Solomon Islands Recipe of the Week: Marco's Tuna Carpaccio

My wonderfully fun and weird Italian housemate, Marco, has left to return back to his city of origin or, as he likes to say, "Rome, Sweet, Rome".  So in honour of his leaving, I have decided to post his famous recipe for tuna carpaccio.

Now tuna is that main fish here in the Sollies.  I could wax lyrically about all the things that one can do with tuna and I might, maybe if you are nice to me, post my tuna fish stock, pasta, steak, soup, salad, jam and chutney recipes.  Maybe.  If you are nice to me...

Anyway, first off, buy one really fresh tuna.  Don't live where you can get fresh tuna?  Too bad! You live in a bad place then because fresh tuna really is one of the great joys in life; like fresh coconut water, there is no substitute.  I suppose you could use salmon, Kiwis and Pacific Northwesters...oh and you scottish folk as well...but seriously, tuna is where its at.

So here is the recipe:

• One tropical paradise that has a plethora (I love that word, don't you?) of fresh tuna.
• Gut the tuna.  Remove the skin, fillet and cut the fillet into small, flat pieces.
• Place the pieces of tuna flat on a flat tray that is at least 2 or 3 centimeters deep.  
• Cover the fish pieces in olive oil (extra virgin) and lime or lemon juice.  Add spring onions and capers if you like.  Add some salt to compensate for the bitterness of the lime juice.
• Put in the refrigerator.
• Now, the tuna will turn from a pinkish colour to a nice gray colour because the acid in the lime is kinda cooking the fish.  Kinda.  Its a chemistry thing.
• Eat after one or two hours.  Preferably with a nice white wine.  And some italians...I mean, not to eat of course, but just to hang out with and tell you interesting stories about owning a monkey, being attacked by pirates, seducing innocent peace corp volunteers and having an ex brother in law who owns a castle. Someone like that...   

There you go.  Come over to my house; I now know how to make it, so Marco is no longer required.  Although we will miss him.

Ciao Marco and bon voyage (he's half french, ya know, so I can still use french words.  Plus it sounds cooler in french than italian.  It's a scientific fact...)

Lukim ui,

S

In the dark...

When I packed my little suitcase in August, I had nine weeks of traveling to get through before coming to the Solomon Islands, so I brought a wide variety of clothes with me. Now, those clothes are tattered, stained and, well, downright frumpy.

So after six months of living with the same wardrobe, I broke down and decided I needed a major overhaul in my look.  The main problem is that here in the Solomons, clothes shopping, like food shopping, is not an easy task. 

First off, there aren’t really any new clothes shops.  There are a few tourist shops you can buy new clothes in but these are expensive and kinda tacky island gear.

However, the Sollies has a wide variety of “kalico” (or clothes) shops.  These shops sell second hand clothes donated by Australia and New Zealand.  So kiwis, when you put your used shirts and skirts in those big clothing bins, a lot of times, it ends up here.

After a complete wardrobe meltdown, where I threw everything out of my closet and on to my bed just to find something suitable for work on Tuesday, I realized it was time to take the plunge and get me some clothes. 

With that in mind, on Wednesday, my wonderful, ever patient colleague Tina took me kalico shopping for the first time.   Fashion here in the Sollies varies widely.  One of the best parts of the clothing here is the unintentional hilarity of locals wearing kitsch or hipster shirts that say things like “Best Grand Dad in the World”, when the guy wearing it is clearly under the age of 30.  Or the classic 60s Batman t-shirts worn by a mother holding a child, that would certainly go for a high price back home.  “Make love, not babies” was a controversial shirt worn by one fellow, and Iron Maiden concert t-shirts are everywhere (Helen, that one is for you!).

The professional women all wear skirts; slacks are not common.  Typically, there is sometimes a floral print; often there are two different floral prints warn at once with no matching colours.  Walking down the street, the foot wear is clearly jandals/thongs/flip flogs/slippers.  Closed shoes are a no no unless you are stuck in an office.   

Anyway, Tina held my hand and led me into the store.  The experience was pretty interesting; clothes were organized by type: skirts, shorts, tops etc…As soon as we walked in to the store, the power went out.  Choosing clothes in the dark isn’t my favorite activity but Tina and I gave it our best shop.

Looking through the racks, there was a wide variety of fabrics, styles, and sizes.  The clothes were all fairly modern with a few hilarious exceptions.  One clothing line seen over and over was Millers. 

Note to the Millers fashion group: stop making ugly clothes.  Nobody wants those granny blouses you sell…I mean it, NOBODY. 

By the end of it, I had grabbed several skirts and tops and walk away with a bag of clothes for about 35 dollars N.Z.  Not bad.

