Food Issues...

There are some new issues I have had to get used to in relation to food over here in Dodoma.
I was thinking about this as I took my Weetabix out of the freezer to prepare our breakfast...!! This handy tip of storing Weetabix in the freezer helps to kill off the unwelcome weevils which like to live in our cereals. The other method I have to rid our cereal of writhing bugs is to sieve it through my colander, with lots of hearty shaking over the sink, to shake that extra protein out of the breakfast flakes!
In fact, breakfast cereals are a luxury here. We are so used to eating cereal for breakfast and have been told how good it is for our children- to give them that "healthy start" for the day- that it is difficult to think of other easy and quick alternatives for the morning energy-boost.
We are fortunate in Dodoma as we can get hold of cereals and even "Kellogs" makes its way onto the shop shelves at our local Asian foodstore. However, it is an expensive way to start the day:
*an average size box of Rice Crispies sets us back about 10,ooo Tanzanian shillings- about £5- whereas I was buying them in Lancashire in October for £2.27 at the nearby shops...

*Similarly, a smaller sized box of Cornflakes out here is almost 8,000 shillings (about £4)- double the price I might expect to pay down at Sainsbury's or Tesco's

*Porridge Oats are also available, with a 500 gram tin costing 5,000 shillings.
Not the cheapest home-breakfast, but we appreciate that these are "foreign" imported foods, which increases the cost.
On the other hand, the children often start their morning with a plate of chopped bananas- a nice, locally produced fruit at only
150 shillings per banana (7p) or free, if we happen to have some bananas on the trees in the MAF compound!

There is a great variety of seasonal fruit- the difficult part is just choosing which particular fruit to purchase...

Stopping by the roadside to buy watermelon:




There is also the issue of baking cakes and biscuits that I am getting used to. I have never baked so much in my life! It seems cake is a prerequisite of MAF get-togethers and if you want cake, you must bake it! My inexperience in this domestic area is becoming glaringly obvious, as I bumble my way through new recipes... Fortunately, the children and Andrew are very forgiving- which is a a good job too- as they have had some funny concoctions to sample this past week: a batch of peanut butter cookies which went horribly wrong somewhere and tasted more like heavy, baked lumps of lard- and my crowning effort of the week: my first gingerbread loaf, which ended up with a bit of a "zing" as I got distracted at a critical point and picked up the wrong spice bottle, adding ground cumin into the cake mix instead of ground ginger!!! (actually, it tastes quite nice- maybe I should re-write the original recipe??)

A further culinary experiment was a new recipe for potato and bacon soup, with muffins. I tried that out on Tuesday lunch, when Esther had her little friend and namesake here for lunch. Judging from their happy smiles, Esther and Esther enjoyed this particlar recipe, so that one is a winner to use again!


Finally, I have been learning to make pizza from scratch, as we had a MAF "farewell" meal last Saturday- a bring-and-share-your-own-homemade-pizza- for 4 MAF families who are leaving Dodoma. It was fun trying out so many different pizza toppings and getting inpsired for my next attempt- and I will try to remain focused on my next baking effort, especially if I need to use my herbs + spices bottles!

At the pizza-evening farewell: the MAF children who are leaving model their "Goodbye T-shirts"- gifts hand-made (literally!) by the remaining Dodoma MAF children: