Beware of Baboons
Baboons are the hooligans of Africa, and as this story from Cape Town shows they can do a lot of damage to get what they want.
I was first made aware of the habits of baboons in of all places, Penang in Malaysia. C and I were waiting for the cable car, when we met a friendly Canadian couple and their three early teenage children. The couple, who were both teachers, had sold everything and were taking a family trip round the world, staying generally in a couple of dollar a day guesthouses. They had crossed the Sahara in a truck, travelled overland to Kenya by a variety of means and then from Tanzania, they’d crossed to India in a dhow. I asked if they’d had any problems and they said no, except for the baboons. They told of how they could open the most secure of cases and would do anything to steal food. They had had another problem incidentally, when their son had broke his humerus in Nigeria, only for it to be set perfectly, by the local bonesetter.
Ever since that conversation I’ve always been wary of baboons.
I remember an incident at Cape Point, near Cape Town in South Africa. There is a tea bar there and the baboons were all on the roof, trying to steal food, as they always do. But they had found that if they put their backside over the edge of roof and defecated, they could get a lot of laughs and hopefully someone would drop a burger or a sandwich. I have seen some revolting behaviour in my time, but this ranks with the worst.
Their behaviour was little better in Gambia on one of my last holidays with C and in Kenya, they were always looking to create some trouble.
So keep clear of baboons.
I’ll always remember that charming Canadian family and wonder if they ever wrote a book about that adventure of a lifetine.
Another Annoying Keystroke
When I blog, I use a lot of shrieks, as my father would have called them! Or exclamation marks as you would call them!
But if I hit Control-!, I get everything reformatted large. Is this a WordPress or Windows shortcut?
It is so infuriating! Especially as when I hit Control-Z to correct my mistake, I lose everything I have typed.
My typing seems to be getting better though, but it would be nice to have the new keyboard driver.
Cooking Like An Engineer
My culinary skills aren’t that good and as the stroke has left me with a slightly gammy left hand, I have changed the way I do things.
I’m also lucky in that, I’m not hard-up, although I do try to eat fairly economically. So if I see a gadget that might help, I buy it.
Here are a few gadgets and products that have really helped.
- My saucepans have a lid with a built-in strainer, so I don’t burn my hands when I pour the hot water away after the vegetables have cooked. I could use a collander, but that would mean extra washing up.
- I have a large box-grater, which has a big handle on the top. I use this to make my fish pies, just as Jamie said in the original recipe.
- I also have one of Delia’s little Kenwood choppers, as my knife skills may be good enough for peeling potatoes, but chopping anything very small is difficult.
- Some food packaging is difficult, so I always have a good pair of scissors handy! Even with this some foods like pasta and frozen peas are a nightmare, as an out-of-place cut means a kitchen floor covered in food. I now only use one type of pasta, Doves Farm gluten-free pasta and keep it in a storage jar.
- I also buy things like ready-peeled onions. My mother would have been horrified.
It may not be easy for everyone to install, but I have a wooden chopping board built in to the work-surface, where I prepare vegetables. It has a hole in it, with a wooden stopper. Underneath is the bin, so all the rubbish you get when you prepare vegetables, is just chased through the hole and into the bin. The system is also good for disposing of things such as used tea bags.
I also time foods rather than taste them. I have a big clock on the wall and would give something the correct time, rather than taste it. C always felt potatoes, when she baked them in the oven. I don’t, as I just give them an hour on the floor of the oven. Sometimes, they are nhot quite right, but at least, it is a lot easier.
The other thing I do is use the dishwasher a lot more. I know that is not very eco-friendly, but it means I don’t have to wash-up as I cook. Try and do just one thing at a time and you don’t get in the sort of mess,k which means that you drop something and have more work to do.
So analyse how you cook and do things as efficiently as you can. Ignore, what your mother or your friends, who can really cook, might say!
How My Diet is Changing
I do still have a few problems eating, so my diet has changed a bit since the stroke in Hong Kong.
Some foods are easy and others are not. Take yesterday, I cooked a chicken for my son and his friend, and had new potatoes, cauliflower and broccoli with it. I couldn’t carve the chicken, so he did that, but otherwise everything was fairly easy, especially as I’d cut the cauliflower and broccoli into small pieces before I cooked them.
Baked potatoes can be difficult to eat, but they are easy to cook, as I just remove the eyes and put them in the AGA.
Pasta is easy and for this and other foods, I can always use the fork as a spoon in my good right hand. I don’t often, as you have to have some standards!
I don’t eat much red meat and if I want a steak, I generally have tuna, which is very easy to eat and I also have a simple recipe for this, which is very easy to cook. In fact, I probably have fish at least once a week.
But it is not the great change I thought it woiuld be! If I had one piece of advice, it would be to experiment and find out what you can manage.
Geeta’s Premium Mango Chutney
I’m not usually one for pickles and chutney, but I did buy a jar of Geeta’s Premium Mango Chutney from Waitrose. I tried it yesterday with some ham and cold new potatoes. It was delicious! It also revived the taste-buds in my mouth a bit, just like the Waitrose tiffin does.
The product is marked that it is suitable for coeliacs too. The web site has a selection of easy recipes too!
The Anonymous Widower 