magic custard cake

I woke up in the middle of the night to pee, and then I started writing a blog post in my head (it was profound, as only middle-of-the-night, written-in-your-head blog posts can be), and then I couldn’t fall back asleep. Not good. Now I’m tired and have no energy to recreate my middle-of-the-night profundity.

Except I wrote that yesterday and now it’s today and I’m no longer tired because I couldn’t get back to sleep. Instead I’m tired because my older daughter spent the night puking (and while I didn't take care of her—thanks honey man—I suffered vicariously, poor me), and then I spent the morning on the sidelines of the K’ekchi’ Mennonite church women's retreat. They made cake donuts and I washed dishes and didn’t say much because I had no idea what was going on. So now I’m tired from that. And I smell like smoke from the kitchen fires even though I got a shower as soon as I came home.

***

Last week I fell head over heels in love with a new-to-me blog called Jamie The Very Worst Missionary. She says many of the things I want to say about missionaries and missions, and it’s utterly refreshing and spot-on. I took to referring to her by her first name, as in “Jamie says this,” and “Listen to what happened to Jamie!”

My husband rolled his eyes so much I was afraid they’d get stuck up inside his head.

Here are some of my favs:

Using your poor kid to teach my rich kid a lesson.
On turning 37: read between the lines.
Picaken (I read this post and have been craving a picaken ever since. Have you tried one?)
Sex: why wait?
Short-term missions: a win-win.

I don’t call myself a missionary because of all my hang-ups. Jamie has all the hang-ups but calls herself a missionary because she wants to redefine the word. Good girl, I say.

***

I made a cake. It’s called Magic Cake and I can’t decide if I like it or not. Even after three tries, I still can’t make up my mind. Either it’s weird or I am. Or maybe both?

In the oven, the cake separates into three layers: a gelatinous, rubbery bottom later (my least favorite, can you tell?), a creamy, dreamy middle layer (the best part), and a spongy, cakey top part (nice). I want more of the middle part, so I baked the cake in a water bath, a la a cheesecake or a egg pudding, but it turned out the same as the straight-bake method.

My kids, the neighbor kids, and everyone else who ate it loved it, or at least appeared to enjoy it, so I think it’s a good cake.

I had trouble stopping with one helping. So maybe I do like it?

Have you seen this cake around the internets? Have you tried it? What’s your opinion? (And you're allowed to have one even if you've never tasted this particular concoction.)
 

Magic Custard Cake
I read an assortment of recipes, but don’t remember which one I got my exact measurements from. Here are three to get you going: Jo Cooks, White On Rice, and Kitchen Nostalgia. And because I'm waffling a little, a review from a hater: Food, Family, and Finds.

It’d be especially delicious with a fresh berry sauce. And, oh! what about a tangy lemony version?

4 eggs, separated
1 1/4 cups confectioner’s sugar
2 cups milk, warmed
1 tablespoon water
1 stick butter, melted and cooled
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon vanilla

Beat the egg yolks with the sugar. Whisk in the water and melted butter. Mix in the flour and vanilla. Gently whisk in the milk---the batter will be soupy. Beat the egg whites into stiff peaks and fold them into the batter.

Pour the batter into a greased 8x8-inch pan. Bake at 325 degrees for about 45 minutes, or until the batter is set and the top is puffed and beginning to crack. Cool to room temperature, chill in the fridge for an hour or two, dust with lots of confectioner's sugar, and slice and serve.

Ps. Did I really just start this post with puke and end with cake? Oops.

language study

Last week the boys and I spent our afternoons studying Spanish in Cobán. The whole schedule was rather grueling.

Waiting for his ride to school.

The neighbors' car: their ride. 

Like they do every other weekday morning, the boys left home for school at 6:45. At 10:00, they'd hand their pass to the gun-wielding guard at the school's gate, catch a bus back to town, and then walk the 20 minutes to our house. The next couple hours were spent resting, eating lunch, and doing chores.

Leaf turned portable shade device.

It's the rainy season: we always carry an umbrella.

(I learned my lesson the drenched-to-the-bone way.)

The kid is infatuated with it.
(Note: one sock on, one sock off.)

At 1:15 we’d tromp back into town together, catch the bus for Cobán, and then walk over a bridge and down the road to the school where, for the next four hours, we had one-on-one Spanish instruction with our respective instructors.

 

Kicking some subjunctive butt. 
(I wish.)

In the courtyard: burning off energy.

