Adventures in Cooking

Last week we started cooking dinners on our own. It is great to have that outlet during the day. We have been quite creative in attempting to make some of our favorite foods from home. We think we have been pretty successful. We cook over an ebambola which is much like a small grill without a grate. We place the pots and pans right on the hot coals and do all the cooking at the back of our house. We have already been successful at making spaghetti, tacos, beans and rice and even a tuna helper dish we found in a box. We have also gotten creative with some of the Congolese foods. Nsongo is something that is eaten here quite often in different forms. It is the root of a tree that resembles a potato except much larger and has the texture of a carrot. One afternoon we decided to slice it up really thin and fry them to make nsongo chips. They are as close to potato chips as we are going to get while we are here.
And…we have eaten pizza twice in the last week! Our house worker, Robert makes very good dough for pizza and Sam’s dad sent back some cheese on his way back to the states. You can’t get cheese here in Gemena so it is a special treat to have it. And all four of us were more than pleased to eat it.