Celery

Normally, celery does not really rank high on my list of "things I really miss" while living here in Africa. I use it to make dressing during the holidays, in Waldorf salad and occasionally spread with either peanut butter or cream cheese.
However, the old adage about only missing something when you can't have it comes into play when you live in Africa.
In our years here in Tanzania we have never seen celery - until now. Tim came home from the market the other day with a look on his face that told me he had found a "treasure" at the market.
He opened the plastic bag and pulled a limp, dirty, underdeveloped stalk of celery. If the same stalk had been in my refrigerator in the states I would have thrown it away. Here in Tanzania it was considered quite the find.
I carefully cleaned it and began to try and decide how I wanted to use this precious stalk of celery as they cleaned stalks waited in cold water.
I chopped some of it and put it in the freezer anticipating the next time I would need it for dressing or some other recipe.
The rest was used in a Waldorf salad for the Mwanza Missionary potluck that very evening. It was quite the hit even though I had to use pecans from my freezer in place of walnuts. The bowl was scraped clean and the celery was enjoyed by everyone.
Tim will be keeping his eyes open for other treasures that pop up at the market from time to time.