This week was another marathon of dinner parties (Marco goes on strike on Friday night; I guess there is a limit to dinner parties for him); one of my favorite wantoks, Adam, came to two of them.  Adam is always good fun and I laugh more around him than I have in ages and ages.  We host an American Wantok dinner night with Daphne as well. 

Daphne\ teaches Tessa how to Salsa.  Tessa grabs my red stilettos (we have the same shoe size) and gives a go.  Cautious at first, Tessa gets into it and adds flirty movements with her hips with a big smile on her face.  She starts to beem and flounce.

Daphne has that effect on people; she is very good at convincing you to try something new and push out from your comfort zone.  Now, my wantok Daphne is a stylish lady from NYC and she offers to help restyle me.  After picking some pretty dubious things at the kalico store and with my current style being decidedly tropical frump, she sees that I need help.   We make an appointment for Saturday to help me sort things out.

On Friday, it’s another dinner party and a wee excursion to the Kava Bar/Car Wash for some much needed dancing.  Adam and I pose for photographs, going for a 1960s beach party look.  The one thing I like about Adam is how much we laugh and get the same jokes.  It’s like having a great, old friend that I never knew I had.  We go home early, in preparation for what turned out to be the cooking challenge of my life. 

Saturday started off badly; I lost my keys.  I was hot and irritated. Marco and I went to the market and a big fight broke out.  I got groped, again.  Marco left me with a large fish, with scant instructions: olive oil, lemons, garlic.  Put in the oven for a bit.  He goes off to the hotel to do some work and leaves me with a fish a kind of fish I have never seen before. Thanks.

But by the afternoon, I center a bit more.  Tessa brought her very kind and soft spoken art teacher, MacKenzie, over for a lesson.  MacKenzie is a very well known local artist from Rennell province.  His people are Polynesian in origin and were fairly isolated from the rest of the Solomon Islands.  There is something very sensual and masculine about MacKenzie; I’m not entirely sure if it is his tattoos, his artistic flare or his piercing gaze, but he is gorgeous.  I wonder how Tessa can focus on her art…Daphne came along as well, to do some painting and to help sort out my sad wardrobe. 

Daphne throws herself into my closet with the passion of seasoned professional (which she is) and I felt, slightly, like her fashion talents are completely lost here in the Sollies. About two thirds of the items I purchased at the kalico shop get a veto.  Daphne is very good about it but when I bring out a white skirt with roses on it, she looks at me like, why would you do that?  What possessed you to go there?  Or that shirt might be better as a pillow, not for a person… I find the experience both humbling and necessary…

I start wearing red again and my big belt.  The curve of my hip starts to show more and my legs are peaking out of skirts.  I start to feel a bit sexy again; I feel like I’m getting my groove back a bit. Daphne and I decide that my fashion icon should be Sophia Loren (another shapely gal) who was full of passion and fire.  I can relate; it’s just my fire is current on the low setting.  I have been so focused on the house, cooking, working, dinner parties and other things, I forgot to look after me.  Again.

Daphne promises to take me shopping on Wednesday to give me a hand on making better choices while kalico shopping.  When I come out of my room in my cooking smock, she looks at me with despair and mouths a resounding No! to my choice.  I told her it was just for cooking, she looked at me like even what I was wearing wasn’t good enough to cook in, which is fair enough…little did I know that I would be wearing it 

for awhile longer than I had hoped.

In the evening, the power goes out.  For hours.  Now I’ve got to cook for eight people without any power and only a coconut lantern to cook by.  The bonus prize: I end up, through being convinced by my two housemates, to cook both chicken and fish and a veggie stirfry with noodles.  The meals are complicated and would be challenging with power.  Without it, some very interesting dishes come out.

I can’t read the labels, so I just assume I’m grabbing a soy sauce bottle.  Wrong.  It is a bottle of black vinegar.  My good friend Hannah helps me out.  Hannah is probably the best assistant chef I know; she is always patient, kind and supportive.  But when I ask her to taste the veggies, even she can’t hide the fact that it tastes like feet. 

“Hmm…it needs something…” she says.

I panic; I’m out of soy sauce.  Thank goodness for good neighbours; I shout “COOKING EMERGENCY” from the kitchen and ask Stan and Jean if they have some soy sauce.  They do.   The bottle arrives but sadly not much can be done to the vinegary noodles.  Everyone, except Marco, is very supportive of the noodles. 

“You should be happy; you hava very nice friends who won’t complain about how bad that dish was,” Marco says.  Thanks. Again.

Daphne points out that it was a ballsy move in the first place to even try and cook without power.  She would have taken everyone out to eat.  It seems such a simple solution; I wish I would have thought of it earlier.  The whole experience left me hot (no fans and an oven!), challenged and feeling like a small failure.  Like so many times in my life, I underestimate the size of the job and end up paying for it.  However, we have good 

company in Gretchen and Alan, two aussie volunteers who keep things light hearted.

