12 August 2006

Never question a dream


The Mallarmé came, and yes, it IS the Erik Estrada ‘Dice Throw’ I dreamt of, and yes, that’s a recommendation.

I found a Liberian grocery store – Willingboro, a 50s suburban mega-development nearby, is getting a growing African population. My experience is that African grocery stores that have a different native language have a friendly but untalkative staff, but an English-speaking country’s stores (like Nigerian or Liberian) require you to make conversation with the staff for the entire visit, which is part of the experience.

I now have copious amounts of dried codfish and Monrovian collard greens. I believe collard greens were taken from the US to Liberia when the country was founded.

I've never seen CHiPs.

3 comments:

Jessica Smith said...

you've never seen CHIPs?! how can that be? poor ian.

david raphael israel said...

me neither

collard greens, post-Civil War -- had no idea

but so many global exports before then: potatoes, tomatoes, chilis (cayenne), corn, squash(?)

it's hard to conceive of Indian or Chinese or Ethiopian cuisine without chilis -- this was really due to Columbus?

I'm unaware of Liberian literature. In fact have no sense of the place and little of its people (have chatted with the stray Liberian cab driver in DC; -- DC's cab drivers are international -- fairly dominated by Etheopians and Pakistanis).

But I'm also vague about New Jersey.

Jessica Smith said...

DC cab drivers are the best source for info on where to eat.