This is not a Food Blog

...but if you know me, you know I really love food. And I write about what I love.

This week has been an adventure in the land of culinary delight, starting with a potluck with my Bible study Monday. The last dish I shared with this group was my amazing Perfect Hershey's Chocolate cake - you know the one - I usually make it two days in a row because the first one dissappears overnight. It's my secret chocolate glaze recipe that tops it off. (It's really only a secret because I don't measure or make it the same every time, it's just really incredible. Then again, it is chocolate. What more do you need to know?) Anyway. I really didn't know how to top Hershey's Perfect Chocolate Cake, so I went on an entirely different route.

I started with all of this

And I chopped and diced and mixed and tasted and chopped some more.

Mixed in a little hot sauce, olive oil, salt, pepper, and lemon juice. It was delicious but could have used pinto beans, I decided. Oh for the love of salsa.

The next night of culinary adventures brought us to HuHot Mongolian grill, where you fill up a bowl of raw meats, vegetables, tofu, noodles and sauces and the grill chefs cook it infront of you. My sister and brother in law met me in Rochester after work and took me out to a wonderful dinner of catching up and laughing. It was so great to see them.

Tonight I decided to tackle the artichoke that's been residing in my drawer in the refrigerator for the past seven days. Have you ever seen (or tried to cook) a whole artichoke? It's a little daunting, but turned out to be much simpler than expected. My superviser claims drinking the water that the artichoke is boiled in gives you wonderful skin. She's always got great Eastern remedies and food tips to offer. I'll keep you posted on the artichoke-water facial. (So far all I've concluded is that it tastes like sweet corn. And it's bright green.)

The semester where I learned how to throw a party

My internship has been a wonderful experience this semester. I could go on and on about what I've learned about program management, policies, chairing committees, staying awake through board meetings, and being asked to speak at the SASW meeting later this month. Wait, what? Yeah, more on that some other day.

But today I learned how to throw a party. I even got out of seminar (read: 3 hours of how does that make you feel?) to help plan and host this party. It was my agency's annual staff celebration for a job well done. IMAA's incredible staff had gone above and beyond all goals in 2009 and we needed to celebrate. Instead of taking the whole team to Hawaii, the executive director left us in charge of a Hawaiian theme party luncheon.

My supervisor and myself. I don't do theme parties, but when your boss (and therefore you) are the one hosting, you kind of have to. It was fun though, and the food tasted even better than it looked.

And if I do say so, it looked amazing.

Not shown: spring rolls, egg rolls, fried rice, sticky rice, chicken wings, fresh coconut, punch, sauces, and some sugary fried desserts that were pretty amazing. I probably won't have to eat for the next three days.

What a great group. We had a lot of fun and ate alot of food. I think the staff was really encouraged, and we got to forget about the snow and ice outside as we cranked the heat up to 75 and enjoyed a sunny lunch room.

Tomorrow is Vietnamese New Year and I'm headed back to Rochester to staff a booth and see the Lion Dance (I'll let you know what that is after I know) and eat lots more wonderful food.

Then I have Sunday and Monday to catch a movie and relax a little before the craziness begins again. Oh yeah, and write a speech for that engagement later this month.

