On the quest for Healthy

I’m in walking distance to a handful of restaurants, two major supermarkets, boutiques, bakeries and fruit/vegetable stands. My favorite bakery called Gateaux du Pain is a 10 minute walk and boasts the best baguettes and gelato (Nutella! Stracciatella!). I discovered a KFC-type joint (and to note, the last time I ate at a KFC was quite possibly in middle school), which has very good fried chicken and fries. There are a few fast-food Nem shops, where I like to buy Vietnamese fried egg rolls, or nems. I do my major grocery shopping at either Hyat or Cash Center. I usually save vegetable and fruit shopping for the row of stands that occupy the street opposite of my apartment.

I considered myself a semi-vegetarian for a year while I lived in DC. I loved it. Actually, I was more of a pescetarian, allowing myself seafood because I could just not breakaway from all the delicious fruits of the sea. Prior to arriving into Cote d’Ivoire, I started eating meats again (I accidentally ate some take-out chicken lo mein from a friend’s plate one very late April night and that ended my year long stint). Now that I’m here, the standard Ivorian fare is grilled chicken, grilled fish, meats and fried food. And I realized that an abundance of vegetables doesn’t quite make the cut in the local foods. Tomatoes, onions and hot pepper are the closest, perhaps. Throw in a few eggplants. I started analyzing my diet. I barely ate breakfast anymore and I ate out every day for lunch. My lunches consist mainly of heavy carbs and meats – rice or atteike (cassava) with a beef or fish sauce. Occasionally grilled chicken and fries or fried plantains. Where are the vegetables?

Since then, I’m on a quest to add more “healthy” in my diet again. I miss that lifestyle. I don’t quite feel myself when I eat all this stuff sometimes. Luckily, the season of Mangoes has reignited my enthusiasm for healthy. Mangoes started popping up in abundance a few weeks ago. Women were now walking around with large bowls of mangoes on their heads, food stands started piling mangoes, and my mouth started salivating anytime I saw a mango. However, I only buy my mangoes from one seller, as I do with all my other fruits and vegetable needs. Fatou works at the row of fruit stands near Cash Center, a big supermarket across the street from me. She always lights up when she sees me and if I hadn’t been around for a while, she’ll ask me if I’ve been out of town. Sometimes, she'll throw in an extra fruit or vegetable into my bag. Once when I asked for some oranges, I had expected her to pick the ones I saw in a large bowl in the front, but instead she disappeared behind the stand to get the “better” oranges. She threw one extra orange from the front so I could taste the difference. She was right, the one from the front wasn't that great.

Two weeks ago, I bought 5 large mangoes and Fatou threw in two extra baby mangoes into my bag (just so I could taste the difference, but there wasn’t really one). When I got home, I started chopping the heap, eventually nailing down a mango-cutting technique. I threw them into a bowl and into the freezer. The following week I bought five more mangoes and made a mango-lime sorbet. Heavenly! Most mornings now, I make a frozen mango-pineapple and banana smoothie with fresh-squeezed orange juice. I’m currently in “domestic” mode, cooking up new desserts and healthy vegetarian dinners (the vegetable soup and lentil burgers I made were fantastic!), but I’ll probably still continue with grilled chicken with atteike or fried plantain dish for lunch. I figure that once I’m back in the states, I’ll revert back into my pescetarian mode. The one thing I miss most, strangely enough, is broccoli. I found a small bag of frozen broccoli at the supermarket for about $12. I'm not quite ready to break down for that. So, I'll just have to wait til I get home. Get ready!