The train to Mombasa

Oh, wow. This was an adventure and I'm just beginning to recover from it. We took the train around a month ago from Nairobi to Mombasa, thinking it'd be romantic and adventurous. We were wrong.  It was pretty hellish and resulted in some sort of food-borne pathogen and 32 hours of sweaty, claustrophobic, hungry discomfort. However, I can now look at the pictures without a full-body cringe and discovered that there were actually some fun moments and a little adventure (besides the train taking 32 hours instead of 13). Please note that we still do not recommend the train under any circumstance.

I've discovered "Stoney Tangawizi", a popular soda drink here. I have no idea what flavor it is, but it tastes sharply gingery. I like it. This is our train compartment, I'm sitting on the lower bunk and there is an upper bunk that Nathan slept on. 

Dinner was really, really bad. Even the novelty of eating on a train did not make up for it. Mushy bland rice, canned vegetables in salt sauce, preceded by a clear flavorless snot-textured soup and followed by about 4 tiny cubes of mushy fruit. Disappointing. 

Usually the train travels through the night, arriving the next morning between 8 am and 10 am. This means that the many tiny dusty towns that the train passes through see the train in the wee hours of the night, however due to the delays, the train passed through the towns during daylight. This was an endless source of entertainment for the children, who would run towards the train, waving wildly, shouting "sweets!" 

It was entertaining for a while but we had no sweets to give out. Nathan played guitar for hours at one end of the car, I read a book. 

Many of the towns looked like this. 

I'm pleased I was able to capture this picture while the train ambled by at about 7 mph. This is a bunch of village women collecting water from a 'well'. The well is basically a pit dug into the ground that collects muddy spring water. I'm guessing it's one of the villages only sources of water. People bike and walk from kilometers away with plastic jerry cans (which are ubiquitous here) to fill them up with the muddy water. It's hard work. Many of the villages that Nathan's organization's partners work with use the same system to collect water, which is used for drinking, bathing, and cooking. The organizations try to find alternate, cleaner water sources, like drilling boreholes, collecting rainwater, or installing rudimentary filtration devices.

I promise the next entry will have cute animal pictures and be more cheerful! 

Revisiting Pho, and returning to Narok

We're finally back at home with our intestines in shambles and our spirits slightly exhausted. Due to our shaky health, we've been eating a lot of soup- and I've been craving (and thus making) lots of pho. I made it back in spring for the first time (entirely from scratch) and have 'perfected' and simplified the recipe here in Kenya. Making chicken broth from scratch is noble and tasty but takes a lot of effort- particularly because it's hard to find happy, free-range chickens here (unless you kill them yourself).

I make a quick broth of chopped garlic, ginger, onion, a sprinkle of peppercorns, a cinnamon stick, a star anise clove, a dash of cardamom and some cloves. After about an hour of simmering, I strain the broth, add some more water and a couple cubes of vegetable or organic chicken bouillon. It smells amazing! Then I add some carrots, mushrooms (on the rare occasion that we find them in our local grocery store), rice noodles, sugar snap peas (or whatever other suitable veggies we have on hand) and serve topped with cilantro and lots of lime juice. It takes about 10 minutes of prep time and is delicious.

I should say, it takes 10 minutes of prep time if you aren't fancy. But a few weeks ago, Nathan cooked dinner (!! I know!) and the spirit moved him to cut the carrots into fancy flower shapes. It was the cutest thing and I loved it- ever since, I've become a bit of a carrot snob and have taken to flowering my carrots too. Because why not? We all need fancy carrots in our lives on occasion!

In other news, Nathan went fish-tastic at our little cottage last week. He bought a fresh reef fish nearly every day from a local fisherman and prepared it by steaming in foil with limes, or BBQ'ing it, local style. We're planning to go back to the same place over the holidays and I know he is looking forward to more fish BBQ.

He is holding the fish in a little BBQ trap doodad. I can't remember the kiSwahili word for it. 

The trap doodad with fish pinned in it. 

The imprisoned fish is then placed on a charcoal BBQ stove thing called a "Jiko". Most families cook over this for every meal (they balance a pot on the top). There are gigantic bags of homemade charcoal sold on the side of every road. It's unfortunate that there aren't many cooking options, because the homemade charcoal is made from local trees- and has contributed to huge problems with deforestation. 

 The cooked fish. 

A Mombasan parasite?

Ok, so I'm not as paranoid as Nathan but I do think we caught some sort of nasty bug a few weeks ago.

