Mid-Sabbatical Reflections (Part 2)

I had several goals for this family sabbatical time and now that we are midway through our 21 month sabbatical, I'm taking some time to reflect.

Terracing.  Peru during one of our scouting trips in 2007.

This is actually the fourth time that I had considered going overseas.  I thought about being a high school foreign exchange student.  Ultimately, I decided that I didn't want to leave my family a year early and I didn't want to leave my high school track and cross country teams.  (Ironically, my family moved to a different state my senior year, so the latter occurred anyway.)  I considered studying abroad in college, but I was involved in some activities that I didn't want to give up.  I decided in college that I would tour internationally for a year post-college with a music ministry team, but ended up having jaw surgery during spring break of my senior year and the post-op treatment plan required that I be stateside for the following year and a half.  So I got a job, saved my pennies and took an annual international trip, and dreamed about when I might be able to finally live overseas.

When Dave and I were dating, he mentioned that he wanted to live overseas, too, and that was one of the things that got me to thinking that he might be "the one."  Shortly after we married, we started planning our our next ten years and slotted in me getting an MBA, kids, and living in another country.  At first we were thinking that I might do an MBA via internet while living abroad but given that my employer helped pay for the MBA and that we didn't want to have kids in another country, we scheduled the plan like this: K gets MBA, have kid #1, have kid #2, move overseas when kid #2 is 2 years old.  And it all worked out almost exactly according to plan.  I came back from our March planning retreat and started my MBA program that May.  Three years later I was wrapping up my degree and Miss M made her appearance the day after my second-to-last class (contingency plan was in place and all the work was done so I graduated just fine).  Kid #2 came along just a hair later than expected, but we headed off to Peru when she was 18 months old (and it's worked out just fine).

Back in 2006 we were planning our eventual sabbatical.

On one of our scouting trips to Peru (2007) we were encouraged to dress in traditional clothing at our guest house near Lake Titicaca.  We look stunning!

10 years after Dave and I planned to move abroad (and about 20 years after I started thinking about living overseas), my goals for this family sabbatical (in no particular order except the first two were most important to me) were as follows:

1. Get to know our girls and cement our relationship.  I believe that this will be the bedrock of our relationship down the line and if I understand them well now, this will help when they are teens and beyond.  Subgoal: develop my parenting skills, understand my goals for our kids and get new tools to help me accomplish the goals in a manner that I want to be employing (not just what comes naturally as that may or may not be helpful).  
2. Spend time focusing on faith matters (studying the Bible, prayer, personal development, strengthening my relationship with God)
3. Formalize exercise and reestablish as a regular habit (like many new moms, this one bit the dust post kids)
4. Experience and better understand a foreign culture- have an adventure
5. Become fluent in Spanish
6. Take time out of the "I'm so busy" norm of American life and slow down.  Open up time for other things I enjoy like reading, baking/cooking, studying.
7. Do some online research for my Civil War era reenactment group.  I have been particularly interested in abolition and bringing that into my impression, as well as doing some research on the clothing that I want to make when I get back. That way I can just jump into sewing, knowing what I have is well researched.

This post is going to get too long if I talk about the first two goals now, but I'll come back to those in a future post.  Now that we are 11 months in, my other goals have morphed and changed, but in general I feel like I am accomplishing my goals.

• Exercise:  We don't have a car here and walk most everywhere.  I take combis occasionally (mostly on the way into school because we can't get it all together to allow enough time to walk there).  Even more rarely do we take a taxi.  We are fortunate in that our house is in a great location and we can walk to almost everything.  So, I'm doing a great job of getting regular amounts of basic exercise in.  I didn't bring a pedometer but I think I probably walk about 4 to 7 miles a day on school days (less if we are home for the day, of course).  However, my cardio exercise and stretching (yoga and TRX machine) are totally lacking.  I have gotten out the yoga mat and TRX machine once each.  I have done exercise videos from YouTube about 7 times since June 1.  Fortunately, my 20th high school reunion is next year and my old cross country teammates want to do a reunion run around Pine Lake (somewhere around 3-4 miles) so I have an end goal and I will have to get my butt in gear.  I'm not terribly out of shape right now but I'm not in great shape, either.
• Have an Adventure: Check.  Just living in another country means that you can have an adventure.  I know what we are doing is atypical and I'm grateful that we have this opportunity.  If I had it to do over again, I would still go.  It doesn't mean it's all been easy (in fact, some of the self-development and awareness has been downright painful and uncomfortable) but I think it's been a good kind of hard.  I am also really thankful for the support system we have (friends and family back home who are helping with the on the ground stuff that needs to happen with things like our house and finances, visitors who have come to lift our spirits and bring us things from home, and technology that allows us to communicate with them).  We also have a great expat community here (Facebook page where you can post and get answers to any number of questions, like where to buy something or how to handle a travel question or what some note from school means) and that has made all the difference in the world.  I feel like I could sympathize with visitors, refugees and immigrants to the US before, but now I think I will be better able to empathize with at least part of their experience.  We aren't refugees here, so it's not the same, but I look forward to continuing with refugee care when we return to the states. 

Life is always an adventure with Miss M!

