Really, I should say I have shown lack of judgment in hopes of comfort.
Sometimes when you travel, you want a break from the new or different. Sometimes you want the comfort of something familiar, you just want EASY. Tanzania and Uganda CAN have a lot of diverse foods if you know where to look, depending on where you are in the country. For my family, eating out comfort foods are Thai, Indian and sushi. Believe it or not, we have found all those between the two countries (Thai and sushi not very often, only in Kampala, but Indian is frequent. In fact, tomorrow I am getting a lesson on how to make the best masala I have had yet). **
HOWEVER, I also love salad and I love feta and I love olives and I love MY idea of a Greek salad. I say "my idea" since I haven't been to Greece and they may taste what I fancy to be a Greek salad and say "what?! is this?!" After my second sad (in my eyes and tastes) Greek salad I told the kids I am NO LONGER allowed to order these unless I SEE it come out and KNOW it will be what I expect. They've stopped me at least once, good boys that they are.
Here at our table, for some reason. they put out mustard. Just yellow mustard and it stays on the tables each day with the other condiments they offer. I haven't had mustard since France. The mustard bottle is the yellow plastic squeeze type, the label has some brown/black mold on it, the top has some sort of black... something. I did inspect it the first day wondering what the hell that could have been. Today I came to shaking the mustard and squeezing some out on my plate, approximately 1/2 a teaspoon. It was a thick constancy that made me think it wasn't too newly opened (and then the spotty mold on the label should have been another clue). After I ate it, I thought that was probably a bad idea. Then I thought mustard is pretty shelf stable, it has a lot of vinegar, right? That is what I am telling myself.
** This reminds me of one of our sushi eating experiences in Kampala. One of Paul's classmates is from Japan. He looked up a Japanese restaurant and a group of us went out to dinner there. We all shared a big variety of foods. One of the group asked the Japanese classmate, "How would you rate this 1-10 in comparison to Japan?'. Without hesitation he said "2." Then the same guy said, "what about after being in Africa for 8 weeks?" Again, without missing a beat he looked up and said "6!"
