My Kitchen

My Kitchen
located at My House

As many people that have come over to my place and/or have eaten my cooking, I thought I'd toss this in for kicks. Price: reasonable, often free, though the host really hopes that patrons offer some sort of compensation (money, reciprocal meals, etc.). Amount: usually all you can eat, and even sometimes leftovers or take-out (bring my containers back please!). Decor: well, I have two other "gentlemen" roomates, need I say more? The food, well, people always come back and I have frequent requests. One often requested menu selection is my African groundnut soup. In fact, I served this to the Sierra Leone Refugee All Stars band when they performed during the Roots, Blues & Bar-B-Q festival. I spent 2 years in Sierra Leone as a Peace Corps Volunteer. They liked it a lot, and dedicated their oncore song to "the white man who cooked us food!" Several band members came up to me afterwards and said that my food gave them the "power" to perform well. Groundnut soup is actually a sauce served over rice, but good by itself, with onions, butter beans, sweet and Irish potatoes, chicken, lots of peanut butter and red pepper. Another often requested dish (especially by 2nd Best Man & Ferretman in St. Louie) are my pot-stickers or dumplings. Pork stuffing and I like them fried after cooking them in boiling water. I learned how to make these from fellow graduate students from China (I amazed one of my Chinese roomates, Dr. Gu, by making dumplings as fast as he did). A dish I've taken to many a company picnic and social gatherings and have had a lot of requests for the recipe for are my baked beans. These are slightly spicy, sweet sticky baked beans, in a cast iron pot cooked in the oven for at least 6 to 8 hours. Friends know that at birthday time all they need to do is tell me the type of cake they want; chocolate with extra chocolate seems to be popular. People don't go hungry here, and they keep coming back, so the food must be good!