• Become fluent in Spanish:  not so much.  I realized that I'm not going to achieve this one.  Miss M will- she's basically doing immersion by going to school for 5 hours a day.  Little A gets far less being at home (we speak English here) but she had a good start from 3 months to 18 months from our Columbian au pair and she hears a little bit here from Flor.  We plan to have another au pair when we go back and I think she will end up with fluency.  Dave has come a long way from almost no Spanish to being able to get around quite well (he's very diligent with doing an hour a day of Rosetta Stone).  I have found that my basic Spanish from high school and college has given me enough to navigate regular life (shopping, travel, interacting with people) and I have wanted to do so many other things that I don't want to put in the time to do formal study.  There are language schools and private teachers here, but I haven't wanted to put in the time or money for that kind of study.  Many people go to language school and spend a few hours a day in class and more time on homework.  I don't have 4-5 hours a day to dedicate and I guess this one has dropped in importance to me.  I would still like to become fluent, but I'm seeing myself on a different trajectory than I once envisioned.  
• Step out of the busy life: Check.  We have very little scheduled right now.  I try to chat regularly with family and friends via Skype but we have no hobbies, regular activities, or classes to work around.  We eat breakfast, lunch and dinner together as a family (except Miss M when she is at school).  We've tried a few formal classes/activities for Miss M but haven't found a great fit yet.  (So far, soccer, tennis, modern dance class, and a movement/dance class....we are waiting to see if ballet will be a fit and I would like to get her in swimming lessons before we come back to shore up her swimming skills.)  I'm curious how we will handle the reentry to the US.  In The Family Sabbatical Handbook, the author talks about how when they came back to the states, everyone seemed to have a nervous kind of energy that made them uncomfortable.  And people said that her family was different- more open and relaxed.  I'm curious if we will have a similar experience.   I am so glad to have my Kindle here and have read a number of books (including the Story Girl and Emily series by Lucy Maud Montgomery.  I have always loved her Anne books but hadn't read the other books she had written and I love them.)  It has been fun to have more time for reading.  I have also done some baking, a small amount of cooking, and have gotten to do some research. 

This is M at soccer.  The other kids are having a scrimmage.  She came back to hang out in the stands.

• Civil War era research: Check.  I have read two slave narratives so far (Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, written by herself (Linda Bryant) and Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington).  I just started on Slavery in the Upper Mississippi Valley.  My hope is to better understand slavery as it existed in our past and do my part to respectfully bring that part of our history into my reenacting impression.  I think that we still live with the legacy of slavery and deep-seated attitudes today.  I've also spent a lot of time online looking at the Sewing Academy forums and compendium, CDVs that people have uploaded to Pinterest, and planning out my sewing projects when I return. Here is my board of things I would like to recreate.   I already have a lot of fabric in our basement and just need the time to focus on sewing up my fabric into garments.  I also did a book club discussion on Incidents of a Slave Girl with some of the other members of my reenacting group and we are hoping to discuss another book.

All in all, I think that this sabbatical is definitely allowing me to fulfill several life goals and I'm glad we have had the opportunity.

Fish Stock: Historical Food Fortnightly Challenge #2

For background on the Historical Food Fortnightly, click here.

The Challenge: Soups and Sauces June 15 - June 28
Soups, stews, sauces, gravies! Make a soup or a sauce from a historical recipe.

I had planned to make catsup (homemade tomato ketchup) for this challenge but in the final days of the fortnight, two deaths happened that made me set aside the challenge and offer support to the grieving.  I ended up making the catsup for challenge #3 (on July 4) but I wanted to do all the challenges.  Betsy said to make the challenges work for us, and this fortnight I found myself with the scheduled challenge completed early (Indian Pudding) and the time, inclination, and raw materials to go back and finish an entry for challenge #2.

I happened to have some fish heads and guts (here in Peru, when you buy fish, you select your fully intact fish from the ice and they clean it for you.  You pay for it based on the total fish weight, and get a bag of fillets and a bag of fish guts, head, scales, etc.)  I took them because my friend said I could make stock with them.  It wasn't appealing to me (even after looking up what to do).  But then I realized I could turn my fish heads and guts into a challenge entry!  And my husband also wanted it out of the freezer.  Win-win.

The Recipe: Fish Stock (Recipe 192), The Book of Household Management, Mrs. Isabella Beeton, [1861] (p. 362) The Date/Year and Region: Recipe is English, published serially in 24 monthly parts in The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine from 1859-1861 and bound in 1861 as a book in London.

How Did You Make It: I omitted the beef or veal as the recipe stated it could be omitted.  I am making this for the challenge and may or may not actually use it for something.  I pulled the fish head/guts out of the freezer, where I had stashed it when it came home (not being able to look it in the face, so to speak, at the time).  I went to the market to buy two onions, two carrots, and a lemon.  We had the spices at home already.  I put the fish parts out to thaw (after weighing them to figure out how much of the price was related to the guts vs. the fillets) and washed then cut up the carrots and onions.  I peeled the lemon and put the lemon rind in the pot along with the other ingredients.  I pulled out my sweet spices (I went with the spices we had on hand based on what Mrs. Beeton recommended here and was pleased that she noted dried herbs in the winter months were ok.  We are in the winter months here and dried is what we have.)  

