my family are visiting (an excuse for a tropical holiday, i say) and so i took them to an island closeup to my town for a night. we drove (me! driving a manual on the right!) about 80kms to the other side of my island, caught a speedboat for an hour across the sea, and landed in the village. we stayed at teh local women’s guesthouse; for 2500vatu each you get a night’s accomodation, breakfast, lunch and dinner and the most amazing, secluded tropical beaches and coral reefs, and inland forest walks. village living is a contrast to the city living they’ve been experiencing, so i was happy we got to eat island style food (albeit all basically deep-fried).

manioc croquettes

dinner was fried chicken wings, fried boiled manioc and boiled rice. breakfast was local bread with jam or peanut butter. this picture is of lunch: manioc fritters (i call them croquettes) with rice, tinned beef stew, sliced tomato and fresh pineapple from the garden.

to make the croquettes susan (the guest house manager) grated manioc, mixed it with spring onions and egg and flour, shaped them, then fried them. so so good, quite glutinous but crispy on the outside.