Jenny's Kitchen Disasters (and other insights into my life)

This is kind of long, but I need to get all of this out. I call it my Blog Therapy. Cooking and baking here has proven to be quite a challenge, to say the least. Everything is in milliliters and Celsius (see my oven above.) At home I fancy myself to be a pretty good cook, and I have had countless numbers of unbiased people tell me so. (Okay, so it was really just Lincoln and my dad, but they really like my cooking . . . at least that's what they said.) Anyway, trying to plan for, shop for and prepare an entire meal has been a humbling experience. (I could have also titled this "Humbled by Spaghetti Sauce, Cherry Pie Filling, and Tarragon-less Tarragon Chicken." Let me explain) I wrote in an earlier post about the spaghetti sauce in a pouch. Well, I made this delicious grilled chicken, and chopped it up and mixed with store-bought cheese-filled pasta. I then added the pouch-o-sauce and grated some fresh cheese (like parmesan) on top. It looked like a culinary masterpiece, the delicious aroma wafting to my expectant nose. So I decided to taste it. I couldn't even swallow one bite. The pouch sauce was horrible. The only thing I can possibly compare it to is watered down ketchup (I have never liked ketchup on anything, much less pasta!) Lincoln ate it, I kind of think that he would eat just about anything. I had cheese crackers for dinner. Yesterday we went grocery shopping again. (I hadn't eaten lunch before going, the only thing I had was some instant coffee, so I was a little jittery from the caffeine. I also had horrible motion sickness from Lincoln's driving, but I won't go into that now.) I have a recipe for Chicken in Tarragon Cream Sauce with White and Wild Rice. It is absolutely delicious (e-mail me if you would like the recipe). There are very few ingredients, and they are pretty basic. So there I was pushing my trolley through the store, a little dizzy, and on a caffeine high, happily picking out my groceries and ingredients for my delicious chicken. The main ingredients are listed in the title: Chicken- okay, we were able to find one package of chicken on the shelf, White and Wild Rice - no problem, Cream - got it (or not! When we got home I realized that I bought Full Cream Milk (whatever that means!), not heavy cream like I needed. Also, it curdled as soon as I tried to make sauce out of it.) Okay, I had everything but fresh Tarragon. I searched the entire produce section (Side note, you have to give your produce to a produce-weighing lady whose job it is to weigh your produce for you, and put a price tag on it. We weren't aware of this the first time we bought produce.) for my tarragon and after finding none there proceeded to the dried spice section. This section consists of about 50 different braai (barbecue) seasonings, some basic spices used for cooking, and several Indian and Portuguese spices. But no tarragon. So last evening we had Chicken in a Tarragon-less Curdled Milk Sauce. Yummy!!! Onto the cherry pie filling incident. I was asked to bring a treat to a meeting of all of the caregivers who work at the shelter. Wanting to impress them with my kitchen prowess, I decided to make something instead of recognizing that, as it turns out, I'm not a very good cook in South Africa, and just bringing a store-bought dessert. My friend Melissa makes this mouthwatering chocolate, cherry cake with the best chocolate frosting in the world. Of course, I don't have the recipe here with me, so I was working from memory (I should have known better!) I knew I needed a chocolate cake mix, a can of cherry pie filling, a bag chocolate chips, and butter. So after having picked up the ingredients for my tarragon-free milk chicken, I began looking for the baking section. Now at home this is an entire isle, with a plethora of cake mixes, brownie mixes, muffin mixes, pie fillings and crusts, icing etc. Coming down from my caffeine high, and now just having motion sickness, I was beginning to become a little weary. I just couldn't find the cake mixes. Then there they were! Hallelujah! There were 4 to choose from, all had a frosting mix included. I chose the least expensive one, which was still very expensive. I then looked for the chocolate chips I needed to make my own frosting, and found some bags about the size of a small M&M's bag. Even though the frosting is the best part of the cake, I decided that I didn't want to have to purchase 5 or 6 of these little baggies of chocolate chips, I would just use the icing mix that came with the cake mix. So far so good, on to the pie filling. It had to be there somewhere! But no it wasn't, apparently no one eats pie. So I did find a jar of pitted cherries in syrup. Close enough. I made the cake this morning (see the picture of Kyler on Lincoln's last post), and it went pretty smoothly. The cake came out looking like a cake, so I was happy. Then I made the frosting that came with the cake. And I was not happy. I had to "slowly melt the chocolate in the top of a double boiler". No double boiler, so I put the chocolate in a mixing bowl over a saucepan of boiling water. The chocolate started to melt nicely, and I was beginning to think that my kitchen luck was changing. But no, before it was completely melted, the melted part started to get chunky. I was being so careful to not let any water get into the chocolate, but, with my track record, I should have known something would have to go wrong. There was also a mix called "fondant sugar" that I was supposed to mix with water. Being the creative chef that I am, I added cherry syrup instead. I then had to pour the sugar mixture into the chunky chocolate mixture. As I was doing so, the fork I had used to mix the bright red cherry syup and sugar, leaped out of the bowl at my cream colored shirt. I am not sure how, but I managed to get the sticky red mess on my shirt, my light green tank top, my jeans, my right foot and shoe, the top and front of the stove and on the floor - where I then proceeded to step into it and track it across the kitchen. Now the frosting mixture was a little less thick, but it still didn't resemble frosting. The meeting was coming up, and I didn't have time to get something else, so I spread the chunky chocolate frosting on the cake. It looked pretty bad. I cut the cake before taking it to the meeting so that the frosting chunks weren't as apparent. At the meeting Janis announced that I had made a cake for everyone, I was hoping that it would just remain anonymous. There were a lot of ladies there, so I waited to take a piece until I knew that everyone had one. I took a bite and although it tasted nothing like Melissa's, it wasn't horrible. I had a few more bites, then crack!! I chomped down on a cherry pit. I quickly looked around to see if anyone else had done the same, if they did, they weren't showing it. I was so embarrassed that I spent the rest of the meeting hiding in the kitchen doing the dishes. I don't think that anyone had severe dental damage or got food poisoning (yet!) so all in all, I'd say my chunky cake was a hit!
Everything is so similar, and yet at the same time, so very drastically different here. I don't have my support system, people here don't know me. I have no history with anyone. And the one thing that I thought I was good at has given me the most grief! I don't know yet where I fit in. It has been difficult trying to find my place, and trying to build relationships. Last night we were again invited over to the home of the family who had offered me coffee (and I embarrassed myself asking if it was "real coffee". See my post titled "Question for today" for the details.) There were many people there who are very good friends and know each other well. They are all very friendly, and easy to get along with. We had a great time, but it will take a while to attain the comfort level we left in the US. As the evening neared an end, I was cleaning up our glasses. I carried 3 into the kitchen. As I set them on the counter, 1 fell off and shattered onto the floor and my bare feet. (Now, I am not the most graceful person you may know, so my doing this probably does not come as a great surprise to you!) I once again embarrassed myself greatly. (I am also not easily embarrassed, so this MAY come as a surprise to you!!) These are people we are trying to become friends with, and here I am in their kitchen, with glass shattered everywhere and my foot bleeding on their floor! I wanted to disappear, we'll see if we get invited back. (They are very wonderful people and assured me that it wasn't a big deal.) I really miss a lot about the US, and at times I am very sad. But at the same time I really love being here, and wouldn't trade for anything. It is hard to reconcile these 2 very different and sometimes conflicting thoughts and emotions!
Okay, that's enough for today. And you thought you were only going to read some funny kitchen stories!