cooking

Guava Season

Our resident French doctor friend came by the house last weekend with a bucket full of guavas for us. Guavas are falling off the trees around here; it seems they all come into season at the exact same moment and last only a couple of weeks. Kind of like mango season a couple months ago, intense but brief. Guavas are apparently really good for you: A single fruit contains four times as much vitamin C as an orange! They’re loaded with antioxidants and have lots of traditional medicinal uses, including fighting cancer.

The only guava I’d ever tasted before was guava juice at a breakfast buffet in Thailand. I’d loved it. But a bucket of guavas and no juicer in sight? I didn’t know what to do with them. Continue reading

Cooking in Congo

So I threw a little Thanksgiving party last night. Yes, it’s March, but hey, we live in a mining camp in the middle of Africa. One never knows when they’ll get their hands on a turkey. And this turkey that I stumbled across was way too big for our freezer, so I invited the first two people we ran into after buying it, saying, “Hey, how’s dinner four days from now for ya?” A day or two for defrosting, a day or two for brining, another day for roasting, and there you go.

We found this turkey at the bottom of a freezer at our camp grocery store during their closeout sale, before changing management. Where had they been hiding it, and for how long?? Not that we’re picky. I remember having lived here for six months when I found a rack of pork ribs at the bottom of the same freezer, not even wrapped in plastic. It was completely exposed, slightly freezer burned, but I said hey, that’s different, I think I’ll take that. I had never made pork ribs in my life before, but no matter. I was desperate for something new. My neighbor thought I was crazy, then later told me her husband was jealous she hadn’t bought them. I found a killer recipe online that is now one of our favorites.

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