Playing in the kitchen

Remember when we were told as kids not to play with our food??

Well, as a Grannie, I am doing just that. Yesterday's dinner was a combination of a meat sauce, local posho (a corn-meal like staple) and cheese. It was pretty good, but the posho was a bit soft. Next time we will make it with less water so that it stiffer.

We have made scalloped matooke (bananas) and matooke (potato) salad. Matooke is a starchy banana used almost daily by people raised in southern Uganda. (People in the west use cassava flour to make bread,;in the north, millet flour and peanuts are the staples.) I think that almost any recipe that uses potatoes can be made with matooke. French fries from both poatotoes and matooke are already made and sold here. I am thinking of trying matooke soup, mashed matooke with sour cream and chives, etc. There could be a whole new meaning to local foreign foods. Or is that foreign local foods??

Computer stuff

Computer viruses happen even here in Uganda. Caught a virus in late December and am just now getting my computer partially re-connected again. Email responding has been very sporadic and hopefully will soon be better. Since all my addresses were erased, if you haven't heard from me in Jan, you might want to drop a short line and be sure I have your current email.

Life continues to be an adventure. I get to stay in my house for 2 more years! My kids are moving to CA in the summer some time. I told God that I was done with helping with school fees and He told me to fund 2 more students now, now (Ugandan for immediately). Just when I thought there would be some cushion for traveling a bit. Oh well. In the long run, giving someone the tools to make a decent living for themselves and their family really doesn't match up at all to my seeing another part of this beautiful country...or other countries around. Maybe in 2010.

May God continue to guide, direct and bless each of us in this new year.

Cooking??

This Christmas the baking fever hit me big time. Miriam and Rachel, Florence's daughters who stay here too, wanted to learn to cook Muzungu style. So....among us we made 10 different kinds of cookies, maybe 20 dozen altogether. Many of the recipes I had never made before, so it was an experiment. I never thought I'd be really cooking here in Africa. Believe it or not, I have even held cake baking "classes" for some who wanted to learn.
At this point, most of the cookies have been given away to neighbors, boda drivers, a church party, family, service workers, etc. Well....OK....we have eaten quite a few too.

Today we are making just 4 kinds more, favorites of ours from the initial baking. Most of these will be for sharing too.

What a fun way to celebrate the holiday.

Ruth, update

Ruth has finished the first term of her last year, working on a degree in Public Administration. She consistently finishes in the top 10% of her class and is looking forward to her second internship this next summer.

She really wants to go on for the Master's degree and has been searching out scholarships and grants, but with no luck as yet. If anyone knows of a funding source please let us know.

As you can probably tell from this photo, she is also doing some big work at home. This, her second child, will arrive between the second and third terms. She has already made arrangements for a trusted worker to come from her village when the baby comes. She will have all the work of nursing and of bottles. I don't envy her that at all. Guess I'd best get to work on the baby quilt. April will be here before we know it.