Time to Complete: About 20 minutes of casual hands on work to chop and throw stuff in the pot and 2 1/2 hours to simmer (about 30 minutes to warm the water and then I left it for two hours).  About another 15 minutes to strain it at the end and clean up. (I poured the stock through a strainer and rescued the carrots.  The rest got tossed.) 

Total Cost: $3.40 USD The white fish (liza) is apparently part of the mullet family and is fished in Peruvian waters.  This cost 14.60 soles per kilo.  The weight of the fish guts was 39.86% of the total (you can choose to take or leave the fish guts but you pay for the fish as a whole).  So, the fish guts cost 5.91 soles (about $2.12 USD) or free, depending on your opinion.  I would typically regard them as garbage.  The onions, carrots, and lemon cost 3 soles (about $1.08 USD).  We bought the spices from someone moving away; I would guess the amount I used was maybe 50 centimos (about 20 cents USD). I added about 1/4 cup total of spices, with the bulk being mint because that is what we have the most of.  (I didn't actually measure, just dumped stuff in the pot.) I also used marjoram, savory, and some other green leaf that wasn't labeled but we had in a spice bag. Mrs. Beeton says this will cost 3d per quart, and I assume this makes at least 1 quart (you start with 2 quarts of water).  [Mine did make about 1 quart.]  I don't know the British money, though, so I'm not sure how much this was or what the modern equivalent would be.  If someone knows about British money, enlighten me.  I tried to look it up but got lost.

How Successful Was It?: My 6 year old daughter was not impressed with the smell (upon coming downstairs she said, "AAH!  I can't come down the stairs with that stinky fish head smell!")  My husband came down and asked how long we had to put up with the smell.  He then closed the door that separates the kitchen from the rest of the house and opened the kitchen windows.  (Side note: I use Young Living Essential Oils and when the complaints poured in, I used Purification Oil in the diffuser and it really helped a ton!  I love that oil for helping with stink.)

It made just short of a quart of stock after I strained the veggies and spices out.  I took a taste and it has a TON of fat in it....pretty slimy/thick, like cod liver oil in a way.  I may or may not use this for something we eat.  I'm not sure if the family will eat it or not.   If anyone has a fish stock based recipe you love, let me know!  [ed. note: I am thinking I should have done more skimming and when it's cooled, perhaps I can skim off the fat that should have come off earlier.]

UPDATE: This stuff stinks.  Really, really stinks.  And it stank up every container it was in (the stainless steel pot, the glass liter pitcher (which my husband requested I remove it from because it was stinking up the fridge due to the small holes in the lid), and the glass container to which it was transferred.  Once cooled, at least half the amount was solid fat.  It's probably great for something, but not great for us.  It went in the garbage.  But that liza is one fatty fish.

How Accurate Is It?: As accurate as I could make it.  I used real fish guts, prepared in the correct manner, with the right kind of spices and ingredients.  Per usual, cooked on a modern stove.

Time to Research:  I spent about 30 minutes looking for a soup recipe I could use.  Lydia Child's American Frugal Housewife was light on soups and so I turned to Mrs. Beeton's.  She had a number of options but when I came upon the fish stock recipe it all clicked and I knew what I was going to make.

My ingredients- fish parts in the bag, carrots, onions, lemon, and spices.  The teeny limes are the kind you can usually get here, they start green but these are kind of old and turned yellow.  My vegetable lady had the American lemon when I went to buy the onions and carrots so I used that.

Liza (the type of whitefish) I bought.  They bag up the fish guts separately from the fillets (you select the whole fish and they fillet it for you).

All the ingredients in the pot!

Added the water to the pot and started cooking it for 2 hours.

Mrs. Beeton said to strain the stock, just like modern recipes do.  And I knew I couldn't leave the fish bones in the stock (ouch!)

Here's what it looked like with the veggies and fish parts removed.

There was a lot of spice left after pouring the stock into my container.

I rescued the carrots and rinsed them off.  I hate wasting food!

The finished product.  You can see the fat on the side.  This is a 1 liter pitcher so the net amount is just under a quart.

Indian Pudding: Historical Food Fortnightly Challenge #4

For background on the Historical Food Fortnightly, click here.

The Challenge: “Foreign Foods” July 13 - July 26
Make a dish that reflects the historical idea of “foreign” - either foods with a loose connection to foreign lands, named after faraway places, or attributed to foreigners. Real connections to actual foreign countries not necessary!

I'm in Peru, so anything American is foreign to me right now.  But I'm also trying to bake most of my things from the US Civil War timeframe (1860s) and I own a copy of the Frugal American Housewife at home.  I'm using my Kindle version here and baking through the book in these challenges so I have some go-to recipes when we return and rejoin reenacting.  I also thought this was a good recipe for "foreign" as it references Indians and Native American tribes are sovereign nations.

Indian Pudding (aka "Hasty Pudding as mentioned in Yankee Doodle) was a quick, easy way to make a dessert and bake it for a long time using residual heat from the hearth or stove.

The Recipe: Baked Indian Pudding, The Frugal Housewife, Lydia Child. (p. 61 in this edition.) 

