Hello all,
It's been a while since I updated my blog so it's time for some news. October is always a busy month for us with birthdays, Henk and my anniversary, Halloween, travel and life in general. To top it all off, I now actually have a job. (What is this world coming to?!) Just as I had Henk trained to let me cook every night, little by little he's been usurping my kingdom; taking full advantage of the fact that my time is now more limited. What nerve! I must punish him severely.
Sjaantje celebrated her 11th birthday this month and Henk and I our 10th wedding anniversary. (Hmm. Can you tell I didn't major in mathematics?) Sjaantje had 8 little chicas here for a sleep-over party. They of course played games, made soap, destroyed the inside of the guest house, painted their fingernails, created their own pizzas, roasted marshmallows over a bonfire and annihilated a pinata. The girls seemed to have had an excellent time until 2:30 in the morning when I found them (heard them, rather) outside, scantilly dressed as cave girls, cooking mud pies over the newly resurrected fire. Short of etching prehistoric animals on our walls, their cave girl impersonations were quite convincing. Wuzzy was clearly frightened of them but did help me herd them back into the guest house.
Henk and David went to Costa Rica for a week, supposedly on a business trip. Since when was the word 'business' defined as "going to a foreign country, checking out the beaches, restaurants, volcanoes and doing a little shopping"? I promise, I've looked the word up in the dictionary just to be safe and most assuredly the true definition is nothing like that. So why is it that Henk wants to convince me that his trip to Costa Rica was a 'business' trip? I'm open to your thoughts on this one.
The 5th grade at Sjaantje's school organized a "Teacher Appreciation Luncheon" for, you guessed it, the teachers. Not to bore you with the details of that amazing event, I'll just say that I've never seen that much pasta in my life - even when in Italy. Spaghetti with tomato sauce, spaghetti with meat sauce, chicken spaghetti, lasagne with meat, vegetarian lasagne and pasta salad...too, too much pasta! The only reason I mention this is to share a newly discovered lasagne recipe with you: "Boil you some lay-sag-nuh noodles. Then you just get a can of Rotel tomatoes (canned tomatoes on the Mexican side of spicy), some Velveeta (a 2 lb. brick of American processed cheese) and slap some'uh both between the noodles. Bake it - and you cain put some more Velveeta on the top." Yummy, yummy.
In addition to my new favorite recipe, I learned a technique for cutting those cloy, fake whipped creamy store bought pie things: If the plastic knife you're using to cut the pies becomes a bit loaded with gunk, simply lick the knife before you cut the next slice. Works like a champ! Times like these make me realize how fortunate I was to never get a teaching certificate.
There is a new butcher shop in town! Appropriately called "The Butcher Block", it's the only place besides Central Market where we can find veal. Their prices are competitive and they have quite a wide range of meats - gotta love it, Lyle! They also smoke some meats and sausages on the premise. But what is it with cheese and crackers here? When we went last week to get some veal shanks for Osso Bucco, one of the workers kept shoving pieces of smoked pork tenderloin at me and telling me how great it was when served on a cracker with some cheese. That onslaught left me so exhausted that I had no energy to quiz her on why one would want to obfuscate the flavor of the pork with a cracker and some cheez-whiz. That's the thing about immersing yourself in another culture: You are constantly amazed yet somewhat confused, often entertained but a bit judgemental. A real brain exercise. Kind of like visiting a freak show in the 19th century, I would imagine.
Beside cheese and crackers, the other "recurring motif" in this town is the name DAVID. First, we have David Fountain, Henk's friend and our reason for moving here in the first place. David has a son-in-law named David plus a step-son named David who, when they visit, create a cacophony of confusion. Then there's David, the arrowhead hunter from a previous blog. David, the husband of Henk's late sister lives nearby. The father of Sjaantje's new friend, Lauren, is David and that David's brother-in-law is yet another David. The air conditioning repairman is David, his partner the same: D&D AC Repair. And now I find out that Dean's brother is named (take a wild guess)...DAVID! (David Tolfrey, do you now understand why I insist on calling you 'Davey'? So much less confusing. Plus, you're just a little fella and the name fits.)
This last David is the owner of the moonshine factory I mentioned in another blog. OK, it's not actually moonshine - it's rum. And for my new job, I simply had to go interview him, take the official tour. When I publish the story in two or so weeks, you'll get to learn more about this particular David. Although I have an anti-magnetism to rum, it was a fascinating visit and David's product is stellar, thankfully tasting more like Calvados than rum.
I should mention my new job - for those readers who don't already know - I am the Austin Culinary Travel writer for an on-line publication called Examiner. Go to Examiner.com, the city is Austin, Texas. Click on 'Lifestyle', then 'Travel'. My articles are listed there, under my fantasy name: Wendelyn Tilleman. (Sounds cool, yes?)
As predicted, the eggs of Petunia the pet spider have hatched and the offspring have grown though Petunia is nowhere to be found. At last count, we have 6 new inhabited cobwebs on our front patio and unfortunately one on the upstairs balcony - right at face level, which I found out the hard way yesterday. To add to our Halloween decorations, Henk and Sjaantje carved a couple of jack-o-lanterns and with that particular combination, I'm sure we'll scare away any possible trick-or-treaters.
I'm sorry to tell you that I have no Dean and snake stories for this post. Dean is in New Mexico (or somewhere else further west) with a couple of friends, riding horses for 5 days. He did, however, promise to return with lots of stories hopefully involving snakes. Just before he left, he gave me and Henk this advice, just in case we ever went on a 5 day horse ride: "Take you a bunch a'them baby wipes. Cuz being clean? S'impossible. Them baby wipes gives you that moisture ya need plus they keep ya clean. Since ya only got that one box there, you gotsta not waste 'em. In the mornin', wipe your face with one - then when you go to the bushes, you use the same one again. Just make sure you be doin' it in that order." Cowboy wisdom.
A friend of Dalana's stopped by the other day. A very nice, small of stature, tatooed and dentally challenged yet very talented guitar player, Stephen needed a phone number which apparently I had. Wuzzy, assuming his normal catatonic position, suddenly raised his head as Stephen walked past. To put it mildly, Stephen then jumped back about 12 feet, completely frightened. When he caught his breath, Stephen said, "Wooaa! I thought that there was a bear rug! But it's alive!"
Yeah, well, that's about all of my news.
Bisoux -
Wend
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