Iradi Food Home

This winter the electricity comes for four hours and goes for four. You never know. I make a plan every morning with a piece of paper on the fridge. At 7:00 the light is on, I boil the water and cook rice. At 11:00 it goes. I have a primus, a wood stove in the yard, and the tandyr that my husband's brother built behind the house.

Tips from my kitchen:

• Cook the big things when the light is on, the small things on the primus.
• Keep the broth always ready in a thermos, with a lid and a towel.
• Dough rises slowly in a cold house, so start in the evening and let it sleep.
• Tandyr is warm and heats the yard. We put non on its walls and the whole street smells.
• Candle on a plate, not on the table. I learnt it the hard way.

The refrigerator is a window sill. It is minus 8 outside, which is the best freezer.

Everybody asks me about the money after the 17th, so a little note from the kitchen, no politics. My basket this week, in the new money rate:

• Bread (non): 2.50 som, before it was 2.00
• Potatoes: 1.50 per kilo
• Rice from the Chu valley: 6 per kilo
• Mutton: 38 per kilo
• Onions, carrots: around 1.20

So I buy less meat, more rice, more beans. The grandmothers say it was the same in 1993 when the new som started. They say we learn cooking from the money.