Wow I suck at updating

So I'm nearly at the end of my Christmas break, and I'll return to school next week. During the break I've gotten a lot of things done, especially in the kitchen.

Berney and I put presents under my tree, although we haven't received any of the other packages sent from family and such.

I've been staying in my apartment most of the break, goofing around but also getting some things done that advance some of the goals I listed in the last post. Unfortunately my mom won't be able to visit, so I need to come up with something else for that bit.

Though it's been nice to have lots of free time and have friends over and visit friends during the week, I'm (as usual) looking forward to getting back into a work schedule.

Busy busy busy

I've been having trouble sleeping, I've been so busy! Before last week a lot of effort went into preparing for the Vieux Fort After School Programme (VFASP), and this past week a lot of effort went into making sure it got off the ground.

Well, it did! We had about 30 students each of the three days it runs, which is of course more manageable when there are more teachers and volunteers present. I'm especially excited that it started last week, because I could include it in my trimesterly report for PC. We still need to get some things in place, like more volunteers, regular club activities for half an hour after homework, etc., but it's great that the basic purpose is being fulfilled. Children are getting help with homework. When there are enough volunteers they get help from adults who already know the stuff, and when there aren't they get help from one another with key guidance from the adults that are around.

But even though this awesome thing is going on, it's been hard. Last weekend was so full of activity, from a fundraising concert in Laborie for St. Jude's to dinner in Balembouche (not the estate!) with a French family to another fundraising concert on Piaye beach--and all the house work and prep work that had to get done anyways! I haven't been getting much sleep for various reasons, and even twice last week I woke up from dreaming about writing lists and sorting out names and words, with children all around trying to help but being a distraction instead. Each day I come home (late, as you'll see in a bit) exhausted, but if I nap during the day I have an even harder time falling asleep at night.

So this three-day weekend was exactly what I needed. Berney and I went to Castries yesterday for a chess-training session, got a little shopping done in the market (mint! vanilla bean! miwi! roti!), and came back home for a quiet night. Today I made some vegan sloppy joes to take for our own cheap Oktoberfest at Sandy Beach, where we limed with Fae for a few hours. Tomorrow I'm looking forward to not leaving the house all day, and catching up on Heroes (since I didn't see the first three episodes of the season--I didn't have a working TV). Then it's back to some long days, but I'll be much more refreshed.

VFASP runs Mondays through Wednesdays until 4:30, so I get home around 5 or 5:30pm. Thursdays and Fridays, though, I still have to stay in Vieux Fort Town until about 4:30 because they're tearing down the remains of the hospital, and it's dangerous to be around the neighborhood with the asbestos in the air. They're working during the day, and then wetting everything down before people come home. So I need to find good reasons to stay around VF Town now. Or at least good places.

Finally, Berney and I recently celebrated two years of annoying each other constantly, regardless of proximity. :) I made a dinner that was special but not nearly as good as the lamb a month ago, along with a chocolate chip cookie cake with mint icing. Today we wrapped up the celebration with the rest of the lobster someone gave us as a consolation prize for getting ice thrown at us at the beach.

Oh. And both pairs of my work shoes broke. :(

Austin in Photographic Memory

A short summary of my Austin vacation (sorry, no picture of the legendary barbacoa y guacamole taco). Mom's birthday party, Diana and I at the Ice Cream Festival, cousin's first birthday party, and at the airport. Try and guess who's related to me!

Double Dessert Recipes!

I haven't posted any recipes lately; this must be remedied immediately.

First we have an upside down cake I made for July 4th, followed by some rich Milo brownies.

For the Fourth of July, I wanted to make something that said summer to me. I remembered to a few years ago when I made an incredibly messy layered pound cake with peach filling. It was delicious but not quite right for this event. Besides the peaches I found at Super J were just about the sorriest stone fruit I've ever met. The whole ordeal made me really want some ripe, warm, perfect Hill Country peaches out of a paper bag. That'll have to wait a week, though. Nevertheless, people enjoyed the cake, especially fellow PCV Ann! This post is dedicated to her.

