Time for some updates

Time is a wonderful and mysterious concept.  It never actually stands still, yet many people including me, often take it for granted.  Thinking that time would stand still and wait for me when I am on Pemba, I wasted a lot of it.  I was one inch punched in the face with the sudden realization that today marks the 5th month that I have been in Tanzania.  Looking back, I see that I have changed drastically.  I've become a more content version of my previous self.  I can actually take care of myself after 23 years of existence. I also like to think that I have become a better cook (more to come later in the post).  Overall, I think that I have become a better version of myself from 5 months ago.  I now know more of what I want out of life, seeing a clearer path of life that I want to take, although this is still quite hazy.  But time really has fly by me these 5 months, only realizing this after I have been talking to some friends from back home these past few weeks.  So hopefully for the next 19 months or so, I hope that I will not be wasting and watching the time fly by as much as before.

Well here are some updates:

23-11-2013 -

This Saturday started out as normal as any Saturday can be in Tanzania.  I woke up in a sweltering hot room, lacking any mean of ventilation, door shut due to a possibility of the invasion of the rodents, lying in a pool of my own sweat.  The first thought that came to my mind was, "Did I forget to turn on the fan last night? No that's impossible because the fan is always on in my room."  It took me a while to realized that there was no electricity in my house, along with the other houses in my village.  This was both a blessing and a curse.  A curse because I was not able to play any tune on my computer, which I forgot to charge the night before.  A blessing because this actually forced me outside into the community.  Without any electricity, I was not able to cook my own breakfast, so naturally I went over to my neighbor to try and score some breakfast, since they always asked me to join them for breakfast lunch and dinner.  I was not disappointed, as I came inside their house, I was greeted with a fragrant scent of fresh baked breakfast rolls and chapati ya maji.  The meal was a typical Tanzanian breakfast with rolls, chapati, and of course the ubiquitous sweet Tanzanian chai (tea).  After breakfast, I hung out with some of my neighbors and other random villager under a tree.  This was when the day started going south.  For some reason they thought it was appropriate or funny to ask me to read random Chinese scripts that they found on various packagings.  At first I thought OK they just don't know that I do not know Chinese.  Even after I explain that I do not know Chinese or Korean or Japanese, they continued to have a discussion on the various East Asian languages. Then some of the people there had the audacity to started saying the whole Chingchong thing.  And the Tanzanian version of Chingchong is even more annoying and disgusting to the ear than the American version.  It is not even Chingchong, it is just random mumbling and murmuring at attempting to sound "Chinese".  I immediately gave them the "WTF", and no they did not stop.  I then gave them the "Ain't nobody got time for this" face (according to a fellow Peace Corps volunteer). They still did not stop, feeling disgusted and angry, I made it known the group and left abruptly.  At home, I just needed a way to chill out and cool down, but with the sweltering heat and the lack of any electricity to power my fan, I was left with only one option.  And that was to head toward the beach and go for a quick swim.  I packed my bag and climbed on my trusty bicycle, and started riding toward the outskirt of town.  Now this was the first time I attempted to go to the beach all by myself so it took me almost 2 hours to find the correct way to go to the beach, seeing as how I got lost numerous time.  But all was well when I finally reached my destination.

Time for a little rest

The view after an arduous bone jarring journey

The high tide covered much of the intertidal zone

As I arrived at the beach, all the local fisherman had left due to the incoming high tide, which was perfect for me.  I was able to swim and enjoying the beach all by myself.  You could say that this has become my own private beach.  This was what I needed after a much heated day, pun intended.  After I cooled down significantly, I started to head back to my village, which only took 20 minutes of slowly riding down the bone jarring road.  It can be safe to say that I will visit this beach more often in the future.

A private beach all by myself

With no one but the my shadow

25-11-2013

I have a special something for everyone today.  Yesterday, I was giving the opportunity to purchase 3 spiny lobster for a mere TSH 8000, or about $5.  Yes that is $5 for about 2-3lbs of spiny lobster freshly caught in the back yard that is my neighborhood.  The Asian slickdealer in me immediately jumped on that deal, because you know as they say "Buy now think later."  And that was exactly how this whole deal was.  I did not know how to cook lobster, I had a slight idea of what I wanted to do, so immediately I contacted my mother in the States.  This was how the conversation went "Má, cách nào nấu lẩu tôm hùm?" Within minutes, my dear mother replied a whole quick recipe on how to make Lobster Hot Pot. "Con làm tôm cho sạch để ráo sau đó ướp gia vị để cho thấm khoảng 1 tiếng .Bắt nồi bỏ dàu ăn cho nóng đập tỏi phi cho thơm bỏ tôm vào xào cho thấm sau đó cho nước xôi vào nấu nêm bột chua nêm nếm vừa ăn là được."  Well that all sounds pretty easy but I did not have some of the ingredients she mentioned so I decided to make my own recipe based on her.