Thinking back, there have many opportunities to acquire some new germs.

First, several weeks ago we took the train from Nairobi to Mombasa. I can confidently state, without reservation, that Nathan and I wholeheartedly recommend AGAINST the Nairobi train.

It. Was. MISERABLE. Taking an overnight train was on my life list, but this was NOT worth it... not only was the food appallingly bad (gristly meat, greasy/soggy instant rice, tasteless/colorless soup and dry white bread), but it was 18 hours late. EIGHTEEN. It was supposed to arrive in Mombasa at about 8 am and did not arrive until the next day at 2 am. Not cool. I could continue moaning but both of us are somewhat scarred from the experience and not quite ready to relive it.

So we could have got the food poisoning/mysterious parasite while festering in the grimy heat of the train.

It could have been the smattering of questionable-to-definitively-grungy restaurants we ate at while in Mombasa (there was a particularly grimy Ethiopian cafe that, in retrospect, was actually just a really bad idea to eat at. Why did we eat there, Nathan?). There was the tamarind juice that was kindly shared with us by a neighbor of the apartment that we rented. Pretty sure the water used to make the juice wasn't bottled.

I bring all this up to explain my absence over the last two weeks. We got really sick. It was less than fun. While we did enjoy poking around Old Town Mombasa and I achieved my goal of finding a ton of vanilla beans, it was a challenging week. We decided to take the last week of our trip to recuperate on the beach, and have been thrilled with that decision.

We are staying at Tiwi Beach in some cute self-catering cottages. We bought some bread, veggies, fruit, cheese and milk in Mombasa and have holed up here. It's gorgeous. The water is beautiful, though the snorkeling leaves a bit to be desired. Local fishermen provide us with fresh fish every day, and a lady comes by selling veggie samosas and these fried dough chunks (mandazi) that Nathan loves to gorge on. We've bought local tropical fruit and have been eating simple, healthy, parasite-bashing meals.

We're feeling better, though not 100% yet. We have to face the train for the trip home in a few days and there is a ball of dread in the pit of our stomach weighing down our exhausted little bellies. (And by little, I mean that we both lost at least 5-8 lbs over the last week or two.)

Anyways. Since I'm feeling a touch better, I thought I'd post an update and share our breakfast from this morning. Pancakes with fresh pineapple chunks* caramelized in passionfruit juice, plus a coconut.

I'm including multiple pictures of our breakfast because I am feeling arty and want to show off how close to the ocean our little cottage is. 

We also made juice recently from a bunch of mandarins, oranges and passionfruit.

*Strangely, I am allergic to fresh pineapple but not if it is sauteed or cooked. Weird, huh?

Wednesday Fail.

We did eat today. But.

Breakfast was smoothies, lunch was leftovers, second lunch was more leftovers, and dinner?

Dinner was a total fail. I attempted a bean, pumpkin, ginger and coconut cream concoction but it was seriously inedible. The beans had an awful flavor (white cowpeas?) and the coconut cream couldn't disguise their bitterness. I'm feeling a little down about it- the last time I totally failed at cooking something was when I attempted tofu. I made some quick miso* soup with carrots and some wakame seaweed (Undaria pinnatifida) and defrosted a bag of my favorite bread dough. So, yep. That was dinner. Massive fail.

I think I might throw away the beans. We'll see if the dogs can stomach my failed bean stew.

I'll rally tomorrow.

-------------
*I was beyond excited to find miso at a "Healthy U" store in Nairobi. I love cooking with miso- there's so much you can do with it, and it's super healthy!

Tuesday's (awesome) meals.

Um wow. 

Today was a good food day. 

Breakfast was just smoothies- papaya, banana, mango, strawberries (the same ones I found a few days ago), mango juice and yogurt. I made a gigantic batch and froze a bunch in jars so we could have easy smoothies for the next few days. 

But then. I had a craving. I wanted a hot, creamy, rich, buttery vegetable casserole, topped with fluffy, hearty biscuit. 

I googled, and to my dismay, the first dozen hits called for canned mushroom soup, frozen vegetables, and canned biscuit dough (the kind that pops open once you un-twist the package). Um, no. Not going to work. Are people really so busy that that's all they can handle? 

