Around the World in the Hetzel Kitchen

Guinea-Bissau is a small West African country bordering Guinea and Senegal.  There has been a lot of unrest since they gained independence from Portugal in 1974.  Their conveniently-named capital is Bissau.  Read more in the CIA World Factbook . We're catching up to life a little bit here, although this was still about four months ago.  I cannot for the life of me find the original recipe I used.  I did Bolo a Moda da Guine Bissau - basically, Cake in the Style of Guinea-Bissau.   This one is fairly close , but not exactly what I followed. Oh well, we press on anyway. This looks simple.  A five ingredient cake.  I can do this without anything special from the store!  Butter, flour, sugar, eggs, and milk.  Let's do this! Did I not soften the butter ahead of time?  Was I supposed to?  The world may never know. Brendan spent some time as photographer.  I apologize.   Add some flour and milk and we'r...

Photo courtesy of user Bernard Blanc on flickr. Location : Main part is in Western Europe.  However, five former overseas territories were made part of France proper, and they are in South America, the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean, and Southern Africa. Area : Over 550,000 sq km (main part); 43rd largest in the world          Slightly less than the size of Texas Population : Over 65.5 million; 21st highest in the world Capital : Paris Nuclear Electricity : 53% of total install capacity; 1st in the world Kevin's favorite link about France:  The Complete Military History of France (not for the easily offended) Sources: CIA Factbook This was still while we were in Virginia, so it has been a while.  I apologize for any lack of detail...my memory may have gotten a little fried during all of this travel. I knew that France would be big and important in my cooking travels.  It, unfortunately, also corresponded with the craziness of get...

Ugh...since starting this journey, Wikipedia has changed the way they list the sovereign states.  Before the non-UN members were separated, now they aren't.  Abkhazia is now first.  What?  Where?  Exactly. I plan to proceed as before.  If a new recognized country pops us, like South Sudan, they will certainly be included.  However, Nagorno-Karabakh  isn't recognized by any UN member states, and I am not going to include it.  For now.  We'll see about later.  I need to draw the line somewhere. Burundi Background : After 100 days in office, the first democratically elected president of Burundi was assassinated.  This led to a conflict that lasted almost 12 years and took the lives of more than 200,000 Burundians Location : Central Africa Area : Over 27,000 sq km; 147th largest in the world          Slightly smaller than Maryland Population : Over 10.2 million; 81st large...