On Neighbors and Chicken

There is an old woman who lives directly across from where I am sitting. I know this because I just glimpsed her for the first time as she closed the shutters of her window. I am not sure how the neighbor (more like "the people across our patio who can basically see everything we do") policy works here, but I have only seen my neighbors on rare occasions.

I am writing this in my dining area which serves as an entry way for the patio, kitchen, and hallway. My four suitemates and myself somehow have managed to shove all our foods in our tiny refrigerator and divide the chores in a weird and silent manner. That is, the trash somehow is taken out and the dishes become mysteriously cleaned.  Not the best system, but because all five of us are only here for three and half more weeks, nothing feels very concrete or established. 

It is currently morning here, and I have class in about an hour. My Mondays, Wednesdays, and Friday mornings are spent going to the indoor market to buy fresh products. I only go to the supermarket to buy yogurt and eggs. For some reason, milk and eggs are not sold refrigerated at the market and most product stores which annoys me, one native habit I refuse to acknowledge as actually healthy. I usually try to buy one random item at the market and today I bought some dried fruit. The mango and peach so far have been my favorites, and I'm saving the apricots and golden raisins for my dinner salads. I have been making salads for dinner every night, besides weekends, since its the most affordable and freshest way in my perspective to eat the products I bought from the market. 

Making these salads have forced me to cook items I never and embarrassingly cooked by myself before such as hard boiled eggs and chicken. I managed to only ruin one hard boil egg since I am a very impatient person and kept taking it out and cracking it every minute.

Nika and I's salad wonder, yummy!

Nika eating our delicious creation

 As for the chicken, my suitemate Nika and I have decided to make Tuesday a salad collaboration night, and therefore we made chicken as a factor in our last night salad. Probably would have been better to grill it or put it in the oven, but making the chicken on the stove top was not bad at all, even getting attacked by hot pebbles of oil was worth it in the end. My roommate Molly contributed her East Coast cooking skills (I have never seen a girl make so much seafood before) but adding mustard and garlic to our chicken. As for cooking it, I kept reminding myself when my family cooked chicken, they would check to see if the meat was ready by cutting little slits in the product to check for pink areas. So in the end, the chicken came out beautifully white and crispy, and our salad (with tomatoes, carrots, apples, mozzarella and parmesan cheese, drizzled with balsamic and olive oil) tasted quite fantastic after a long day in the photography dark room.

Molly's shrimp getting ready for an intense curry bath

I am going to end this now and continue another post later tonight or tomorrow on updates on what has occurred during the two weeks I have been here so far. By the way, Tegan and I are both still working on our other blog, so keep checking that one as well for post focused on just food. Now I have to go to class, Maybe some dried peaches and a yogurt before I go? Yummy.