Chocolate Vampire Face

so if you couldn't tell, I made chocolate chip cookies last night. I didn't actually make them for myself. I made them for Nabil. Nabil is a good friend of ours who owns the hotel we stay at in Dakar. He's a big sweetie and is always doing stuff for us. I ply him with food... he likes my chocolate chip cookies.

Since we're going down to Dakar tomorrow and wait for our trip to the states on Tuesday night (or as it turns out Wednesday morning at 4:15 in the AM). So I made these cookies last night. I almost forgot actually but Brook was craving a dessert so I made him his piggy clafoutis and realized I promised Nabil cookies. So I made those and baked them and then every batch that came out of the oven I had to eat a few cookies to make sure the batch was okay. Then by the time the final batch went in the oven I felt pretty ill. Brook was on his second round of clafoutis, so it's not like I could say anything to him about being a piglet.

Before bed I felt okay again and then stuffed several more cookies in my mouth. and washed them down with milk. It was like I was afraid they were going to go somewhere before breakfast this morning. Then when I went upstairs (I actually had originally gone downstairs before bed to put up the cookies and soak the dried blueberries before this morning so I could make some blueberry muffins). Brook didn't ask what took so long but what took so long was that I was still feeding on the chocolate chip cookies. I hope Nabil will get some before I gobble the whole batch down.

Anyway, so I come back upstairs as I was starting to say and saw in the mirror that I had a bit of chocolate left on the side of my lip, and it looked just like those vampires (you know like "Love at First Bite") who have just finished feeding and have a bit of blood left. I know, not really a Christmas image here. I just thought I looked like a chocolate vampire.

This morning I had more cookies for breakfast and then made a real breakfast for Brook and some blueberry muffins. Talk about getting ready for Christmas....

Now we're packing for our trip to Dakar tomorrow. We've been invited to a PCV's new house. This married couple has invited us over to check out their new digs. Very sweet of them. I bought them this really ugly dolphin circus glass figurine as a housewarming gift (joke gift) and then a real gift of a nice set of glasses. So we'll head over there at 3pm.

Maybe before then I should have some cookies beforehand for lunch.

Happy Birthday to Shawn!

Here's to a great day. Spoil and take care of yourself today. You know, make a cranberry peach turkey pie or whatever. Live big.

Big love and hugs,

Anne

http://shawnrwest.blogspot.com

quote of the week (not by me, but I wish it were)

"We should really just get lipo and be scary skinny minnies and all the fat people would hate us and go away."


Does anything else really need to be said? No. It doesn't. Because that is about the funniest comment Ever.

45-page form + dinner at Abdulaye's and Afsas

You know, I don't know why I have to fill out a 45 page security form for the government when there is a good chance that I won't even make it through the orals, much less through an exhaustive list of other candidates. I think it's just an exercise in torture. I have one more nasty little form to do today. Baaa-baaa-blaaaaaa BLAAAH. Yucko. You get my excitement. I have no interesting story from yesterday because I was filling out the form. I can't say, yeah and the I got to page 26 and Whew! What a crazy page. it doesn't work like that. I wish it did because I would probably have a more interesting day myself.

This morning I smell like bugspay. I sprayed the bejesus out of my arms and hands last night, then this morning when I felt a little itchy. I have no idea why it happens like this but mosquitos seem to get in our bedroom well after rainy season. We don't get them really *in* rainy season... you know when the mosquitos are around. anyway, it's annoying because in the day I forgot to fumigate the room and then at night there I am. You know that single buzzing in your ear or getting bit between your fingers? I hate that!

We went over to dinner at Abdulaye's (nearby carpenter) and Afsa (wife-lette pictured above) the night before last for some millet. They live in a one-room house. The owner of the overall building (there is a family living next to them in another room) is building a new house which Abdulaye says should be quite nice. But I didn't ask him if they will have more than one room or not. Many people only have one room as their house here who live in the cities. Omar Sy, the chuaffeur who takes me between Dakar and Tamba in his 7-place (station wagon), he lives in one room within a biggish house and there are 2 other families on the bottom floor living in single rooms too. You have the bed in the middle of the room and a small TV and their clothes and other affairs on the side. Abdulaye and Afsa have a nice wooden closet (because he's a carpenter, he can do that!). It's humbling going over there. They're both so sweet and they know we like how Afsa prepares her millet (it's very tasty indeed). Although Brook did get a scary piece of meat or entrails in his sauce which he kinda flung between his legs under the chair. They never ask for money or seem to see any discrepancy between our monster house with a trillion rooms only a couple of blocks from their one-bedroom house.

Abdulaye is about my age and they already have 3 kids. That's weird when I think about it. The last niblet they named after Brook: Bakary (his west african name). Although Brook thinks with Afsa's part of the naming was to profit from some gifts for the niblet from the toubab. She's a bit more opportunistic than Abdulaye, but only a very tiny way. If I were born a differnt person and in her position, perhaps I would do the the same thing. You never know.

Man, this bug spray smell is driving me crazy. Not a very poetic way to end this post, but I guess I'm going for the realistic, smelly ending.

Cow herders and my moped

Basically I just wanted to annoy Shawn and put an animal in the title of this story. I go to the post yesterday afternoon, in the middle of fussing around in the kitchen and pick up a box of our junk mail (primarily) that is sent from the work address in DC. I take the back road, which is a highway that runs parallel to the main road to our house, but the main road is almost always jammed with horse carts, taxis and bicycles. I take the back route and go to the post. This back road eliminates the sound of people yelling 'toubab' at me on the main street, not that that term doesn't bring warm fuzzy feelings to me every time I hear it... Anyway, the aim was to pop over to the post, pick up my package and head home. I took the back roads to be quick and be relatively unnoticed. The last part panned out okay. And I am going down a hill after finishing at the post before the final hill up towards our neighborhood on this highway and the moped engine just stops. Now I'm going down hill and it's moving and I'm trying to pedal to see if I can get the litle bugger to start again but it won't. I inch up a little up the hill (as far as I can make it) and there we be. Me and my moped. Stalled, won't start. I take the spark plug out and give that a whirl--See if it's dirty. It seems kind of dirty but it's pretty hot because I just took it out of the moped engine, and I don't really have anything to wipe it off with... many people will get a leaf or something (which I have been known to do too, but fyi, it's not too effective) to try and clean the spark plug. So I scrape on it with the back of my spark plug tool thingy and put it back in. I pedal like mad trying to get the thing started again, but no, it refuses. So now I'm cursing myself for having taken the back road. There are no moped repair people anywhere. and I'm halfway home... a 20 minute walk, probably 30-40 min pushing the moped up a hill. Hmm... So I walk it a little up the hill to where all these cow herders are hanging out. They sell their cows around here in this little mini-stadium. So I talk to them about watching the moped while I go get the day guard Roger to come back for it. Of course they refuse to speak Wolof, one of the national langugages, because they are Puhls and refuse to be "wolof-ized". Whatever, I'm a toubab, we know you really speak Wolof, just talk to me already. One of them admits to speaking French so we try that route. Finally another guy comes up professing to speak Wolof so I tell him I'm leaving my moped for Roger. He's like, Okay. So I manage to see a taxi actually coming up the road and I flag him, take the taxi home. I tell Roger where the moped is (I feel guilty that I'm not doing this myself but with the doo-dads coming over for dinner in less than 2 hours and I haven't really progressed very far with dinner at this point, it's just not going to happen) and he goes to get it and get it repaired. I need to find out exactly what was wrong with it today. My guess is the spark plug, but thats' because most problems come back to the spark plug. What we call here the bougie (boo-jee). Umm, I don't really have an ending to the story except that I got home and so did the moped.... except a little later. The End.

