"You will probably need this information
when you check me into the Betty Crocker Clinic."
~Cynthia Nixon
Okay, so I know I said I was going to try to break out of my shell in the cooking arena and try not to get stuck in a rut like I normally do. Well too late… I’m in the rut. Cooking and preparing food is not really fun like it can be back home. It is a chore. It’s not just a question of what I want to eat. (What I’m really craving is salmon, but that’s not going to happen). Instead, it’s more a question about little details like: Is the water clean? Are there bugs in my rice? Are there rocks in the beans or the rice? Are the vegetables clean? Have they been in the bleach water for 15 minutes? Do I have the right ingredients? If not, is it even possible to find them in Togo? Will this make me sick?
Then, of course, there is the bothersome task of doing the dishes. Normally I LOVE to do dishes….weird, but true. I actually don’t mind after-meal cleanup, mostly because I’m a neat freak and really can’t bring myself to leave a kitchen with a sink full of dirty dishes. I know they will just sit there and eventually make the room smell. It’s much easier to bite the bullet and just do the darn dishes! However, now dishwashing is another monster all together. With no kitchen sink, I wash them in a bucket, afterwards, dumping the gross, dirty water outside in my compound.
The hassle of cooking has created some weird eating habits for me, but anything that is easy and minimal means fewer dishes! For example, today I ate popcorn for breakfast and lunch. Last night I had a can of sardines for dinner. These are foods that are easy and safe. You can never be too sure here. Just yesterday I had surprise diarrhea attacks, which I’m sure were probably from the apple I ate for breakfast. I miss the fresh fruits and vegetables from the market back home, but here you can never completely trust that the produce you eat today won’t have you running to the nearest bathroom tomorrow. So I guess I am back in my rut….looking forward to some of those freeze-dried hiking meals my family is planning to mail to me….just add boiling water? Yes! I can do that.
Emily, I find myself looking back and remembering those days when you were a little girl, constantly leaving me notes/letters about anything and everything you were upset about, taping them to my door….haha. Writing was your way of venting. Little did I know that all these years later it would lead to something like this! You were born to blog :)
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