Harissa

 As my schedule frees up (more on that in another post), my love of cooking has been rekindled with the desire to take on projects that take time and to try new things altogether. 

For Sunday dinner (Wife and I, you may remember, eat European style on Sunday with our big meal the early afternoon), I made an Austrian Goulash using my now favorite tool, the pressure cooker. I'd only made it once before. I even used a recipe! To go along with it, I had some leftover potatoes and leeks so I was inspired to make a potato and leek kugel. A kugel is like a vegetable pancake but it is put in a dish and baked instead of fried. In my case, I sauteed the leeks first, added the potatoes (both were cut in to thin batons), pressed it all together, and put it in the oven to bake through and crisp up.

Of course, I neglected to take a single picture 😩

But you will forgive. For I am to provide you with a full instructional on the making of Harissa WITH PICTURES.

I am not sure when I made my first Harissa (Harissa is a North African chile pastes). I am sure it was at a time when I was wondering what to do with a mass of dried red chiles from the garden. However, I immediately fell in love with it. I use it as a spread on sandwiches, as a flavoring for eggs, a flavor boost for all kinds of things I cook, etc. Loving it so much, but recognizing it was a pain to make, I looked to purchase it at local Middle Eastern grocery stores. However, the versions I bought tasted nothing like the version I made. I would make it from time-to-time. But, as my schedule got busier, it became too big a chore.

A month or so ago, as I was purging my pantry, I was reminded of the bags of dried chile I have had from prior harvests waiting for me. This weekend with time to spare it was time to get to it. 

At first blush, making Harissa sounds fairly simple. One takes off the stems and removes the seeds from the chiles. Then soak them in boiling water for an hour to an hour and a half. Now remove the chile pulp from the skins - this is where things get interesting. Create the flavor base for the Harissa by mashing garlic with salt, sauteing it in olive oil, adding toasted coriander and cumin seed that has been ground to a powder, add the chile pulp, cooking for five minutes to meld flavors, and voila, Harissa. 

Seeding the Chiles

I soaked (no pictures) and then began the process of removing pulp from skin

If this picture reminds you of some horror movie slaughter scene, trust me, this was the aftermath once I had cleaned up a bunch. 

I started by getting rubber gloves (these are chiles right) and trying to mash the softened chile pods through the colander. But they weren't broken down enough. So I moved them back to a bowl, got a chopping implement and proceeded to whack away at them (chile going all over the place). Then I got a potato masher and whacked away further at them. Finally it was back to using the heel of my hands to mash them through the colander. The reason there are no pictures is that my gloved hands were covered completely with chile!

But finally, here we are, pristine, virgin chile pulp

Ground coriander and cumin seeds

Sauteing the mashed garlic then adding the ground spices

Add chile pulp and cook

Put into storage containers for freezing

Simple. N'est-ce pas?

Sharp

 After the debacle of the pork loin de-boning, I was determined to get my knives professionally sharpened. A bit of online research found a local place. It had great reviews over a number of years. They all commented on the rapid service, quality of work, and reasonable price. This had to be too good to be to true. But, the knives needed sharpening and this was the option available. 

On Wednesday morning I dropped six of my knives off. Two were ones I used all the time. The other four were ones I hadn't used for years, they were so dull. Exactly as the reviews said by the end of the day I got a call letting me know they were ready. I picked them up Thursday morning. The price was incredibly low. They were given back to me so nicely packaged. 

Today, I took out a legacy knife from my father, a nice big blade that had become useless due to the lack of edge. With joy, I sliced onions, carrots, and cabbage for a dinner dish. Each thin slice after the next, almost effortless. 

Reward.

de-I, The Butcher

Oh how I wish the title of today's post was an indication of great meat breakdown prowess. Sadly it is the other meaning of the word 'butcher' that is applicable. 

The renaissance of my love of cooking in response to my greater energy and time as a result of Theodora Project's increasing maturity was fully manifest this weekend. I have been frustrated that my choices for protein to make dinners from had gotten stale and limited. I went to the supermarket with a specific goal of getting some different items. This meant buying various meats and breaking them down into smaller sizes for the freezer. 

However, we are having a bit of last fling of winter here and there was a desire to make some braised meat dishes before we get to the warmer, grilled meats season. Wife wanted a classic pot roast. I obliged her. But I wanted some pork shoulder for future projects. And herein lies the source of my doom. For while I thought I was getting an 8 pound boneless pork shoulder, in fact I bought a bone-in roast. "Well," I said to myself, "No problem. I will just de-bone it."

One problem. My knives. None of them are really sharp enough for this kind of serious meat cutting. It was an ordeal. I tried three different knives with little. I tried sawing through the big bone with no result. I heavy ass Chinese cleaver did nothing to the bone. Trying to get the tough outer skin off was a joke. I finally managed to cut a good deal of the meat off. It will be going into stew type of dishes, so if it is not looking pristine, it is not a big deal. I ended up with the big bone intact with a lot of meat still attached to it. I will at some point throw it into the pressure cooker with something and make a soup.

The whole experience was quite humbling. BUT, it has motivated me to research and find out the location of a good knife sharpening service!

Transformation In The First Person

 It is one thing for me to talk to you about he transformational aspects of the Theodora Africa project, it is another thing altogether to hear it from the voices of those being transformed. Our team had the great fortune to be taken under the wing of a woman who has done a boatload of public speaking and who is very active with the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. It has a huge annual conference each March that goes on for the month both in person and virtually. Our benefactor got us a slot to present and then helped our team do everything necessary to create the presentation and exploit the opportunity. 

We gave that presentation today. It was amazingly powerful. Not the slickest presentation. No one is going to sign our team up for a TED Talk just yet. Nonetheless, it demonstrated in no uncertain terms how powerful this program is in changing lives.