Food Feud

Richard Dawson says, "Show me that creme brulee!" XXXXXXXX Eeeeeeeeeeeh. So I stick mr. creme brulee in the fridge to set and guess what, he never sets. He thinks he wants to, but doesn't. Hmm. I stare at the recipe I used again. I did everything to the book (which I am known not too), so I cook mr. brulee again, thinking maybe it needs more time on the stove. I'm annoyed but also thankful I prepared the ice-cream as a back-up. The second time I put him in the fridge he doesn't firm up any more. Unfortunately I just don't have the extra time to triangulate the recipe with other books to see what I can do to salvage it. Oh well. The creme brulee has turned into a nice lime and ginger cream sauce for my ice-cream. (wink)

What else. Carrot soup... s'okay. Ravioli actually ended up being my favorite (and maybe the guests who seemed to dig that). It's a big pain in my butt to make it. I kind of made up the ravioli stuffing and paired it with a tomato vinagrette. So that panned out. Consomme, which is my personal favorite and probably shouldn't have been on the menu, but "W", I wanted it. One of the guests sucked down 2 cups of it. so that's cool. Endive salad, B for boring, but hey, I didn't want to be spending my entire day in the kitchen. Yeah, okay so the veal sushi with mirin glaze thing. I decided to do it with a truffle-cheese risotto, right? Well I know the consistency of risotto and frankly I don't know what I was thinking to be able to form the little bugger into little balls. It's too, you know, risotto-like. It doesn't ball up. Duh. So I ended up placing the little veal what-nots on a bed of the risotto. Eh. ... it panned out, but wasn't what I was going for. But then again, what did I expect? Dish panned out.....I agree with Brook that it didn't pop out and smack anyone in the face of being absolutely amazing, but it held its own. Not sure I'll do that one again. And there you go. All in all I give the whole affair a solid 6. Panned out okay but nothing really to write home about. Of course I'm writing here, which could imply that it was good enough to write about, although that's not really the case. I just like dissecting it with what worked and what didn't. unfortunately you are coming along for the ride. Speaking of which....

Dinner party (yes, this means a non-animal entry)

There is a final evaluation for Brook's project in town. So they're coming over for dinner tonight. I've been fussing around in the kitchen already. The electricity has already gone off, but luckily it came back within an hour. I always start with my dessert first, cuz it's my favorite to make and it can usually last the longest (and takes the longest to set anyway). Today's, or rather tonight's dessert is a lime and ginger creme brulee (can't be bothered with accents) served next to some vanilla gelato. I really dislike grating ginger so I was glad to get that out of the way. Don't you hate those stringy bits? I do.

The great news is that I actually got my tofu to turn out today. A minor miracle that I don't mind sharing. The last couple of times have been flops, so it's a good day to turn out. I made a lovely creamy soy milk so I saved about 5 ounces of that for my carrot soup and as a back-up in case the beancurd didn't come out. Which was a very real possibility! It's really annoying when it doesn't, because you spend 24 hours soaking the beans, making the milk and trying to cook the beancurd and at the end of the day if you don't have the beancurd, it's not like you have soymilk in it's place. The whole affair is ruined. It's very annoying! I think part of the trick today was that I used the MgCl that Mikiko gave me from her stash from Japan. Seems to make a difference.

Anyway, so I figured we could start off with a cold soup of carrot with saffron and beancurd (hooray beancurd face!), then perhaps a pan-seared fois gras with avocado and chives... although this is the deal-e-o. I don't know if my avocados are off. I may have to go with another dish. Of course as soon as I open and cut the avocado it's hard for it to not change colors, so it's a little tricky. I'm kind of thinking the whole avocado thing isn't going to pan out. I've asked Binta to check in the market (belly laugh) to see if there are any there. Guess who's not holding her breath? So maybe...a prawn and goat-cheese ravioli with tomato and basil vinagrette??? I don't know. ravioli is such a pain in my butt. I don't want to work too hard for these guys. I'll keep you posted. Then I wanted to have a consomme before the next course (guess who's in fancy-pants mode??), so my favorite tomato-tea consomme, then for the main course veal sushi with mirin glaze (although the veal will be cooked, cuz whatever, it's veal). The rice part will be a truffle-cheese risotto. I'm excited about this dish actually. I haven't made it, but it sounds like fun. I'm going to pound my veal scalloppines really fine and drap them over little balls of the risotto. Too fun. Then a boring-blah blah endive salad with walnuts--ho-hum and then the lime-ginger creme brulee with the ice-cream jobby.