Things are going pretty good with my housemates, however, a few concerning habits have started to emerge.  Marco has gotten into a nasty habit of breaking things.  It started about a week ago when he dropped Tessa’s beautiful espresso cup on the floor of the kitchen.  Now, the tiles in the kitchen are hard and shiny; once you drop something on them, it shatters without fail.

Marco swears in Italian as the little cup shatters to pieces on the floor.  I bend down to pick it up; there are numbers at the bottom.  Numbers, especially those with only four or so, is not a good sign.  Tessa runs down the uneven stairs, distraught as seeing her beautiful cup in pieces.  Now, I understand that it might seem strange to bring something valuable here BUT we all need some little memory of home.  For Tessa, there is nothing better than sitting out on our balcony in the morning, and taking a moment to enjoy the view, sipping from her beautiful cup.  Now, her little moment of home and peace is shattered. 

Marco looks sheepish but Tessa takes it better than I would have.  However, this will not be the last time that Marco breaks something.  The next evening he tops himself by breaking not one but two glasses; one was part of a set purchased only that day by Tessa.  Even the neighbours next door hear the smashing sound.  Our Italian neighbor next door yells out “Oh Marco!”  in response, without even seeing him downstairs. 

I guess one of two things is happening; either Marco has the most unsteady hands in Honiara OR he is taking out his secret rage about living with me and Tessa on our glassware.  Marco is thereafter forbidden to hold anything breakable, which gets him out of all kinds of chores…I think it is a very good strategy…

Marco’s trail of destruction doesn’t end with the glasses.  On Sunday, we have a key malfunction and can’t get in the house.  Now, it’s Sunday afternoon, and that means one thing to Marco: siesta time.  The door is between him and his comfy (actually the thing is hard as a rock) bed.  He grows impatient, which is the first time I’ve seen him anything other than pretty cool and calm.  Marco deftly caresses the door, takes a deep breath and bangs on it three times before it breaks open.  The latch carcass lays sprawled out on the floor.

“I could have karate kicked the door but the door would have broken completely,” Marco says, looking a bit sad at missing an opportunity to kick the door.

I guess the door learned the important lesson: never get between an Italian man and his bed on a Sunday afternoon. 

Maybe this is a good lesson for us all to learn.

Marco heads back to work, Tessa is away.  I have the house to myself.  The peace and quiet lasts four hours; the longest I have been alone in the house since I moved in one month ago.  I play my music, and start putting back my closet.  I put on my high heels and walk around the wooden floorboards, laughing at myself. I missed this part of me, the part that likes to be a glamour puss.

I enjoy the moment and then, with a knock on the door to let Marco in (thankfully, not a karate kick), it passes.  

Solomon Islands Recipe of the Week: Tina’s easy cook corn beef and veggies

Okay, so Tina, my ever patient and caring local colleague, has agreed to share her ingenious recipe of corned beef and veggies.  Now, in the Sollies, beef protein is hard to come by and expensive EXCEPT in one form: tinned corn beef.  Tina feeds a family of five and she has found pretty good ways of saving money and ensuring her family a balanced diet of protein, fats and carbs.  Canned meats are pretty much universally used in Melanesia as a way to supplement diets.  In Hawaii, consumption of Spam has turned into an art form.   

Now, I prefer the corn beef that Ox and Palm makes, with its classic retro styled cans and key top opener.  Bonus: you can use the cans as decor when finished.   Tina, however, says you can really use anything.  While some people might balk at eating tinned meats, I say give it a chance!  It’s not as bad as you think. 

Tina cooked me this recipe when we went to Gizo and I have to say, it’s pretty damn tasty. 

So anyway here it is:

Tina’s Easy Cook Corn Beef and Veggies

Ingredients:

·        

2 or 3 medium sized capsicums

·          ½ chili pepper

·         1 onion
           1 clove of garlic

·         1 tin of corned beef

·         5 tomatoes

·         Salt and pepper to taste and some fresh ginger
·      

Directions:

·         Start the rice on stove or in rice cooker.

·         Chop up the veggies.  Put to one side.

·         Put oil and garlic in a heated pan.  Brown the garlic.

·         Add onion.

·         Add the veggies and ginger, salt and pepper.

·         Open your Ox and Palm tin of corn beef.  Mix with veggies.

·         Heat for five minutes and serve on a bed of rice.

And that's it!  It takes about 20 minutes all up and it is pretty yummy.  So don't be afraid to open up a tin of Ox and Palm and go for it!

TIl next week, lukim ui!

S

This one is for the boys...

