Nobody Beats Me in the Kitchen

With two weeks down in my new house and nearly everything in place, I have started to settle in nicely and returned to more of a normal life after being treated in a way as a king over the past five months (Yes, Dylan, would like his food right now and his clothes washed, but can you hold the mayo next time). Now all those cooking and cleaning responsibility fall back on my shoulders. In other words, I have got to get myself going again.

The one thing I am really looking forward to over my remaining time here is cooking. I suppose after being held hostage to rice two times a day for five months, I have a strong desire for a little more variety in my life. My Aunt Randy and mom sent me down two great cookbooks and my cousin Colin sent down his fine recipe for pepperoni rolls. I hope to use this latter recipe and tie it in with the youth group in my community. One thing we are to do is help the local people understand our culture, and nothing says West Virginia like pepperoni rolls (mmmm Colasessano’s). So I envision teaching the members of the group how to make them and then we turn around and sell them to the community and hopefully make a couple dollars to fund future projects. On paper it sounds like a win-win for all those involved. Well, that is if I can find pepperoni.

Not only do I want to broaden my American cooking skills, but I want to learn more about traditional Panamanian cooking. These include ajoldres (similar to fried bread), chackies (a type of cookie that is big in my part of the country, and of course the standard Panamanian meal on important days, arroz con pollo (chicken, rice and bunch of stuff added in). Along with these, I hope to learn to take advantage of the orange, mango and coconut trees that are in my backyard.

There should be many highs and lows when it comes to cooking. Anybody that has seen me in action before in the kitchen knows I am prone to a spectacular failure every once in a while. Alas, I’m ready to charge full speed ahead.

Besides if it doesn’t turn out well with the cooking, I can always go crawling back to my host family for meals. This time, though, I just won’t have the guts to ask to hold the mayo.