Thanksgiving

I love to improvise, I think that's why celebrating holidays overseas is my favorite. 

I grew up in a little town in Indonesia. Making traditional Christmas and Thanksgiving meals took a lot of work on my mom’s part. One year (I don’t know which holiday it was for, let’s say Thanksgiving since it works so well in my line of thought) my parents decided to have turkey. No big deal right? Butterball turkeys in the open market, right? Well, perhaps we named him Butterball, but I don’t think so because the live turkey running around our back yard was not that fat. Maybe we named him Beanpole. But he had to be caught, killed, de-feathered and gutted, well you get the picture. I don’t remember my parents ever deciding to do that again. I suppose that’s why having turkey is not a big deal to me. Chicken is just as good, thank you.

But it's not always overseas. Sometimes you have to improvise in good 'ol United States too. One of my favorite Thanksgiving memories in Texas is the time I ate at a Chinese restaurant with my Grandmother. The restaurant was empty, since everyone else in Dallas was at home eating turkey and dressing. Grandmother and I had a quiet and relaxing Thanksgiving dinner with no cleanup. If you love cashew chicken and a plate of rice, you can't beat that deal.

A third favorite memory is the year Kris and I lived in Eritrea and I invited my two English students to our house for Thanksgiving Dinner. They wanted to help, so I made all the "fixins" and they brought zighini: the traditional super spicy chicken dish. Maybe not quite the traditional turkey, but it worked. In retrospect, it was a bad idea to invite just the two of them because one was my closest friend and the other was a married man whose wife lived in a different city. Honestly, I think the two of them liked each other, so it didn't help that I invited them over and it was like a double date. That should have been super awkward for me, but I think I didn't even realize how weird that was until it was too late. It was still a fun day with yummy food. 

This memory probably explains why yesterday, after twenty years of never attempting to replicate it, I decided to make injera: a tricky-to-make-but-yummy-to-eat Eritrean bread. So yesterday, while preparing for our big Thanksgiving celebration for today, I was also attempting to make a sourdough starter for injera. It's sitting on the cabinet fermenting today. A grey stinky mixture, slightly less than it started out because who knew that the yeast was so potent? And the whole wheat/rye mixture grew like a giant wet blob and spilled all over the cabinet. But I only lost a portion of it and the rest is safely back into a larger container and rotting (oops I mean fermenting) on the counter-top.

This evening, while eating a “proper” Thanksgiving meal with all the accoutrements, I’ll be smiling as I think of the turkey running around our back yard in a little market town in Indonesia, I'll be remembering Grandmother sitting across from me in a booth at the Chinese restaurant in Texas, and I’ll be reminiscing a make-shift Thanksgiving dinner in Eritrea (and wondering if my gray blob of fermenting dough is getting a life of its own again and if it will have taken over the kitchen by the time we get home tonight). I’ll be feeling thankful for the Thanksgivings that were traditionally perfect and all the ones that were perfectly un-traditional.

And I’ll be thankful…so very thankful…to have celebrated each one.

 Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Giving Up

Mak Cik (pronounced "MAHcheek") cooks onions and spices on her dirty stove. She adds meat and stirs. The delicious aroma fills her tiny apartment. There are fifteen people who live with Mak Cik. Every day she has to cook and clean for them. They are her children and grandchildren, but she does not feel any love from them. She feels like they are only taking advantage of her.

Mak Cik wipes a tear from her eye. She misses her husband. He died many years ago and left her with this selfish and argumentative brood of young people. Then there is her son and daughter: the ones that loved her. They are dead now too. She cannot take a job because she must stay home to take care of the babies. If she doesn’t, no one will.

Mak Cik watches the meat sizzle in the pan. Yesterday she received one-hundred dollars from the government. That much money could go a long way in helping Mak Cik feed her family. Perhaps she would even have money left over to buy some clothes. Not many, mind you, but maybe some.