I got these really cool japanese placemats in Mongolia that I might bring out. I'm going to serve my consomme in some of my chinese tea cups (that are too cheap to actually serve real tea). So there we go. I'm excited about it. Of course I get excited about these dinners, probably more than anyone else. But guess what, you get to share in the excitement too. Would you try for the fois-gras or the ravioli? Any other suggestions? of course write quickly else I'll have to make a choice myself.

No love in Tambacounda (or how I learned to love the squeaky toy goose sound)

I'm not going to lie to you. I was planning on writing about the goose today anyway, although it wasn't too much. See the goose has learned a new trick. It's a new honk that they have started to add on to their old honk. It sounds just like a really loud squeaky toy: eeeeeeeeeeeeh eeeeeeeeeh. They both do this in tandem. It's pretty funny, although I guess as with all goose honks, it's kind of loud and hard to get out of your head. But you know, in a good way.

The other goose entry today (I realize I talk way too much about animals but it's my locale, not me, I swear) is that I was downstairs making dessert for tonight and heard a weird honking sound. This is the sound that Mr. Raunce (Ultimate Uber-Goose we had in Indonesia) used to make while trying to get close (if you know what I mean) to Edith. So I rush out to look and instead of Sebastian givin' some lovin', they're at another goose fight!!! Unbelieveable. Give it up already. So they're both twirling around again biting each other's backs, this time trying to flap each others wings in each other face. I made a half-hearted attempt to get them to break it up, but they didn't listen. Then it ended abruptedly and Sebastian had a huge chunk of Moira's goose feathers in his mouth. He spit them out. Moira did the goose flap thing but again, I think it was a tie, especially since Sebastian had a lot of feathers in his mouth, which I would think could count as points, don't you? No love in Tambacounda. No love at all.

Sheep BBQ on the Roof

In addition to Thanksgiving, which mamacat came over to celebrate with us, we wanted to throw a Missoui (anyone know how to spell this? pronounced mish-wee), which is basically a sheep fest. It's tradition here to do this when you have a special guest. I think it originates from Morrocco or the arab world. We usually throw these things on our roof. The sheep is served with rice or fonio or potatoes as your starch. You get this onion sauce as an accompaniment and sometimes a salad on the side as well, and bread. We've actually thrown about 4 of these so the staff and we can pretty much work like clock-work to pull one of these fetes together. This time, however, we were going to invite all of Brook's office so this meant that we were expecting upwards of 30 people. One medium-sized sheep was not going to cut it. So we talked to Danfaga (night guardian at our home here) about looking into getting a baby cow (read: small-sized cow); that or get two small sheep, which would be more tender. Around and around we go, and it becomes clear that the cow route is going to be really expensive. So we drop the cow option and opt for 2 small sheep instead. Since I was out of town traveling with mother, Brook unfortunately had to be the contact for Danfaga and his bargaining for the sheep. Apparently Danfaga kept coming back several times in the last day with a new price that the sheep owners gave him (all of which were over our 'last price'). Brook felt like he was going to strangle Danfaga but finally we got the sheep.

One of the sheep was really loud and annoying, so I was anxious for Friday to come so we could just get him in the bread ovens! We usually take a picture of Danfaga and the sheep (and sometimes with the person who we are honoring), but it just didn't pan out this time. The next morning comes and I guess because it's two sheep, it seems to be taking a long time for them to clean up the sheep and get them ready for the kitchen to be stuffed and spiced up. Binta (the maid) called one of her girlfriends to come over to help and they were waiting for the sheep. Binta said the sheep was dirty and on the ground so I go out and do an inspection of the sheep. the sheep are hanging from a nubby tree we have and have been washed. Supposedly the guys say, they are going to clean the sheep again before they give it to Binta. I inform Binta of this and ask everyone if they are okay to continue working while I take mother into town to go to the tailors. Everyone says fine.

