I love traditions. I especially love them during holidays. The one year that my Mom suggested that we have Mexican food instead of our traditional meal for Christmas I threw a fit. I know that was very immature and selfish of me but at the time I couldn’t handle another change. Also I am not at all opposed to Mexican food (in fact I crave it the most) I just didn’t want to skip all of the traditions. I love the foods, being surrounded by family and friends, I even love the stress that the holidays bring. With that being said I have been dreading being away from home during Thanksgiving and Christmas. I knew that it would be difficult not participating in all the festivities that my family was having. But I decided to make the best of the situation.
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| Chess Pie |
Thanksgiving is all about giving thanks for the blessings you have in your life. In honor of that holiday I wanted to show my thanks for the wonderful people I work with here. Also being a girl from Texas I know that the best way to show your appreciation for people is to cook food, i.e. desserts. Of all the delicious food that we eat on Thanksgiving, apple and chess pies are my favorites. I don’t have an oven in my apartment but they let me use youth center’s oven. So now the task was to get the ingredients. Grocery stores and I don’t have a very good track record (a few weeks ago I was in search vegetable oil I accidently bought three different types of vinegar). With that knowledge I made sure I knew exactly how to say each ingredient I needed in Japanese. After visiting three different stores I gathered everything I needed.
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| Apple Pie |
On Tuesday night my friend Phiene, from Laos, helped me baked these scrumptious pies. As I should have known from before convection ovens bake things differently than the ovens I am used to. But forgetting my previous trial with this oven I baked everything according to the recipe. Well this made two of my four pies burnt. Luckily that did not ruin the taste…too much.
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| I went to a tea ceremony |
When Thursday came I took one chess pie and one apple pie to the office. They were a hit. They made sure to save enough for all of the other teachers and women not present that day. On Thursdays I work with the homeless food service (it’s a soup kitchen of sorts). I took the other two pies with me. I made sure to give a piece (or two) to everyone I that I worked with that day. After the actual food service I was able to feast on curry and pies with some of the volunteers. Those volunteers have become some of my dearest friends here so I was happy to share the tradition with them. I celebrated the wonderful holiday with true awareness of all my blessings in my life. I am truly thankful for everyone here as well as my family and friends back home in my life.
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| Lunch with the teachers |
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| Kimi (works in the Youth Center) got married! |
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| Some of the lovely ladies I work with! |
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| I am with some of the teachers before the tea ceremony |
Thank you for you constant support and prayers. I know I am almost two weeks late but I hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving!
God’s Peace,
Katie
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