RHHP residents win three prizes at the neighborhood greens cook off!

CJ working serving her collard green salad for votes

CJ making his smoothie of fruits and greens.

Newly arrived RHHP resident Tracie serving up Remi's cabbage with peanut soup to a voter.

all that was left of Remi's entry to the contest

CJ accepting 2nd prize for the vegetarian category

RHHP residents Remi and CJ participated in the Whitelock Farm Harvest Festival Greens Cook Off this past Saturday. Remi, defending champion from a couple of years ago in the non-vegetarian category, entered a dish of cabbage with peanut sauce (vegetarian) while CJ entered a dinosaur kale salad and a smoothie of strawberries, ginger, kale and other fruits. For a small fee, members of the public were allowed to sample all the entries and cast their votes.

When the popular votes were tallied, CJ's kale salad won second prize while Remi's entry won third prize in the vegetarian category. However, a panel of three judges selected Remi's entry as the overall best entry. For his effort, Remi was rewarded with a dinner for five at the Woodberry Kitchen. He will treat his wife and children when they join him in Baltimore. Well done CJ and Remi!

More plumbing challenges

George, the plumber from Saffer to the rescue

feeding the snake into the clean-out

Not the kind of snake you buy from Home Depot

The culprits- roots and 

Ellen examining the main culprit - paper towel!

We had sewer water backing up into the basement yesterday afternoon. After deciding that professional help was necessary, we called Saffer Plumbing. George, a very nice plumber came to our rescue and snaked out the sewer line. The culprit turned out to be a small amount of roots but it appeared that the main cause of the backup was a paper towel. Looks like we need to mount a education campaign on the proper use of the plumbing system! The weekend emergency visit set us back a bit over $400 but we were able to resume our normal routines again. In addition to saving us from having to find relief elsewhere, George the plumber also regaled us with adventures in his professional life as a plumber. You can't imagine stuff he finds in clogged sewer lines!

Unexpected dinner guests

Impromptu banquet!

Guests visiting in the living room

We invited three neighbors for dinner last night and ended up with almost twenty guests. A bunch of our Rwandan and Congolese friends stopped by. Fortunately Remi had earlier cooked up three batches of Cameroonian delicacies for me and so we had plenty of food to share. The visitors also whipped up a bunch of fufu which made everyone fed and happy.

Nifty trick for removing fufu from the pot. Just set the pan upside down on a plate and let the steam from the fufu push the pot up. At some point, you just lift the pot off the fufu and serve!

RHHP bypass surgery

The plumbers from Brubaker Plumbing in Lancaster came down a few weeks ago to replace some pipes that were on the verge of rupturing. No more rust particles coming out of our kitchen sink! Despite all the plumbing work that have been done over the past few years, I am sad to say that there will be more work to be done.