But not this time. Maybe another time. This time Mak Cik spent the money the best way she knew how. She bought spices, vegetables, and the best cuts of meat in the market. She spent every penny. And now she cooked it. This was a feast; but not a feast for her family.

No, Mak Cik has given up on her family. She is cooking this meal for the leaders at the local mosque. If she makes them a delicious meal, maybe they will pray to the spirits of her husband and son and daughter. If they remember, they will ask the spirits to help her.

Mak Cik has given up on her living relatives and has given up on praying. Will you pray that Mak Cik will have ears to hear the gospel that is being shared with her? Will you pray that her heart will open to the true love that Jesus Christ has for her? Until Mak Cik can pray as a loved child of God, will you pray?



Photo credit "Nasi Lemak, Mamak, Sydney" by Mw12310 - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

10 Life Hacks for Third-World Livin' (from Back in the Day)

Life Hacks would have meant a serial killer holding a machete back when my husband and I first went overseas. Nowadays it means: cool tricks to make life easier.

I didn't have Google or Pinterest or blogs to read back then. I had a Lonely Planet book about our new country in one hand and a copy of Where There Is No Doctor in the other. The rest we just had to figure out along the way.

Because there was nowhere to share my tricks of the trade, most of them have faded into the "I Don't Need That Anymore" corners of my memory. So before I lose every one of them, I thought I'd write them down. And since nowadays I have a blog (we went overseas before internet y'all!) I can share my Life Hacks with you! Now, keep in mind these may be old school...but sometimes old school is cool, right?

1. If you don't have running water, drain your laundry water (from hand-washing or hand-filling your washing machine) into a container (tub, bucket, etc) and use it to flush your toilet. Saves on water and your toilet gets washed with laundry detergent!

2. If your electricity goes out all the time and you want cold water to drink during the day: Buy a large water thermos. Buy a bowl that is big, but small enough to fit into the thermos. Every evening fill the bowl with water and freeze (if you have electricity at night). In the morning, dump the ice into your thermos and fill it with water. Don't forget to refill your bowl and put it back in the freezer for tomorrow. All day long you'll have cold water to drink without opening your fridge and losing the precious cold. We did this for years in Africa.

3. Toothpaste works to ease itchy mosquito bites. Just dab it on every one of them. You can easily count them as you go so that you know how many there are for your next blog or Facebook status. You smell minty fresh, but lint also sticks to your skin. Up to you.

4. If you don't know what you are doing for dinner, but it's time and your hubby and kids are getting hungry, saute some onions. Makes the kitchen smell like you know what you are doing and buys you a little time. (I got this idea from my mom!)

5. If you live in a super hot and dry climate, do these things to keep relatively cool:

*Get your head and hair wet and don't dry off. I know people who just left their clothes on and got fully wet and then walked around the house like that. The water cooled them off and since we lived in the desert, it didn't actually take very long to dry!
*Get towels wet and lay them on your floor at night. If you don't have AC but you do have a ceiling fan, the wet towels will cool the room off a bit.
*Wear cotton undershirts or tank tops under your clothes. If you are living in a country where you have to dress conservatively, this seems counter-intuitive. But my friends and I discovered that tank tops collect your sweat and #1 keep your outer clothes from stinking and #2 used your sweat to cool you off.

6. Keep a container in your freezer and put the "final" leftovers in it, no matter how small. When the container is full you can make soup. Dump the frozen stuff into a pot and add whatever you feel might be missing (water, stock, a can of veggies (or fresh ones if you don't have cans), a taco mix, some spices, some pasta, rice, etc.) My family doesn't realize that's what I do and almost every time they say, "Wow, this soup is really good!" It's better if it cooks a long time in the crockpot. Honestly, my family usually likes it even better the second time around. I call it "Hearty Soup" like my mom does!

7. Here's a truly old-school tip. Back in the day our only communication back home was through letters. It did not cost any more in postage to add one Koolaide packet or one ziploc bag. Since both were hard (uh...impossible) to come by, we had our friends and family stick one or the other in every letter. It was like getting a double treat every time!

