Shopping and Food Preparation

My three favorite places to shop for food currently are:  

• Shop Rite - which is a modern foreign owned supermarket where you can find many South African products as well as local FRESH MILK and yogurt, in the new and modern Accra Mall (it makes Gregg happy just to go there because it's somewhat like shopping at home - high roof, big open space, and a movie theater),
• Koalas - a small old and quaint Lebanese grocery store with the very best bread and hummus in Accra, and

• Ruth's vegetable stand - a wooden structure filled with laundry baskets full of produce.

Once home, I begin the necessary task of soaking all the produce in Clorox water. That takes me about an hour wearing my yellow rubber gloves. The more things you buy, the longer it takes. For example, if you buy eggs here, they still have "interesting things" on them - so they require soaking followed by scrubbing with a little brush. Gregg has developed a recent aversion to eggs. I offered to make an omelet the other day, and got a "no thanks." And I have given up my lifelong love of eating cookie dough (because of the raw eggs).  Also, eggs must be thoroughly cooked -- no sunny side up here.  But it's all worth the prize of staying well.