Carrot cake

This week I:

• Turned in two job applications.
• Attended the local Peace Group meeting, the only social event I partake in besides tagging along with my parents at their activities. I brought a French sponge cake (a tres difficult cake that came out okay).
  
• Made a successful genoise cake on the first try. :)
  
• Made mango-raspberry crisp, sesame noodles with chicken, and molasses cookies.

Yesterday the new bishop came to my parents' church and they had a potluck. My dad signed us up to bring a dessert (surprise, surprise) so I made a carrot cake. I especially liked drawing on the little carrots.





Tomorrow we're going to TC (that would be Traverse City for all you down-staters) and I'm so excited because we're going to the mall. I'm looking for a pair of shoes - camel-colored booties with a 2" heel. Wish me luck!

Tonight's Dinner:
Ma's homemade 7-grain pancakes with peach sauce
Sausage

Late-night phone call and other things

My friends in Niger sometimes forget about the time zone difference and call me in the middle of the night (which is morning for them). Since I don't have a phone in my upstairs lair, my mom gets it (since she sometimes gets late-night phone calls for work), then brings the phone to me and wakes me up. Usually by that time the person calling has hung up, thinking I must not be there.

Last night my mom woke me up with a call from Tidjani. He's this cute guy I met my last week in Niger, in Niamey, the capital. We keep in touch as he hopes to come to America one day (what Nigerien man doesn't?) I called him back today and we chatted awhile so that was cool.

I realize I look scary in this photo but it's the only one I have that shows off his great bone structure.


I have photos of other cute guys that I will someday post for your viewing pleasure.

Speaking of cute, what blog post would be complete without a Blackie the cat anecdote? This morning I woke up and he was sleeping on the chair in my room. He was making the cutest squeaky snoring sound. I didn't want to get out of bed because I hated to disturb his sleep. I know, he's spoiled.

The other day I gave him raw egg yolk and he slurped it right down. He loves it!


One more thing - this climate is killing me! My left eye has always been dry, but I thought it was irritated by my contacts. Then I got lasik done, and it was still dry, but I thought it was because it was still healing. Then I went to Niger and it seemed better - going to an arid desert country somehow cured my dry eye? Now I'm back in Michigan and my eye is drier than ever and to make matters worse my skin is oily and breaking out left and right. Ugh!

Pear-Almond Tart

I requested my dad buy me four pears at the grocery store because I wanted to make some kind of pear-and-crystallized ginger tart (I later saw the receipt and the pears were $4.50. Yikes!) I've been wanting to try a tart for some time, just to get an idea of how it's different from a pie, and I love the combination of pears and ginger, so this seemed like the perfect project.

After the expensive pears sat around for a couple days I figured I needed to do something with them ASAP before they went bad. I looked in the Joy of Cooking (my go-to for recipes) for a pear tart recipe, but didn't find anything. I didn't see a pear pie recipe, either. I guessed there must be a good reason for this - maybe pears don't hold up well in pies, I figured.

After a little internet search, I found the only real tart that uses pears is the Pear-Almond tart, a French dessert. I decided to make that instead, using this recipe.

I got all the ingredients ready - I poached the pears in syrup, made the extremely rich tart crust (that doesn't contain a single drop of water, maybe that's what makes it different from a pie), and prepared the almond filling. All these items required some chill time in the fridge so I planned on baking it the next day.

The next morning, my dad was going to cook up some leftover fries and leftover mashed potatoes for my brother Tom. He puts everything in a frying pan, and as it's heating, he must've noticed something was different because he said, "Crystal, what's wrong with these potatoes?" I realized he put my almond filling in the frying pan, thinking it was the mashed potatoes! I kind of freaked out. Fortunately the filling hadn't melted too much and he scraped it back in the bowl. Whew!

Here's the French Pear-Almond tart:


It was pretty tasty, but nothing too exciting. The almond filling is custardy and sweet like pecan pie filling, but kind of bland unless you get a piece of the pear, which tastes exactly like canned pear. "Kind of like a cookie," my mom said. It's been sitting on the counter for a few days and I'm the only one eating it, and it got to the point where my dad offered to take it to work (those people will eat anything).

Seriously, if you make this yourselves, use canned pears! You end up cooking the fresh pears in a syrup just like you would find in a can, so save yourself the money and the trouble and pick up a 99-cent can of pears for this recipe. I may consider trying the Julia Child version of this recipe - the pears are steeped in a more flavorful syrup and maybe it will be more exciting.

Tonight's Dinner:
Roast chicken with roasted veggies (I thought the veggies were so pretty I took a picture).

Extreme Makeover

I finally got a haircut today.

It's been two years of boring, split-ended, one-length hair. It felt so good to get it cut and layered and styled. Here's the before and after photos:

From blah...


... to ooh la la!