The finished product, minus the tasting bite.  Not much to look at, huh? That's what the modern recipe pages said, too. Many people serve with whipped cream or ice cream and put it in a mold so it looks nicer.

How Did You Make It: I followed the directions, purchasing milk from the milk lady a few blocks from our house and scalding the milk (which just means to heat it until it starts to bubble but not boil, then cooling).  I put the milk in the baking dish and then added everything else and stirred in the dish.  I have used real tablespoons and teaspoons from our silverware for these challenges and for fun compared sizes to my real measuring spoons.  A heaping silver table spoon is actually pretty close to my measured tablespoon.  I chose to do half ginger and half cinnamon because I love cinnamon but we have tons of powdered ginger.

For those of you who care or want to recreate this:  I used 1 quart milk (started with 1 liter and when skimmed it yielded 1 quart).  My teacup (which I successfully used in a prior recipe) was about 3/4 cup so I put in 3/4 cup molasses.  I took a dinner spoon (large one) and put 7 heaping spoonfuls of corn meal in.  When I compared 1 table spoon to a modern official tablespoon measure, they were basically identical.  I used a smaller spoon from my regular silverware set and put in about half of one of those (probably close to half a teaspoon) of sea salt because the sea salt here is very salty.  I always use one quarter to one half the amount that a recipe calls for. I put in a small mounded (not heaping) tea spoon of ground ginger and one slightly more heaping tea spoon of cinnamon because the recipe overall called for a heaping spoonful of one or the other.

Time to Complete: Shopping took the longest hands-on time as I had to figure out what molasses was called and where I could get it.  Success on the fourth store I visited.  We don't have a car and I walked to the different stores, but also comboed with other errands.  I probably spent 30 minutes just trying to find molasses, 2 hours if you count the walking (most of which I would have done anyway).  In terms of making this, it's a very fast, straightforward process with limited hands-on time.  This would have been an excellent dessert to whip up quickly with a handful of ingredients and take advantage of the residual heat from the stove or hearth.  Hands on time to mix was only about 5-10 minutes.  (I suppose that's why they call it Hasty Pudding.) Total baking time: I was aiming for 200 degrees to have a hope of hitting the 3 hours of baking time, but when I came back and checked the oven thermometer said it was 325 so I stopped at 2 hours. Modern recipes did higher heat- about 350 seemed to be the consensus- for 1.5 to 2 hours.  I suspect that the oven that Lydia Child was expecting was lower heat and therefore took longer to bake. 

Total Cost: about $3.50 USD Breakdown: 2 soles (~$.72 USD) 1 liter of milk (after scalding and skimming, a perfect quart); 14.50 soles (~$5.20) for a container of melaza (molasses); I used about half. 2.90 soles (~$1.04) for a package of cornmeal but I only used 7 tablespoonfuls.  Cinnamon, salt and ginger negligible cost.

How Successful Was It?: It depends on your definition of success.  I think it baked well and probably tastes like it is supposed to.  In terms of if I like it or would want to make it again.....not so very much . I am not a huge molasses fan (true story, my bottle of molasses lasted something like 8 years and I gave it away, mostly full, when we moved to Peru).  The whole thing tasted very molasses-y and that's the only sweetener.  I think I would probably prefer the more modern recipes which use far less molasses, add some regular sugar and eggs and use a more finely ground cornmeal.  I have to figure out what to do with this pan.  The most I have eaten is a spoonful and my daughter tried it and was not a fan.  It did smell heavenly when baking, though.  I expect that the flavor would have been more to the liking of people who lived in the past and weren't in a sugar and processed food saturated diet.

UPDATE: I didn't get to doing anything with this in time and it molded in the fridge.  I was going to have my husband use it in a batch of homemade ginger molasses cookies.  I would still like to try a recipe with less molasses and more sugar.

How Accurate Is It?: I think it's pretty accurate, the milk is even more accurate than I would have had in the US as we don't buy raw milk there.  Obviously, I used my "modern" oven but even that has more in common with a wood fired stove than my US oven as it works off a propane tank and is notoriously uneven at heating.  My baking dish is glass and I would have used a metal one (or ideally, a mold) if I had one.  (Kit Cusick, I could make this for a Harvest Hop in the future if you share one of your many molds!)

Time to Research:  About 5 minutes to find the recipe and about 20 minutes to figure out the backstory on Indian Pudding, what temperature (as that information was left out), what kind of dish, etc.  Here are some interesting links I found that might help you if you want to make this.

Fun NPR article about the history of Indian Pudding  (you can listen or read)  Also includes a modern recipe.

History and another modern recipe, including information about how the author makes this for her Thanksgiving meals.

Modern recipe, including a pretty picture.

Modern recipes often included more ingredients than Lydia Child, things like eggs, vanilla, sugar, or maple syrup.  I have every expectation that these versions taste good, but they would also be more complicated and expensive than the Frugal Housewife recipe.

Four stores but I finally found it!  Melaza (aka molasses)

My journey starts with a trip to the milk lady, a few blocks from our house.

She comes each morning and sits here for a few hours or until the milk sells out.
I brought our pot to avoid getting the milk in a plastic bag.  Not just to avoid the plastic, but I'm always scared I'm going to lose all the milk when trying to get it out of the plastic bag.

