I have enjoyed cooking before so this should come as no surprise, but lately I have been breaking new ground in the kitchen! Yesterday, for the first time ever, I walked into a butchery in Tala market and ordered one quarter of a kilogram of beef. I wanted to cook pilau (a spiced rice dish, usually with beef) but I didn’t know where to start. The mamas in the market were happy to share their recipes, so I collected several opinions and went home to give it a try. Result: success! I had some problems cutting the meat, I never noticed how dull my knife is because all I ever chop is veggies!

I’ve also been cooking some pretty awesome fried rice. Lots of vegetables and spices; it’s pretty tasty. I only learned how to make non-mushy rice in the last few months, so that’s helped my fried rice dish immensely. So you can see savory dishes are covered, but I’ve also made a foray into sweet.

I’ve cooked pancakes at home before, but never from scratch (who comes to Africa to eat Bisquick and Aunt Jemima?). I love breakfast food any time of the day and some of you know how much I love Denny’s. As it is my personal opinion that breakfast is what America does best, I decided that I needed to learn how to recreate some of that homely comfort food. I’ve attempted pancakes a few times over the year I’ve been in Kenya, and they always turned out hivi hivi (mediocre); edible, but nothing I’d rush to offer to a guest! It turns out that if you add a little baking powder they fluff right up. Also, it doesn’t hurt to add some vanilla extract and ground cinnamon (and sliced bananas!). This last time around I even put some unused baking chocolate to use and made some chocolate sauce, which gained a syrup-like consistency after living in the fridge overnight.

So if you’re in the neighborhood of Tala and you have a few bucks to lose you can always stop by my bed and breakfast, haha! Now let me get back to listening to awesome death metal and eating my hashed browns and eggs. Rock on, dudes!