October 9, 2011
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Cooking Advice
Even though I am left handed, I cut things with my right. I didn’t realize this until this week, when from all my time in the kitchen, I have cuts all over my left hand. Only my pinkie has escaped. I am glad, at 29 years old, to finally feel like I can cook.
It was one thing to learn how to cook in America with microwaves, canned food, and pop n fresh, but is something completely different to cook in a third world country where you must use separate water, boil it, and make everything from scratch. Oh, and everything is written in another language. Most of the ovens are so old that I can’t tell what temperature it is, and if I can, it is in Celcius. Add to that cooking for 10-15 people every day, within a time limit.
I remember the first time I came to Brazil, staring at the cubbards and crying because I couldn’t even make macaroni and cheese: the milk was different. The cheese was different. The noodles were different, and I couldn’t figure out how to turn on the stove.
This week the girls have been helping me cook. We sit at the table cutting up vegetables and stirring pots while chatting about life and what we want it to look like. I thought I knew how to make cake. Apparently not. Marcella made a cake for everyone, giving me all this advice on how to do it. Cake making in Brazil requires beating in the ingredients in one by one for half an hour. I normally plop everything in the blender and pour into the pan—or use a mix.
The girls think my cooking is extravagant, because I like to use various spices and flavorings in everything. I wonder what kind of bland food they are used to. One of the girls brought a bag of potatoes from her garden, so we had potatoes with everything this week: beans and potatoes, noodles and potatoes, cuzcuz and potatoes, soja (a soy bean meat substitute) and potatoes, chicken and potatoes. It was a lot of potatoes.
They are also enjoying my banana milkshakes. My secret ingredient is cookies. Don’t tell. I am writing so much about food because it takes up so much time, but really, much more is happening. Next week, October 12, is Children’s day. The community churches use this holiday to get together at Word of Life and celebrate with our church family as well as our personal family.
It is $10r a person, so many of the Living Stone’s children do not have the money to go—this is their one chance a year to go swimming in an actual pool with a waterslide. So last week we put together some jobs around the church to do in exchange for the money needed to go to the party next week. The boys worked hard, weeding and raking the grounds, while the girls washed down the whole church and all the classrooms.
This lil sweety (Kelany) wanted to help clean too:)One marked memory is when five or six of the kids were in the kitchen (while I was trying to cook), sweeping and mopping the floor around me while we all sang and danced to the World Cup song “Waka Waka.” Paulo came in from outside, covered in sweat, so he got all wet and then started doing slip-and-slide—belly first, across the kitchen floor. Good times.
Plans are still working towards our big children’s day party—hopefully on October 25, the funds are coming in (if you would like to help, please go to www.wribrazil.com to donate, under Living Stones), and we are planning on almost 200 kids coming to an afternoon of fun and evangelism.