After thinking so hard our brains shriveled up, we’d do the whole travel thing in reverse, though since it was dark we’d take a taxi for the last little stretch. We’d arrive home at 7 pm, or a little before if we were lucky, and after a quick S&S (supper and shower), the boys tumbled into bed and zonked out. Five-thirty the next morning, we’d wake up and do it all over again.

Like I said, grueling.

By day two the boys were threatening to revolt. But we made it through the meltdowns and the crammed buses and the zany wiggles (my younger son’s teacher held up admirably well) and the groggy mornings and sloggy afternoons and it’s all over now.

Except this week my husband gets to do the whole jig, but this time with the girls. Wish him luck!

Ps. Got a hankering for some Spanish study? Here's what you do: buy yourself a plane ticket and zip on down here. Stay with us (hard bed, cheap housing, good food, loud housemates), and for 100 bucks a week at this school, you can get 20 hours of hardcore language study. It's totally worth it. 

street food

Tayuyos: stuffed tortillas

This is the Guatemalan version of the Big Mac. In fact, people call them MacTayuyos.

In the Chamelco market, there is a woman who makes fresh tayuyos. She’s there every day (except Sunday, maybe?) patting stuffing the masa with cheese, potatoes, pork, or refried beans and then patting them into tortillas. They cost one quetzal each, except for the pork ones which cost a little more. She puts the hot tayuyos into a plastic bag and then ladles chili sauce directly onto them. I like mine a little less soggy and spicy, so I always ask for my chili in a separate bag. A bit of sour cream with the potato tayuyos is absolutely divine.

Churrascos: grilled beef

One Sunday on our way home from church, we stopped at a food cart in Chamelco. The guy was selling grilled liver and onions. Because no one but me likes liver, I ordered one meal, just to try it. Back home, we opened the bag and promptly devoured every last morsel. The next Sunday I was all eager to buy six liver and onion lunches, but the guy wasn’t there. So we bought churrascos instead.

For ten quetzales, less than a dollar and a half, we get a styrofoam plate of grilled beef (marinated in a parsley-garlic-oil type sauce) with slaw, refried beans, lots of onions (the best part), and three tortillas layered across the top in lid-like fashion, hot sauce on the side.

While I wait for our order, I sit on one of the little stools by the cart. The women are in constant motion, cutting more onions, scooping mounds of raw meat out of a kettle and slapping it on the grill, basting, filling plates, fanning the coals, adding another bag of charcoal to the fire (literally: they burn the plastic, too), turning the meat, etc. The raw meat touches the cooked meat and they never wash their hands. The food is delicious.

The liver-and-onion guy has yet to reappear, but we’re pretty content with our Sunday churrascos. They’ve become such an integral part of our weekend that last Sunday when we didn’t go to church, I hiked into town for the sole purpose of fetching lunch.

Elote Loco: crazy corn (i.e. field corn on a stick)

‘Tis the season for fresh corn, and this delicacy is everywhere. My kids have been begging me to buy them some, so the morning of the race, I did.

It’s simply (field) corn-on-the-cob, smeared with mayonnaise, squirted with red ketchup and green hot sauce (which my kids said no thank you to), and then sprinkled with salty cheese. It’s surprisingly good, and very filling.

He wanted his plain. 

This next week is the Chamelco fair. The next week it's the Carchá fair. The following is the Cobán fair. Something tells me there is a lot of street food in our future. 

the business of belonging

“Fifteen more weeks!” my daughter shouted from her bedroom. “We go home in 15 weeks!”

The rest of the kids started yipping and hollering and doing out loud (everything is out LOUD in this house) calculations about what fifteen weeks means exactly. As I listened to them jittering away, I found myself growing increasingly irritated and annoyed. My children haven't transformed into the cultural chameleons I want them to be, dagnabbit. Why can’t they relax into the experience and savor this special time that we have away from It All, together, in an exotic, foreign land? Why must they always be hankering after our same old boring routines? Aren’t they enjoying this at all? I mean, come on kids! Be bold, be brave, be strong, CONQUER!

But mostly, I’m irritated at myself because I feel exactly the same way. More and more, my mind is occupied with thoughts of home and all the things I miss. It’s not classy to wallow and whine, and I'm aware that doing so only highlights my inability to adapt well, but whatever. I’m not classy.

Things I Miss: my kitchen, netflix, my bed, dress boots, a real haircut, the van, fresh strawberries, the public library, phone conversations, amazon, sourdough bread, a spacious house, two bathrooms, a toilet that doesn't plug up with just one small poo, soft chairs and sofas, the fireplace, the yellow-green of new spring, not wearing a backpack, bagels, sausage, salads, homeschooling, knowing what’s going on, church, the five-o’clock glass of wine, screened windows, central vac, etc, etc, etc (for pages). But most of all I miss ease, convenience, freedom, connection, belonging, friends and family, and Being With My People.

Sundays are hardest. It’s the day when everyone hangs out with their friends and family and since we don’t have friends and family to hang out with, it kind of stinks. Plus, there’s nothing to do. Schools are closed, market is mostly shut down, nobody’s online, and there is nowhere to go. It's the perfect opportunity to fall into the pit of despair and splash about, and I'm not one to pass up a perfect opportunity, no matter how depressing, woe is me.

Of course, no one excepts anyone to go to a foreign country for a few short months and develop life-long friendships and a profound love and acceptance of a place that’s so wildly different from home, least of all me.

Except, I kind of expect that of myself. Or at least I wish it for myself. I wish I was the type of traveler who made instant connections and wrote home glowing reports about making tamales while  having life-altering conversations with the locals. Because the people who can bridge the cultural gap with such ease are the ones who are really good at their work, obviously. Anyone less than that is just an imposter. An overseas worker wannabe.

The thing is, thanks to personality, skills, temperament, something, fitting into Central American culture is, for me, clumsy and awkward. I knew this about myself after living in Nicaragua for three years, and I'm grappling with the boring reality that I haven't changed one whit since then. One part of me knew this all along and is genuinely okay with the fact that I do my deepest connecting on home territory, but another part can't shake this crazy hope that I'll somehow, someway, someday start to feel like I belong here (or in any Spanish-speaking country, for that matter).

One of my friends—a woman I've looked up to ever since the very first chapel of my college career in which she seared into my brain the importance of keeping the Sabbath—has spent a fair bit of her life in Central America. She and her husband met while working in Nicaragua. They raised their family in both Central America and the States. They host study tours to Central America. They sing their mealtime prayers in Spanish and eat lots of beans and rice. Heck, they even adopted a child from Central America! By all appearances, they are The Real Deal Workers. The ones who fit in, make connections, belong. They have successfully bridged the gap.

At the beginning of our term, in a delightful turn of events, they were able to visit us in our home. We were lingering at the table (after the pancake breakfast, maybe?) when I admitted my insecurities, my sneaking suspicion that I'm not cut out for this type of work. My proof: I have never made deep friendships. I’ve never felt like I belong.

Her swift response sent me reeling: AND YOU THINK I DO?

Ever since that conversation, I’ve been gentler with myself. I still wish being overseas felt more natural. But just because I don’t want to call Guatemala my home until I’m a shriveled up prune doesn’t mean I don’t have an ability to work here. If my friend can rock the international living thing and feel the same way I do, then guess what: I can (try to) rock this business, too.

The only problem is, most days it doesn’t feel like I’m rocking any business, least of all mine.

But maybe that’s beside the point? I sure am hoping so.

the smartest thing I did

Last November and December, I spent hours poring over reading lists and Amazon reviews, and then I slapped down a hundred bucks in exchange for a small stack of brand new books. Thanks to that planning, we have had a whole string of top-quality books to keep alive our bedtime tradition of reading aloud.

In retrospect, it was the smartest thing I did.

Esperanza Rising was the first book we read, and we couldn’t have picked a more fitting one to start with. It’s all about a rich Mexican girl who ends up, due to tragic circumstances, immigrating North and becoming a migrant worker. Her distaste for her lower standard of living closely mirrored what my children were going through. It was perfect.

The Phantom Tollbooth was a bit deep for the youngers, but my older son thought it was hysterical. Also, it gave us The Island of Conclusions (a place we jump to it on a daily basis). Summer of the Monkeys was a fun, light read. The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg made us laugh. Shakespeare and the 7th grade came together in The Wednesday Wars.

Beautifully written, informative, and entertaining, The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate hit home on a deeper level for my children. In the book, Calpurnia has a science-loving grandfather called “Granddaddy.” In real life, my children have a science-loving grandfather called Granddaddy. The connection was so startling, so real, that my younger daughter begged me in tears not to say the word Granddaddy while reading—it made her too homesick. But I persisted and she acclimated.

A couple nights ago we started Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy. Next up is The View from Saturday.


I brought other books, too. For me, I brought This Rough Magic, Blood, Bones, and Butter, My Berlin Kitchen, Dignity, and An Everlasting Meal. For my son, I brought All Quiet on the Western Front, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, and Touching Spirit Bear. Other books have found their way onto our shelves via generous neighbors and blog readers.

My son is branching out from the popular teen books on his Kindle to some of the classics like Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and some of our more adult reads such as The Story of Edgar Sawtelle and The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind. That last book, plus Foreign to Familiar, a book I read to the older two children, so impressed him that he wrote to his friends suggesting they, too, read the books. And just this very morning, he copied down the name of the boy who harnessed the wind so he could watch his TED talk during his computer class at school.

In conclusion, three thoughts:
1. The books I brought, along with a few that some friends have shared, will be enough to get us through our time here.  I wish we had more books, of course. I miss having ridiculous quantities of literary entertainment at our fingertips. But you know what? It’s been enough. I don’t know what to make of it. It's proof, I guess, that I really do come from a culture of excess.

2. If traveling, take books. 

3. The high quality of the reads and the great fun we have gotten from them make me wonder if it is worth spending a hundred bucks each year on some brand new, carefully selected books even if I don't plan to go anywhere. It’d be like menu planning, but with a literary twist. What do you think? Do you have a tried and true method for selecting your reading material?

the quotidian (6.10.13)

Quotidian: daily, usual or customary;

everyday; ordinary; commonplace 

The corn gets really high here. 

 Perhaps to counterbalance all the short people?

 

While our neighbors are gone, we get to care for their horse.

Which makes for one very exuberant girl.

 

Rock painting.

 

What the sky looks like every afternoon.

 

The cheese man.

 

Evening art.

last Sunday morning

*One child stays home in bed, thanks to a persistent stomach bug.

*Before we leave, my younger son escapes to the neighbors’ house to watch a movie, the stinker.

*The girls wear their K’ekchi’ outfits. My older daughter worries that by doing so she might offend the locals. I assure her it’s fine. And indeed, heads turn to stare and people grin broadly—it feels like the whole world is beaming on my girls.

*On the bus, I offer to hold a baby of a stuck-standing father. The toddler relaxes against me immediately. Then my lap feels warm and I start worrying that he has peed on me. (He didn’t.)

*At church, my younger daughter (a.k.a. Miss Independent) slips away to sit with some other girl.

*It is yet another healing service (we’re sensing a first-Sunday-of-every-month pattern).

*They clear chairs, the healers scrub their hands with disinfectant lotion, and the music starts. People surge forward to the alter.

*For 20 minutes the music plays. It is so loud that babies start crying. It’s so loud that the water in the water bottle vibrates. It’s so loud that I wonder if my eardrum just popped. (It hadn’t.)

*The sound system has a persistent feedback problem. The shrill shrieks keep coming. No one flinches.

*Then the jumping and wailing begins. My older daughter keeps a tally of the fallen. She yells in my ear things like, “Another one’s going!” and “Six!” and “Two at one time!”

*The young adults scurry back and forth, catching the slain, covering them with peach-colored, lacy shawls, and then helping them to their feet when they come to.

*At the end of the service, the noise dies down, but then we hear a man pray-yelling. “Oh dear, are they starting up again?” I ask my daughter. “There’s an old woman laying in the aisle,” she reports back. “She won’t get up.” Pause. “Maybe she’s dead.”

*On the way home water keeps dripping on my foot. At least I hope it’s water, but it’s totally dry outside and I can’t figure out the source. Maybe the woman in front just peed? (Which is utterly preposterous, but the best non-logical solution I can come up with.) And then I realize that my empty water bag wasn’t quite empty. Oh.

*Town is packed with Sunday revelers (later we find out there had been a race) and there are no taxis to be found, so, despite being exhausted and half deaf, we trudge all the way home.

(Irrelevant photo, courtesy of my older daughter)

thorns

I bought this oversized coffee mug at the Walmart grocery. It makes me happy down to the tips of my toes. I am from a culture of over-abundance, of super-sizing, of excess and indulgence, and all the mini-sized everything—chip bags, meal portions, coffee cups—was cramping my style. I wanted big and bold, so I bought a mug. An entire can of coke, plus ice, fits in it perfectly. This morning, I drank my thermal mug of coffee and then made a pot of half real/half decaf for Jovita and me. I’m drinking two-thirds of the pot in this mug, more than my share, in good old North American fashion. And I’m loving every sip of it.

