I realized recently that I haven't blogged in months, and I rather miss it. It's become a habit for me to blog when I'm in other countries. But then I come home, get back into somewhat of a routine, and unconsciously start to think that my life isn't interesting enough to write about anymore. I can tell I'm really out of practice with blogging because I have now deleted and retyped the last 3 sentences multiple times, almost as though I'm self conscious about what I'm going to say. I would never do that in Kenya. The words just seem to flow off of my hands there, and I can't type fast enough--literally: I never know when the power might go off, so I really have to type fast. Anyway, I've been reading the book
Julie and Julia for my book club group this month, and it has created all sorts of inspiration in my life. I'm not even sure how much I like the book, but I do like how it's reminding me of things that I love in my life. The book is all about how Julie Powell blogs about her year of cooking through Julia Child's cookbook. Reading the book reminded me of how much I missed blogging. And then I was at a fair trade store the other day, and I felt drawn to this cookbook I've been looking at for months. It's called
The World of Street Food and is full of global recipes from every continent. I recognized several of the dishes, including two from Kenya, and one from China. Nearly everytime I'm at the fair trade store I want to buy it, but I feel guilty purchasing something for myself. But this time between the Julie/Julia book and me missing being able to eat as much street food as I want, it seemed necessary. Besides, my roommate and I are on this cooking new things (and not from a box) kick, and so it seemed to fit right in. And then I thought, hmmm....I should start trying some of these recipes and then blog about them. Ok, I know it totally sounds totally cheesy like I'm copying right from the Julie/Julia book, but really it's not that. I just feel this need to be adding some cultural experiences into my life and this happens to fit in. And I feel like I can justify buying the cookbook if I actually use it.
So on that note, I tried my first recipe from the cookbook. I basically just flipped through and found something easy that didn't require another trip to the grocery store (I am striving for some simplicity in my life). Thus, I selected the Kalawule (spicy fried bananas), which is a dish from Ghana. And can I just say that I hope all the recipes are this easy. Basically it's just pieces of bananas chopped up and coated in a chili powder/ginger/pepper mixture and then they're fried. I cheated with the oil because you are supposed to use palm or peanut oil. We had neither, so I used coconut oil...can one really be troubled over what kind of oil they are using? (I'm all about improvising). It only took about 5 minutes to make, and everyone at my house agreed it was delicious. i'm not one for overly spicy food, but this had the perfect amount of kick to it. I didn't even need a glass of water. I would make these again just because. My roommate even added the recipe to her recipe box, so I guess that's a sign that it's a must make again treat.
It felt really good to be making something African. I really miss chapati, samosa, and all that other Kenyan street food goodness. But I can say that we've been keeping the Kenyan spirit alive in my house. Chai is regularly cooked here several times a week and my Kenyan spices (Royco) are frequently thrown into dishes (which in turn prompts lots of teachers to ask me what I'm eating while I'm in the teacher's lounge at lunch). And my roommate insists that we must cook pilau soon. It is my hope to feel a little bit Kenyan always, even when I'm over here in America.
Stay tuned for more international cooking soon...I hope!