I think one of the saddest things I’ve seen is a Wildcat airplane sitting in a jungle, rotting in the hot sun.  The Wildcat was pretty much intact when it crashed in 1943 but years of sunning in the Solomons and looters have let it a shell.   

Stan, his son Ryan, and myself embarked on a little day trip west of Honiara to the open air WW2 museum.  First off, finding the museum is no easy task; the sign has been ripped down at least three times by locals.  Secondly, it’s pretty far out of town.  There are small roads leading in and out of the jungle so it is pretty difficult to figure out which one it is.  Good thing Stan had been there before and despite his mass of white hair, his memory is pretty intact.

We are greeted by Anderson, who has been hired to be the caretaker and tour guide of the place.  The open air museum used to be quite something back before the Tension, but it was raided for anything useful during the conflict. Now it’s just filled with the skeletons of the war.

The museum is filled with relics from the brutal Solomon Island campaign; the wreckage of ten planes sit under trees (and sometimes have trees growing in them, with branches snaking around the metal and holding the plane tight to the trunk).  Large artillery guns sit abandoned and a large copper cooking pot is riddled with bullet holes.  Anderson shows me where bees have attached themselves to the hanging vines of a tree and died; a sort of bee graveyard.  Hundreds of bee carcasses cling to the vines.  Even the bees know that this is where you come to die.

I walk towards the Wildcat; its frame is almost completely intact.  It sits there, sort of ghostly, the metal still gleaming in the sunlight.  Anderson shows us how to bend back its wing; a useful piece of engineering to store more planes on a carrier.  While the electronics and all the wiring and all the other stuff is gone, it feels amazing to run my hands down the intact wing and run my fingers across the make, model and patent number (patent pending).

Anderson, the caretaker, proudly walks us through the rest of the museum.  It isn’t very large but there are several Japanese, U.S. and New Zealand memorial plaques there. 

As the war is fading fast into our collective memories, so have visits from tourists and veterans.  We look around the grass is high; there is barely a path to follow.  It must have been at least two or three weeks since anyone else had been here.

The amazing thing about the open air museum is to really touch these planes.  These aren’t replicas, they aren’t museum models.  These planes were shot down in battle.  The retrieval stories of these planes are probably as interesting as the war itself; some were pulled from the bottom of lagoons; others towed from the deep jungles in Guadalcanal and Savo.     

Anderson was a part of all that, in the late 1960s and 1970s.  That was the time when war veterans seem to reconnect with their past and could finally talk about it again.  Anderson looks sad; he says he hasn’t seen a veteran here for several years.  It is a reminder that we are losing all those brave men to the inevitable; old age. I bet some of those guys in retirement homes thought they would never made it off Guadalcanal alive.  32,000 Japanese and 7,000 Americans died here.

On the memorial for the Japanese, it states: “when two sides go to war, both leave the battle scarred and wounded.  Both are defeated.”

I believe that.  Even though we won the war, it was at an enormous cost.  Stan says to me that he thinks about the enormous waste of money because it is simply too hard for him to think about the loss of life.  I understand.

Stan, my intrepid neighbor, is one of my favorite people in Honiara.  His wife Jean too.  Stan was born in Egypt and has travelled around the world, working in far off places like Afghanistan and East Timor.  He is practical and moves quickly.  We go to the market together and he walks off, anxious to get his fruits and veggies. 

Now, being an obvious foreigner with my hands filled with produce and flowers, and alone has made me a target for a pickpocketer.

I knew it was happening; I could sense myself being watched from above and the man pushed me unnecessarily and moved fast.  A local woman screamed at him and grabbed his arm.  I looked down at my pocket and my money was still there, all accounted for.

A crowd gathered around the young man, who denied any wrong doing.  I glared at him and moved forward to confront him.  He ran off.  I guess I have a fairly mean glare.

This, however, brings home a point for me.  As a single woman, I am constantly targeted by men here.  Either they want to sleep with me, mug me or take advantage in some way.  Here I feel it truly is a man’s world.  It seems the men make the decisions and the women have to dutifully stick by their men.  Except in cases of pickpocketing, where it was a woman who helped me out.  

The funny thing is that women in development jobs outnumber men pretty significantly, so obviously women chose to put themselves in this kind of environment. 

Anyway, Jeremy comes around, quite unaware about the pickpocketing incident.  I tell him but he doesn’t here.  I’m slightly shaken up by it, to be honest.

I go home and meet up with Marco, who is also not too worried about the experience and just states it is a normal part of life.  He is probably right; it’s a pretty common thing in Italy.  I remember when I was in Rome celebrating my 21^st birthday, my grandfather was picket pocketed not once but twice.  Tessa and Marco are both reveal one night that they are both Sicilian, which I can’t decide if that makes me feel safer or makes me want to lock my bedroom door at night.   

