Thai Breakfast Dinner

I've been slowly falling in love with food blogs and I'm already crazy about cooking. So for dinner tonight I made a recipe from a Thai food blog that I really like called SheSimmers.

Called Khai Jiao, the dish is basically a thai fried egg of sorts. I'm no egg connoisseur, but I like variety and experimentation.

It's extremely easy to make and so fun to watch cook because you poor it into steaming hot oil and it bubbles up, eventually looking like funnel cake.

With the Khai Jiao we had a cabbage and cucumber salad with homemade peanut dressing.

And fried chili-lime potatoes. It was basically a breakfast and Thai inspired dinner.

This banana is an aberration.

But it was delicious.

Wedding Crashers

Yesterday was the closest I have ever been to being a wedding crasher. Derrick and I were fortunate enough to have been invited to our friend's cousin's wedding reception. This cousin is a complete stranger to me. Although she is Ugandan, she normally resides in Chicago and was marrying a white American that she met while in the U.S. My friend tried to recruit me to act as a representative to the groom's family, since none of them could make it out to the wedding. And it is very important in Uganda that the bride is not married off to some family-less, American charlatan. I was too shy to give a speech on behalf of the groom's family, but Derrick (the next best thing to foreign after the white girl) was up to the task. You'll be able to read about that on his blog.

The ceremony overall was really beautiful and very well organized. It also gave me a chance to take some photos with my lovely new camera.

Multiple cakes are ordered so that each esteemed guest of the bride and groom can take one home with them.

While the cakes were very impressive looking, the taste did not match the looks.

Everything from the table settings to the ceiling lights were decorated by the theme colors: pink and white. Here you can see the wedding invitation, addressed to "Mr. and Mrs. Carr." When our friend Bridget asked if that was okay, I hesitated a bit, my thoughts stammering to find a response. Derrick brought it up later "You thought it should be Mr. and Mrs. Diaz didn't you?" He knew the reason I hesitated wasn't because we weren't married, but because I couldn't decide if I liked his last name.

Doing the wave. Yes, the wedding party dances in while doing the wave. They even have nifty silver sleeves on their left arms to enhance the wave. I don't know if this was intentional.

The bride was very beautiful.

The head table where the wedding party sat was piled with drinks and flowers.

This is the gospel group that performed. But that's obvious right?

This little girl really liked to perch herself in the middle of the dance floor.

The MC reverted to a never ending list of terrible euphemisms and awkward statements, but no one seemed to mind.

Yes, they light the cakes like fireworks. They also set off bazooka-like poppers filled with graffiti.

The first dance, done to Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get it On." Really guys?

Remember those cakes that go to esteemed guests?

Pineapple Fried Rice

I recently got a wonderful, new, I-will-sing-paeans-to-this-camera type of camera. In spite of my excitement (getting home, tearing open the box, and then basically gazing at the camera for the next hour), the power was out so I couldn't charge it until the next day. This also means that I wasn't able to take a picture of that night's dinner with my wonderful camera. Hence we have a photo of my pineapple fried rice a la the Blackberry.

Cooking has become somewhat of a hobby for me while in Uganda. It's especially thrilling to have access to so much fresh produce. The pineapples are juicy and more flavorful than most anything I've had in the U.S., and they cost something between $1 and $2 depending on the size of the fruit and the exchange rate. For a fruit lover like myself, Uganda is something like heaven. There have been days where the only reason I don't top off an entire pineapple is because I have to share.

With this abundant fruit selection, I'm excited to see what other meals I can concoct. And I'm also looking forward to capturing some of these meals on film!