happy thanksgiving

Jacqueline & I in front of our house.

This month has flown by and it's Thankgiving already. Sorry I have been neglecting this blog but hey, Happy Turkey Day... or rather Chicken Day! For me, there will not be turkey, but a roasted half chicken Jacqueline and I ordered from a local restaurant. We are celebrating with our own accompaniments of mashed potatoes, glazed carrots, njama njama vegetables (bought ready-made from a local bar or "food mommy").

Since we're on food, this is the local food I've been having:
fried plantain dodo
boiled plantains with tomato sauce
eru and water fufu
ndole (bitter leaf)
vegetable njama njama with corn fufu
fried grasshoppers
rice and meat/tomato stew
beans and puff puff (fried beignets)
achu (mashed white beans with palm oil sauce)
scotch eggs
fish pies
spicy pepper soup with yams
meat tripe (which they call "towel")
grilled fish with "baton de manioc" (a stick of tapioca)
sugar-coated groundnuts
local produce: avacados, bananas, papaya, tomatoes, eggs, oranges, pineapple
soya (grilled meat killed that morning)

I will try to get some pictures of the food up later. I tried baking with a dutch oven, since we don't have an actual oven. What I did was put a baking tray on top of a little can inside of a large pot, and heated it covered on our gas stove top. I made white chocolate and cranberry scones. According to Jacqueline, they were more like cookies but I think she was being nice. They were more like rocks. But they tasted good if you ate them fresh, drizzling some sweetened condensed milk and sipping some hot lemon green tea. It was a luxury- creating an afternoon home-away-from-home. However baking here is more of a hassle than not, so it won't happen again for a while, haha.