I finally found this recipe, for Tarragon and Mustard Chicken pot pie with biscuit topping. But we don't have any chicken, or bacon. And the biscuits called for 1 1/2 cups of cream, which a) sounds too rich and b) doesn't exist in Kenya. But I liked the tarragon and mustard idea, and I found this recipe for fluffy whole wheat biscuits. I vaguely followed the first recipe- mostly just using the mustard/tarragon/wine idea. 

Perfect. I rounded up all of our veggies (green beans, carrots, sugar snap peas, mushrooms, potatoes and a bell pepper) and diced them. 

Then I caramelized an onion, figuring it'd replace the bacon in the recipe (yes, I know, there's really no substitute for bacon). 

I sauteed the veggies with garlic, tarragon and pepper, then created a roux with butter and flour, added water, organic chicken bouillon paste, a teaspoon or so of mustard, and a generous kersplash of white wine, plus the caramelized onions. It smelled SO GOOD. I made Nathan get up and smell it twice. 

Finally, I mixed the biscuit batter, but substituted honey for the sugar- I figured it'd go well with the mustard in the sauce. 

I put the veggies in the casserole dish and poured the sauce on top, then blobbed the biscuit dough on top. It baked for around 20 minutes at somewhere around 425 (our oven reads in Celsius so I tend to invent my own temperature). 

Gorgeous!!

How was it? 

Oh my gosh. Amazing. Hot, savory, unique, hearty. I loved it. Nathan loved it (though he would have liked less mustard flavor.) 

Next time I'd reduce the salt in the biscuits and up the honey a little. It would actually be great with chicken, so maybe we'll sacrifice one of our birds someday. I'd cut down on the mustard level too (for Nathan's mustard-averse palate). But overall? Wonderful. Totally satisfied my craving. 

Geemi came over later in the afternoon and he ate half of the casserole- seriously. So I think he liked it too. 

After such a rich lunch, I wanted to make something light and easy for dinner. Cold noodle salad sounded good and we had just enough vegetables to use up.

We also had a giant avocado to use, which was perfect on top of the salad. 

I whipped together garlic, ginger, soy sauce, lime juice, sesame seeds, sesame oil and chili flakes, then diced cucumber, sliced carrots and sugar snap peas, and flung those in a bowl with udon noodles and drizzled the sauce on top. Then I sauteed a half-bag of sukuma in lime juice and threw that in as well. After a half-hour in the fridge, it was ready to eat. 

Yum! Not sure what I'll do tomorrow- today was a big food day!

Monday's eats, and a bit of chicken drama.

Today started off nicely enough... I had a late breakfast of peanut butter and banana toast and enjoyed it outside on our new hammock. (That's our puppy, Muzungu, in the foreground.) 

With a little Kenyan chai tea, it was perfect! I love our new outside spot. 

Lunch was simple- I reheated last nights creamy tomato mushroom sauce, and added some homemade linguini and parmesan cheese (or so it was labeled- we're not sure it's really parmesan.) I brewed some iced herbal tea, too. 

Dinner looked pretty awful but tasted delicious- We'd made a huge batch of gyoza a few weeks ago and stored the extras in our freezer (I LOVE having a huge freezer). I threw together a dipping sauce (soy sauce, garlic, chili flakes, lime juice, cilantro) and fried/boiled/steamed the gyoza. I didn't use a non-stick pan so they got all mangled. We ate them anyways, with a huge helping of sukuma wiki. 

We had a chicken incident today. On Saturday, we had a little adventure. 

Geemi took us to Mulat to find live chickens for Thanksgiving. On the way, he took us to the cattle and goat market. I think we were the only muzungus to visit the market in a long, long time. Apparently it's not a tourist hot-spot. It was pretty fascinating though, hundreds of Masai men wandered around with hundreds of cattle, checking out each other's cows. There were some pretty gorgeous cows there. 

Nathan climbed up a small hill to capture the extent of the market. There were SO many cows, though this picture makes it hard to see. 

We asked, and the average price for a very nice looking large cow was around $200. I don't know a lot about cows, but I think the average comparable American cow is at least 5 times that price. We didn't buy a cow. Or a goat, though the goats were pretty cute, and only about $50. 

After ogling the cows, we went a few minutes away to the chicken market. Again, I think the muzungus were quite the spectacle. Much like the time Nathan threw a tanty at the cafe, we were hounded by dozens of men shoving live chickens in our face. There was a flurry of feathers. Thankfully, we had Geemi with us, and he handled the chicken examinations and bartering. Our goal was to get three birds- two for Thanksgiving and a back-up-bird. We ended up with four, because I felt bad for one lone man who only had one small chicken to sell for about 200 shillings ($2.25). 

