day 5 already!

so i'd like to mention how much i love the bedding here! so i have a "cheap" room so there's 2 twin beds pushed together but that's not the great part. first of all there's not top, flat sheet that i have to untuck every night and the comforter is little! it's awesome! just a bit larger than the bed and so it's light weight and i don't get all tangled up in it and in the middle of the night when i get hot it's easy to kick a leg out to cool off. i just think it's the best! i'm sure tom wouldn't like it as much thought because it probably wouldn't even cover him! so today was a nice relaxing understimulating day compared to yesterday. i mostly just finished up data entry for my spread sheet before i get all the other stuff i need to analyze. and i did some excel tutorials online so i seem unretarded and i've actually learned quite a lot of useful things about the program. i am such a nerd. but so i didn't eat all that much today: banana, orange, peanuts, roll, beef jerkey and a few cups of tea and that meant i'd be hungry enough to get my money's worth out of the nigerian buffett here. so the restaurant is called bukka and today was traditional nigerian food buffett dinner and it was cool because during my whole meal there were these guys playing drums and singing and stuff; really fun even if it was a bit overstaged. but i got seated (by myself, boo) and then got my appetite together and we went up to the long row of shiney silver domes. so i started at the left and moved accross the room until halfway and then took my plate back to my seat. so i had pounded yam which is a fairly tasteless white mashed potatoe type stuff that's shaped into a ball. then i had some greens and dried fish stew, some really sacry salmon (?) stew that was really stringey when dishing it up (like the way honey or molasses is), some vegetable stew, eggs with sliced yam and plantains. the second plate consisted of mixed meat stew, turkey stew, gizzard stew, some more yam stuff with bitter greens, coconut rice, some other spiced rice and boiled beans. overall i really didn't have that much food, just about 1/4-1/8 of a cup for each serving and then i generally didn't eat it all. so everything is SPICEY! LOTS of pepper! lots of cyanne and black/white pepper. and really good! i loved the spicey. starting from the left though i ended up with a lot of fishness. so in this area there's a lot of dried, smoked fish and then it's reconstituted in "stew" which pretty much means palm oil, pepper, peppers, and pepper and then they add whole pieces of dried fish at the end. i'm a trooper but this really wasn't my thing. and something about the smell or taste just really make me feel like i was in an aquarium shoppe (like the smell of those fish food flakes you feed your zebra guppies when you're a kid). and there's lots of bones and skin so after my first big chop and the sharp surprise that i found my bites got smaller and i spent a lot more time picking thru my food before scooping it into my mouth. the fish stuff wasn't really good to me. the molasses-like consistency of the one dish was really unappealing and unappetizing but actually tasted ok, had a richness to it. the egg and yam were boring (i mean, it's eggs) and the veggies tasted kind of like stir fried cabbage and other greens you might get at a chineese restaurant. the plantains were amazing though (as always). the mixed meat stew was spicey and i didn't eat my random chunck of mystery meat because it turned out to be a lovely piece of bone and gristle all wrapped up in a nice fatty, chewey piece of skin. mmm... skin. the turkey stew wasn't that special but it did have some red and green bell peppers that were squeaky good! and also some stewed cucumber (? sorry tom, now you can't use my fail-safe "cukes are cold and zucchs get cooked") which was different. but surprisingly, the gizzard stew was my favorite! there were some whole serrano chilis in there too that were great, more bell peppers and a great spicey (more pepper) sauce. i don't know what a gizzard is (and don't think i want to know so don't tell me!) but i know it came in the turkey my mom'd cook for holidays and we'd make the gizzards for the cats. but it was interesting in taste and texture and fairly fun to eat. the rice was fine and the beans kind of bland. and then i had the national dish: goat's head pepper stew. the name is serious too, when they say a goat's head they mean ALL of it: bones, brains, cartilage, muzzle, and whatever other parts are on a goat's head. but it's super-duper spicey and really rich tasting and the meat has all kinds of different consistencies because it's all diffterent bits n pieces. i wonder what america's national dish is. probably something from mcdonalds. this totally beats it in excitement, anyway. and resoursefulness; use all the parts and put enough flavor that you'll still eat all of it. works for me. and just a note about all these stews. mostly it's just chuncks of veg and meat with a peppery sauce, not really like beef stew or something that you;d make in a crockpot in winter.

so there was a really big african party next to me during my main meal so i was too embarrassed to take any food pics (lonely white girl by herself taking pictures of her nigerian food? yeah, someone's bound to be weirded out by that). but they left by the time i went for the salads and desserts. for cold food i had these mondo sweet shelled peas (a local fav), some green olives, a roasted pumpkin salad that had tomatoes and onions and was very different than any pumpkin dish i've ever had; refreshing almost, instead of the usual warm-comfort-food feeling you'd usually get from the orange squash. then there was smoked beef which was dry and boring, a really awesome sweet cabbage salad with some peppers and vinegar, plantain salad, some very yummy roasted eggplant and yam "lasagne" (layers of veg and starch) and a piece of something that looked and tasted a lot like beef jerkey but that i still ate with a fork and knife because i didn't want to pick up something with my fingers that i maybe shouldn't have.

and then dessert. tons of fruits; local melons, oranges, apples, papaya, and then prepared desserts including pineapple upside down cake, marble cake, carmel flan, banana berry pannacotta, vanilla spice something, and chocolate mousse. there was also a weird looking white sauce that looked like tapioca (which happens to be made from cassava root; a local food) that i was pleasntly surprised was actually nutty! it was a sweet, vanilla-y, coconut milkey taste with like chopped peanuts or cashews or something to give it a really fun consistency. it was great with the papaya slices. and buns too, i forgot, which are fried balls of firm dough with a hint of sweetness and some cinnamon for a spicey boost. the greatest thing though was the spiced pudding stuff (or whatever it was). it tasted just like a pumpkin candle! not like i eat candles or it was bad, but the whole time i ate it i kept thinking about yankee candle! it was totally interesting. i guess it was more like a custard. anyway, it was good. and the best part? i ordered a coffee. a $25 dinner should have a decent coffee right? or totally instant nescafe. wow. they brought out steamed milk, an empty cup, a teapot of hot water and 2 packets of freeze dried "coffee". and it cost almost $4!! o well. from now on i'll just save coffee-drinking for my free nescafe they stock in my room! and just so it's clear, everything i ate tonight was labeled with the name. in nigerian. with no description. so other than "rice" i rarely knew what anything was or what would be in it. but it was fun! a food success! and now i'm utterly stuffed!! ahhh...