But I do have my wantok around me if things get tough.  Eddy returns from surfing the amazing breaks in Gizo (he wanted to surf a break that NO ONE he knew would have surfed).  He goes to the market on Sunday and buys fresh tuna.  The two houses break into a raw fish making competition; Eddy with his poke (raw fish dish from Hawai’i) and Marco with his capriccio.  Actually, Marco teaches me how to make it while he is busy cooking.  Some olive oil, lemon, salt, pepper and spring onions can do wonderful things…  

Tuna is amazing.  A darker and richer fish than most, you can replace pretty much most meat with tuna.  It’s a good thing too; one thing the Solomons have in spades is fresh tuna.

Marco makes the most delicious tuna pasta I have ever eaten.  The things the man can do with food is unreal… basically we use all the fish and he kindly fries up some fish heads for me.  Clearly, the man knows the way to my heart…fish heads.  I happily eat one at dinner until I find its tongue.  Now, eating tongue feels wrong.  It’s like you are making out with the fish.  Only not.  Anyway, it’s not good and turned me off fish heads, at least until the next morning, when Marco fries me up another fish head and its all go.

The protein breakfast does me some good; I voluntarily go to Hash in the evening.  Now, we have not one, but two cyclones in the area making everything wet and windy.  The rain is coming down in curtains and it takes all of two minutes for me to get completely soaked. 

Now, the event is a bit of a hill run and it quickly turns into mud skiing.  I spend more time on my ass than I do on my feet.  I’m soaked to the bone, covered in mud.  Some local boys decide to follow and laugh at us unfit white people struggling to stand in the mud.  But they are good sorts and help us through some of the unsafe bits.  We trek through a plantation of cassava plants and sadly, we used some for stability.  Some cassava plants did not survive the Hash experience.

At times I was annoyed, scared and numb.  But overall I had an absolutely blast; what an adventure trekking through the mud and rain in lush out hills of Honiara.  Afterwards I felt alive and happy. 

Marco and Tessa, who both piked out of Hash to hang out at the Mendana Hotel, got wet, muddy hugs from me.  Marco ran away quickly; it’s not nice to mess with an Italian man’s appearance.  I think he is still at home, try to wash the mud out of his clothes…

I have to say I was getting a bit bitter, a bit jaded about the men folk.  Watching gender dynamics in this country can be difficult and challenging and my own past has coloured my view about boys.

But this week challenged me to rethink my relationship with men.  From taking me to see the old bombed out WW2 planes to getting fed tuna to having my hand held in the rain and mud (thank you Rainmaker!), men have been there for me this week.  I marvel at what happened here in WW2; I mean, sure men caused it in the first place but they also committed selfless acts of bravery too.      

So I guess what I’m trying to convey is my thanks to the boys this week…this one is for you.

 

Solomon Islands Recipe of the Week: Cassava Pudding

Yes, yes…its puddin’ time!  After weeks of boring you with curry this and weird fern dishes, I thought it was time to take a walk on the sweet side.  Now, a quick note for the Americans: pudding tends to mean dessert in  commonwealth countries, like the Solomons, not the stuff that Bill Cosby sold us in the 1990s.  

Now, a couple of things on the culinary front that have made me terribly excited this week.  First, I have finally procured a coconut scraper!  For weeks, I have hunted like a mad thing, around the markets and hardware stores for a coconut scraper.  But sadly, my efforts were in vain.  Yet hark!  When one of my delightful coworkers, who is off to Mongolia, announced a moving sale, I moved quickly for one coconut scraper.

Sadly, it was already purchased by Ben (remember him, from Gizo?).  I grabbed it anyway, marveling at its beautiful craftsmanship.  The scraper bit was made in Vanuatu and therefor somehow really special.  I decided then and there, that I must have it and that I would simply hit Ben over the head with it until he gave it to me.

Ben, being the kind of guy he is, gladly gave it to me.  So now, I have a coconut scraper, which I named after the co worker going to Mongolia.  He found it slightly funny, as I have to sit on said scraper to make it work.  

Or something. 

Anyway, am excited about milking coconuts…just trying to figure out where the nipples are…

Okay! Enough thinking about coconut nipples!  Time for the cassava recipe!

Cassava, according to Wikipedia (the well of all knowledge), is the third most common crop in the world.  It can be used for either sweet or savory dishes, or as a door stop. Your choice.  It looks like a root, pretty much, with a wooden veneer. It’s called a tapioca, by the way.  

I usually buy the pudding at the market because I’m lazy and because it makes an excellent breakfast, when heated up with some milk, brown sugar and cinnamon.

So here it is:

Ingredients:

·         2 medium sweet cassava

·         2 cups brown sugar

·         2 eggs beaten

·         3 oz. butter

·         2 cups coconut milk

·         1 teaspoon cinnamon powder (you could use nutmeg too…anything spicy is good).