Geemi was a professional- he groped and prodded, at one point grabbing the chicken's heads and pulling their necks forward until it looked like they'd pop off. We asked later, and he said that "you know a chicken is sick if it pukes when you pull it's neck forward". Our non-puking chickens were selected and a fair price was agreed upon (we ended up getting the four chickens for about $14, which was probably higher than usual since we always get overcharged for being muzungus).

We put the chickens in the back of the taxi, and headed home. They had their legs tied so they look kind of sad and death-like in this picture, but they rallied nicely by the next morning.

I named them on the car ride home (though Nathan "tweaked" the names the next day). From left to right, they are: Poblano, Chipotle, Serrano, and Habanero.

We brought them home, untied their legs, and introduced them to their new home. The "old" chickens greeted them somewhat viciously with lots of pecking, but by Sunday everyone was fine.

Until today. Tragedy struck. I was reading a book, Nathan was napping (he painted the kitchen and I think the fumes got to him) and our guard, Kutingala, knocked on the door. With a blur of Kiswahili, he indicated that I should take a look at the chicken coop, and then opened the hatch.

There. Under the chicken hammock (don't ask) was a very stiff Habanero. It should be noted that Habanero was the chicken that I guilt-purchased from the guy for only 200 shillings. She was also my favorite- the underdog, the runt, and she had pretty speckled black and white feathers.

I think there was a reason that Habanero was only 200 shillings. According to Geemi, who was immediately called to help translate this new chicken drama, Habanero died of chicken typhoid. Who knew chickens could get typhoid? She had to be disposed of immediately, and luckily Nathan had bought some sort of all-purpose chicken medicine at the vet shop earlier today, so we had it on hand.

Kutingala was incredibly concerned. Masai are naturally very attached to livestock, and Kutingala is pretty devoted to his chickens. I think he was concerned that his chickens would all come down with typhoid, which is a possibility, I suppose. We brought out the medicine and immediately Kutingala turned veterinarian.  He climbed in the coop, mixed the powdered medicine with water, and began capturing the newbie chickens one by one and somehow pouring large amounts of water down their gullets. The chickens handled it pretty well, surprisingly enough. (I would not have taken kindly to someone pinning me down and pouring mediciney water down my throat.) 

At one point there were three men inside the coop treating our chickens. Nathan and I provided insightful commentary and took pictures. 

So, we shall see. Hopefully the medicine does the trick. Chicken typhoid is pretty brutal- as far as I could tell from Kutingala's Kiswahili and pointing, Habanero died an uncomfortable death of diarrhea. 

We're hoping Poblano, Serrano and Chipotle fare better. And I've learned my lesson- 200 shilling chickens are 200 shillings for a reason. 

Sunday's Meals (Photo FAIL)...

I totally failed. I made a pretty great breakfast and completely forgot about the photos. We had guests, though, and I made about 6 different dishes, so I do have a good excuse, right? Will you accept pictures of the dirty dishes that Nathan was kind enough to do after breakfast? 

I know, not good enough. Well, imagine, if you will... cumin garlic breakfast potatoes, chipotle lime beans (I used some of our precious stash of black beans from the States, as for some reason you can buy 30 different types of beans here, none of them black beans), seasoned scrambled eggs, guacamole (delish! Avocado, tomato, garlic, a hint of red onion, cilantro, and lime),  sauteed veggies (zucchini and pumpkin), and banana pecan muffins. I made ricotta cheese last night and topped the beans with homemade cheese. 

Our guests seemed to love it, and the gluten-free girl was stoked! The guacamole was a hit, and the muffins went fast... the picture below is the only breakfast picture I managed to snap! 

I found this fantastic Mark Bittman muffin recipe  a few months ago and absolutely love it. I've tried all sorts of flavor combos: banana cardamom pecan, mango almond, strawberry flaxseed, pumpkin walnut, and applesauce--and probably more that I'm forgetting! Every combination has turned out well- the muffins are really moist despite the 2.5 cups of whole wheat. Nathan loves them and requests them once or twice a week. It's a great recipe and takes only 5 minutes or so to make. (It does call for buttermilk, which I can't find here but should probably learn how to make. I use milk instead, sometimes with a squirt of lime, and it works well.)

This was my lunch: Two slices of Art Caffe bread (whole grain) with sliced banana, cinnamon, and honey. 