(what would a before-and-after picture be without better clothes, better lighting, and makeup for the "after" photo?)

Photo tag

Thanks for the tag, AJ. Here's the 10th photo in my first folder.



This was from December 2008. I was living in Niger, and it was getting close to Tabasky, a big Muslim holiday. It's customary to kill a ram on Tabasky, roast it, eat the meat and give some to friends and the poor.

Everyone in my village liked to raise animals to sell around Tabasky because that's when the city folk pay the big bucks for animals. However, my villagers were poor and couldn't afford to slaughter their own animals, so after they sold their prize ram they'd kill a couple of chickens to eat for Tabasky.

My friend Ayuba kept telling me about his big ram and how much he was feeding it, so I went to his house to check it out. The ram was big, and white, with these cool dark spots on each ear. Ayuba fed him everything from bean leaves to dried beans to millet bran. He was a happy ram, despite being tied to a stick all the time. He couldn't go out herding with the other animals because Ayuba didn't want him to get exercise and therefore lose weight.

The ram let me pet him. He actually seemed to like it. Sometimes when you pet a ram they try to head-butt you, but this one was pretty cool and kept rubbing his head against my hand. He also didn't mind if you touched his back, his belly, his legs, whatever. That's a sign of a full, happy animal.

A few weeks later Ayuba sold him for about 9,000 Naira, which is like $90. Not bad!

Another photo of Ayuba's prized ram. Ayuba is the guy on the right (also known as "dan baki," "black one," in Hausa, because of his dark complexion):

I'll tag my sister Becky.

I don't wanna work

I've been considering this job opening with the county senior center. I'm not sure I want to start working. I really like doing things around the house and cooking dinner every night. But I'm going to apply anyway. The job market is so poor, especially in Northern Michigan, that probably a hundred people are applying for this position, and who says I'll even get an interview? If they offer me the job and I still don't want to work, I can always turn it down.

Tonight I'm making roasted turkey breast that I brined this morning (brining helps the meat stay nice and juicy). It's been an exhausting week and the weekends here are always intense, so today I "took the day off" and vegged out for a while.

My weekend goals:

• Make another genoise cake.
• Fill out job application for administrative assistant position.

This week's accomplishments

I am so excited! I finally got my Peace Corps recruiter applications in. I filled out the same application eight times to accommodate for the positions open in eight different places. It feels so nice to have that off my chest.

The county senior center is looking for an administrative assistant, so I'm going to add that to my job-seeking repertoire. I think I'd be a good AA and I love old people, so we'll see how that goes.

I've also sent in my first passport application EVER (my other two passports were government-issue), something I've been meaning to do for like five years. I ordered this cute pair of boots online and when they finally came in they didn't feel comfortable at all, so I sent them back. I guess that's what you get for ordering stuff from the internets. Someday I will go to Traverse City and see if there's any good shopping there.

The boots that didn't work for me. If you see others like this let me know. I particularly like the short but not chunky and not stiletto heel.

For food this week I've made Shepard's Pie, minestrone soup, spaghetti with meatballs, and tonight, hamburgers. I cooked the burgers in a non-teflon skillet to allow for maximum browning, but the juices burned and created a huge cloud of smoke in the house. Let's just say the fam wasn't too thrilled. Later Blackie came over and licked the splattered meat grease off the floor.

For baking I've made yummy cranberry-bran muffins, chocolate shortbread coconut bars and chocolate chip cookies. Here's the muffins:


Tomorrow's roasted turkey breast and I'm gonna try to make the genoise (foam cake) again this weekend. Wish me luck!

My Niger projects - Part 1

What did I do specifically?

Well, my village was pretty far south, about 5km from Nigeria, in a lowland area and surrounded by ridges of mesas (that cluster of green trees in the middle = my village.)


We didn't have a problem with sand dunes, desertification, or hardpan. Mostly my villagers were interested in planting trees in their yards and starting mango orchards.

Part 1. The Women's Group, Mundangwara
("we are patient")

I spent a lot of time working with the women's group established by the last volunteer. These women held weekly meetings where everyone paid a contribution to a cash box. About twice a year, each woman was given a loan from the cash box, and paid a monthly interest fee until the balance was paid off. At the end of the year the interest money was split among all the women for a little bonus to use for the holidays.

Some ladies from the women's group with their cash box.


The women's group was provided with a beautiful fenced-in garden space (the former volunteer obtained grants for materials and labor) complete with a well. They were supposed to maintain a vegetable garden during cold season (December through April), but they weren't exactly motivated. They planted peanuts during rainy season (June through September), but this year they didn't get themselves organized enough to actually harvest the peanuts and somebody beat them to it and took them all.

However, they have a space they are free to use for individual projects or as a group, and if they someday want to create a big garden, at least they have a place to do it. In the meantime, a couple of ladies grow hot peppers and moringa trees.