·         1 teaspoon baking powder

·         ½ cup warm water

Directions:

·         Preheat oven to 180 degrees Cel. Or about 350 degrees.  (There is a reason I don’t bake very often; I tend to not be very specific).

·         Wash and grate cassava with a fine grater. (Apparently, I’ve just been told I need to buy a cassava grater….)

·         Combine cassava, coconut milk, sugar, cinnamon and mix

·         Combine all above ingrediants with beaten eggs and mix

·         Slowly add the half cup of warm water…stir…stir some more…stir….keep stirring…

·         Now, put in a greased baking tin.  Cook for at least 30 minutes or until bouncy.

Ah….I’m going to try this and review this recipe, which isn’t terribly local.  Most puddings aren’t made with eggs, milk, cinnamon or sugar because these items are rare-ish in rural villages. 

If you have any questions, concerns, comments, rants, or reviews, please email me at stilettosinsolomons@yahoo.com.

Lukim ui! 

S

Three’s Company (Solomon Island Style)

Marco, our wayward Italian housemate, has finally arrived to a fully set up and furnished Casa Turchese.  Marco arrives with typical Italian panache, having spent much of his luggage allowance on Parmesan cheese, olive oil, chocolates, huge wine glasses, coffee, sharp knives and, of course, a pasta maker.  Our dining room table is covered in staples from Italy.  He brings gifts for me and Tessa; it’s like Christmas and New Year all at once. I don’t know how I am going to lose any weight in this house. 

It feels like, now that Marco is back, the house is complete.  His arrival feels like a breadth of fresh air as we discuss the garden in earnest (Marco has many years of experience in agriculture) and drink coconut water with lime on the balcony in the morning. Plus, he has an outrageous Italian accent that makes me chuckle inside and despite the tropical weather wilting everyone else, still looks clean and well dressed.

From Rome, originally, with a French mother, Marco has travelled all over the world to help people grow stuff sustainably.  Among his many adventures are owning his own monkey and mongoose (who, apparently fought like, well a monkey and a mongoose), being attacked by pirates in the Caribbean, owning his own Ducati and Triumph sports car, sailing around the world for two years…the man has lived an amazing life.   We both come from broken marriages, so we relate to each other on that level as well.

Tessa plans a dinner party on Monday, inviting the loveliest French couple imaginable and Elsa.  However, the party expands quickly to include three more Italians (yes, I discovered recently that there are more than the bishop, nun and the three Italians that live either with me or in the house next door.)  These Italians are a bit different; the wife, Greta, comes from Hungary, so we decided to call them the Hungary Italians…Anyway the party balloons to 10 people, which is a bit problematic because we only have nine plates and not nearly enough silverware to cover it.

The party becomes a chorus of Italian and French.  Pasta whirls around the table with fried chicken and salad for the second course.  I sit back in the corner with my friend Arno, exchanging disaster stories.  The night flies by and, at one moment, I simply sit back and watch in awe of the people around me.  The coconut lamps cast a warm glow over smiling faces and I sit in wonder, so grateful for the events that led me here. 

The next night is James’s farewell dinner.  James, our calm and cool kiwi volunteer takes Tessa and I out to the Honiara French restaurant.  Tessa and I dress up in our finest dresses.  My legs feel naked and I put on my black high heels.  I haven’t worn them since I got here.  Marco comments that he thought he would never see me dress up. Ha! Little does he know that I was quite the clothes horse in New Zealand, with my hot pink trench coat and six inch heels. 

Here, my clothes have taken a distinctly down market feel.  First, everything I own is covered in some sort of mystery stain, despite my best efforts to keep my whites white and my colours, well, coloured. Plus I don’t think it’s appropriate to wear expensive clothes here.  But I do start feeling like I need to bring my dressing up a level; even my white jandals/flip flops/slippers/thongs are turning to a grey with all the mud they are exposed to.  It can be easy to let your appearance go here; its hot and I sweat here profusely.  Sweat is not sexy.

Anyway, we head out to the hotel and enjoy a steak dinner with blue cheese sauce.  Now, I haven’t had steak in…maybe six months?  I can’t even remember when.  The steak is very good but so rich that my body doesn’t really approve, I struggle to sleep that night.

James has been a pretty constant presence in the house for about three weeks and all three of us have 

established close friendships with each other.  He has been our cook, our washing line fixer and has helped us with pretty much everything, even our massive dinner parties.  He has taken everything in stride with typical kiwi stoic aplomb. 

He will be missed by both Tessa and me.

Power outages start plaguing Honiara; we wake up to a darkened house and the distinct lack of noise from appliances.  We don’t have air conditioner in the house, which suits me just fine but we do have big ceiling fans that hum throughout the house.  The next day, the office spends half of its time in darkness until the generator is started.

