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This is a post from awhile ago, I’m just now getting it uploaded…

This morning I undertook an ambitious project. The idea for it wafted into my mind late last week. It wafted in on memories of steaming, juicy, delicious vegetable quiche served by a friend in Kinshasa some months back. I searched out recipes for quiche and crust online, seeking the simplest ones that don’t require sun dried tomatoes or asparagus or other flashy gourmet ingredients. I studied the crusts without shortening since I can’t get it here. I knew that it could be possible that a sudden egg or cheese or vegetable shortage could steal this project away.

Chase, the summer intern here from the USA, contacted his Southern mama to get her recipe for crust and he took on that part of the dish.

Yesterday the ingredients were finally all assembled, even nutmeg. I woke early this morning to wash all the dishes, clean the kitchen, and start cooking. I wish I could tell you that the quiche is now baking in my tiny oven, filling the apartment with the sweet smelling anticipation, but the mission was aborted. I made the fatal mistake of not cracking the eggs into a separate dish before putting them into the mix.

There was an odd ‘garbage dump’ odor about the eggs to begin with and it appeared that one was cracked in the bag of eggs. This seemed to me to be fairly normal. Odd odors are not uncommon here and I hadn’t yet bathed, so I figured maybe it was me. It turned out to be the last egg to crack that was rotten and I managed to drop some of its gray poison into the bowl. I’ve never smelled such a thing. This egg outdid every stink-bomb I ever smelled in elementary school, and I think those are made with rotten egg. One bad egg took our quiche down.

While I stood in the farthest corner of the kitchen actively suppressing my gag reflex, Chase tried to fish out the bad egg but it was impossible to achieve success to our satisfaction. I added up the total investment of time and money in this grand culinary splurge of a quiche and realized that we’d be better off losing these eggs for the risk of turning out a sour quiche that would make us both sicker than sick. So I dumped the eggs into a bag and Chase went out to buy more and salvage the effort. Most everything is closed on Sunday, even street kiosks, but he went around asking people and found a place to restock. Now we’re cracking them one by one into a separate bowl. The dream of quiche is alive and well...

Here’s a picture of the delicious quiche, from crumbly crust to cheesy crown: