African Interruption

Yes, it's been a while since I've posted.

But I have an excuse! I graduated about a month ago, which was preceded by a flurry of vaguely-academic activity and followed by more activity, and finally, we went to Germany for 3 weeks. I'd like to blog about German food, but to be honest, it wasn't terribly great. The best meals we ate were "Vietnamesisch" restaurants, which were mainly pho of varying quality and none with a broth as flavorful as my homemade pho.

We also ate at Unsicht-Bar, which is a restaurant staffed by blind waiters. Your meal is eaten in complete darkness- no winks of light anywhere to be seen. It was a 4 course meal (I ordered a 'vegetarian' meal and Nathan got poultry) starting with salad, then soup, entrees, and dessert (which was our favorite course.) The meal is ordered in the lighted bar, then you hold onto the left shoulder of your waiter and follow them into the darkness, for a meal which took us about 3 hours. It was fun to select the meals: the menu was very obtuse, and said things like: "Soup: The princess is not laying on it, but her father is telling anecdotes from his younger days" and "Dessert: With caffeine-revolted Belarussian meets South American fire". So there wasn't much to go on. (Soup was a delicious, creamy pea soup, and my dessert was a white chocolate mouse, mango-chili compote, and vodka lemon sorbet.)

So, clearly, I don't have pictures of the meal given that it was pitch black. It was fun to eat, though- after a few minutes of aimlessly stabbing at my plate in the darkness, I gave up and ate the entire meal with my fingers, utilizing the wine's ice bucket to rinse my fingers between meals. If you end up in Berlin, I highly recommend the restaurant as much for the experience as for the food.

This brings me to the point of my blog entry... we're moving to Kenya! Nathan is moving next week, and I'll be joining him in mid-August. Clearly I have a few more recipes (steamed buns, gelato, biscotti) to complete, and then the theme of Eyeballing It will change, a tad dramatically, to cover the adventures, travails, and successes of cooking in Africa! I'll be blogging soon on the topic of "what to pack for ones kitchen when moving to a very small rural dusty town in the middle of Kenya".

Hope you'll stick with me for this next adventure in cooking!