So we’ve been in Senegal for over two months and we are finishing up with classes. Tuesday is the start of our ISP period—the ISP is a unique part of all SIT programs during which each student conducts independent research on a topic of their choosing related to the target culture. Since we are getting ready to disperse somewhat and we’ve been here for long enough that we are really starting to miss the silly little things from America, we decided to throw ourselves an American themed party.
We each prepared a “dish” from America—improvised of course because certain ingredients are hard to come by. We had: Pizza bread, Mac & Cheese, baked beans, salad, stir fry chicken in a lime/honey glaze, brownies, frozen chocolate covered bananas, pineapple upsidedown cake, and peanut butter cookies.
If you know me or my family (which you PROBABLY do if you’re reading my blog) it is pretty likely that you’ve eaten our peanut butter cookies. It is the world’s simplest and most surprisingly delicious recipe. So easy that for “professor day” in 3rd grade, when we all had to teach something to the class, I decided to teach everyone how to make these cookies. One egg, one cup of sugar, one cup of peanut butter. That easy. Of course I ran into a few problems.
1) In a country with so many peanuts, they don’t really eat peanut butter—finding that would be a big challenge. I was optimistic about the French grocery store: Casino. While on the expensive side I was confident that they’d have peanut butter. I had a lot to do at school (and was waiting to look at a room to rent for the next month) and so a member of the group who was going to Casino was going to get me a jar of PB. Check.
2) I needed sugar. Not wanting to burden my peers who had enough of their own ingredients to hunt down, I decided to buy sugar from our friend Samba at the boutique across the street. The only sugar he has is Vanilla Sugar, I figured that’d be fine, add a bit of a vanilla aroma to the cookies.
3) Eggs, not a prob. Got those
4) The group gets back from the grocery store and the only thing that RESEMBLED peanut butter was labeled “peanut paste” and came in a 1 kilo tub. So this paste is called “OLECA” –interesting because there is a choco/peanut spread called “CHOCOLECA” and it’s amazing, so I guess this is the same thing without the choco. It is a very bitter goop that is not really like peanut butter at all. It’ll have to do
I get to mixing up the “dough” and by dough of course I mean sludge. Surprisingly enough they were not only edible but pretty decent. Not quite what I’d intended but everyone said they were good. So that’s good I guess. But now I have a big tub of “peanut paste” hmmm…
After our feasting we put on some pixar shorts <-- so much fun. And now (yes now because I am at school and therefore have internet) we are watching Casablanca, which a surprising number of us have never seen—including me, so I should stop typing and start paying attention!!
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