A culinary success story!

A quick update all my foodie friends back home (ahem... Jenn) will be sure to appreciate...

Having long desired to but never having the courage to delve into the art-form that is cokking ackee and saltfish, I was struck by a wave of creativity earlier today and decided to try something completely new and entirely me... Ackee and veggie chunks! Well, not entirely me, but that isn't really the point. The chunks substituted nicely for the saltfish, and now that I am comfortable with the process I will be trying the "ackee and [fill in the blank]" dish with a number of different spins on the original. Next up? Ackee and bacon. Yum. Anyways, take a look at my dinner...

Preparation as follows.

Clean ackee by removing the 3 fruits from the reddish pod. Cut off the seed from each piece of fruit. Clean out red inner lining. Repeat x a million (at least it seems like that). People visiting me will surely see what I mean.

Boil ackee with black pepper, scotchbonnet pepper, whole garlic cloves. Boil until tender, but not until it turns into mush. Remove from heat, strain from water, set aside.

Rehydrate veggie chunks by boiling with thyme, paprika, various seasonings to taste. Takes about 5-7 minutes. Strain out water, set aside.

In a frying pan, put about 2 tbsp of oil and heat. Cut up one onion, tomato, a few cloves of garlic (I used 4), 2 scotchbonnet pepper, 1-2 stocks of scallion. Add all of the above to the oil and sautée until delicious looking/smelling. Season to taste. Add chunks, mix, continue to make delicious. Finally, add ackee. Cook till warm, and not so long as to turn ackee into mush (as above). Turn off heat. Enjoy! I ate it with rice.

Yeah. Success stories come in many shapes and forms, and this one I felt was particularly noteworthy.

Other than that, not much new.

Studying studying studying away… testing March 28^th in NYC. In NYC March 23 – April 3. Give me a shout out if you want to catch up!

-TG

Puppies and excuses...

I'm actually going to take that in reverse order. The reason I haven't posted for a month is because I wrote a mass-email (I know, Tommy MyL, they suck). I think this completely justifies my not posting for a while. Also, I have been studying like a crazy person. Anyways, here comes a short update.

There are six puppies now living in my front yard! They are about three weeks old now and absolutely adorable. See below.

It really is a shame that they will never be as cute as Rambo. Or as friendly. Or as smelly. See below. How I miss that guy...

In other news, I finally got a bike. Though I don't have a helmet. And Peace Corps kicks you out if they catch you riding a bike without a helmet. "Soon come" on that one.

Six weeks and three days until the MCAT means I won't be doing much else besides studying until I get back from NYC. I have an anti-stigma HIV/AIDS training planned for next Thursday at my high school that will be attended by the Peace Corps Country Director, the Program and Training Officer (#2 in command), and my Youth APCD (my boss). So... pressure is on there I guess. Hopefully it goes smoothly.

I am caught in this weird spot where I could go on and on, but I really need to get back to studying so... yeah.

Things are going well here, as always. Happy belated to the 'lil bro, who is now 21. 

Looking forward to two months from now when Will and Jordan will be visiting. Decent.

O.K. that is all. I really just wanted to share that bit about the puppies!

-TG