I spent most of my Thanksgiving afternoon making the crusts and carefully mixing the spicy filling for 5 delicious pumpkin pies. Lilly, our resident baking apprentice, was my helper for the day. She has learned how to make a lot of other baked goods from assisting Lindsay in her baking projects each weekend, but pies were a new item on her list. And she did so well! It was a lot of fun teaching her how to make them ... it brought back so many memories of the days when my own mother taught me how to do it. =)
The biggest challenge was the lack of real temperature gauges on our ovens. My two pies that were baking in Rhodes' oven took just over an hour - and they almost burnt before I got there! The 5th pie that I made was baking in our oven during the actual Thanksgiving meal - I planned to check on it around 6:15. But the meal took much longer than I thought it would, and I completely lost track of time! I glanced at my watch at 7pm and suddenly remembered my pie ... with visions of smoke pouring from our small gas oven, I raced back to our apartment, flung open the door, and was greeted only with the delicious aroma of pumpkin pie! As I opened the oven door, I saw the best of my 5 pies looking back at me. So last night, after our long day of shopping in Port-au-Prince, we enjoyed eating yet more pumpkin pie. We even got to share some of it with Jude and Philipson (two of the guys on staff here), who were visiting us at the time. I love hosting people and pumpkin pies make that so much easier ... ;)
Shak, busy preparing a tasty fruit and veggie salad for our dinner. I think that the number one thing I miss about food in the states is the easy access to fresh fruits and vegetables... My students made a small Thanksgiving bulletin board this past week - they each created several different kinds of fruit and veggies from construction paper (this was our vocabulary for the week as well) and then on each one, wrote something they are thankful for. One of mine read, "Fresh Fruit." I can't wait to enjoy the riches of Lancaster County produce next summer when I return home!
Freeman Nettles was busy most of the morning making this creative barbecue pit from cement block and then cooking four juicy pork roasts. I haven't asked him what spices and seasonings he used on it, but the meat was amazing... And I was surprised to find a platter full of roast turkey at our Thanksgiving table as well! Apparently Shelly and Freeman had one in their freezer that they didn't have the opportunity to cook yet for their family, so that meant that our entire YWAM family got to enjoy some real turkey for our evening feast! That made my day =)
Ingvild make several batches of dinner rolls to go along with the many other dishes that were a part of our feast. Faince (one of our kitchen staff) even made a large pot of rice, for the Haitians who don't take as much to the American fare as those of us who eat it every year ... It was so fun pulling together like this as a YWAM base and seeing how everyone contributed in one way or another to make the evening so special. The women did the majority of the baking, and the men were put on kitchen clean-up afterwards. The Thompson family (on staff in Gonaives) did an incredible job transforming the cafeteria with various decorations from families and classrooms here on the base. And our evening ended with a special showing of Wall-E, which Kristian Snow set up for us in the open air of the cafeteria.
Lindsay and Me, dressed and ready to go enjoy some good eats! We were finishing up our last project of mixing up some teas for everyone to drink with their meal. We recruited the help of some of the kids to carry all of our food to the cafeteria, and then ... the feasting began!
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