In she goes!

After scalding the milk you can see a fat layer on top.  Scalding just means
heating the milk until it starts to bubble and turning off the heat before it boils.

Adding 7 tablespoonfuls of corn meal (aka polenta)

In goes the molasses!

I think the author of The American Frugal Housewife would be proud of my scraping job.

This took about half of my jar of molasses, which took about 2 hours and 4 different stores to find here in Peru.  The main baking supply stores don't carry it.

Before going in the oven to bake.  It's dark from the molasses and cinnamon.

Post oven.

Here's a spoonful.  It's very molasses flavored.  A bit too strong for my tastes.

Mid-Sabbatical Reflections (Part 1)

We are just over halfway through our sabbatical.  We decided to take a full year off of work and soon I will start working 10 hours a week for my employer (thanks to the wonders of technology, internet connections, and the ability to VPN into a virtual desktop in Minnesota).  In some ways the time has gone quickly and in others it's dragged on.

I suppose I will miss having scenery like this be a regular daily experience.

I hit my low point at Easter, about 8 months in.  I missed home so much I wasn't sure I could make it the whole time without going back home (as was our going in plan).  I started looking at how much it cost to fly home and was quickly jolted to reality with the high cost of airline tickets.  There wasn't enough money for our whole family to make the trip home, my Delta frequent flier miles would only cover two tickets and anyway, the available dates didn't work for us.  (To his credit, my husband said that if I needed to go, I could...but we really could only afford for me to go and I didn't think the relatives would be as happy to see me without the kids.)  So I pushed through and stayed, and after a week or so of moping, I didn't feel so sad.  Now I feel fine about staying here through the end.

A large part of that is the friendships that have started to deepen here.  I am participating in a weekly bible study with some other women that has been great both from the study part (the beatitudes from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount- those "blessed are the...." statements) and just getting to hang out and talk with other expat moms.  Two are married to Peruvians and have a better understanding of the culture than I do and the other is from Australia and has been living in Latin America for years.  From this I have learned it's important not to underestimate the importance of a support structure.  Dave worked for Arrive Ministries (formerly World Relief Minnesota) for 5 years running an English language school for Somali refugees.  I'm hoping that we can help people who are coming to the US as refugees when we get home (because I understand how crucial that kind of support can be- and I would think even more important for people who come without the resources we have and who don't have the option of returning home).

Someone asked what things (besides friends and family) I miss from the US and what I think I might miss most from Peru.  Since family and friends make up the bulk of what I miss, the things I am listing below might seem inconsequential, but they are the things I most miss now and what I think I will miss from Peru when we go back home.

Top Things I miss from the United States (in no particular order):

• Dairy products.  I really, really, really miss cheese, ice cream, and milk.  It's possible to buy all of those things here, but the common cheese (queso fresco) is different (and any cheese besides queso fresco is fairly expensive).  I am not really a fan of queso fresco (and I accidentally stumbled upon the fact that it's illegal to sell in at least some states because it's made with unpasteurized milk).  I have found a few restaurants that sell delicious ice cream, but you can't buy that kind of ice cream in grocery stores for love or money.  The stuff they sell there is basically sub par ice milk with vegetable fat and little to no dairy.  I have been able to make homemade ice cream a couple of times but that doesn't compare to the ease of picking up a few packages of Breyer's and throwing them in the freezer for when the ice cream craving hits.  We currently pasteurize our cow milk (having tired of UHT milk) but that comes complete with its own challenges, like supply not being even and the fact that it sours much faster than storebought milk in the states (you have maybe 4-5 days tops, meaning we have to get and pasteurize milk twice a week.  [Shout out to my husband who takes on this task and does a great job with milk management].  I use up the sour milk with our weekly pancake breakfast on Sunday mornings.
• Mexican style food.  Because, cheese (see above) and tortillas (very hard to find here and the ones you can buy are mostly gross).  We did find a place to buy 8 inch corn tortillas....for 40 cents each.  And we got some.  That's how desperate we are.  I don't really want to make them and am looking forward to coming back home where it will be easy to purchase packages of corn tortillas.  
• Church services in English.  We have gone to several different services in Spanish here.  And it's ok, and a chance to try to better learn Spanish.  But really, we miss almost all of what is going on besides a high level understanding and I miss being able to go to church and know for sure that I will understand (at least the words being spoken if not always all of the concepts or the speaker's point.)  It is no surprise to me that people who move to the US from other countries often set up their own living areas with cultural things that are normal to them and also worship services in their own language.  I supported that before and am stronger in that belief since living here.
• Holidays  It has been interesting to see what holiday traditions are like here; some holidays (like Thanksgiving and 4th of July) aren't celebrated at all in Peru.  Others holidays have tons of traditions that rely on family and friends and home culture, so we have just done things another way while down here.  It's been fine, but I'm glad it's for a limited time.
• Free babysitting! We are very fortunate in that our entire family lives in our metro area.  My mom came almost every Friday to give us a date night (and give her time with the grandkids) and my in-laws were always willing to help out when we needed some childcare.  We don't have anything like that here, though thankfully we do have Flor and Dave and I get a weekly lunch date.
• The wide availability of just about anything I want to buy. While Amazon.com does ship to Peru, the transit time, import taxes (starting at about 30%) and bans (vitamins are near impossible to get in the country), as well as the cost to ship (usually 100% of the item, especially if heavy) make that a less than desirable option . Fortunately, we have had enough visitors who have been willing to bring us things that it hasn't been a major concern for us.  But it does seem like Christmas whenever someone comes!  I am looking forward to being able to get whatever I want, when I want it, without a large markup.  (I bought some omega-3/6 pills here that were a quality US brand and cost twice as much as the list price in the States.)
• Understanding how things work because it is your culture There are lots and lots of things we just don't get here....and we knew coming in that is how it would be.  It hasn't been horrible and because we haven't been working, we have had more time to just do what needs to be done or take the time to figure it out.  But it will be nice to get back in our home culture and know how so much works without really thinking about it.  (Though it will be a little weird to have a second grader in the states without having gone through kindergarten or first grade there....)
• Garage Sales, Consignment Shops and Thrift Stores  I love buying used things.  That kind of culture doesn't exist here.  There is a kind of stigma against buying used, so there are very few shops that sell used clothing (there is a market that sells overstock from places like Savers and Goodwill but I learned they are technically illegal).  The only garage sales are from expats who are moving on (I've gone to maybe 4 since we came last August and hosted one to help a friend who had extra stuff to sell).  I love going to these, not only because of the deals but also because of the fun.  I would always prefer to get a deal and it's very easy to do that when buying used.
• Seasons (the weather here is fairly consistent all year and it's "perfect" weather- upper 60s to low 70s as a high, very little rain).  But I actually miss the changing of the seasons.  It took a good 6 months for me to get over feeling like I was living in the movie Groundhog Day.  (I will say that we picked a great winter to miss, and your spring hasn't been anything special, either.  But I miss seasons in general.)
• Dishwasher To be fair, Dave washes almost all of the dishes, but I kind of like the convenience of a nice dishwasher.  So, I will be happy to have it back again.
• My Bernina sewing machine  It's a bit ironic in that sewing was for many, many years a difficult thing for me.  I bought a Bernina sewing machine early in my reenacting hobby years and I use it not only to make Civil War era garments but also for mending and little home sewing projects.  I couldn't bring it down here and I have missed having a sewing machine.  I just bought a Singer machine from someone moving away from Peru.  It's ok and works ok, but it's nothing like my Bernina.  (When I start saying things like this, Dave begins to strut around with a swagger and starts saying things like, "Never saw the likes of my Bernina Activa 131.  Whew!  That baby can sew through three, four layers of fabric like it's nobody's bizness.")  But I really do miss it.  Especially when the Singer needle bends from going through four layers of polar fleece.
• LHS (my historical hobby group) I have missed doing my hobby (though I have been doing lots of reading and online research).  And they have had a few super cool activities while we've been down here (like Winter Weekend, our annual ball/winter festival...they went sleigh riding with real horses in an antique sleigh!)  The nice thing is that my clothing will still be in style when we get back.

You have no idea how good this really is.

I saw this here once (for about $7...when it regularly goes on sale in the US for $1.50).
I didn't buy it, but I have never seen it again and I wonder if I should have purchased it for some special food occasion.

Things I thought I might miss from the US but don't:

• Microwave.  We opted not to buy a microwave here (little counter space and we knew we would be cooking more).  We haven't missed it.  We heat up our food on the stove and it's not a big deal.  However, if you throw chips, cheese and mexican food back in the equation....I think that microwave is going to be looking pretty good.
• Driving.  We don't have a car here and walk almost everywhere.  When that doesn't work, our next choice is a combi (local mini-bus transportation) and if we are really desperate, a taxi.  Sometimes it's a pain not to be able to just go where we want, but driving here is expensive and I don't miss not having the maintenance concerns.

Things we started here that I wonder if we'll be able to keep up back home:

• Family Night We've been doing a weekly family night on Fridays.  Usually that means we go out to a restaurant (by the time we get home, it's time for bed for the girls).  We have been alternating between a kid pick and grownup pick for the restaurant.  When we were back home, Dave worked Tues/Wed/Thurs nights and Dave and I had date night on Fridays.  So having a dedicated night for family time was a little harder.  We aren't sure what Dave will be doing when we get home (for the summer he will probably go back to handyman stuff but after that it's a bit up in the air) and so I'm not sure if we will have the whole family there most nights or if we'll try to do something like Sunday afternoons for family time.  But I would like to try to keep it up.
• Spanish Practice I want to be sure that we give the girls the gift of bilingualism.  So I want to be sure that we create opportunities for them to continue learning Spanish as naturally as possible.

2013 Thanksgiving meal- traditions take on new meaning and can be difficult to maintain in a new culture

Things I think I will miss most from Peru: (the shorter list here doesn't mean that we haven't enjoyed our time here; but rather it's easier to know what you miss when it's gone and we really like our life in Minnesota)

• More time to do what I want to do.  Because I don't have a full time job here and because we have someone who comes in three days a week to help with the laundry, general house cleaning, and some cooking and childcare, and because Dave takes on most of the cooking and dishwashing, I have much more free time than I did in the US.  I can't say that I'm making the absolute most of that, but I am doing a lot of things that I had less time for in the States.  Things like online research, blog reading, writing, and leisure reading.
• Leisure reading.  This really deserves a bullet point of its own.  I have read more books just for fun in the past 10 months than I think I read in a few years.  I've always been a big reader, but most of my reading in the years since having kids has been about parenting and not so much reading just for fun.
• Super economical organic (or near organic) veggies  We have a vegetable lady just a couple of blocks from us.  It's fun to be able to buy vegetables from the person who grows them (she grows some and sells some from others).  On average, our vegetables cost around $1-2 per pound, closer to $1.  For reasons I really haven't been able to figure out, they grow a ton of vegetables here but most Peruvians don't eat much fruit or veggies.  Instead, they fill up on meat, potatoes, and rice.  There are so many fruit and vegetable options here and they are very fresh and cheap.  We will still eat a lot of fruit and veg when we get home, but we will be paying more for it and it won't be as economical (even when going to the farmer's market).  
• Sun There is almost always sun here.  Sometimes it is problematic because we are close to the ozone hole, so you have to be careful about how much time you spend directly in the sun.  But we are close enough to the equator that there is around 12-14 hours of daylight during the day (depending on the time of year) and it's almost always sunny.  That is a nice thing to have.  I do miss the long summer days, but it's been nice to not have the short winter days.
• Easy access to practice Spanish  Miss M should be fluent in Spanish by the time we come back (at a 7 year old level).  She has been doing great learning at school.  When we come back, we plan to get another au pair from Colombia to help the girls keep up on their Spanish, but it won't be the same as full immersion.  Dave and I don't have the same immersion experience, but we have opportunities to practice Spanish with native speakers, which you can't easily replace.
• Visitors  We have had the pleasure of hosting a few visitors so far (with a few more to come!)  It's like Christmas when they come because you haven't seen these people face to face in so long.  I will be glad to be closer to everyone (and Skype has been wonderful for keeping in touch) but I wonder if I will miss a little bit of that over the top excitement when seeing everyone becomes more commonplace/accessible.  I also wonder if we will be as proactive about keeping in touch when we live so much closer to everyone.

Just another sunny January afternoon

Things I don't think I will miss from Peru:

• Dust. It's everywhere, given that we live in a desert and there isn't much rain to tamp things down.  This last rainy season was a bust (hardly rained at all) so we didn't get to see if that changed anything.  It's very hard to keep dust out of the house because it's tracked in on feet and the windows don't actually seal tight.  Flor sweeps the house three days a week and there is always a nice small pile of dust.  It also makes wearing white clothing an impossibility (for me, anyway) and it wears out clothing faster.
• Dental issues.  We aren't sure if it's the water (high metal content) or something else, but my teeth and the girls' teeth have taken a hit since coming here.  I've got little holes in my teeth that I'm trying to remineralize through some hippie measures (homemade toothpaste out of bentonite clay and essential oils, oil pulling with coconut oil, and I'll be starting fermented cod liver oil and butter oil when it comes down with someone).  The sensitivity is gone and they don't seem to be getting worse, but I have at least six small holes and I would prefer not to have them filled here.  I never had this kind of trouble in the states.  I'm kind of glad that Miss M hasn't lost any teeth yet so that whatever happens, it's just to her baby teeth.

So, those are my thoughts about being midway through....I have been thinking about what I want to make sure I do in the rest of our time, and I will write about that in my next blog post.

July 4th- the Holiday that (Almost) Isn't

We didn't come to Peru with any illusions that the United States' independence day would be a celebratory event.  We are only in Peru for one 4th of July and so it's not a big deal to miss it.  (Besides, the Peruvian independence day celebrations are the end of this month, so it's kind of like we'll still get an independence day celebration a few weeks late.)

There is an expat community here, but we didn't have any specific plans and there wasn't a general 4th of July party to attend.  We thought about trying to have something, but we had a big garage sale on July 5th, so that put the concept of running two large events back to back as something that should not be attempted.
I made star shaped sugar cookies and picked out the red, white and blue stars from a set of sprinkles.  Coupled with red and blue frosting (I forgot to keep any of the frosting white....oops) we had a child friendly patriotic hands-on event.

Our patriotic cookie activity

We never said we were professionals but they slipped down quite easily

Our pictures are not high quality this time around-
there was more happiness than depicted here.

Miss Sugar-kins had happy faces the whole time.

I managed to cobble together a patriotic ensemble for Little A (who promptly destroyed the pants with a diaper explosion after refusing to get her picture taken).  I thought about and decided against bringing any clearly US themed clothing with us (reasoning that we were in another country and it wasn't necessary to advertise from whence we came, and I couldn't justify the space for something we might wear once or twice).

The best picture I got before the diaper incident.
Red and white striped shirt and jeans with stars.

What I wasn't expecting is that people at M's school would not only know it was our independence day but do something to celebrate it!  M's teachers gave her gifts (a paper US flag from her English teacher and a bookmark and purse from her classroom teacher).  Another mom who is a Peruvian married to an American gave her a cupcake with a US flag stuck in the top.  And many people wished me happy independence day when Little A and I went to pick up Miss M.  Unexpectedly nice.

