A Calorie Counting Cat ...

Tessa, after she had been put on her special 'diet' and had already lost some weight

Well, not quite. Rather …. a cat on a diet ? Earlier this year when we took Tessa (you can read the story of how she came to us here) to our wonderful vet’s for spaying, they returned her to us, saying that she was too fat to spay ! I was both taken aback and amused at the same time .... in fact, I wasn’t quite sure what to say. (Which, for me, is pretty rare as I usually can’t stop talking !)

Apparently, much like humans, if cats are overweight it makes operating on them difficult as the fatty tissue does not heal well – if at all. As Tessa was carrying most of her weight on her stomach, and this is the area they needed to cut to perform the operation, it would be unlikely that it would knit together and heal well and, the vets sadly informed me, they had lost 2 cats to septicemia through this over the years, and therefore would not take the risk by operating on another fat cat.

So, we were sent home and Tessa was put on a diet. Justin was amused by this, as Africa and dieting do not really go hand-in-hand. To give you an example, fat people are valued and prized in society here – especially the women – the fatter the better as fatness is a sign of health, wealth and in women, the sign of a good child bearer. If you are too thin you are deemed to be weak, sickly and poor. If you are too thin, you’d better watch out ‘cause your husband might just find himself a fat woman on the side ! In all the years Justin has been with us, I’ve been taking thin, starving cats and dogs and fattening them up (Tessa being one of them !) and now we had to make Tessa thin again ? (Ha ! This time, he thought, Mama really HAS gone mad ….)

Anyway, Tessa was put on a diet of meat only (no more expensive, imported dry cat food for her). I could no longer leave a bowl of dry cat’s food out on the counter for the other cats to snack on whenever they felt like it. It had to be locked away in the cupboard and fed to them ‘on the sly’.

But, Tessa is the greediest cat I’ve ever known (I think this stems back to her being starved as a kitten – now she feels she has to eat everything in sight, all the time, just incase she never gets any food ever again ?). She would eat the dog’s food, try and eat my daughter’s cereal in the morning if she left it unattended on the table. She would eat crusts of bread left out for the birds (bread ? a cat ?!) and one night, I even caught her licking the empty dinner plates which were about to be washed …. she wasn’t starving, she was getting enough food. Just not as much as she wanted. She would sit in the kitchen at lunchtime and beg like a dog for food. It was terrible.

So, Tessa on a diet has been a bit of a nightmare in our house and although she’s not as slim as she should be, as she was on heat for the first time last week (and escaped from the house and spent 2 nights in one of the nearby villages “Tessa has found herself a boyfriend, Mama” as Justin put it) she was taken to the vet yesterday by my husband, who was traveling that way for work related stuff. Luckily, she’s (almost) reached her goal weight and was accepted by the vet for the operation. So we can all breathe a sigh of relief … and take the locks off the fridges !

East African Masala Coated Trout

The Masala coating added a nice 'bite' to the trout, and the lemon juice seemed to enhance the spicy flavours even more

We usually just have leftovers or sandwiches and a salad for lunch, and then we eat our main meal at night. Sometimes though, I will cook a light lunch instead (then we tend to eat ‘lighter’ that night).

My husband comes home for an hour’s lunch each day (the staff go off) and we sit around the wooden kitchen table as a family and eat together. It’s a really nice time and I realize how lucky we are to be able to eat together, as a family, for lunch.

Sometimes it isn’t such a peaceful scene, though … what with the dogs begging on the kitchen floor beneath our feet (“Can’t the dogs just go outside while we eat ?!” says my husband “Zonde’s breath STINKS !”) and the odd cat trying to jump onto the table (“No more cats ! We’ve got enough ! This is SO unhygenic” says husband as he scoops Tessa off the counter top just as she’s about to take off for her ‘flight’ on to the dining table - and deposits her firmly outside). Then of course there’s our daughter, feeding herself and making a great mess whilst she’s at it …whilst licking the tops of the salt and pepper shakers and trying to climb on to the table ! You get the picture ….

I had some frozen Tanzanian trout fillets in my freezer and decided to use them yesterday. So yesterday was a “light cooked lunch” day - which made for a happy husband as he’ll settle for that over a sandwich any day !