Here is a link to a recording of the presentation. You will need to enter this Pass code - 4FaTT0#E 

It is around an hour in length. The most powerful parts start about around halfway through.

Bits And Pieces

 I got back to Albuquerque a week ago Sunday. My flight home was blissfully uneventful with about the best set of timing and layover times as one could hope for a long international flight so recovery from the time zone change only took a day or so. As is so often the case after I return from traveling, I have fallen off the blog posting wagon. Time to climb back on.

Reminder of Cultural Differences

I was driving in Accra with a team member and her car had a flat tire. I am wondering what the heck we are going to do. In the U.S., we would call AAA or some other kind of service. Or we'd get the spare out and get over to some big tire store. But I was pretty damn sure there are no towing services in Ghana. And I'll be damned if I've ever seen a tire store. But my team member said "No problems. We just passed a vulcanizer a block or so ago. What the hell is a vulcanizer? She gets out. We walk a block or so. There is, among all the shops in the ragtag huts that make up so much retailing, a guy with tires around him, equipment for changing and repairing tires. Cars are stopping at him and he is topping up their air. After he is done with the line, he follows us to our car, gets the tire off, brings it back, fixes the puncture. In 45 minutes we are on our way.

The rest of the trip I am keeping my eyes open and these 'vulcanizers' are everywhere! And it makes total sense. Most are driving some kind of very used car. The roads are terrible. You are going to have tire problems all the time. So tire repair needs to be decentralized and local. And the name, vulcanizer, derived from the process used to harden rubber so it can be used in tires.

A Second Reminder

We in countries like the United States have a belief that (for the most part) it is totally possible work hard and achieve success. Success is not guaranteed. But we believe that environment we live in will allow us to be successful if we are smart enough, work hard enough, and are in the right place at the right time. So it is hard for us to work in a culture where that is not the norm at all.

In a country like Ghana, the assumption is that your government will be taxing you and wasting your money. You will assume that there is going to be some kind of economic meltdown because the powers that be keep mismanaging the economy. You believe that anything good is bound to fail. The owner will turn out to be a crook. Some outside circumstance will undermine you. This creates a set of behaviors. You always have many things going on to make money, even if you have a job, because you are never sure when something is going to fail. If something is going well, you milk it as long and as hard has you can because it is certainly going to stop. 

I was reminded of this when I had to let go of my long-time driver. When I first came to Ghana, I knew nothing and I was driving all over with a very erratic schedule. This continued for the first couple of years I worked. I found my driver the first day I arrived and he was a blessing. He was always on time. He drove very safely. I never worried about where I was or how I was going to get anywhere.

But my needs changed. As Theodora became more settled and we got an office. My driving became very regular. I went to the office in the morning and came back in the evening. I went out shopping a few times. I went to and from the airport. A number of people brought this to my attention, but I have a weakness on being loyal to people and delayed dealing with it. But this trip, it was even more pronounced because of how close I was to the office and the price I new I could get taking an Uber back and forth. So I told my driver I needed to renegotiate our deal. 

I was shocked because what I got back was attitude! He tried to argue that he had been with me during the early years and I owed him what he was making now. The fact that I had paid fully and well by any local standards in the past was forgotten. So I terminated the relationship. It was a bit more annoying to have to deal with the local vagaries of dealing with Uber. But I pretty much know where I am going now. And if it is bit less convenient, I have cut my costs by about 70%!

I bring this up because it is something I used as an object lesson with my team. This guy, this driver, could have grown into being a resource for our whole company as it grew. But he could not see that. He could only see milking the deal for as long as it would last. I told my team to not fall into this trap. You have to fight the powerful tendencies of your culture. You have American interests behind you. If you keep working, we will succeed. 

Whether this will work with them remains to be seen. The powerful draw of local behavior and environment is strong.

Cooking

I was asked by daughter #3 on our Sunday call if I was working as hard. I said I didn't think so because I had enough energy to go on a major cooking spree this weekend. I made:

• Green chile sauce
• Carne Adovada 
• Spanish Braised Chicken
• Schmaltz and Gribbnes (rendered chicken fat with cracklings)

Spanish Braised Chicken

Everything came out good. I hope the energy continues. I really want to make a batch of harissa this coming weekend. My homemade harissa is better than anything I've ever bought. But it is a real pain to make. Stay tuned.

Succession - So Easy To Say If You Don't Have To Do It

Almost from the beginning of Theodora, it has been recognized by donors and volunteers that the project is heavily dependent upon my personal efforts. As a start-up, entrepreneurial venture, that is no surprise. 

It has also been pointed out by many people (especially those with high interest but not high time engagement) this dependence is a significant risk. That is not a particularly astounding observation. But there are certain realities when you are small, lacking in financial resources, and have a massive experience gap between the top leader and the rest in the organization. So no matter how aware you are of the problem, if you don't have the resources, there is a limit to what you can actually do.

Happily, we are finally getting to a point where enough of our people are advancing in their experience* to start doing real work on the succession risk.

*I say this with a grain of salt. You aren't going to take people you are transforming from zero U.S. (or any other) business experience and who are really young, and have them mimic someone with decades of experience.

This initial step is taking the form of a Catastrophic Succession Planning Process. The name says exactly what it is. It is a way of planning to take care of a catastrophic eventuality...such as the founder being recalled by his alien masters to the mother ship. You identify the most important risks and you develop a specific action path for dealing with them. Catastrophic Succession Plans are very specific and designed to deal with the immediate consequences of a loss. It is the first step toward the more comprehensive institutional succession process.

Our goal is to have this in place by the end of the year.