At the advice of my boss, I helped the women obtain loans from a microfinance bank in Konni (18 km from my village) to each purchase an animal for profit. They bought rams, sheep and goats.


I brought in a herder and a large-animal veterinarian to educate the women on how to keep their animal healthy and fatten it up as much as possible to make the most profit. Six months later they sold the animals and paid the loans back with interest.

There were a couple of problems with this project. First of all, the microfinance bank we worked with was slow. They made the women pay money to join the loan program, then didn't actually give them a loan for six months. The guy we worked with continuously tried to sexually harass me and it put me in a weird position. A couple of the women's animals died, but it was for preventable reasons. Lastly, one woman didn't even want a loan, so she gave her money to a friend. The friend gave it to a guy who needed money to travel to Nigeria. By the time loans had to be paid back, the guy hadn't yet come back from Nigeria. The women's group cannot obtain future loans if even one person defaults, so they got his elderly parents to repay the loan.

Part 2. Well improvement project

This NGO (non-governmental organization) came to my village and built a new well. It was great because the well was situated near where all the herders live, and they have hundreds of thirsty cattle to water every day during the dry season.



They were using these small, shallow metal bowls to give each cow water.


None of the wells in my village had drinking troughs and the new well didn't have a decent apron (ledge to prevent sand from blowing inside). I used some project money left by the last volunteer to build a new apron and some water troughs for the animals.





The finished product:

Standing on new well apron with 1 trough in the background.


Buddy enjoying fresh water from a trough.


We later realized the new well wasn't deep enough. The water came up muddy at best and sometimes there wasn't any water at all. Since the water was so dirty none of the nearby houses used it and the women had to walk all the way around the village to a different well when there was one right behind their property!

I organized a group of herders to improve the well, as they were its main users. I hired a couple of professionals to go down inside the well and put mud into buckets to deepen the floor of the well.

If you look closely you can see them in the bottom:



Pulling up heavy buckets of mud:




This cute kid was watching the action:


My friend Darey and I made the workers strong green tea for strength and even sent some down the well in a bucket:


Climbing out of the well:


Group photo!


After this project the well was deeper and had clear, plentiful water. Yay!

More to be continued...

Niger - what I was supposed to do

Some background:
I was a Natural Resources Management (NRM) volunteer. Most of Niger's population lives along the southern border of the country, and as you go further north you encounter the Sahel, then the Sahara desert. Due to a major drought in the '70s and poor farming and grazing practices, the Sahara desert has been spreading. Strong winds blow away precious topsoil and spread sand over fields. People cut down the few trees they have, resulting in erosion, poorer soil quality, and less animal fodder.

Technical training:
As a NRM volunteer, I learned how to use agroforestry to improve farm soil quality and prevent desertification and erosion.

We learned how to prevent sand dunes from spreading by planting rows of trees or rows of sticks to make a fence that would slow the wind down;


Planting "wind breaks" (rows of trees that would slow down the wind) around fields;


Creating "live" and "dead" fences to prevent animals from eating crops (basically a hedge of live trees or sticks);


The creation of rock "walls" to block the flow of water in gullys (and preventing further erosion of precious farmland);


Special crop planting techniques to reclaim rock-hard soil (hardpan) and to collect maximum rainwater;

Zai holes


Demi lunes


Planting, pruning, and harvesting gum arabic (sap from the gum arabic tree used in cosmetics, cola, candy, and glue);


Grafting trees such as gum arabic, mango, citrus, and desert date;


Planting moringa trees as a food source and income generation (the leaves are nutritious and taste like spinach);



And finally, showing people how to make tree nurseries so they can plant trees in their yard or field.


Stay tuned to hear what I actually ended up doing!

Successful bread and sad bread

I made "rustic European country bread" the other day, and it turned out great!



What makes it "European" and "rustic" is that it doesn't have any dairy or oil in it. Just flour (whole wheat, white, and rye), salt, sugar, and yeast. It was nice and chewy with a crispy crust.

Today I didn't have such good luck making "American" bread. My dad's been hinting at rye bread for a while, so I gave it a try. This bread had white flour and rye flour in it, as well as butter and milk. Despite leaving it in the furnace room for the entire day it turned out flat and sad-looking.



Whatevs. I may have to mess with the recipe before I get it right.

Tonight's Dinner:
Ghanaian jollof rice
Coleslaw with salad cream dressing

Black Forest Cake adventure

Last week I made a Black Forest Cherry cake. It's three layers of chocolate genoise (foam) cake brushed with brandy syrup and whipped cream and brandied cherries for the filling. I used frozen cherries from the store and, since the recipe called for 3 cups of whipped cream I decided I'd try to lighten things up by using low-fat Cool Whip. I know, Cool Whip is full of chemicals and is not as yummy as the real stuff, but I figured it's a little less dangerous for the waistline.