I wrote a post the other day that I thought was fairly deep, nearly profound even. But my husband said it was devoid of meaning. I was furious with him, of course, but if he’s willing to run the risk of getting his head chewed off, then I'm smart enough to know I better listen. I didn’t post it.

Which got me to thinking, if that post—it was all about helping and how lots of helping isn’t help at all—didn’t say anything, then what is it I do want to say?

Since coming to Guatemala, I spend a lot of time asking existential questions. This is what happens when I get plucked out of my ordinary and plopped into something very different. What does the Act of Asking Existential Questions look like, exactly? In my case it looks a lot like moping, whining, grumbling, laying on the bed staring at the ceiling, dreaming about Netflix, feeling sad, and wishing for what I can’t have. In general, just a good, all-around case of malaise and discontentment. All my suppressed doubts come roaring to the surface. What is meaningful? What’s my life worth? What does it mean to succeed? (I liked Glennon’s take on success.) Am I indispensable?

That last question popped into my head when I was on the porch this morning, bent double, towel drying my hair after washing it in the pila. The answer was blatantly obvious: my only truly indispensable task is mothering. Yes, I know someone else could take my place need be and do a fine job raising my children to be healthy, well-mannered adults. But of all my tasks, mothering is my only it-needs-to-be-me job. I may pour energy into all sorts of other endeavors—blogging, volunteering, teaching, cooking, etc—and that’s fine and good and healthy (most of the time). But my children need me unlike anybody or anything else. As I mulled over this thought, I noticed that I felt wonderfully, surprisingly, free. My insatiable need to do more, be more, wasn’t a necessity after all. To the contrary, to be me, all I need to do is slow down and be present. I knew this of course—people have preached it from the mountaintops since the dawn of discontent—but I guess I just forgot.

That’s Point Number One. Point Number Two is this: I need to stop thinking I’m 19 years old and start giving myself credit for being an adult.

This epiphany comes from the following work-related questions: why are we here? can we do any good for these people? we don’t even know the culture, so how can we possibly understand what they need?

There is a lot of truth to those doubts. People From The Outside miss a lot. People From The Outside bring a lot more baggage than what United Airlines allows, if you know what I mean. People From The Outside are not God’s gift to the world—the world is God’s gift to them.

But all that aside, I mustn’t discredit what I have to offer. I am educated, hard-working, decently well-read (and exceptionally well-read compared to the people I’m working with), and responsible. I know how to ask questions and think critically. Just because I don’t speak K’ekchi’ or am not a school administrator doesn’t mean I don’t know how to listen. My years of serving on the church council of a thriving Mennonite church count for something. My Biblical studies classes count for something. My hours spent reading, relating, and reaching out count for something. Are my husband and I the best ones, the only ones, who can link the K’ekchi’ Mennonite Church to Mennonite Central Committee? Of course not. But we are the ones who are doing it right now and that's that.

 It’s awkward and scary to talk about my doubts about our work when we have a paying constituency. There’s a good chance it’s really bad, actually. Yet, I need to be honest with myself and with the people who are supporting us. I need to have faith in my doubts.

I’m afraid my husband is going to read this and point out that I’m not saying anything. If he does, he’ll be right, at least in part. Because I’m not detailing my doubts. The truth is, I’m not sure how to articulate them in a healthy way.

Dare I try? Can I do it without offending the masses? Can I do it without hurting people?

I'll give it a go. Here are four:

*That development work isn't as helpful as we think. That we could, in fact, be doing more harm than good. 
*That if we really cared about the poor, then we’d turn our lives upside down to help the have-nots.
*That development agencies (missions, schools, etc) are businesses, and, no matter how well-intended and noble, businesses are about money.
*That Jesus didn't have a fund-raising constituency. To the contrary: the people who were supposed to be backing him up, killed him.

Voicing these concerns is scary on many levels. Because see, I like being here! I like it that people are standing behind us with checkbooks and lots o' love! I like it that people trust us! I like it that people associate me with Doing Good!

But if I'm to be honest, then I have to take a good look at the the underbelly of development work and reconcile it with my pie-in-the-sky ideals.

And if I can’t?

Well, then.

I have no idea who Marianne Moore is (in the age of Google, there is no excuse for not knowing: she’s a poet), but she said something that has always stuck with me: Your thorns are the best part of you.

