My friend Shuvra contributes this guest blog from Cape Town where we both attended the same conference.
Afrika Bites at Victoria Waterfront. Victoria Waterfront in Cape Town contains a large food court and market called V&A Food Market. The multi-story building is filled with stalls providing inexpensive but very nice snacks, and meals of many varieties (African varieties, Thai, Hungarian, and various others). On my last day on this visit to Cape Town, I had lunch from one of these stalls, called Afrika Bites. Afrika Bites serves South African style dishes, including wraps, burgers, and stews. I chose the beef stew with "pap" balls. Pap is a "is a traditional porridge/polenta made from mielie-meal (coarsely ground maize) and a staple food of the Bantu peoples of Southern Africa" (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugali on 10/25/2018). The dish contained a very generous serving of beef, and was very tasty. The staff patiently introduced me to the various options available when I was trying to figure out what to order. The cost was 80 South African rand (a little under $USD 6) --- 55 for the stew and 25 for the pap balls.
I made candied ginger a few years ago. It's not something I would do every day but I had a lot of fun doing it. I recently acquired a pressure cooker and it inspired an interesting idea to me: why not make candied ginger in the pressure cooker? It should be very soft and flavorful. Here is the result. I peeled two large ginger roots, cut them into small cubes, and put them in the pressure cooker with heavily sugared water. The traditional method first boils the ginger in plain water to soften it and then again in sugar water to candy it. The resulting candy was very tender but still with the characteristic ginger texture. It was also sweet without being overpowering. The traditional method leaves a lot of sugar crystallized around the ginger. The pressure cooker gives a much more subtle result. The ginger stays moist even after it cools but you can dry it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes. That inspired me to dip it in chocolate. While I was in the b...

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