More on Beer

This past Monday I was invited back to Yasigi Beer Garden the little craft brewery that I found a couple weeks ago. The head brewer asked if I wanted to assist on brew day as a guest brewer. Of course I said hell yes ill be there. I was there at 10am and 7 hours later I had officially participated in the brewing of 1000 Liters of beer. It was a great day, and the icing on the cake is that I convince the brewer that we need to make an IPA next week to cater to more refined taste like many of the expats here in Kampala have. Most African like a very mild relatively tasteless light beer, nothing with much flavor body or alcohol content. I am going to try to change that and help this guy expand the palate a bit. I also met the owners and they are totally on board with my experimentation and told me I am welcome to come brew as much as I wanted as long as they don't have to pay me. I can handle that for now. Next week the first IPA in Uganda will be born. (Insert evil laugh here)

Street Food

As I am sure most of you either already know or have discovered in my blog that I a bit of a Foodie. However, not in the sense that most people use it, I am not a pretentious eater that only goes to the nicest restaurants that have the best reviews. I am a Foodie I will eat just about anything that is or isn't supposed to edible, sometime not so good yet sometime wicked good. Here in Uganda the street food is a bit more creative than Gambia. I discovered a Rolex about two weeks ago, not the watch but the food. Let me set the scene for this wonderful magic. Its a bit of an elusive beast but well worth the hunt, its can only be found on dirty markets corners (I know my American friends from The Gambia are saying "He will never learn"). So as I was saying it starts out with a thick doughy tortilla called a Chapati that is cooked on a homemade steel skillet on a stand heated by charcoal. Then comes the guts of the sandwich, 2-3 eggs, tomatoes,onions, carrots, peppers all diced up and mixed in with the eggs and cooked on the same skillet like an omelet. Then its rolled up in the Chapati bread thing and presto you have a Rolex. OH MY GOD its a foodgasm in your mouth. And, it costs about .50 cents.

Another interesting thing here is pop-corn. We as Americans associate pop-corn with movie theaters, county fairs and K-Mart. Here its a bit of a cultural anomaly, you can find it all over the place; markets, grocery stores, along the street. Welders even custom make these fancy little popcorn makers and sell them along the roadside. It actually doesn't taste too bad either. This might cost about .25 cents

One of the more non palatable foods for us westerners in apparently only available during this time of year; November-early December. Fried grasshoppers. They look like giant green locusts and they are everywhere. The locals take them and remove everything but the Abdomen/Butt part which is about the size of a finger and then fry it in oil and a little salt. They walk the streets with buckets of these things and sell them to people stuck in traffic or just walking around. A newspaper rolled into a cone acts as a cup and its filled up so you can eat your insects at your leisure. I finally worked up the courage to try one yesterday. It was not my favorite but it was edible and I can see how folks would like them.

Visitors

I am sure that we are all aware of the difference between annoying guests and welcome visitors. Well we have both on a daily basis however they are of the Avian kind. Just about every morning as we have our coffee and breakfast on the back porch the welcome visitors stop by. They are charming and handsome pleasant to look at and they don't talk too much and it has only ever been two at a time. The African Grey Parrot these guys are endemic to this part of Africa so they are obviously wild parrots that come and go as they please. They are inquisitive and sit up on the roof cocking their head from side to side try to get a look at us while we look at them. They have a very pleasant vocalization, little whistles and clicks.

The annoying guest are those that come by and overstay their welcome, they are loud and obnoxious. They travel in larger groups and just set up camp in the yard and bark out these LOUD squawking sounds like a goose swallowed and kazoo and has the lung capacity of Cher. The Hadada Ibis show up in the morning and stay until late afternoon. Its enough that if you are talking to someone in the immediate area you both have to stop and start over again. Imagine what it is doing to my lazy afternoon naps.

Ill find some pictures or videos to post later.