chef craig volunteered his apartment and expertise to the outing. he made:
- turkey...oh wait, chicken, since turkeys were too large for the oven
- cranberry sauce...i mean cherry sauce. cranberries apparently don't exist here
- homemade stuffing...stove top, how simple you make our lives
- homemade pumpkin pie...no cans of pumpkin. pumpkin pie is unheard of here
- homemade pecan pie...yum
the rest of us brought food, too. best friend, sara, and i chose to make pretzel salad and mashed potatoes at her place. we ended up buying a box of brownies, as well.
problem #1 = no 9x13 pan
problem #2 = oven doesn't have the right temperature and apparently bakes unevenly
problem #3 = no measuring cups
problem #4 = jello takes a long time to set-up
problem #5 = public transportation is bumpy
problem #6 = metro closes at 10:30 and buses go to unknown places
no problem on the pan. we found this flat giant one in the oven. no problem that the oven only heats to 250 instead of 400, we'll just bake the pretzel crust for closer to 15 minutes instead of 8. after about 10 minutes the burnt smell alerted us to take it out! good thing we still have some pretzels. we'll just find another make-shift pan, bake some more pretzels, then combine it with the not-so-burnt half of this one. actually, worked nicely.
all right, so no pan for the brownies, either. why don't we bake in skillets more often?
the crust was decent in our opinions, and the cream cheese/whipped cream mixture just barely covered it. i was making the jello and it called for 1/2 liter boiling water, which the box told us is 2 1/2 cups. i took a coffee mug to measure water and boiled it. i poured the boiling water into a pitcher with the jello pack to mix. the pitcher was already 3/4 full and i wondered how in the world i was going to fit the 1/2 liter of cold water. sara looked for another container to mix in, and it then hit us that this pitcher was filled with much more than 1/2 liter of water. i had used a big coffee mug, not the small one! haha. oops. we just compensated with less cold water and no longer needed a different container. but then when we poured the jello on top, it magically sunk to the bottom and turned out looking a little crazy. we put the finished pretzel salad in the fridge and the door wouldn't shut so we removed part of the door and took a deep breath.
the mashed potatoes were the easy part because we opted for a boxed mix we found. uncertain one pot was big enough for both boxes, we made the potatoes in two. after the water boils, you remove the pot from the heat and stir in the mix. well, we had no hot pads, so i grabbed a towel and slid the pot over to the unlit burner and my towel caught on fire! thankfully i flailed it around and the flames went out, leaving only one end of the towel slightly singed. after mixing the potatoes, i went to combine the two pots and totally dropped the one pot into the other. sara took over at this point.
it was time to leave and the pretzel salad was still liquid. praise god for tin foil in the house! we covered it and walked carefully. we hadn't even walked out of the neighborhood yet and sara was covered in jello. it sloshed out the sides little by little and we realized we were going to have to get on the bus with it! sara was going to need a seat. definitely. but then our bus had a flat part so she got to rest it there, being sure to tip it accordingly as we came to sudden stops and hit various bumps. we likened it to that game with the little ball.
dinner was so good it hurt. i still have a food baby at this point in time. too bad we enjoyed one another's company so much that we didn't leave until 10:30, when the metro closes. imagine our excitement when sara and i found a bus stop with the two buses we needed! 212 for me and 104 for her. at least, 212 is what people had told me runs by my house...
the streets were unfamiliar and after about an hour (yes, it takes that long to get home) i asked a lady if our bus goes by my street. "no, mi amor. este es santa rosa. baja con nosotros y hay otro bus por alla." she was basically saying, "nope, sure doesn't, but we'll help you out." i got off the bus with her and her husband whose giant bag with bows sticking out the top told me they'd been christmas shopping, and a small group formed strategizing which bus i should take. i crossed the street with a girl asking me if i was lost. what gave her that idea? some gringa wandering a dangerous street at 11:30 at night asking about a street that is super far away!
the little blue bus i needed arrived in no time and one of my rescuers told the driver to tell me when i was at my destination and to look out for me. people really are nice here. they take a responsibility for getting you home safely and protecting you along the way. public transportation. what an adventure.
side note: no, i don't take safety lightly, but living in a foreign land requires a humor only a traveler can understand.
and that, my friends, closes out one of the best days ever.