Ingredients (easily found on Pemba):
2-3 lbs of Spiny Lobster
1 bag of clam
TSH 2000 worth of meaty white fish (don't buy the Scombridae available in the market, the dark meat does not go well with this hot pot, but you can if you want)
1/2 lb of octopus
2 skewers of snails
Salt
Pepper
Cooking oil
Garlic
Onion
Tamarind
3-4 bundles of Lemongrass
Carrots
Chili Pepper
Lemon juice
About 2 Liters of Water (Boiling)

So the previous day I had prepare and marinaded the octopus.  I simple put in a couple pinch of salt, pepper, about half a lemon worth of lemon juice, 2 cloves of mashed garlic, and some cooking oil in a small bowl.  I then add the octopus (beaten and cut into small bite size pieces).  Put this in the fridge or freezer, whichever you have available.

The octopus after a 24 hours marinating period

Next up I prep the clam and the snails by giving them a thorough cleaning in a small bowl.  Then I immersed them in boiling water and let them soak until I am ready to cook them.

Soaking the snails and clams

For the fish, I sliced them thinly similar to how one would slice sashimi.  This would allow the fish to cook quicker for some hotpot dipping action.

Fish sliced into dip-able size

Now to prepare the tamarind stock.  This extra important because it gives the hotpot a nice little sour kick.  Now on Pemba, they would sell tamarind by the kilogram.  So I bought about 1/4 kg and this was way more than I needed, but hey it was pretty cheap.  I filled a cup with boiling water then I dropped in a sizable amount of tamarind, I imagined how the soup would taste with the amount of tamarind being put in.  So I just guestimated by ear.  Then I started stirring the living pulp out of the very tamarind seed, to get all the flavor into the water. I did this for about 5 minutes, every now and then I would put in more and more of the tamarind, until it was a dark enough color that I thought was sufficient for the soup.  Then leave this on the side.

Start mincing the onion and garlic.  I used a whole bulb of onion and 4 cloves of garlic.  You can also dice the carrot at this time, into whatever shape you prefer.

Now I started heating some cooking oil in a pot that will be used for the hot pot. You can use however much oil you want, as this is mainly to extract the flavors out of the garlic and onion for your stock. I used about 3-4 tablespoons of cooking oil.

While the oil is getting heat up, I started preparing the lobster first give them a thorough scrubbing, who know what kind of gunk they have sticking to them.  Then you continue by cutting the head off.  I sliced the head in halves just so that during the cooking process, all that juicy goodness will flow out easier into the stock. I also halved one of the tails to be used in the stock.  The other 2 tails I left alone to be grilled for later usage.  You can give the head and the tail some flavoring of your choice, but I opted out of this because I thought there was already enough flavoring going into the soup.

Defrosting my lobsters

Now onto the fun part.  The oil should be adequately heated up by now.  Drop in those garlic bad boys that you have minced earlier.  Make sure to keep the heat low so that you won't burn the crisp off these bad boys.  When the garlics are starting to turn golden, it is time to drop the bass on those onion, constantly stirring or turning them around.  Wait until the onions are about translucent, drop the lobster pieces in and give them a quick stir fry.  By now turn the heat up a bit.  You can now put in some salt and pepper if you did not flavor the lobsters beforehand.  When the lobster pieces are turning red, add the 2 litters of boiling water.

Remember the tamarind juice that we prepared earlier?  Now you can easily scoop the the seeds and discard of them. What are you waiting for, drop these bad boys into the stock pot.

You can now start tearing or mashing the lemongrass so that you can easily extract the flavor.  After mashing the lemongrass, you can add them to the stock pot.  Of course you can add the carrot at this time also, to give the soup some more sweet sweet flavoring goodness.

By this time, you are probably forgot all about the clams, snails and octopus right?  Well you can start adding those bad boys, don't forget to give the clams and snails one final rinse and drain.

Now it is time for the most important ingredient of all, the chili peppers or the pili pili hoho.  This is up to your discretion. Use however much chili peppers that you think you can handle or enjoy. For me personally, I only used half of a chili pepper.  Mash the pepper with a spoon and add these smashed chili pepper pieces to the stock.  Let everything simmer for about 30 minutes.  After 30 minutes, now is the time to add salt to flavor to taste.

10 minutes before serving, add the fish fillet that we prepared earlier.

There you go, a full blown recipe for a Seafood Lobster Hot Pot, made with ingredients easily found on the Green Island of Pemba. Enjoy.

Seafood galore

I thought that this hot pot was a hit with many people in my neighborhood.  Also, I like to think that I have successfully introduced lemongrass to the cuisine of Pemba.  Hopefully

30-11-2013 to 3-12-2013

I've been writing post cards to my friends around the world, about 30-40 cards total.  So if my cards somehow make it into your hands, please let me know, and it'll be cool if you can write back.  I'm looking forward to some responses :)

An example of a Pemban postcard

Well Peace Out
- The Village Cook