Miss M's muffin that was given by another mom at school

We missed the fireworks display, fun events in the park, and especially grilled food (we don't have a grill here and it's basically impossible to buy a good burger from restaurants here) but we look forward to celebrating next year shortly after our return.  Both girls will probably even be old enough to stay up for and enjoy the fireworks display!

Homemade Catsup: Historical Food Fortnightly Challenge #2 & 3

For background on the Historical Food Fortnightly, click here.

The Challenge(s):
Challenge 2. Soups and Sauces June 15 - June 28
Soups, stews, sauces, gravies! Make a soup or a sauce from a historical recipe.

Challenge 3. Today in History June 29 - July 12
Make a dish based on or inspired by a momentous occasion that took place on the day you made it. Get creative - you would be surprised by all the interesting things that happened every single day!

A number of personal, friend, and family issues conspired to prevent me from making my homemade catsup as planned for challenge #2, but then I realized that if I made it on July 4, I could still make the ketchup with the purchased tomatoes and count it, since what could be more American than catsup  on a day that I wasn't going to be going to any barbecue gathering (due to our current Peruvian location).

The Recipe: Catsup, The Frugal Housewife, Lydia Child (taken from a book by Susannah Carter), [late 1700s or early 1800s] (p. 33 in this edition or pg 26, search on "catsup" in the free Kindle edition to find.) 

Screen grab of the recipe itself\

*Note, when putting in the reference for this recipe, I noticed the title was "The Frugal Housewife."  I had bookmarked this link as Lydia Child's book the American Frugal Housewife and when trying to figure out why the difference in title, learned that Lydia Child copied an earlier book by Susannah Carter.  I checked the Kindle version of the American Frugal Housewife and the recipe and instructions are identical except that Lydia Child added you were supposed to remove the garlic before the catsup is bottled.  Lacking that information, I had elected to mince the garlic clove.

How Did You Make It: I got four tomatoes.  By the time that I got around to making this recipe on July 4, they were a little bruised and overripe, but I decided that added to the authenticity.  I used a stainless steel pot to cook the tomatoes and hand squeezed the tomatoes as suggested.  I "set in" the cooked tomatoes with salt and left out on the counter.  I hypothesize they did not cool the catsup (no refrigerators) but counted on the high quantity of spices and salt to preserve it.  After the 24 hour period, I moved my catsup to the fridge but left it in the open bowl intending to come back and spice it the next day.  By the time I got around to finishing this (6 days after initially cooking the tomatoes), the extra liquid had evaporated. Because of that, I just added spices and didn't bother cooking again to reduce the mixture. I don't have a sieve here in Peru and I'm not going to buy one so we lived with seeds in the catsup. 

Spicing: Per usual, there are not directions regarding the amount of spice other than to say "generous."  For four average sized round tomatoes, I used 4 balls of allspice, 1 peppercorn, 1 whole clove (I crushed the whole spices and then chopped on a cutting board as I don't have a mortar and pestle or grinder here), a generous shake of ground cloves, shake of ground pepper, shake of sea salt in addition to salt added the first day, 1 minced garlic clove, pinch of nutmeg (instead of mace).  Spices are very expensive here so I skipped buying mace and subbed nutmeg instead and you cannot buy mustard seed here.  I could buy an overpriced jar of ground mustard seed but I opted not to do that.

Time to Complete: About 1 hour (completed in parts).

Total Cost: I am not sure how much my tomatoes cost (my husband went to market) but I'm guessing the whole thing was rather cheap, less than $2USD.

How Successful Was It?: I really enjoyed the taste- the flavors were much more nuanced than a store bought ketchup today.  There was no sugar or vinegar in the recipe so it tasted quite different and was full of unexpected flavors.  I can imagine they enjoyed something like this with meat and it's relatively easy to make. We happened to have a roast made and it was delicious!  (Although the cloves came out a little strong and our 6 year old preferred the modern ketchup.)

I would make this again for modern life and/or for my Civil War reenacting.  My husband tried it with both the roast and on quinoa patties and said he thought it complemented the meat especially well.

How Accurate Is It?: As accurate as I could make it given where I was with the tools and ingredients I had.

Time to Research:  Approximately 1 hour, not long at first as I figured I could find a catsup recipe in Lydia Child's book, but a little longer to solve the mystery of the title page that didn't have an author's name nor publication date.

I put the tomatoes in boiling water and then
slipped the skins off.  Here are the skins by themselves.

The yield from four tomatoes (skin off, quartered).

I accidentally made some homemade butter from cream when trying to do whipped cream
in my (overly) powerful food processor.  So I used a little of it for this recipe,
which recommended putting the tomatoes in a pot with a little butter, salt, and spoonful of water.

My spices.  Started with whole spices where possible but I used
what I had.  Spices are 2-3x as much as I pay for them in the States.
Conventional spices here in Peru are even more expensive than organic spices back home.

My first attempt at crushing the spices (using two nesting glass bowls).

Then I moved to chopping the spices (allspice balls and peppercorns).

The finished product on a quinoa patty.

Four tomatoes yielded only this much catsup.