Until now I interpreted that to mean that I am no better than my thorns. But now I think it means that my poky parts—the things that bother me, my conscience pricks, doubts, and anxieties—are what makes me me. If I face them head on, tell the truth about them (bonus points for tact), take the time to examine and work with them in all their sharp ouchiness, then I am being (cliche alert) The Most I Can Be.

So if I have bothersome questions about the value of development work, rather then pushing them under the rug and giving glossy reports of our activities, I need to scrutinize them because they are my thorns and they are pricking me for a reason. 

Life is messy, always. Doing Good is not straightforward or simple. I’m not completely at peace with the value of the work I am doing. And just because I'm not at peace, it doesn't mean the work doesn't have value. See? It's convoluted, and I don’t have answers. (And Husband, if this means that this post says nothing, get over it.)

Also, I am so thankful that we have the opportunity to be here, wrestling, thinking, doing, and growing.

Love,
A Thorny Woman

Ps. Since this post already well exceeds the allotted limit in Blogpostland, I might as well throw in some more stuff. Below are a few articles on the subject of helping and development work. They made me think.

*A former NGO worker wrote about her time in Haiti. Note: Mennonite Central Committee differs from classic NGOs in that the MCC volunteers are expected to live, more or less, at the level of their neighbors. There is an expectation that the workers partner with already existing organizations (such as Bezaleel), and an understanding that listening to and learning from is as important as (if not more so than) teaching.

*My cousin-in-law Kate wrote about short-term service. One of her readers left a whammy of a comment—don’t miss it (scroll down almost to the bottom. It's a long comment, by anonymous).

*Three springs ago, Marisa and Adam came to our house in Virginia to talk about their upcoming term with MCC Nicaragua, and I served them chocolate chunk-red raspberry oatmeal muffins. Now their term is ending and we are toting six bottles of coveted picamas hot sauce for them when we travel down to Nicaragua in July. A couple weeks ago, Marisa wrote about Doing Good. (Considering all the linkage we share, it's clear that she and I have been mulling over similar issues.)

*My since-college girlfriend is working with MCC in Kenya. She wrote this piece articulating the helping conundrum. There are no easy answers.

*My sister-in-law, living in India, added more fuel to the fire by sending me this link: Proof that giving cash to poor people, no strings attached, is an amazingly powerful tool for boosting incomes and promoting development.

*Also pointed out to me by by sister-in-law (the woman is a veritable fount of interesting information), a fascinating NPR podcast on building a school in Haiti: It's Hard To Do Good.

white icing

I always thought the only way to make real icing was with butter. Sure, I employed other methods—glazes with just milk or citrus juice for thinning and I knew all about the frosting made with egg whites—but the only honest method, the only method that had integrity, involved butter.


When I got to Guatemala and realized I’d have to make icing without butter, I had a suppressed panic attack. How do I make icing? No cake for nine months? I CAN'T DO THIS! Mommyyyyyyy!

And then I googled “how to make icing with shortening” and lo and behold, there were oodles upon oodles of recipes. Everyone, it turned out, knew how to make icing with shortening. Was this a sign that our culture was less evolved than I thought? Or that it was yours truly who hailed from the dark ages? I couldn’t figure it out.

No matter, with a shift in approach, icing would be mine. I would survive!

At first I found the new icing too sweet and hollow-tasting. It lacked the rich density of butter icings. But my discomfort with the icing disappeared almost immediately. I found I liked its fluffy texture, creamy sweetness, and pure white color. Thanks to white shortening, white sugar, and clear fake vanilla extract, the icing is stunningly white.

Who says you need electric beaters to make icing?

Actually, the icing reminds me of bakery cake icing (which I’m secretly fond of, shh, don’t tell), probably because they use shortening in their icings?


It’s easy to alter this icing to make a variety of flavors. I’ve made chocolate (though I forget how: cocoa powder? melted bar chocolate? oh well, either method would work) and another time I added a quarter cup of fresh blackberry jam that my daughter made with her foraged berries which resulted in a lovely pink, tart frosting.


White Icing

I use one tablespoon of fake vanilla extract per recipe. If using the real deal, one teaspoon should be enough.

½ cup shortening
1 pound confectioner’s sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract, or 1 tablespoon of the clear, fake stuff
milk for thinning

Cream together the shortening, sugar, and vanilla. Add the milk, a little at a time, until the frosting is a soft and creamy and perfect for spreading.

chocobananos

This morning I directed the teachers in the making of sixteen banana cakes and eight recipes of vanilla icing. I am now sick of banana cake.