Not 10 minutes we are in town when Brook says that a big fight has erupted at the house over the sheep. So I drop mom off in the middle of the market and go back to see what the deal is. Evidently the sheep is now in the kitchen and Binta says how dirty it is... blah blah blah. So I go outside and the guys are complaining about Binta, so we all are outside and Danfaga and Binta are yelling at each other with the sheep lying stuffed in this plastic wash tub. Danfaga was claiming that he and Roger (day guardian) are the guys and they clean the sheep and that is their job and Binta's job as the chick is to be in the kitchen and await for the sheep. Binta claims that the sheep should be cleaned and they haven't done their job. So finally I managed to get a word in edgewise at them yelling at each other and ask Danfaga if the sheep is ready for the kitchen (and if it is clean). Danfaga says no. He starts yelling that she took the sheep into the kitchen before it was ready. So I say, Okay, Danfaga take the sheep back and clean it and when it is done bring it to Binta. Now normally I would think that would work and everyone would say okay and move on. But I think they were into yelling at each other so they continue yelling at each other with their accusations. Blah. So I tell them again (actually probably about 4 times total) and finally just tell them to shut up (are we in high school?) and get on with things. Roger, the day guardian, was just sitting there closeby, seemingly somewhat amused by the whole fight. He said, "you know we told you that we were going to finish the sheep and give it to her when we were done." But I guess she took the sheep before it was ready so that caused a big ruckus. sigh. Okay everyone is back to their respective sheep stations and I get back on my moped to go find mother wandering around in the market.

The sheep goes into the bread ovens (we rent space in local, fireburning bread ovens) at 2:30 and things seem okay. All is quiet on the sheep front. (well he's been quiet since the morning but it was everyone else all up in a rowl). The sheep is supposed to come out at 6 and Binta and her friend go over to the bread ovens with their tubs to pick up the sheep. Well 6 comes and goes and so does 6:30. Finally 7pm comes and still no Binta, no sheep. People are supposed to come at 7:30. Whoops. So we call Binta and I guess the bread makers in town went on strike for the day (Good night!) so the bread ovens weren't warm when they put the sheep in (because no one was working), so it was taking longer to cook the sheep. It was estimated that the sheep woudl come out at 7:30. So.... I say that Binta can come back and finish working on the extras for the fete (salad, etc) and the friend can wait at the ovens for the sheep. Finally the sheep comes around 7:40 and people have already started to come over. Brook is antsy (because he's Mr. Time and that's cool) so he's in host mode while I stay in the kitchen and work on things there.

Due to several circumstances, there were several people who couldn't make it so we actually were fine on the sheep per person numbers. Everyone seemed to have a good time (Mom befriended a little 8-year old girl who belongs to a friend of ours) and go back at least 2 to 3 times for more sheep ++. Whew. It was more fuss than it usually is but it worked out fine (as these things usually do). Anyway, the next big challenge was to find a turkey for Thanksgiving... coming the following week... if you thought the cow and/or sheep escapade was a rigamarole... we now come to the Turkey!

Goose Fight

Well Moira and Sebastian got into a goose fight today. I was petting Sebastian and Moira was starting to bite Sebastian, then he nipped her back and then they just started biting each other and trying to bite each other on the backs. And were going around in circles. I'm not sure what the point of trying to bite a goose on the back is... they made half hearted attempts to bite each others necks, but they both seemed more interested in biting backs. Anyway this went on for awhile with no apparent winner. Then they both flapped their wings really loudly and walked around. It was sort of cute, except.... well it was a goose fight. I think their fight was a tie because the winner goose usually gets to honk extra loud and walk around flapping his wings, while the other one does not flap their wings. Okay, well there's not too much else to the goose fight story. At least its comforting on one level to know that they even bite each other, not just me.