A lot of Tanzanian people, especially those who live at the coast, traditionally cook their fish in a ‘Fish Masala’ spice mix. Lightly coated, quickly pan fried and served hot and fresh to the table, you really can’t beat the taste. So I decided to try this yesterday. Only instead of Fish Masala, I used Garam Masala, as it’s what I had in the house -:


East African Masala Coated Trout

250 gm Trout Fillets
1 Egg
3 heaped tbsp Flour
3 heaped tbsp Garam Masala*
1 tsp dried Garlic flakes
1 tsp Salt
Lemon Juice to serve
Butter for frying

Beat the egg well and pour it on to a dinner plate. Mix the flour, Garam Masala*, Garlic flakes and salt together until well blended and then spread out in a thick layer on a dinner plate. Put your pan on to heat, and add a little butter to it. Then dip each fillet in the beaten egg and then quickly toss in the flour/Masala mixture.
Place immediately in the hot pan of melted butter and cook on both sides until done. Squeeze a little lemon juice over each fillet before serving with a nice side salad and some buttered bread.

*The Garam Masala (powdered) mix which I used contained Coriander seeds, Cummin seeds, Cinnamon, Cloves, Black Pepper, Ginger and Bay Leaves.

To Market, To Market, To Buy A Fat Pig ...

We laid the pig out on the kitchen counter, chased the dogs outside, got the book open on the "Pork Meat Cuts" page, sharpened the cleaver and got ready to - CUT !

Well, not quite ‘to market’. Rather a knock on the door one night late last week, and 2 large stainless steel cooler boxes glinting in the moonlight, being carried on to our front veranda by staff from another farm. The pig was inside the cooler boxes. Killed just a couple of hours before, skinned, beheaded (thankfully) and neatly chopped into 6 large pieces. A thank you present for me. (Unfortunately, we do not have a chocolate and fresh flower door-to-door delivery service in remotest Africa.)

Let me explain. I think I’ve mentioned before that we have a small guest house on the farm. It is actually more like a cottage and lies on the other side of the farm workshops (with magnificent views out the back door to Mt Kilimanjaro, and Mt Meru out front). It has a fenced garden, covered veranda, 2 bedrooms, one bathroom, a kitchen and a lounge/dining room. It sits empty almost all year round as if we have guests, they stay with us in the main farm house. People have asked me why I don’t rent it out but honestly, my tourism days are behind me now – I dedicated 11 years of my life (weekends, public holidays, Christmases, late nights, early mornings – you get the picture !) looking after paying guests, and I really don’t want to have to do it now.

“But you could rent the cottage out as a self catering unit” my friends say. Ummmm – yes. Until there is a problem in the middle of the night – a power failure, no hot water, a broken toilet, a snake - and I am needed to help out. No thanks. (I am very lucky that I do not have to work and earn a living but I promise you, even though I’m still young - I’ve earned it ! Maybe one day, I’ll write about that time of my life on the blog. But I’m not quite ready now.)

I’ve wandered off topic again …. where were we ? Oh yes, the guest house. Well, about a year ago, I was approached by a lovely German couple who have a farm some distance away from ours (too far away to be considered “neighbours”in the true sense of the word, but neighbours all the same) who run horseback safari’s. They are also vets (which are like hens teeth here – very rare). They needed a 2 night stop for their mobile safari clients about once a month, every month, and asked if they could use our guest house. It would be perfect, they said, with room in the garden for the horses and staff tents and of course they would come complete with chefs, housekeeping staff, waiting staff etc and I would not have to do a thing. There were a few things we’d have to do first, though – like re-doing the bathroom, tiling, painting and general repairs. (Which we’ve since done).

They wanted to know how much I would charge. Well, I told them that there would be no charge but if they really wanted to repay me in some way, could they rather help me with things like vaccinating, spaying and neutering the stray cats and dogs around the farm ? Yes, they said, we will do that with pleasure ! We will do that AND we will also give you a fresh pig once every 3 months. An organic pig, raised with love and care and lots of good food, and humanely killed.

So whenever I talk about catching a stray dog or cat and taking him/her to the vet for spaying or whatever, now you know which vet’s I am talking about, and how we came to this agreement !

As for the pig – well …. I am not a butcher and the first time I was presented with a whole pig, I must admit that it was pretty daunting having to learn how to cut chops, steaks, fillets, ribs etc. But thanks to a handy cookbook and a very sharp meat cleaver, between Justin and I, we managed okay. I give a lot of the meat to the staff, the rest goes in the freezer, and the scrappy bits and fat get mixed in with food for the stray village dogs. So, not a bit is wasted – and everyone is happy !