New Recipe in a Strange Land

Even though we are far away from New Orleans, there are enough Cajuns here in Lagos to make for a great Mardi Gras party. This year I offered to make the King Cake for the celebrations. I made sure I brought back colored sugar, a plastic baby and a back-up plastic baby just in case. I wanted to wait until the cook was off duty before I started in on my task. I really didn't want to have to explain the whole plastic baby thing and freak him out with some bad juju vibes.




I was going to be really smart and do it all in the bread machine....easy, peasy. In my jet lag fog, I forgot that in Nigeria I must plug the bread machine into a step down transformer.





220 African volts vs my American bread machine's V110. He never even saw it coming!Now we will have a moment of silence for my late, great bread machine. We've shared some lovely carb-filled moments. You will be missed.

New Song in a Strange Land

We're reading a book in my African Book Club and it is about a woman who lived on a Firestone Tires rubber plantation in African in the 40's. She talks a lot about bugs and snakes and how she has to hunt her own food. It puts a lot of things in perspective for me when I'm complaining that the cook has frosted the cake with chives. She has a quote in the book and I will share it with you. I wanted to use it as my blog's page heading (I couldn't figure out how to do that), but I think it sums up expat life no matter where you are. Here goes...

"Somehow there must be a way to find deep beauty and song in daily living in this country. It would not be a ready-made happiness; it had to be discovered. For myself and my household I would have to find the way to make a new song in a strange land."

Ps. Can you guess the name of the book?

Blue Eyesight is now more .... Blue

Let's not talk about the fact that it has been 14 months since I blogged last. I'm starting the New Year with a resolution to blog more. I've just gotten back to Lagos after a nice holiday in the States and I'm up in the middle of the night with jet lag. What to do when you can't sleep? Eat Hot Tamales and update your blog layout of course! I have spent a hour trying out new background colors and templates. I finally decided on one that was perfect but after applying it I realized that it was the same as my daughter's blog Adventurous Ventures of a Venturesome Adventurer: When in Rome, what do the Romans? mysillyblogk.blogspot.com I don't actually think the two blogs could be mixed up....she is in Rome and I'm in Nigeria. So after an hour of design madness, I've come up with a new look. Blue Eyesight is now more....blue.