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Blood cheese?  Conflict cows?

Seriously - I have never bought or asked for a diamond ring, although occasionally I've thought about it.  I haven't bought a cell phone in years by just begging other people's hand-me-downs.  I don't own a PlayStation or Wii or anything like that.  I haven't even owned a car in five years.  I'm not the best ( Read more... )

Last night I saw some old friends and some of their friends, all bachelors.  I lucked out because they were cooking, and it was good food!  Why did this surprise me?  I don't know - I guess I usually consider Congo to be generally more traditional when it comes to gender roles.  But I was happily wrong in this case.


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Liboke


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In the past week or two, I've been making the rounds of the restaurants in Gombe with which I was so familiar when I lived here.  The hotel fare is unexciting and prices are inflated by 300 or 400%.

Most of the local spots are as I remember. Chez Gaby is run by the round and compact Portuguese Gaby, who always has a belly laugh for the men and a ( Read more... )

Last week, I bought a huge hank of collard greens, because, well, I guess because I've been trying to eat more greens, and because they only cost $2.00.

Last week, I washed and cut up about 2/3 of the greens and made Greens in Peanut Sauce from the Congo Cookbook. I was hoping for something akin to Ma Cecile's Pointe Noire, which was made with ( Read more... )