Ploofle

I’m tired, but damn, was it tasty…that’s all I’ve eaten for the past 2 days - I’m kind of hoping there are still some leftovers to eat tomorrow too!

The local chicken, after all was said and done, was closer to a cornish game hen size, while the chicken that was brought from UB was a normal-sized monstrosity of a bird.  Bayan-Ulgii (a province further north) folks came in and one of em is an excellent cook and put together three amazing casseroles - corn, broccoli, and green bean.  We then had a huge bowl of stuffing, two large bowls of mashed potates, homemade applesauce and pseudo-cranberry sauce, glazed carrots, biscuits, and corn bread.  There were 5 pies of 4 different kinds - lemon meringue, pecan, pumpkin (2), and apple.  All of the crusts turned out great this time and the meringue was amazingly easy due to a pinch cream of tartar from a package Bonnie sent me. I’m going to need to make more lemon meringue here - I have all the ingredients and it’s only 3 eggs - it was the first pie to go too.

After the main food, about half of the group of 12 was either laying on the ground or groaning about how they may be sick. Or both.  So I consider that to be the sound of success.  A couple hours later, after eating pies (we had about 1/2 pie baked for every person there), many laid down/groaned again.  Today when we came back over to eat leftovers, same thing.  This makes me pretty happy

Still, we’re only making slow progress through the food - I may reacquire the cranberry sauce from Jen if there’s not a likelihood it’ll get finished - I made 3 good-sized jars’ worth and I don’t know if we even got through one yet.

I leave for UB this Tuesday but still haven’t finished everything I wanted to do - like laundry, cleaning, actual work…so…time to turn in so as to do it tomorrow…

Tags: food, work

So, I believe the baby-in-progress count for people I know pretty well is at 3.  Including people I don’t know as well the count doubles.  Ugh.  What’s with the babies!?  Am I missing out on something?

Jen’s cat is behind my computer and poking his head around the corner of the screen comically…

Oh, and work - I’m doing in-service training for the 19s and that means content creation.  How one “teaches” peer education in a 45-minute slot and “research methods” in 1-1/2 hours I dunno, but it’ll get done somehow.  I’m pretty excited about this stuff, though, as I’ll get to interact with youth and business dev people in addition to health volunteers - plus all their counterparts.

The side effect of this is that there are several things “I must do” at work before I am “allowed” to go to UB.  And they’re all time-consuming.  Fund Peace Corps project is taking up a goodly amount of time, I’m reinforcing new contacts my program staff introduced me to while they were here, and thesis is again getting pushed to the end of the queue due to this stuff.  Plus we need to kill a chicken or two sometime this week for Thanksgiving, so Fri night/Sat are definitely booked.  I’m supposed to fly out this Tues, the 2nd…ugh.  How will I get all of this done?  And I’ve heard that the airline flight schedule will change on the 1st, so it’s possible that I’m not leaving the 2nd.

Ah, Mongolia.  And life.  Thank you all

And I’m hungry.

Tags: babies, don't eat babies, food, work

I was almost excited to see that Dr. Who premiered on the 24th; unfortunately it was the 23rd.

From wikipedia, today in…

1898 - International Conference of Rome for the Social Defense Against Anarchists opened (sorry Andy)
1940 - Slovakia officially joined the Axis powers
1966 - NYC experiences the smoggiest day in the city’s history
…and about 6 airline hijackings or crashes. Also, William F. Buckley was born, as well as Beth Phoenix aka “The Glamazon”.

Looks like they knew I was coming Hopefully the coming years will result in more propitious events on this day so I don’t have to assume I’m following a trend.

Um, otherwise, I got a beautiful peach-colored sunset today.  My office windows face west and with the smoke from the coal you get a lot of fuzzy light.  It was really pretty.

On the other hand, rumor has it that something broke concerning the heating system here, so no heat for people for a few days, possibly longer. Overnight here it’s about 13F/-10C.  Day temperatures, at least according to the forecast, are just hovering around freezing.

My birthday treats were a shower at the showerhouse - wow, and I needed it - and the can of chili Bonnie sent me.  I have to say I think homemade chili is better, but the beans were wonderfully cooked through and the meat was definitely something you don’t see here everyday.  I pulled out a ration of cheese Lisa gave me, and made some hoecakes based on this blog’s recipe, and now back to work for me.

Tags: food, heating, wrestlers

One I knew from a while ago, literally from Mongolian:

raisin: raisin
grape: water raisin

cabbage: cabbage
broccoli: flower cabbage

hmm.

Tags: food

This flattop grill sounds cool, albeit a fancy term (and corresponding price) for a griddle.  It’s especially appealing for making breads and what-not, but also things like okonomiyaki I thought.

On the other hand, couldn’t I just get a heavy metal slab like this for obvjously a lot less…and I certainly wouldn’t use this to replace a real grill as suggested by the wikipedia link above…

Also, I would like a dutch oven some day.  The end.

Edit: this griddle looks far more appealing than the craigslist link above.

Tags: food