The spiced peach filling for the upside down cake can work as preserves on its own. You can put it in a sterilized jar for long shelf life, or put it in clean tupperware in the fridge to keep for a week or so.

Super Spiced Peach Upside Down Cake
Cake
3 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
6 Tbsp unsalted butter
1 cup milk
2 tsp vanilla
2 eggs

2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp sugar
1-2 peaches, sliced into eighths
lemon juice

Preheat oven to 375F.

Sift flour with sugar, baking powder, and salt. Stir butter to soften, then mix it with dry ingredients. Add milk and vanilla. Mix until all flour is dampened.

Beat batter 2 minutes medium/300 strokes by hand. Add eggs, beat 1 minute/150 strokes more.

In one greased 8" round pan, pour a little more than 1/2 of the batter.

Heat 2 Tbsp butter and 2 Tbsp sugar in sauce pan until bubbly, pour into second greased 8" round pan. Arrange peach slices on top of this mix, sprinkle with lemon juice. Pour the rest of the cake batter on top.

Bake for 35 minutes, you know the regular cake/toothpick stuff. Let them cool, take a lime.

Spiced Peach Filling
3-5 peaches
1-2 packets of gelatin
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water (maybe a little more)
1-2 dried cloves
1 tsp cinnamon or 1 medium stick
1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
orange peel
dash (or two) cayenne pepper
1 Tbsp lemon juice

To skin the peaches, dunk them in boiling water for 30-60 seconds. Let them cool a bit, and the peel should come off pretty easily. Dice them into 1/2" chunks.

Place diced peaches in a saucepan, sprinkle with gelatin, stir over low heat. Add sugar and water. If you have cheese cloth or something like that, tie the clove, orange peel and cinnamon stick in it, and put it in the saucepan. If not, be prepared to fish those out. Add ground cinnamon (if using that), nutmeg, and cayenne. Stir. Let this cook down some, about 15-20 minutes.

Remove from heat, remove clove, cinnamon stick, and orange peel. Add lemon juice, stir. Let cool completely.


COMBINE FORCES!
This works best if the cakes have had plenty of time to rest--I refrigerated mine almost immediately after they came out of the oven, but that made them denser than I would have liked. But chilling or freezing them before assembly is a good idea.

Get your plain cake upside down onto the serving dish. If your pan is greased well enough and the cake has rested and chilled, just pick it out upside down. Spread your filling on top of that, then take your peach upside down cake, turn it upside down, and put it on top. How lovely.


Milo Brownies
Oh my you're missing out if you've never had Milo!
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/3 cup Milo powder
1/4 cup flour
pinch salt

Grease medium sized pan, preheat oven to 350F.

Cream butter and sugar, add eggs and vanilla, beat to combine well. In a separate bowl mix cocoa powder, Milo, flour, and salt. Slowly fold in dry ingredients to the wet. Mmm, doesn't that smell good?

Pour into your greased medium sized pan, bake 30-35 minutes, brownie/toothpick fun. I ended up having to leave it in for about 43 minutes, because my dish is deeper than I would like.

Let it cool! Oooh it smells good but let it cool. In fact, after you have some warm gooey brownie goodness, put it in the fridge, and it'll be even better the next day. Milo has vitamins and stuff, so you can pretend it's a good breakfast if you ignore all the sugar and butter in there!

More work, more play

It seems I'm so busy now that school is out and I'm not going to a different school everyday!

Last week I went to Dennery to finish up the Barrier Analysis surveys (we're officially done with surveys in both locations! Hooray!) with MaryEllen and Haley. I don't exactly enjoy data collection (I'm too introverted to like it, though this is the third time I've had to contact large numbers of people--first was when I worked for the Census a few summers ago, then a year and a half ago when researching for my BA thesis), but knowing that data collection means data analysis is what keeps me going. That step is scheduled two Fridays from today :D

When I got back into Vieux Fort Town that Monday I was just in time to see the VF bands jump in our local Carnival parade. Today (Tuesday July 21st) concludes Carnival season. Several of the smaller Eastern Caribbean islands have staggered Carnival seasons, while Trinidad is the only one with the correct time (just before Lent). This is so that no one loses out on tourists.