I suppose it´s been awhile

You might be happy to know that after a big scare Tuesday night that all my pictures were permanently deleted, the first two or three weeks´worth are currently being uploaded to facebook. My camera is really struggling though and I don´t know what´s wrong with it. Surprising, I know, since my camera knowledge is so complete. We´re just hoping it hangs in there long enough to document the last few days in Spain and deliver the pictures to my computer at home.
So, what have we been up to this week?
Monday morning our cooking class was cancelled for a Moroccan party for the women that come to and work at the center. We had a great turnout and lots of wonderful sweets and Moroccan tea. I love Moroccan tea and am hoping to discover a teteria in the cities when I return. But the party was a great experience to hear the women chatting and singing. Some girls we had spent time with last week explained some different Muslim songs, foods and traditions, like the five-day wedding ceremony. Yikes.
Tuesday there are no classes at the center but we get a huge supply of fruits and vegetables to give to the immigrant families. Most of these families came from Morocco to make a better life for themselves, but the job market is not great right now and it´s been really difficult. The fruits and vegetables help the women put food on the table for their families. The shipment came really late so Katrina and I ran to the market and picked up a few ingredients and made cookies while we waited. Katrina´s baking reputation far outshines my own, but my roommates will be glad to know we use the same recipe and everyone loved them.
Wednesday we also cancelled classes and went to Gilbraltar, which is owned by England. We were hoping to get our passports stamped, but they hardly glanced at my closed passport when we walked through, and the wait getting out was nearly 2 hours, so again they hardly glanced at them. Really? I mean seriously, I could have smuggled so many things in or out of that country. I don´t know what one would smuggle from Gibraltar, but I could have. When we arrived at Gilbralter is was cloudy and foggy, so even the view from the top of the mountain wasn´t spectacular. As the day went on, the clouds burned off some, so we did catch a glimpse of Morocco across the strait. By the time we got OFF the mountain, the clouds disappeared so I´m sure the view then would have been amazing. Gilbraltar is very touristy, which I think is unfortunate, but still very cool. It has a sweet history of conquests and such which I need to learn more about, but it´s basically a huge rock (mountain) at the southernmost tip of Europe which is owned by England but pretty much in Spain. The narrowest part of the strait (of Gibraltar) is also here, so you can see Africa across the Meditteranean Sea. We took a cable car up the mountain and saw the monkeys. There´s all these apes running around on the mountain that the locals almost see as sacred, and while they are wild animals they are very used to tourists and will jump on the cars and look through your bags if left unattended. To be honest they made me a little nervous, especially with all the signs that say DON´T FEED THE APES, APES WILL BITE. But it was fun and there were lots of baby apes too. My camera was on the fritz at this point but I know Katrina got some good shots. We had a classic british lunch of fish and chips before we left and did some shopping as well. I almost bought a thimble just because it was so ironic - I used to collect thimbles and while I saw nothing dutch about this place, all the thimbles had windmills on them. I hate windmills. Joanna was like "you hate windmills?" as if that was odd, and I told her it was a long story. If you lived somewhere in which all the people around you thought it was Holland, but you knew to be Iowa, you would hate windmills too. Think about it. Anyway, I digress. It was too cold to enjoy the beach that day, but we stopped at a British store so Katrina and Ab & Habiba could get some English groceries. Spain sells very different groceries and while you can find most substitutes, some things you just can´t get in another country. I think Katrina bought six cans of rhubarb. She was like a kid in a candy store.
By the end of the day I had a migraine and the long ride back home didn´t help (one good thing about MN would have to be flat, straight roads) so I´m laying low this morning. Feeling better though, so we plan on trying to find salsa dancing lessons one more time tonight!

Centro Cultural de Luz

This week we are at the center each morning. Yesterday was food distribution day, so we put together bags of donated food for the women to pick up for their families. It was a little crazy and busy but fun to see some of the same women again and some new ones, too.
In the evening we met up with two girls who occasionally attend the center with their mother. Their mom is one of the most enthusiastic of the women that go to the cooking classes. She´s always there with a huge smile ready to jump right in and help us with whatever we´re making. Today we made gazpacho, a cold spanish soup. It was pretty good - there are lots of different variations so we decided the one we made might need some tweaking. Bec and I are still working on understanding the conversations going on around us. We could talk to the women a little today. They tend to break out in arabic and then ofcourse we don´t stand a chance, but the Spanish we can comprehend. The girls we met were very sweet and pretty fluent in English. (as well as french, arabic, spanish, and italian, maybe a few others. sheesh). They showed us around some of their favorite parts of the city. They just moved here from Tanger this winter so it´s been hard for them to meet new friends. Their mom told us today they really enjoyed our time last night, so that was cool. We wound up walking about 12 or 13 miles yesterday between going to the center and back twice and around town with the girls. Thats half a marathon if you´re keeping track. Typical for us this trip, too.
This afternoon now that class is over we are going to a Tanger restaurant that the same woman and her family own. Katrina raves about couscous, and I´m not really sure what it is, but we´re about to go eat some. The internet was working for about an hour yesterday but we have to call our friend the tech guy again and get it fixed at her apartment again. It was quite the ordeal yesterday. Spain is very laid back and they come when they want, regardless of our schedule or if we plan to be home or not.