Domestic Goodness

As you have read before, one of my favorite things about living in Swaziland is the amount of time I have to do the things that I ‘never had time to do’ while living in California. I use quotation marks because I made my own choices about how to spend my time in Los Angeles and obviously, one day is still 24 hours no matter where I am living. But, when I traded a 2-3 hour commute (depending) for a 4 minute commute (literally), and switched from a full-time job to a part-time consulting gig, I’ve simply got a lot more free time (even when you factor in going to bed at 9:30pm). And, one of my favorite things to do with that time is to cook. I am my mother’s daughter and I love to cook and especially to host dinner parties and to woo (‘win-others-over’) with my creations. Case in point, I recently received an e-mail from one of my frequent diner friends that said, ‘Dear Paisley, You like to cook and I like to eat, so I can see a mutually beneficial opportunity in the making.’ Then, he attached 8-10 on-line recipes to the e-mail. As you can imagine, cooking in Swaziland is an adventure in ‘substituting’ since many ingredients are not readily available. For example, yesterday, we went to a friend’s house to watch the Cowboys/Eagles football game and were having jambalaya. I was in charge of the side dishes and dessert and had planned to stick to the southern/Louisiana theme by making creamed spinach, cornbread, and bourbon balls. However, plain old spinach does not exist in these parts, even in the frozen food section…nor does cornmeal, for that matter…nor does light corn syrup which was one of the key ingredients in the bourbon balls! So, I ended up making broccoli casserole, cornbread out of polenta, and a sour cream cake. And here’s what the kitchen looked like when I finished cooking (thank goodness for housekeepers). Okay, maybe that’s the real reason I have so much time on my hands…