I remember the Tanzanian breakfasts most vividly; I had never been a fan of breakfast until waking up to the beautiful setup became a part of everyday life. The fresh passionfruit juice, homemade chai tea, chapatis… just thinking about it makes me want to book a trip to Dar. Not that tracking down the people I met there would be easy at all, but I've kept in touch with one of the volunteers, and I'm sure a return trip is somewhere in my future. I'd love to see my students all grown-up, and I would kill to swim in that beautiful ocean once again.
One of the things I brought back with me originated from the days that we would return from school early, absolutely famished. We bought loaves of bread and fresh tomatoes from street vendors in our broken Swahili. With intermittent electricity during the dry season, toast quickly became a distant memory that I had gravely taken advantage of in the states — and a toaster was unheard of, so we resorted to our makeshift waffle iron. It actually worked pretty well — the waffle imprints made great pockets for fresh peanut butter, passion fruit jam, or any other sandwich go-betweens. To this day, I make replicas of the tomato-mayo sandwiches I was obsessed with years ago. Salty tomato sandwiches are still one of my favorite things in the world.
Needless to say, when I spotted a waffle iron panini entry on foodgawker, I had to copy it — anyway, I had a history with waffle iron toast. Why not step it up a notch?
Turkey, hummus, plum tomatoes, swiss cheese, and French bread.