Food Fun

I have gone quiet for a while...

After seven months without work and finding virtually no permanent jobs in my sphere, I have taken the plunge and started a little company. This is completely absorbing me at present and likely to be so for the coming months. Hopefully if I am getting a steady income again I will return to blogging.

O.

Angels Thompson has asked about whether she has wild garlic in her garden or not; she gave a description of the flowers. I really cannot answer questions like that but suggest that anybody who is not sure gets a good wild flower guide from their local library.

Wild garlic can be confused with two poisonous varieties:
a) Early in the season when the leaves just come up there is a slight similarity with 'lords and ladies' or wild arum. However once the leaves are developed they are easy to tell apart. Wild arum has irregular shaped leaves with deep veins. While wild garlic leaves have smooth convex shapes with a single vein and a slight striping of the surface. The second photo in an earlier post shows wild arum growing among wild garlic.

b) Later in the season there is a similarity with lily of the valley. The leaves of wild garlic are green while lily of the valley leaves grow from a purple stem. The wild garlic flowers generally have a star shape with 6 petals. Lily of the valley has bell shaped flowers. Wild garlic leaves smell garlicky while those of lily of the valley do not.

The photo above shows that the wild garlic leaves have parallel stripes on their surface.

The photo above gives a closer view of some flowers. Note also that the leaves of some younger plants are narrower than more mature ones.

Well, I'm back home after my first trip to Africa. Mrs O asked me what I was missing before I returned and one of the things was pasta. It's not that you cannot buy pasta in Uganda but it is pricey and it was more fun to try other things.

Mrs O duly spoilt me with chicken breast stuffed with chorizo and wild garlic leaves, wrapped in black forest ham and baked. This all served with farfalle and a tomato sauce.

Kampala used to be described as a city built on seven hills, however with the massive expansion in recent decades I understand that the count is more like thirty hills today. On the south side of Kampala some of the hills overlook an inlet of Lake Victoria. About halfway up one of the hills is a hotel called Cassia Lodge which seems to be frequented by westerners working for NGOs.

There is also a restaurant and bar boasting "the best view in Kampala".  Part of the restaurant has open windows with the view (below) while next to the bar there is a platform for truly alfresco dining.

Having been on my first trip to Kampala I have no idea whether the claim of "best view" has merit; but the view from the Lodge is definitely outstanding.

Food seems very much geared to western tastes with a variety of steaks, kebabs and fish dishes on the menu. While there was nothing wrong with the food, there was nothing particularly remarkable about it either. Typical Ugandan fare such as matooke (starchy bananas), goat or posho (maize mash) were not on offer when I visited; the main concession to Uganda was the "East African mixed grill". Dishes were priced from about 15,000 Ugandan shillings for a sandwich (large portion with salad and chips) to about 22,0000 shillings for a steak or fish dish. This means about £5-7 for a main course so hardly burning a hole in the pocked if you have a British salary. The staff were courteous and friendly, the restaurant was pleasantly furnished.

While the food was not the most interesting I tried in Kampala - for example I enjoyed the food at the Fasika Ethiopian restaurant on Gaba Road more - the view is worth the trip. The equatorial sun sets very rapidly and so the views to the Kampala suburbs and to Lake Victoria change rapidly.

As the sun sets the shadows and colours change rapidly.

Also it is possible to see a fair amount of wildlife. While sitting on the platform - the same evening as shown above - I saw a harrier hawk, rollers, brown parrots, falcons and some strange insects of roughly dragonfly size.

Once it gets dark the view of Kampala by night is good - sorry my camera is not good for night photos - there is not the dull sodium glow that you see in British cities due to streetlights so although you see some lights on the hills you can see the night sky too. Being close to the equator you see both Northern and Southern Hemisphere stars. So after seeing Orion 'sideways' I was able to make out the Southern Cross well to the south. We also saw a lot of lightning very far to the East.

So I would not recommend going out of the way to Cassia just for the food, the view is definitely worth the trip. A very enjoyable evening was had seeing the light fade and the night views.

Kampala is a city of contrasts with the most modern places to go and many which are no different than in Ugandan villages. This applies to fast food as well. The city has grown rapidly and now boasts a population of over 3 million.

The little wooden kiosks such as those above are quite common in the suburbs. The lady on the right is kneading dough for chapatis. The chapatis are then fried on a hot plate.

On the left there is a sign saying "rolex" which is shorthand for "rolled eggs". Basically eggs are beaten with some vegetables and fried a bit like an omelette and then rolled up in a chapati.

It is quite noticeable that the big US fast food chains such as Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonalds were not visible in Uganda. The market is still in the hands of local busineses.

One such business is Chicken Tonight which seemed to have a number of outlets. I never went in but the takeaway packages were reminiscent of KFC. Come to think of it one business in the district of Kasanga advertised itself as "KFC" but it was "Kasanga Fried Chicken".

In town I saw a number of places selling burgers, fried chicken and samosas. One outside the Shoprite supermarket was run by Asians. Many places sell samosas with beef and vegetable being the most popular. The beef samosas seemed to be purely of spiced minced beef, the vegetable ones seemed less spicey than those I have bought in the UK.

However I never worked out what "Soya Fast Food" was. The red was taken from the Coca-Cola ad on the side of the building. However the building was shut when I took the photo.