During the day, Tina and I have been delivering our calendars to our partner agencies.  Every stop I go to (except for the Australian High Comms…and I find friends there, I swear!), I know someone.  Tina even comments about how I managed such networking in the past three months that I’ve been here.   I am not sure how it happened though; I guess I’ve just been lucky with my friends. 

On Wednesday night, it’s my turn to hose a dinner party, which exploded to 11 people.  I start cooking early, mostly fresh salads and noodle dishes, but struggle to keep up with the demands of cooking.  I decide to try my hand at a green papaya salad; an old favorite from Hawaii.  Eddy, thankfully, assists me in the kitchen. Eddy is a kitchen wizard, whipping up dishes quickly and giving me excellent tips on preparing the meal.

Dinner is served a little late, but the group doesn’t seem to mind.  This dinner party is decidedly different from the one on Monday night, filled with volunteers and Adam, a new friend from my American Wantok.

Adam could have been a typical New Jerseyite: coming from a prestigious university, going to law school, he could have taken a much generic path.  But nobody who comes here is exactly normal.  He is a self styled "Hindu, Buddisht, Jew" or a Hubujew.  Adam makes me laugh hard with his classic american wit.

Adam spent several years southeast Asia, writing and working his way around.  He came to our sleepy little country to look at the peace process.  Adam has the kind of infectious energy and rabid curiosity about everything that I appreciate.  I feel an instant connection with Adam and he is just fun to be around.

But by the end of the evening, Tessa is clearly over the dinner party scene for awhile.  It is understandable: we have had almost six dinner parties since moving into the house and we still have friends who haven’t visited there.  I am having trouble keeping up with who has been when and who hasn’t, the bureaucrat in me cries out for a spreadsheet.  Finally, Tessa gives the verdict: let’s chill out on the parties for awhile. 

I’m surprised; Tessa is the definition of extroverted; clearly I’ve finally broken her.

The rest does us good.  Thursday night, Marco brings home a data projector for us housemates to watch a movie.  Pinkie, my faithful laptop, is hooked up to the projector and we all climb into my massive bed to watch the movie.  Now, a word about my new bed. It is massive.  A small village of troglodyte gnomes could set up a village and make me toys and I wouldn’t notice.  It’s also a feather top, which makes it massively comfortable.  Like so many things in this house, it is simply the best thing I’ve experienced.

We sit and watch Bladerunner, which puts Tessa to sleep in about 10 minutes. Marco and I stay up talking about whether Harrison really was a replicant (I think it’s pretty obvious) while Tessa purrs quietly next to us.

The next day, I get charged with helping sort out Marco’s bed.  I get dragged along with ten Solomon Island men in a huge truck with a bedframe on the back.  Who knows what people must have been thinking about that scenario…Unfortunately, it is just the bed frame and Marco is left with a single bed mattress with a double bed frame.  Marco is devastated; it’s a huge blow to his Italian ego to not have a big double bed.

The next night is kava night.  Now, kava is a traditional drink of the South Pacific, known for its mild hallucinogenic/relaxing qualities. It’s not illegal anywhere due to its mild nature and I don’t think it would ever really catch on outside of the region.  First off, it looks like dirty dishwater and tastes like it too.  The mild pepper taste numbs the lips and tongue.  We all suck on lollipops afterwards.  Unfortunately I chose a blue one and it looks like I’ve been making out with Papa Smurf.

We head home for pasta (which Marco dutifully makes) and Adam joins us for a night cap. Adam clearly wants to bunk here; he says it reminds him of a zany Three’s Company and he would just like to be a fly on the wall to see the antics.  He remarks about Stan and Jean next door, as potential Ropers.  The place is rife with comedy; Tessa, Marco and I make up an interesting mix.

I sort of take on the role of the “wife” of the house; cooking and shopping have become largely my tasks (although Marco and Tessa help a great deal). Saturday rolls by with a huge shopping trip with my neighbor Jean.  We have to hurry because all the shops close at noon on Saturday.  After rushing through the dusty and dirty shops of Honiara, we escape to the Rain Tree café for much needed pizza and a gigantic jug of bush lime drink.  After a final trip to the central market, its rest time at Casa Turchese.

At night, I cook up chicken and local mushrooms with a blue cheese cream sauce.  It’s the first time I’ve ever made it; I have no recipe, I just fake it.  Marco smiles and says it is one of the best chicken and mushroom dishes he has ever had. I find this hard to believe given his Italian/French background but take the compliment 

anyway.