One great group of older women started wining in line, and ended up falling down all over each other!

Tuesday and Wednesday last week I volunteered at Camp Lajwa ("Joy" in Creole), a retreat for children with disabilities. Tuesday was for the families in the south of the country, and Wednesday everyone met up (including those from the north that held their regional camp the Sunday prior) at George Odlum Stadium in VF. Honestly I didn't expect to have nearly as much fun as I did, despite the disorganization on Tuesday and the late meals both days. Seriously, it was a great time.

Friday I went with Fae up to the Gros Islet area. We originally intended to go to "Outrageous: Sexy in Black," a Carnival fete that featured all this year's big Soca finalists, a party to last until sunrise. Then we found out that it cost much more than we were previously told, so along with Fae's lifelong friend Tricia we hit up Rodney Bay and the Gros Islet Jump Up (the best time I've had at the Jump Up, with all the top Soca songs thumping until 2. Though I'm sort of sad we missed out on the real Carnival events, we totally had a blast! We got a free round of drinks from a bartender where Tricia sings sometimes, because it was her birthday (for true!).
A couple of their friends joined us, including Jason (a Rasta version of King Julian from "Madagascar"). The best part of the night was when all five of us were piled into Tricia's small SUV, and Jason realized that the CD playing was Jason Mraz. He flipped out--because he loves Jason Mraz so much! Each song he would listen for 30 seconds, and demand the next song be played, "Pull up, pull up!" At the next bar we went to, he went so far as to request Jason Mraz songs be played instead of the typical Soca or Dancehall songs that dominate St. Lucian night life. Just before we took everyone home for the night, a trip to a chicken and fries stand was necessary. While Fae and Tricia stood patiently in line, Jason called out to the server repeatedly "Ten dollars backs, five fries!" Chicken backs are popular here because they're cheap, and as a Rastafarian Jason is a vegetarian, so he was giving the order for the two ladies and himself, of course!

Sunday I went all the way upstairs to my landlady's apartment for her grandson's birthday party. I forgot to get a picture of the card I made for him; I didn't get a gift because I didn't find out until the evening before. Thomas turned 5, and everyone wins!

Great food, delicious tamarind juice (it's my favorite local juice, it has so much flavor), lots of sweets--ice cream and cake of course!
The past couple days I'm just using to wind down and get serious work done on things I've been needing to type up, like my reviews for the IBG Phonic Programme and the After School Programme, both at VF Infant School. This week will be another very busy one, with a meeting tomorrow, minor surgery on Thursday, and an overnight farewell beach bash for EC77 (the PC group before ours). So it was definitely nice to take a couple days to stay at home in cocoa-tea-with-dumplings weather (lots of rain, a small tropical wave) and just watch the final Carnival Jump parade on the local TV stations.

Bonus: Dancing to "Suzette" at Camp Lajwa!

Work day and a dasheen preview

A couple weeks ago I organized a work day for some PCVs to come to Belle Vue Combined and help organize the reading room.

This room was an initiative by the principal, Ms. Poleon, when she advanced to that position four years ago. That year the Vieux Fort PCV, Dan, organized a work day to make this beautiful room a peaceful place where students can come to read.

My work with Ms. Poleon is focused more on organizing and streamlining existing systems. In the reading room we're organizing books by reading level, as well as creating a catalogue and book cards, so it will work a little more like a small library. Students will be able to see on the cover what level a book is, and they can keep them organized alphabetically by author.

So two Saturdays ago a bunch of my Peace Corps buddies came over to help out. Ms. Poleon and Charmaine brought us cake, mango juice, and made a boulyon soup for lunch. We were able to get through over 200 books--about half of what's in the room total.