We were supposed to make the cakes yesterday at three in the afternoon. In order to make my schedule mesh with theirs, my husband and I skipped work in the morning and instead ran errands in Cobán. Then we came home, unloaded groceries, and ate lunch and then I crashed on the bed for a (failed) nap while he headed in to school. Shortly after he left, I packed up my measuring cups and trekked in to central park where I met the children on their way back from school. We hustled across the market (the rain was coming) to the bus stop and made it to school just in time...to discover that the election for the Señorita and Mister of 2013 (one of the many activities included in these four days of festivities in honor of the school’s anniversary) had run late and they were just now starting the talent show that the teachers had to orchestrate and judge and would I mind working with the seventh grade girls on the cakes?

Um, yeah, as a matter of fact I would because this is the biggest baking to date, it’s late, and they have never baked with me before PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS TO ME. The teachers conferred and then asked if it would be okay if my regular baking students worked with me. I said yes (what option did I have?), so they sent my baking students over to help. However, only two willing souls showed up and the rest were fussy (that’s the Nice Word Version) but I can’t say I blamed them because they were supposed to be partying it up with their friends, not baking. After listening to them moan for a few minutes, I went back to the teachers and suggested that we maybe bake later? When the teachers had time? Like the next day? And they agreed, whew.


So today I showed up at 8:00 and by 8:30 we were up in the kitchen, whipping out cakes at a rapid clip.

Working with adult women, even women who have never baked with me before, was like a dream.

They followed instructions perfectly. They cleaned up after themselves and each other. They were calm. They shared. There was no bickering. There was no fussing.
 
And the cakes turned out perfectly.

(I burned my arm while rearranging the cakes in the oven and Natalia went down to the kitchen to fetch me a tomato. Because apparently tomatoes are soothing for burns? At first it was nice, but then it started to sting so I discretely removed it. I also learned that onion peels are good for wounds because they stop the bleeding. Or so Natalia’s grandmother says.)

But hey, I sat down to write about chocobananos, not banana cake. (Help! Banana cake is taking over my life!)

A little while back our landlord gave us a whole stalk (head?) of bananas. The initial thrill rapidly turned to dismay. What in the world to do with that many bananas?

I facebooked my little problem and got lots of wonderful suggestions. But anything that involved making more food from the existing bananas (like cake or smoothies) was a no-go. I needed a method to get the bananas to disappear lickety split. A greater quantity of food would just slow the process down. Note: after living in banana land for four months, eating them straight up was not a viable option.

Chocobananos—in which you put bananas on a stick, freeze them, and then dip them in chocolate—are hugely popular here. I was all excited to make them, but then I bought a packet of the chocolate coating and it was unspeakably horrible.
 
My one small nibble coated the roof of my mouth, my tongue, and my lips like castor oil and tasted only vaguely of chocolate. But the kids had eaten the bananas at the neighbors’ house and loved them. It was worth a shot, I figured.


Somehow, miraculously, the resulting chocobananos didn’t resemble castor oil slicked frozen fruit. Yes, I could tell they were coated in a chocolate imposter but they were edible. And judging by the kids’ appetites, completely scarfable.



I rolled some of the bananas in chopped peanuts (yum) and others in granola (yum) and in sprinkles (not yum, but the kids loved on those so whatever). We had no trouble finishing off those bananas.


Chocobananos (Chocolate-Covered Bananas)

I have no idea how these would turn out with actual chocolate, so I’m linking up to a few recipes that use the real stuff: Martha Stewart, Epicurious, and Joy of Baking.

Melting chocolate
Bananas
Toppings, optional: chopped peanuts, granola, sprinkles, toffee, crushed pretzels, coconut, etc.
Wooden sticks

Peel the bananas and break in half. Pierce them through the heart via their cut side, lengthwise. Line a cookie sheet with wax paper and place impaled bananas on the paper. Freeze for 30 minutes. (With the kind of chocolate I was using, pre-freezing was optional.)

Melt the chocolate over a double boiler. Dip the frozen banana into the chocolate (or use a spoon to scoop chocolate over). Immediately dip in toppings, if using. Return the chocolate-dipped banana to its wax paper bed and freeze until firm. Eat.

Any leftover chocobananos should be transferred to an airtight container or plastic bag and stored in the freezer.