Sunday is a World War 2 tour.  I have to admit by the time I take the tour, I’m a bit exhausted.  This has been such a social, crazy week and so much has happened that I’m still processing everything.  The guide is good but much of what he shows us really isn’t terribly impressive.  Most of the artillery and other stuff have been taken away by scrap dealers.  Other than seeing a beach, an empty field and the two war memorials, there isn’t much to see.  Usually, I’m the annoying tourist in the group, asking all the really probing questions but Adam takes on the role happily and I am able to just sit and think.

The large group goes to the Iron Bottom Sound and we munch happily on pizza.  I go home, exhausted. 

Marco sits down next to me outside on our balcony and we talk about how the house really feels like a home.  It’s true; even in the two weeks I’ve been here; this place feels more like a home than any I have lived in for the past ten years.  I’m excited to come home rather than feel a sense of dread that I used to feel in Christchurch, avoiding home as long as I could; dragging my feet at work.  This place feels like mine, every quirky little angle or misshapen corner feels comforting.  And the view…well who can argue with waking up and looking out at the ocean in the morning or watching the full moon illuminate the trees around us.  I’ve never been someone to put down roots but here I can feel myself enjoying the process here.

I feel like I’ve been here forever and that is the tricky thing about being here.  Three months feels like six months.  Life moves at a different pace here and I take a lot of time enjoying simple pleasures.  The slower pace, warm weather and beautiful environment are getting to me; much more romantic thoughts enter my brain. 

Even my friend, Carlo (one of the Hungary Italians), notices.

“You are a very happy person…it infects everyone around you.  How did you get so happy?” he asks me.

I’m stumped.  I have no idea how all this happened. 

Maybe it’s the new romance of this place.  Maybe it’s the sea or the trees or all of it.   Maybe it’s my amazingly fun, zany housemates.  Maybe it’s the influx of pasta and good cheese that Marco brought from Italy.

Whatever it is, I’m not going to question it or wonder how long it’s going to last…I’m just going to go with it.

 

Solomon Islands Recipe of the Week: Sikaha Ha'ania Kiu (Eggplant with Shell)

This week's recipe: Sikaha Ha'ania Kiu (Eggplant with Shells)....

Last week's recipe, Kasume (Fern) Curry was tried and field tested at the Casa Turchese Kitchen last Friday.  Our intrepid friend James (the volunteer of steel aka the man who lives on his own island and wrestles Mr. Snouty, his local crocodile, for fun) did the cooking.  To be fair to James, we had to deviate from the recipe somewhat because we forgot to get a can of coconut milk and I am still unsuccessful in finding a coconut scraper.  I will find you, cursed coconut scraper!!!!  

The curry was...interesting.  Without the coconut milk to provide sweetness and a bit of creaminess, the curry tasted, well, too curry like.  James also used whatever veggies he could scrounge from our vegetable tray and had to be a bit...creative.  Now, just a word about veggies in the Solomons.  Because everything is organic, stuff goes off very, very quickly.  Sometimes I bring tomatoes home from the market and the next morning, they have already split and are stinky.  Yes, it is that fast.  So having a supply of veggies is difficult to maintain; the things that last the longest are beans, onions, and eggplants.  Most everything else needs to be used in a few days, so regular visits to the market are necessary.  Luckily, I work less than 20 metres from the second largest market in Honiara (and my personal favorite).  Someday I'll have to write a review about the different markets of Honiara....but I digress.

Tessa, James and I enjoyed our Fern Curry, sitting on our balcony overlooking the ocean.  Personally, I thought the curry was fine but James just shook his head, truly unhappy with the results. I, however, am not the best judge of food because I'm a volunteer and I eat cold fish heads for breakfast.

Anyway, on to possibly the most challenging recipe yet: Eggplant with Shells!

I've also decided to chill out on the editorial comments on the recipes for now because some people just prefer the straight recipe.  So here it is.

Ingredients:

• 10 eggplants
• 2 dry coconuts (or a can of coconut milk)
• 1 teaspoon of salt 
• 20 (!) Mud shell crabs (Kiu) or fresh fish
• 10 tomatoes
• 1 packet of noodles or rice
• Handful of Home Mushroom or Button Mushrooms
• More salt (a pinch)
• 1 bundle of shallots

Procedure

• Cut eggplants into pieces
• Scrape coconut milk and put it in the pot (or open the can and put milk in the pot)
• Open the Mud shell and scoop out the meat
• Slice tomato into pieces
• Cut shallots into pieces
• Put the pot with coconut milk on the fire till it bubbles (boils) and put all th eprepared veggies into the pot
• Put the lid over the pot for about two minutes until well cooked.
• Serve with Kumara or Rice
• To be served for ten (!!!!)

So, my cooking adventurers, enjoy this week's recipe.  If you do try a recipe and want to give feedback or write a review feel free to email me at stilettosinsolomons@yahoo.com.

Till next week,

S