8. Learn how to breathe through your mouth and not your nose. If you live in a Third-World country, chances are you are gonna smell pee, poop, blood, sewer, fish, carcasses, spoiled garbage, and durian. It's nicer for those in whose country you are a guest if you don't wrinkle your nose and pass out or gag every time your nose is offended. I also try not to think about the fact that my mouth is still taking in all those smelly germs without the advantage of nose hair filters. So breathe through  your mouth and distract your mind and you'll be fine!

9. If you happen to stay at a nice hotel that supplies shower caps, save them. They are handy for covering food dishes, like plastic wrap...only free. I wash and reuse until they are kind of gross and then throw them away.

10. Weavels and unsavory critters like that will leave your flour, cereals, rice, and other grains if you spread it out in the sun (on a woven mat or large tray). Stale cereal and chips crisp back up in an oven set at low. Don't through away that stuff!









If you live in a third-world country, in the boonies, or if you live somewhere else, what tips have you learned for every day life?

Shout Out to Fractions!

Lessons learned today:

1. Never let your brain go on cruise-control even when using a tried-and-true recipe
2. Common sense and little red flags that go up in your brain are gifts from heaven. Pay attention to them.
3. Well, I think that's pretty much it.

Today I cooked for two different sets of folks. Why not double the recipe and just use half for one set and half for the other. Why that is an excellent idea, I think I'll do that. 

And why not use a well-liked recipe so that I know it will be a guaranteed good meal for all involved in eating it. Why that is another excellent idea. Let's do it!

So I begin preparing oven fajitas, a recipe I found on Pinterest. So far everyone has loved it. Awesome. Here I go. I start mixing up the spices that will be used to marinate the chicken. As I begin measuring out the various spices I say to myself,

"Hmmm, that seems like a lot of spices. I don't remember that...well, it must be because I have doubled the recipe. Yes, that's it."

A few spices later...

"Wow, that really seems like a lot. Well, I think I have more spices in the cabinet this time than I did last time. I must have skipped some of the ingredients last time. OK, I'll just keep on, I mean, I've made this many times and I know it's good."

I finally get to "Cayenne Pepper" which is one of the spices I did not have before. My brain is thinking about switching to cruise-control. My eyes register "8 tsp". Wow, that is a lot. I start measuring it out. Doubling the recipe, of course, will mean 16 tsp. Really? Wow. By tsp number 4 I think,

"Hmmm, that really is a lot." 

I dip my finger into the cayenne pepper and taste it, yep, it's pretty spicy. I think I'll stick with 3 tsp. I try to dig out what I can from the pile of spices I've dumped into the bowl to get the cayenne pepper down to a lesser amount.

Ok, marinate chicken. It's all in the pan and ready to bake. I double check the recipe for the amount of time to bake. That's strange. It's not on the recipe. I look it up on the internet site. That's when I notice the spice amounts are different on the internet recipe. When I go back to check the recipe I am using on Pinterest, I see that the TOP number of the FRACTION is way off in the left-hand margin, nowhere near the recipe itself. That leaves the bottom number over by the recipe. So instead of 1/2 Tablespoon of chili powder, for example, I read "2 Tablespoons". But I am doubling the recipe, so I dump in 4 Tablespoons. You can see then, that when I got down to the Cayenne Pepper (after dumping about half my spice cabinet into the bowl) I read 8 teaspoons instead of 1/8 teaspoon. That's a big difference Yo!

I look at the chicken. It is literally already baking under the heat of the cayenne attack. I think I hear it sizzling right there on the cabinet. My face burns. My hands burn. I glance at the guests in the living room. I think about the others who are innocently waiting for me to bring them a home cooked meal. This stuff is fire and I am pretty sure it's more spice than chicken at this point.

Hmmmm...

I rinse the chicken. I dump it all into a mixing bowl and rinse it. No joke it takes about 5 cycles before the water is no longer orangey-red and the spices are mostly gone.

Start over. Wow, it sure does look more reasonable now. 

1/2 teaspoon salt instead of 2 teaspoons (doubled to 4)

1/4 teaspoon onion powder instead of 4 teaspoons (doubled to 8)

You get the idea. Whew, I baked it and it turned out just fine.

Disaster averted.

Fractions are important y'all. Numerators are vital. You can't just use the denominator.

Lesson learned.

Back In Asia

We made it back to Asia! Hello toes, I’ve missed seeing you, since you’ve been all wrapped up in socks and closed-in shoes for months. First order of business: paint toenails and find flip flops. The breeze is wonderful and the weather not too hot and definitely not too cold. It IS humid though, and mildew has attacked some of our furniture and the closets smell musty. No problem, wipe it all down and it’s good as new. Feeling great! Feeling happy! Feeling … feeling… feeeeeeeliiiiing tired … zzzzzzzzzzz (jet lag).

Friends here on our new island stocked our cabinets with food and invited us for meals. So nice. Made mental note to do the same for others when they are just moving in, especially when…jet lagging…zzzzzzzzz. We were invited for dinner! That’s great news, I don’t have to cook. I ask if I can bring anything. I get a text message, “Bring rice.” OK, no problem, I have a rice cooker. But we are two big families so I better make a lot. An hour before dinner I make a big pot of rice. When we arrive our hostess looks at my rice cooker oddly. “Did I say ‘rice’ or ‘ice’?” Oops. And I can’t even blame the auto correct because her message totally says “ice”. Well, we did not have cold drinks that night but we did have plenty of rice.

While eating dinner, I mention that instead of Australian Top Sirloin (which is very expensive beef), I found that I could order “Bombay Beef” for much cheaper. “That’s not beef,” says our host, “That’s water buffalo!”

“Are you sure? Because she said it was beef.”

“Think about it, Jana. It’s Bombay beef. Cows are considered holy in India.”

Oh great, I just bought 2 kilos of water buffalo to cook for our first lunch guests the next day. All I can think about is a large lumbering work animal pulling a plow through the rice paddies before it drops dead and the innovative farmer cuts him up and sells it to the shop owner who…well, sells it to me. Gray, wrinkly skin; tough chewy gristle. Guests coming at noon tomorrow and I have water buffalo stew. Awesome.

The next day I try to cook it anyway. It’s not a good idea. Kris and I taste test and I can literally hear Kris crunch, like it’s a bag of potato chips. Yuk. But I just used two (count  them, two) envelopes of American stew mix. I wonder if I can rinse the flavoring off the nasty buffalo meat to recycle with some actual beef. A little brain gnome is in my head jumping up and down with a red flag screaming, “Bad idea Jana!” And thankfully, I listen. I end up making ground beef (from a cow) soup instead. But that works out ok because I have a large pot of leftover rice to go with it.

  

A Late Christmas Greeting...

Getting ready for Christmas...making cookies!

And here are the finished products...

After several busy Christmas activities, we enjoyed dinner as a family on Christmas Day!

And now to get ready for a visit from our church. 

Selamat Hari Natal! (Merry Christmas!)

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

(it's not too late to say that is it? I am only a week or two late)

Thanksgiving Feast: Cross-Cultural Style!

We had a great Thanksgiving Day, celebrating with many other fellow-workers. My friend Barbara is my guest blogger for this post! You won't want to miss her story "behind the scenes" at our Thanksgiving Meal. It's hilarious!

Last week a friend and I had the privilege of cooking 
Thanksgiving dinner for 120 Americans.... In the simple 
kitchen of a hotel two hours outside of our city.   Nine 
turkeys were ordered from a local importer and baked prior 
to the gathering along with plenty of pecan and pumpkin 
desserts – pecans thanks to some care packages from the 
US,  local squash was boiled and mashed to substitute for 
cans of pumpkin.  Two gallons of celery, sage (brought in 
my suitcase last year), onions and parsley were cooked and 
frozen ahead of time along with pan after pan of corn 
bread in preparation for making dressing.  But, even all 
this work done in advance did not prepare me for cooking 
in the hotel kitchen!  My friend and I have promised to 
never speak about the hotel kitchen’s cleanliness (um… 
lack of cleanliness…) with another person.  So, I won’t 
even mention all of the living creatures we encountered. 
 Nor will I mention the fact that the kitchen did not have 
a single wash rag or towel.  I won’t even mention that the 
same sink of dirty brown water (straight from the river??) 
was used all day long to “wash” dishes from breakfast, 
lunch, snacks and dinner for more than 300 hotel guests….. 
 Let’s just say, the entire experience was a cultural 
experience and was not for the faint of heart!  (Note to 
self…. Give family an extra dose or two of de-worming 
medicine ASAP!)

The kitchen equipment was mostly what I would call big 
“camp stoves” and woks the size of hula hoops.  Everything 
was giant sized and perfect for cooking for a crowd…. If 
one is a giant!  The pot they provided me with was so tall 
that it came up to my nose when sitting on the burner for 
cooking.  This was going to make stirring the gravy a 
challenge!  So, I asked the kitchen staff if I could perhaps 
use a smaller pot since I was too short to stir this one. 
 (Understand that none of these Asian men were much taller 
than my 5 foot 4 inches!)  After the men had a little 
pow-wow about how to solve my problem for me…. While I was 
trying to deny my urge to go grab and wash a dirty but 
smaller pot that I had spotted on the floor… the men came 
up with a solution they were satisfied would solve my 
dilemma.  One man disappeared out the back door of the 
kitchen and reappeared with a satisfied grin on his face 
carrying two bricks.  He deposited these two bricks on the 
floor in front of the stove, demonstrated how I should 
place one foot on each brick, and assured me that these 
bricks would make me tall enough to stir the pot.  Of 
course!  And, to think that I would have changed pots when 
there was a much better solution at hand.  Yes, I cooked 
for several hours balanced atop these bricks that were 
thoughtfully provided.

As I cooked, I was able to answer many questions for the 
hotel’s kitchen staff.  I noticed they would gather into 
 pow-wow sessions and then send a chosen delegate to ask 
me a question and report back with answers. Sometimes that 
pow-wow would all need to gather to explore a particularly 
interesting situation – like opening a can.   When opening 
the cans of cranberry sauce, the entire staff gathered to 
“ooooh” and “aaaaah” over the process.  The conversation 
went something like this….. “What is that” “Can opener.” 
 “It is fast!”  “Yes.”  “Did you bring that from America?” 
 “No, I bought it at the mall here.”  “Look how that opens 
cans!  That must be something new!”  “Ya, it’s really 
helpful.”   The most common question asked was, “What is 
that??”  Answers to that question included Turkey; Mashed 
potatoes; Dressing; Gravy; Cranberries……  But, thankfully 
I was also able to tell them about how Thanksgiving Day is 
a time to thank God for all his blessings and provision. 
 Hopefully they will remember the message of Thanksgiving 
even longer than they remember the amazing can opener. 
 And, by God’s grace , I pray I was gracious, kind and 
thankful while cooking a huge meal, on a tight schedule 
with an audience of local men watching, questioning and 
“helping".

Foreign Language: Piece of Cake!

I love to decorate cakes!  What completes a birthday party better than a great cake, right?  When the kids were younger, I always decorated cakes for their birthdays.  They could choose the theme and then I'd go crazy (and spend hours) decorating their cake.  It was fun and I learned how to do all kinds of great things with icing!  I made a car cake, a computer cake, a Power Rangers cake, a Spiderman, superhero, plane, train, soccer etc, etc.  Notice the boy theme.  But, I also learned to make roses and daisies and swirls and curls and I'd decorate cakes for girls and ladies as well.

When we lived in Africa, a very sweet young lady named Ruta worked for me several days a week.  She was so quiet and sweet and I loved her dearly.  She had seen many of the cakes I'd decorated and one day she asked if I'd make a birthday cake for her son.  Oh, I was flattered!  I was so happy to get to do something like that to help her throw a party for her little boy.  I agreed immediately!  I planned to have the cake baked and decorated on the following Friday so that she could bring it home for the weekend.

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I mixed up the batter from scratch and baked it in two round pans to make a layered cake.  I covered the cooled cake in rich home-made blue icing and carefully decorated with contrasting colors.  I had studied the tribal language that Ruta and her family spoke and I thought what a special treat it would be to write "Happy Birthday" in her language.  Now, Ruta's mother tongue is not a common language, not many foreigners at all speak it, and it is written in the Ge'ez alphabet, a completely different script.  But I, Jana Kelley, knew that language and could write that script.  Yes, I have the distinct feeling that I was a bit prideful as I wrote those words in creamy white icing on that blue layered cake.  It looked wonderful!  I prepared a box for the cake and carefully packed it so that Ruta could bring it home with her.  I was so happy with the result, knowing Ruta would be so pleased, and surprised too!

And surprised she was.

"Wow," she said, "did you write that?"

"Yes," I smiled, "I did."  Yes!  This was great!  Ruta thanked me and brought the cake home, amazed that I knew how to write a greeting in her language.  We had a relaxing weekend and it was not until Saturday night, as I lay in bed, that it struck me...

My eyes flew open and I gasped loudly...

OH NO!  I'd written "Merry Christmas" on the cake!

Oh my word!  That's what I got for being so prideful about being able to speak and write in her language!  On Monday, Ruta returned to work.

"Ruta!" I exclaimed, "I wrote 'Merry Christmas' on your son's birthday cake!"

"Yes," she replied.

"I am so sorry!"

"That's ok!  It was really nice."

Ruta was so sweet and never made fun of me.  But I've always wondered what that party was like.  All those people gathering around the "Merry Christmas" birthday cake, snickering at that silly foreign lady who decorated it!  And somehow, when I think of that story, I am reminded of Proverbs 16:18, "Pride goes before destruction a haughty spirit before the fall"!

Snickerdoodles

This week Aaron made snickerdoodles for a class party.  I gave him the recipe, but he did all the work himself.  There were a few challenges, like trying to get the Blue Band container open and then getting all the gooey margarine out!

 He's checking out the recipe again.  Always a good thing!

 Lots of sugar!

Mixing it together.

Quit laughing and concentrate, Aaron!

It was a scary time for Mom!  Probably shouldn't have watched.

What's the difference between a teaspoon and a tablespoon?

Trying to get the seal off a new spice container.  Who knew the biggest challenge would be all the pesky containers?

Adding the dry ingredients...

Mix it all together and what have you got?

"Look, Mom!  I can throw it up and catch it!"

Success!  A pan of amazing cookies!

This is the last picture I got.  I forgot to take a grand picture of the final plate of finished cookies.  Maybe that's because we were busy eating them!!!  Well done, Aaron!

Tomato Paste

Tomato paste can only be found in a handful of stores in Bandung.  Each little tiny can costs several dollars.  Tomato paste is also the ingredient in about half my good recipes.  No wonder I remember eating pizza with ketchup for the sauce when I was a kid!  In the past three countries we’ve lived in, tomato has been a base for many of the national dishes, so it was never hard to find.  Imagine my surprise when I discovered I’d either have to find a solution for my tomato paste problem, or chunk half my recipes!  I did find some cans of tomato paste...with sardines!  No way.  So, today I made my own tomato paste!  I feel very Little House on the Prairie-ish, and also very proud of myself.  Should I be wearing a bonnet and a calico dress?  Do you know how many tomatoes it takes to make even a small amount of tomato paste?  It takes a lot.  But today, after boiling, peeling, cutting, blending, straining, stirring, baking and spooning two kilos of tomatoes, I have myself 2 small jelly jars of tomato paste!  Yum!  I think I’ll make a pizza!