Ploofle

I am determined to be, if not a domestic goddess, a rustic Montana militia survivalist-type. To that end, I have a variety of food-based projects I intend to accomplish:

Hard cider
Ok, so this isn’t an essential to life for everyone, but I miss it and there *are* apples out here. It’s hard to find recipes online that don’t refer you to buying some kit from America, though, and I *think* I might need to find some sort of special yeast to get it going – bread yeast, while available, won’t cut it.

Bread
Assuming my biscuits haven’t been re-cursed, I’d like to learn how to make proper bread – you know, the kind that rises and has holes inside from that. When I was staying with Suzie the breadmaking was getting there, but once I procure a small oven here I’ll be back in business with something to eat as well as occupy my mind when there’s nothing else to do.

Dried and canned things
It’s harvest time in Khovd and relatively many things are available. This won’t be the case several months from now so I better start storing up – even though I love getting my American dried fruits and all I don’t want to be always asking for stuff. I’m thinking at this point apples, nectarines, and tomatoes. According to a little manual I have eggplant is also viable. Canning things I’m not so excited about, mainly because I haven’t accumulated a store of glass jars through various purchases here. I need to check out the market some more to see what’s available, but there’s also the option of storing stuff on my balcony once it gets below freezing, especially meat and root veggies.

Brats
I have all the ingredients for a great bratfest – onions, beer, buns, mustard – except for the brats themselves. Conceptually sausages don’t seem difficult – meat, fat, spices, tada! – but I’m not sure how to negotiate the “can I buy those pig intestines off of you?” for casings and the fact that again, most instructions seem to think you own your own automated sausage stuffer and electric meat grinder. I think I need something called a…sausage stuffing horn? to do it by hand. This sounds like a more early winter activity anyway, as I have to refrigerate em somewhere (like my balcony).

Just about any of these could possibly make me sick, but I’m up for it for the greater good of, erm, culinary exploration. I continue to tread carefully on the internet here – I move slowly and carefully so as to not startle it and heaven forbid that I attempt to load more than one page at a time.

Tags: food, fun, internet, mongolia, projects

Well, due to issues in internet-land I didn’t get to post anything but a few pictures this week; next week expect a bumper crop of random news…

The power’s been going out quite a bit lately – supposedly scheduled, but the last one – which was at the internet place – was quite irritating as I was writing out posts in notepad at the time. Woo for no autosave…

Today my host mom was making winter boots for my host brother. There were felt insoles or bottoms about half an inch thick, and she was burning the edges to seal it, I guess. It made for good pictures, so I hung around to take some, but now I smell like burnt hair.

We also randomly went to the Mother Tree (ээж мот) this past afternoon with a bunch of items for offerings. The Mother Tree from what I’ve heard is a (Buddhist?) holy spot due to the unusually large size of the tree. I didn’t take pictures of the site itself as it didn’t feel right, but it’s a small complex of tree and fallen tree bits covered with offerings – ropes of special silk scarves used for formal occasions, cookies and candies, matchsticks, and a small wall of tea “bricks” still in their packaging, plus a few car steering wheel wraps and clothing bits. My host mom had me throw some candy, and they left some of the jam she’s been making and threw milk at the the tree/air. There was a collection thingy, so I put some money in. It generally was a hushed place with people quietly doing their thing then circling the tree varying numbers of times. It felt good to do something vaguely Buddhist – maybe I’ve gotten used to doing something ever since my grandmother’s funeral, as that was so Buddhist-heavy.

I also ate a very tasty ice cream from Russia today – I don’t know what flavor, and the price was rather crazy for ice cream here, but man if it wasn’t tasty…

It’s kind of silly when personal cleanliness becomes a typical conversation topic. It tends to go something like this:

“My, your hair looks awfully shiny and health today. Did you get a chance to wash it?”
“Why yes I did. I’m glad you noticed – it’s been 1 week/2 weeks/way too long since I last managed to get a bucket shower/baby wipe/spot cleaning opportunity.”
“It must’ve been nice.”

It happened to me to today. As bucket/towel bath day always coincides with laundry day, I’m pretty well off this week.

Also, today my host brother threw the padlock to the small outdoor kitchen at the neighbor boy he was playing with, who justifiably proceeded to howl. This padlock is about the size of my fist and weighs maybe 5 pounds. The gash is about an inch long and just above his eyebrow – thank god it didn’t hit his eye, as that would’ve been disasterous-er I think. As it was it’s probably going to scar, I think – luckily in my last package my aunt sent a small first aid kit which includes butterfly bandages, so I put one on there to sort of hope it comes together and closes without stitches. My host mom sent the whole procession back over with my host sister and a bottle of milk.

Tags: internet, mongolia