Cooking and other skills

- by Heather

Since all of you might think we've been starving missionaries eating only rice and beans, I'll let you know that that has not been the case at all! Almost everything I've eaten here so far has been delicious. And besides there being lots of chicken, we've had a lot of variety.

The first night here I was sick, so I did not go with the team to dinner. They went to a restaurant nearby and had rotisserie chicken and soup. The most notable part of the soup was the chicken feet floating in the middle. While I think most everyone was a little disturbed, they said the soup itself was delicious.

The next day for lunch we went to a nearby restaurant and got either a dish with beef and onions over french fries with rice, or fried chicken with french fries. I had the fried chicken. It was better than some of the fried chicken I have had in the states. The french fries were really good too.

That night for dinner we decided to make it at our house. We made macaroni and cheese and crepes/pancakes. Nice combination, right? Jeremy L. mixed up the pancakes and they were delicious. We will definitely be making more of those this summer.

Yesterday for lunch we learned how to make vegetable soup. We had bought all the vegetables at the market on Sunday. We chopped up potatoes, celery, tomatoes, carrots, and I'm sure other stuff I've forgotten. We also shelled peas. The soup was incredibly good. We ate it with the really good bread we have here.

For dinner last night we got together with 3 girls who are missionaries here in Huancane this summer. We bought 1.5 rotisserie chickens which came with fries and soup and we made rice. The soup was the same chicken foot soup from the first night. Since I didn't get any the first night, they put all the chicken feet in mine... I ate a few spoonfuls of soup, but was already full, so that was the extent of my chicken foot experience. Kelsey, on the other hand, was talked into actually eating the meat off of one of the chicken feet. I believe I heard it just tasted like regular chicken, but she probably wouldn't be eating it again.

For lunch today we learned how to debone a chicken! We got whole chicken breasts, bone and all. We learned how to cut through the bones at the joints and cut the breast meat off so it looks just like the chicken breasts you buy in a store. Pretty sweet skill to learn! We then breaded it in flour, egg and crushed up crackers with seasoning. After frying it up in the frying pan, it was delicious! We had it with a vegetable salad and rice.

For breakfast most of us have been eating bread with peanut butter. I have made some packets of oatmeal or grits.

So, all of you parents who were worrying that your kids aren't eating enough should be happy to know that we are eating very well. We might even bring home some cooking skills, if you can convince us to use them after cooking our own meals all summer!

Today we also learned how to wash our clothes by hand. Pastor Ruben, a local pastor who was teaching us, was a lot better at it than we were! He went back after us a few times and rewashed things. We were washing them in buckets of water out on the roof. The water was freezing! After a while your fingers kind of go numb. We got lots of things washed though and know how to do it. We also have the option of paying someone to wash our clothes. A typical price would be 1 sole for 3 pieces of clothing. That's like 10 cents each. Since they will probably do a better job than we will anyway, we will most likely be paying for our clothes to be washed.

This afternoon we are going to be talking about ministry ideas for the upcoming weeks and also really getting into how storying works and how we are going to learn and use this method of sharing with people. Tomorrow we go to the market in Juliaca and Thursday we hike a mountain and then leave for Conima!