Before I join Simon to meet the Fon/Chef/King of the Kom people, I just had to tell you about my experience yesterday night trying to make cookies for my neighbors and friends in the Fundong area.
Firstly, I find working in my kitchen to be difficult because there is VERY little "counter space" but nonetheless I made the dough, with a little tweaking from the recipe provided in the Peace Corps cookbook. I wanted to make Chocolate Chip Cookies but being that there are no chips, I put a piece of Mambo Bar (the Hershey Bar of Cameroon-haha) on each ball of dough, similar to Peanut Butter Thumbprint cookies. I was hoping to use my neighbor's stove, and then thought I would put them in a pot on top of my gas stove, but then my neighbor, Odette, told me I should do it over their fire. I thought that meant, directly placing my "cookie sheet" (tin roof piece borrowed from another neighbor-so resourceful these Cameroonians) on the hot fire. Any smart person would know THAT WOULDN'T WORK! Then we made a type of convection oven by putting sand inside a pot and I placed the cookies around in two bundt pans stacked one on top of the other and covered it with a lid. It worked, but took much longer than 9-11 minutes! I shared the first batch with those in the fire pit and then was attempting to take all of my belongings (my four dinner plates, spatula, cookies, butter container-too much for me to handle, but I insisted) to my house and decided to offer Stephen, our night watchman, a cookie and it all came crashing down to the ground! I lost cookies, 3 of my 4 plates broke, and everyone came rushing out to see what happened and offered me an "Ashia" (meaning: sorry, good luck, courage, and the like)!
Oh well, they enjoyed what they had. Hopefully today with Carine, the making of Snickerdoodles (am introducing cinnamon to Cameroonians!) in her oven and possibly another batch of "chocolate chip" will be more of a success!
I'm off, but not before again wishing you a happy new year with much prosperity and happiness!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment