season-disorientation I expected has finally hit. It’s almost Halloween, and my mind is still stuck in June. Very strange.
- Met & chatted with a random Obruni in Cape Coast on Saturday; he’s been overlanding all over West Africa since June. Definitely fueled my ever-changing COS-trip dreams.
- I made biscuits and gravy for breakfast today - with no fridge, no milk, no oven. I am awesome.
- On an unrelated note (really! My food is safe, my water yesterday wasn’t), it’s been an “ORS-tastic” day. Fun.
- It’s amazing how such days have become just another part of living in Africa.
- I’m trying to dry limes, and I think it’s working. YAY!
- I’ve felt very MacGuyver this week: added a spring and latch to my screen door, built a drying rack, and made a bunch of new candleholders with nails and tomato paste tins. All materials cannibalised from rubbish heaps on campus. My housemate is in awe of my hammer+leatherman+recycling skills. I’m changing the world one trash pile at a time!
- My cat eats too much sugar. This is bad for her teeth and my sanity. I can has hyperactivity?!
- Every line of poetry, every awestruck utterance, every attempt at descriptive language, that has ever been meant to describe a starry sky: was written with last night’s sky in mind. It was awesome in the best sense of the word.
- Speaking of hyperactive cats: there’s a gecko on my wall right now, and Yosh is trying to attack it.
- I walked out of every class this week either immensely happy with the world, or completely crushed and disappointed. Very Six Flags.
- More on class drama in a future post. I really do have about 3 half-written entries, so I’m not completely full of you-know-what.
- Photos uploading as I type this - busy day at Cape yesterday.
- I. Love. Maps.
- Long hikes. I’ve been obsessing on them for a while. Originally considered either the LT or possibly the AT as viable post-Ghana options. Now I’m thinking a little more exotic. Too early to plan, you say? Never!
- Obviously, I’ve been doing a lot of travel-dreaming this week.
October 1, 2008 at 8:17 am · Filed under Stuff
I went to market today, which was sufficient enough to make me feel accomplished. The nearest market to me runs Sundays and Wednesdays, and I’m usually there at least one of those days. Without storage space or a refridgerator, I basically am limited to shopping for a few days at a time (as is everyone else here, which is why markets are generally open twice a week).
I had a good trip this time around, so decided to blog about it and post a photo. So counterclockwise, starting with the bread:
- Bread (1.00)
- Bananas (free)
- Groundnut Paste (1.80)
- Bissap (.10)
- Okra (.20)
- Onga (.10)
- Tomatoes (.20)
I go through 1-2 loaves of bread a week. Prices of basic market goods are universal, and bread is very easy to find - if I’m lazy, I just get it off of a woman’s head out the window of a tro-tro. Yes, really - so I buy it often. It is generally consumed with the following two items.
The bananas were dashed to me as I left the market, I was going to buy some anyway but a woman gave me 4, so I didn’t have to. The price for 4 would have been .10, by the way. Because the smallest coin in circulation (commonly; not technically) is the 5ghp “nickel”, that means it’s impossible to pay for fewer than 2 bananas.
The groundnut paste (which is just “organic sugar-free no-preservatives-added peanut butter”, by the way) is a 2x/month purchase, so while it did take a chunk out of this week’s market allowance, it all evens out in the end. I was going to pick it up Sunday, but my Groundnut Paste Lady was all sold out and so I had to wait. The container is mine; the paste is sold by “spoonful”, my container holds 18 spoonfuls. You do the math!
When people speak of the “nectar of the gods”, what they don’t realize is that they are actually referring to Bissap. This frozen lump of ruby goodness is my personal reward for dragging my lazy self to market (20 minutes each way, people!) under a noon-day sun. It’s a sweet tea made from hibiscus flowers, with so much ginger you’d think it was actually pepper-tea. At market it’s sold frozen: a bissap-pop. If I had a freezer I would have it every day, but as it is I literally chase down the Bissap Girl every time I go to market. I could write an overly-emotional Ode To Bissap, but I’ll stop now.
Okra and tomatoes are self-explanatory, I hope. These will be cooked with onion, hot pepper, gari, and beans (which I picked up last Sunday) tomorrow.
“Onga” is just boullion. Flavour powders and cubes are staples in all Ghanaian recipes, (”Maggi” is the most common), but Onga is one of the few easily-obtained varieties that doesn’t have any MSG. Since meat is too much trouble to deal with, I’ve become mostly vegetarian — but I still give in and use small-small Onga in beans, stews, etc.
So there you go. An average mid-week trip to the local open-air market. Total time: 1 hour. Total cost: 3.40, or “34 t’ousand”. Now try to hit up your air-conditioned, over-priced, mega-supermarket with the same perspective you had last time!
