Things Fall Apart

I actually made this black eyed pea/potato/meatball stew the day before yesterday but was so disgusted with the whole thing that I couldn’t be bothered to post it. I decided to post today because I was bored and the pictures were on the camera.

I was really excited when I saw the containers of fresh black eyed peas in the Weiss supermarket, even though the expiration date was that day. Expiration dates are guidelines; they don’t mean that the product will immediately go into a meltdown or turn toxic the very next day. Although I did have a friend who believed that and when we were in Niger, where certain products were scarce, I would hang around her house waiting for something to expire so that she would give it to me instead of throwing it away :D

The package instructions for cooking the fresh peas said 20 minutes but I’ve cooked fresh beans a lot and I thought it would be more like 40 minutes. Still, at 20 minutes I checked, at 40 minutes I checked, at 70 minutes I checked and again at 100 minutes I checked, finally giving up and regretting the the good vegetables, spices and meatballs that I had included with the still crunchy black eyed peas.

So that’s why. No recipe. No glory.