The most difficult part was the chocolate genoise. That damn cake is the bane of my existence! Despite reading various recipes and watching internet videos (thanks for the Martha tip, Alanna!) the first two cakes I made fell flat. I kind of blame it on Cook's Illustrated, because I was following their recipe and they specifically instructed using the paddle attachment to whip the eggs. When I used the paddle attachment the cake fell when I added the flour, so I figured I wasn't whipping the eggs enough. Sure enough, when I switched to the whisk attachment, the eggs got more voluminous and the cake didn't fall when I added the flour. But there's more to bitch about. Even with the successful third cake, the flour didn't incorporate fully into the batter and there were little flour chunks in the bottom. The cake lady, Rose Levy Beranbaum, said in her book this always happens and you just have to pick the flour chunks out with a toothpick, but to me that seems redundant and there's got to be a better way. I emailed the folks from Cook's Illustrated to ask for help with the flour chunking problem, so we'll see if they get back to me.

Each cake required 6 eggs, by the way, so my dad kept going to the store to buy me more eggs. He's such a sweetie.

To make a genoise, you have to have some foresight so that your ingredients are ready.

• Two types of flour, sifted onto wax paper.
• 6 eggs, at room temperature.
• Melted butter, at room temperature.
• Cocoa and boiling water mixed into a paste.
• Pan greased and papered (but don't flour it like I did).
  

All the preparation and baking failures were worth it when I finally finished it:


I took it to my aunt's house and we all devoured it. It was delicious!

Mornings with Gilad

Every morning I get up around 9:30 and do aerobics with Gilad at 10. He is this dark-haired, muscular, sexy-accented aerobics instructor on Fit TV, and he is helping me get into shape.

He has two programs, one at 10:00 and the other at 10:30. The 10:00 one is straight out of the 80’s with ladies in high-cut, shiny leotards and scrunchy socks. The later show is more modern, but I prefer the earlier show because Gilad is younger (and therefore sexier) and I find the outfits more entertaining.

I should mention my accompanying diet to go with this new fitness program. I can only have a sweet twice a day, so this means I can’t have a cookie every time I pass through the kitchen. I’m also trying to lower my alcohol consumption, not that I drink a lot anyway, but just trying not to make that second glass of wine a habit.

Since we don’t have a scale I can’t track my weight, but I already noticed my stomach looks trimmer and I feel better about my body in general. I noticed I’m a little crabbier than usual, which may be because I’m tired from the exercise and missing my sugar, but hopefully that won’t be a permanent thing.

Schisto-so-my-ass

I got a letter from Peace Corps the other day.

Dear Ms. P:

The results of your close of service (COS) schistosomiasis antibody test has been received by the Office of Medical Services (OMS), Peace Corps/Washington. The results are inconclusive and may indicate an early infection with the schistosome parasite. A retest is advised to confirm or rule out this possible infection.

Oh my god, creepy!

So I bet you're wondering what schistosomiasis is. I got some info from Google Health:

Overview

Schistosomiasis is infection with a type of Schistosoma parasite.

Symptoms

Symptoms vary with the species of worm and the phase of infection.

• Heavy infestation (many parasites) may cause fever, chills, lymph node enlargement, and liver and spleen enlargement.
• Initial invasion of the skin may cause itching and a rash (swimmer's itch). In this condition, the schistosome is destroyed within the skin.
• Intestinal symptoms include abdominal pain and diarrhea (which may be bloody).
• Urinary symptoms may include frequent urination, painful urination (dysuria), and blood in the urine (hematuria).

Treatment

This infection is usually treated with the drug Praziquantel. If the infection is severe or involves the brain, corticosteroids may be given.

Causes

You get a schistosoma infection through contact with contaminated water. The parasite in its infective stages is called a cercaria. It swims freely in open bodies of water.

On contact with humans, the parasite burrows into the skin, matures into another larval stage (schistosomula), then migrates to the lungs and liver, where it matures into the adult form.

The adult worm then migrates to its preferred body part, depending on its species. These areas include the bladder, rectum, intestines, liver, portal venous system (the veins that carry blood from the intestines to liver), spleen, and lungs.

Schistosomiasis is not usually seen in the United States. It is common in many tropical and subtropical areas worldwide, where it affects more than 200 million people.

I've been thinking about my last months in Niger, trying to figure out what I might have done to expose myself to water-borne parasites that burrow into your skin.

Last January I went swimming in a muddy Niger lake. I went on vacation in Ghana in late September, but I don't recall going in any freshwater lakes. In November I went to Gerewol and walked around the perimeter of a muddy, freshwater lake, though I don't remember making contact with the lake water.

I'm gonna get re-tested and we'll see what happens.