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It's cheap; it's close; it's family friendly. Point Chaud rules!

A West African sauce recipe for you...

...and you and you and you!

I had such a flashback to Sarajevo the other day. A glass of red wine in one hand (Vranac, thank you) and a spatula in the other--sauteing onions and garlic, otherwise that spatula doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

No Bosnian recipe here, but a West African one from a dear Ivoirian friend.

Food always eases travel sickness and, let's face it, it hardly ever disappoints. Except when it makes you sick.

Eyes on you Quiznos.

Here is your delicious recipe, my friend.

Bisous.

Sauce Recipe from The Ivory Coast, West Africa

Chicken/Fish/Oxtail--you can use any of these in combination or alone. I usually use chicken, about 1 lb, but more is fine too. It's a flexible recipe.

You need a big pot.

Ingredients

Chicken/Fish/Oxtail (see note above)
Vegetable Oil
Red pepper
Salt
1 medium onion
3 medium tomatoes (ripe!)
2 medium size carrots
1-2 cloves garlic
1-2 chicken bouillon cubes

1. Cut onion in half. Roughly chop that half. Toss into big pot with a little veggie oil, chicken, salt and red pepper. Add a little water to almost cover chicken. Cook water down. This will flavor the chicken.
2. While the chicken is being flavored, skin the carrots and put them in the microwave for 4-6 minutes or so. Just to get them soft. Meanwhile, take out your blender or food processor. Roughly chop the remaining onion, tomatoes, and cloves of garlic. Toss them in. Add the carrots when they are ready. Blend thoroughly. You want it to be liquid and you may need to add a little water to get everything moving, especially if you are using a blender.
3. When the water is cooked down almost to the bottom of the pot, add the processed ingredients and some more water (this will be to your taste, if you want thick sauce, only add1/4 a blender-full of water, for thin sauce, add more). You will want to cook this down as well to let all the flavors mix together, say 15/20 minutes or so. But this is to your taste. Add 1 to 2 cubes of chicken bouillon. Maggi cubes are great but not required. Any old bouillon will do.
The sauce should be on the thick side, which I think tastes best! You can serve with rice, or, for the full African experience, you could buy fufu from an African store. Rice alone is fine though. Enjoy

Inexplicably homesick for travel...

...and freakishly bound to this blog.

Hmm, well...Duh. It is kinda in the title.

I wonder about people. People who live their lives in one place. (And maybe move once in a lifetime.) How do they see their lives play out before them? Romantic partnership, family home, kids, up-up the career ladder, and retirement? It's funny. I can only see into the next two years of my life and then only vaguely. I don't see progression so much as leaps and gigantic bounds.

Inevitably, and really not very inexplicably, I get that antsy feet itch to explore new horizons. Is this the curse of those who are hopelessly bound to travel because of their work?

Without sounding hokey, and I'm afraid that's impossible, I really just want to do good work wherever I land, for the time I'm there. After all these years as a traveling spouse, this is my ethos, my modus operandi, my security blanket and comfort.

Is that hokey? Little throw-up-in-your-mouth-Hallmark hokey?

It must be 'cause I'm feeling queasy.

Here's to good work and to not talking about my job because hello? Stupid.

And to my posting some more here and there and everywhere.

Is this thing on?

Tap, tap, tap...

Hellooo?