Jollof Training... or Parent Training?

Last Saturday, we went to Dorothy's for the day. Back in November, when Dorothy was in the US for training, she went to Costco and ordered a ton of stuff for her and another coworker here. It was sea freighted over here for a flat rate and had just arrived that week. One of the items in the shipment was an electric kid's car. Dorothy invited us over so Dan could put the car together and she could teach me how to make jollof.

Her driver came to pick us up and we went over to Tema. When we arrived, the kids were ready to "help". And by help, I mean, make it incredibly difficult for Dan to put together this car. The first issue we ran into was that the screws provided with the car were too small. The heads just fell straight through the predrilled holes. So new screws needed to be procured, then he was able to get started. Dorothy and I were in the kitchen listening to shouts of "Uncle Daniel, Uncle Daniel! I can help!" and "Uncle Daniel, Uncle Daniel! Can we drive the car now?!" He was very patient whilst having to constantly remove one child or another from the vehicle and hide the car's decals on top of the fridge.

 

 

While he wrangled the three crazies, I was attempting to take notes on jollof. I thought this would be pretty straightforward since jollof is a Ghanaian dish and Dorothy hasn't been here all that long. So I figured she would have just learned from scratch within the last 10 years or so and would have a real recipe. False... wrong on all fronts. 1. Jollof is also made in Cameroon, so Dorothy has been making it for as long as she can remember. 2. There is no recipe. 3. Dorothy cooks like my Grandma Maria...dash of this, scoop of that, no measurements... just autopilot.

So I tried to scribble down the ingredients, although I admit I have no idea what the correct proportions of these things are. Essentially, you make a stew with stock, tomatoes, onions, garlic, ginger, spices, etc. Once the stew has been prepared and has thickened, you add in the rice. The rice cooks in the stew and absorbs it, making it a little red in color (from the tomatoes and tomato paste) and as spicy as you wish... It's very spicy in Ghana, which is fine with us. Once the rice cooked, we added in some diced carrots and green bell peppers.

In between stages of jollof cooking, I went to try to help Dan with the car. Maame Esi (pronounced like Mamisi) is 7 and genuinely wanted to help. She would get a screwdriver and wait for me to place the part and screw in the screws as far as she could. Ethan and Nathan (twin boys) are 4 and just were in a battle for who was going to drive the car first. Dan had to keep removing one or the other from the driver's seat. At one point, Nathan started pushing the car from behind.

Eventually, we finished the car and Dan broke the news to the clan that the car needed to charge... for twenty hours. This was not well received. They coped with this disaster and the 6 of us sat down for some early dinner. We ate and the grown ups had some wine. Dorothy packed us up some of the jollof and coleslaw to take home. We horsed around with the kids for awhile and then said goodbye to the clan and were driven back home.