I am not sure if I even mentioned here in this blog, but I attempted to make Muddy Buddies (also known as Puppy Chow) for my host family in San Jose. Chocolate chips were not to be found, so I cut up many a Dove Chocolate candy instead. I was informed by another student in my program though that chocolate chips could indeed be found at a few of the super markets. However, I never got around to looking again. On Friday, I decided it was time to make some more good ole American food. The only recipe I have memorized that was fathomable to make here is the Nestle Toll House Choc Chip recipe. So, the search for chocolate chips began again. And, seeing as I am now in a small farming town, obviously they were not found. But they still had chocolate,
So I figured the home made chocolate chip approach would work once again. The process went pretty smoothly, and I had the assistance of my host mom, cousin and little sister. The use of margarine instead of butter in the recipe proved to be interesting, and the brown sugar of Costa Rica is definitely not the same as what the Nestle company had in mind (I’m pretty sure its molasses flavored white sugar). So the cooking process went a little bit like this.
Eleonor (my cousin) helping making home made chocolate chips
The process begins
Angelina and Mom hard at work in the kitchen
We tried to make them into shapes. Chocolate chip cookies (especially made with margarine) are really hard to make into the shapes of butterflies
Baking in the really large toaster oven. No one really uses their actual ovens here.
Eleonor after her first bite of a chocolate chip cookie.
Angelina was pretty thrilled with them as well.
Other than that is has been a slow weekend. But since we are on the topic of food, I can update you on more food happenings in this country that I have neglected. Last weekend when some friends of mine from my program came for dinner, my host mom cooked up a feast for us. It reminded me of the amount of food consumed by my friends and I while sitting on the floor of my Dunbarton Rd kitchen thanks to Mom buying groceries with all of mine and Andrea’s friends in mind as well.
Sideways photograph of home made guac and bean dip. YUM.
Gringo guests!
Also, when I went grocery shopping with my mom I found this banana. It is a Siamese twin banana. I thought it was fantastic. My host mom explained they’re pretty common here, and she looks for them always. The cashier than explained that she was the town pro at finding them, but that was also because they only charge you for one even though its really two! What a bargain shopper I am now going to be in this country, searching the land over for Siamese twins bananas and plantains.
And a final food update (hungry yet?). I have been working at an elementary school during my research time here in Venecia. Usually I work with the English teacher in the older classes, or help out in the Kinder class (a combination of Pre-School and Kindergarten). But sometimes I find myself helping out in the Kitchen as well. The school has just one cook, and she is always jolly and smiling. One day last week I found popcorn (unpopped) in the kitchen. I had only seen it in packets here, but not the kind I love, that you have to pop in a pan. I got really, really, really excited. The cook laughed at me (I am often being laughed at in this country for varying mannerisms) and explained she had bought it but no one knew how to cook it. Then, about twenty minutes later, I had made popcorn for the whole school for snack. They of course added their Costa Rican touch of pouring a bit of condensed milk on top (popcorn without sweetener or flavor was not going to fly with the kids) but none the less I finally got the popcorn I had been missing.
The bags of palmito (popcorn) I found. HOORAY.
The cooking process.
The final product with a fine drizzling of sweetened condensed milk
(a favorite ingredient in this country)
Apple crisp is next on the Loca Gringa cooking show. I wish I could say I made that name up, but that is what my host aunt calls it when I cook American food for them.
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