Yesterday I spent several hours cooking dasheen (the local name for taro root) in a couple different dishes. I wanted to prove to myself that I could use a somewhat bland ground provision in a fun way. They turned out alright, though I definitely know a few changes I'll make to the recipes I found online. Once I try them again and perfect the recipes I'll post them.
Bonus pic: the contents of my refrigerator. The plate of things in the middle is the other creation, dasheen black bean fritters. The bottle next to those is mango juice, and below that is a bunch of ripe bananas. Mmmm.

Steeeeeeeeeerike Two! (plus: termites and ice cream)

That's right. For those of you who didn't see it on Facebook, I ate termites yesterday.

On Tuesday afternoon I received an email from Diane inviting other PCVs on an around-the-island bus trip Wednesday. I was very hesitant to go, for two main reasons. 1) I wasn't sure if the teachers (along with other civil servants) would still be on strike on Wednesday, which would allow me to take the day away from school if they did. 2) I'm on a pretty tight budget right now, since I transferred most of my savings to my US account to pay for my plane tickets for summer vacation.

Well, the teachers, with the rest of the Trade Union Federation (TUF), did indeed strike Tuesday, Wednesday, and today. They're also planning a meeting (another day away from school) for tomorrow to discuss their next couse of action. There are a few developments that makes the issue more complicated than I had described in previous posts.

A couple weeks ago the government offered a 3% increase now (the rest to add later when they have the money), which TUF rejected. The government offered a 3.5% increase, also rejected. Earlier this week TUF said they won't stop action unless negotiations start at 4.5%. Tuesday government said they could maybe go for 4%. No deal. The government called in church leaders to speak to the TUF strikers, trying to "appeal to their sense of humanity." It just made the civil servants more upset. Wednesday morning the Ministry of Education announced that parents should send their children to school, even though many if not most teachers wouldn't be there (this confused me when I saw children in uniform yesterday morning, since I hadn't heard the news that morning). The president of TUF complained about this, saying parents should sue the Ministry of Education if anything happens to their children while teachers are not there. Wednesday there was also talk that civil servants might have pay docked for days they're on strike instead of at work, which TUF president had already said absolutely wouldn't happen.

Though on Tuesday morning it looked like the impasse might be resolved by the end of the week, as the strike continues to me it looks like the two sides are struggling farther apart in their demands.

So Wednesday, as I said, the strike continued, so I considered the around-the-island tour. When Diane gave me the price for the trip ($10 for transport, instead of the $30-35 it would cost normally), I had to get in on it. I'm so glad I did.

Our first main stop was in Forestierre, to take a walk through the rainforest. We had a really good trail guide, Cristel, who knew a lot about the different plants and animals in her forest and on St. Lucia. We stopped for a break to eat some fruit at the end of the short trail, but not before Justin, Mary Ellen, (Eric? I don't remember,) and I ate some live termites, fresh from the mound. Honestly I could't even taste them once they were in my mouth, they were just like tiny crumbs of shredded wheat.

We then headed to the Plantation House Brewery, where I enjoyed a nice microbrew lager with an overpriced but decent hamburger. On to Mega J, where I suggested we buy a 5 liter tub of neopolitan ice cream to share among the 9 of us on the van instead of stopping at an ice cream shop later. Idea approve and implemented. Excellent idea. Too much ice cream, it was awesome. We headed down the West Coast, much of which I hadn't seen before. We stopped at Plas Kasav, where they make cassava bread in the old-fashioned way, on leaves in a huge 200-year old cast iron pot over hot coals; then a nice gift shop with local crafts between Canaries and Soufriere. Our last stop before heading home was a dip in the Sulfur Springs (I didn't go in, because I hate the hassle of the grime and the smell on my skin and bathing suit and everything blech). Plenty of nice lookout points along the way.

Excellent day, I'm very glad I went.

Today I'm working on my volunteer report for the current trimester. Looking back I've done a lot of things in the past four months. I'm sure you can look back and see that too!

Tomorrow we have an all-volunteer conference, so I'm looking forward to seeing everyone again. It has been quite a while, and I don't think I've been up to Castries in about a month!

Vegetarian Curry Patties!

After jerk chicken, Jamaican beef patties are one of the more well known Caribbean dishes. They're delicious savory pastries sort of like empanadas (which are kind of like turnovers), but the dough is denser. Jamaican cooking is full of strong, spicy flavors, so many different spices are usually used.

Here in St. Lucia food usually isn't hot-spicy, but we do use a lot of curries because of the East Indian population influence.

Inspired by this, limited by my choice to refrain from buying meat, I came up with my own version of a Jamaican patty. The veggies involved are onions, eggplant, and shredded cabbage, with lentils thrown in for protein. The patties aren't exactly low-fat (butter and shortening are used in the pastry, coconut milk in the filling), but they are filling and full of healthy stuff. Plus they're delicious!

Vegetarian Curry Patties

Pastry
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
2 tsp yellow curry powder
1/4 cup shortening
1/4 cup cold unsalted butter
1/2 black plantain, cooked, mashed, cooled (about 1/3 cup) (if not using plantain, make sure shortening and butter together total at least 3/4 cup)
1/2 cold water (more as needed)

Filling
1 Tbsp oil (I used soybean oil)
1 1/2 Tbsp yellow curry powder
1/4 tsp cayenne powder
salt to taste
1/2 cup white onion, finely chopped
1 large garlic clove, minced
1 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup dry lentils
1 cup eggplant, diced
1 cup cabbage, finely shredded and chopped
1 tsp fresh lemon juice

Flour for rolling dough
1 egg, beaten for brushing patties

1. If using a black (very ripe) plantain in the pastry, cut off both ends, cut in two, boil 10 minutes. Let it cool, remove the skin from one of the halves, and mash it up with a fork. Put it in the fridge for 10 minutes.
2. Sort, wash, and soak lentils. (Usually they don't need to be soaked, but with the oil and coconut milk in the filling they'll need the extra moisture to soften up.)
3. In a large bowl, start the pastry. Mix flours, salt, curry powder. Cut in shortening, butter, and plantain bit by bit. Mix thoroughly until everything clumps and breaks apart easily.
4. Add cold water bit by bit, mix until a tight ball of dough is formed. Wrap dough in plastic, refrigerate while you prepare the filling.
5. Dice eggplant to 1/4 inch cubes, toss with a pinch of salt, set aside.
6. Saute curry, cayenne, salt, and onion with oil in medium saucepan, 8 minutes over low-med heat. Add minced garlic, saute for 2 minutes, then reduce heat.
7. Add coconut milk, lentils, and eggplant (diced to 1/4" cubes). Cook uncovered for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add cabbage, continue to cook 10-15 minutes, letting the mixture reduce until it's moist but no longer soupy (resembling cooked ground beef, actually). If lentils don't soften after about 20 minutes, add 1/4 cup water, continue to cook and reduce. Add lemon juice, stir, remove from heat.
8. Preheat oven to 350F and get out the pastry dough.
9. Sprinkle a clean, dry, even surface with flour, and flour your trusty rolling pin. Pinch off a 3 inch ball of dough, flatten it, roll it out as you would a flour tortilla, but just a little thicker. Use a bowl between 5-7 inches diameter to cut a circle in dough.
10. Spoon the filling onto half the circle, leaving at least 1/2" around edge. Fold other half of pastry over, use a fork to press the two edges together, place on greased cookie sheet, brush with egg.
11. Repeat steps 7 and 8 to make all the patties. Cookie sheet with patties goes in the oven for 30-40 minutes.
Makes 5-14, depending on size.
I found that though the patties are good while they're still warm from the oven, they are a little too dry. After they've been covered at room temperature for a day, the pastry is softer and moister, and it can be reheated easily. Refrigerate after 1 day.
The aroma from the filling cooking was one of the best I've had in my apartment since I moved in. Sometime I'll do just the filling without reducing it and eat it over noodles as a fake Thai dish.