I'm really particular about bananas. After living in Samoa for two years and getting incredibly delicious and fresh misiluki bananas, I got spoiled. I also did some reading on the banana industry and saw a documentary (BANANAS!) and decided that I would save my banana-eating for when I was living in or traveling in a country that actually grows bananas. Luckily for me, Kenya has bananas. I've happily reincorporated them into my diet, and rather than being a commonplace snack (like they are for many people in the States), they've become a treat- even more so now that I'm eating very fresh bananas! 

Interesting fact: Most Americans hadn't eaten a banana before the 1910's, but Dole and United Fruit began campaigning to get pictures of bananas in children's books (A for Apple, B for Banana, C for Cherry, etc) in order to popularize the then-unfamiliar fruit. Along with other tactics, the banana industry was able to introduce bananas into nearly every American's diet by importing massive quantities of the fruit, while decimating large swaths of Central America's forests and treating their labor force horribly. Bananas became cheap and readily available. The land continues to be decimated and the labor force is still treated horribly. But, Americans now consider them an inexpensive staple item. 

If you, too, consider them a staple, I highly recommend at least purchasing fair trade bananas from a place like Whole Foods. 

Ok. Moving along to dinner... 

I've mentioned my deep passion for sukuma wiki (collard greens) on this blog before, and here it is. We like to buy it from our favorite Kenyan mama, who pre-shreds it and bags it. It's super convenient: empty the bag onto a frying pan with a kersplash of olive oil, a couple pressed garlic cloves, and some squeezes of lime juice. We can easily down this much sukuma in one meal (it shrinks down a lot.)

I also made a creamy tomato-mushroom-sundried tomato sauce (low-fat milk, butter, flour, mushrooms, tarragon (my new favorite herb!), diced fresh tomatoes, sundried tomatoes, and lots of garlic). I wish I'd added some caramelized onion to add more depth and smokiness to the sauce. Next time. I tossed homemade ravioli (filled with homemade ricotta, sundried tomatoes and herbs) in the sauce, and topped it with more homemade ricotta. 

Highlight of the past week? It might have been when Nathan installed our new hammock in the yard! It overlooks the city and is underneath a giant peppercorn tree. It's perfect for relaxing in and reading a book. All five of the dogs like to lay underneath or near it when I'm laying in it, which makes it a very cosy spot. (I'll try to remember to post a picture tomorrow.) 

Saturday's meals

Breakfast was super quick since we were off on an adventure today. I made smoothies with the strawberries, papaya, mango, yogurt, passionfruit juice and some flax seeds (from the States). We also had peanut butter-honey-cinnamon toast. We discovered delicious bread at "Art Caffe" in Nairobi- it's got a hint of sourdough, lots of whole grains, and is pretty awesome. When we are in Nairobi, we make a point of picking up several loaves and putting them in our freezer. 

We went to the cattle, goat, and chicken market today. We wanted to buy some live chickens to raise for the Thanksgiving that we're planning to have with the researchers at the Hyena camp in the Mara. Geemi, our assistant, took us to the town of Mulat, about 40km away to find "the very very best chickens". I had tried to find some in Narok, but only found one sad, scraggly, bedraggled, poop-covered hen. We passed on buying her. However, in Mulat, there was a plethora of chickens. We bargained and bought 4 (two for Thanksgiving, two for future feasts) and also saw the cattle and goat market. I think the Masai at the markets were completely bewildered by two wazungu showing up out of nowhere and wandering around their cattle. 

When I got back, I was starving! I had last nights pad thai, and fixed scrambled eggs and toast for Nathan and Geemi. Geemi hadn't had scrambled eggs before. I think he liked them, despite his very serious expression in the picture. 

We were pretty exhausted from the day. Usually one of us cooks a fancy dinner but we were out of energy tonight. Nathan had left-over Green Egg soup and I had the rest of the smoothie from this morning. And a glass of wine. Nathan had a Tusker beer. Apparently the soup wasn't enough, because he also fixed a bowl of ramen noodles, without the seasoning packet. Ew. I didn't get a picture, but I'm sure you can imagine it. 

I spent the evening prepping food for tomorrow's breakfast- we're having guests! Three girls from the Hyena research camp are stopping by on their way to Nairobi. One is gluten-free, one hates beans, and one is allergic to bell peppers. Quite the challenge for me! I decided to ignore the one who hates beans and make a mexican breakfast- I'll post about that tomorrow.