I'm sitting with my feet in a bucket of lavendar oil water and eating granola from my cousin Briana and drinking strong black iced coffee cuz oh it is the best thing for the heat. I feel like I've accomplished a bit since 7: Things take a bit more effort in this island where I'm learning a new way of doing everything. Let me tell you something my husband loves: lime juice. On the way home from the honeymoon he bought about 2 sacks of limes and sour oranges and a big bag of grenadia. So I've SQUEEZED for what seemed like hours this morning. The juice is well worth. Or kinda worth it at least.
The limes are finally all finished. I got a big pitcher of juice and another cup full of puree. Don't ask how much sugar I added! 😂 You dig the meat out of the passion fruit (grenadia) and use a spoon and really fine strainer called a paswa... It's depressing how little you get but grenadia is really strong and kinda sour. Amazing juice... Again with crazy amount of sugar.
Would you believe we east spaghetti for breakfast most mornings? I honestly love Haitian spaghetti. I'm not sure this is the professional way but I fry onion, garlic, and bell pepper and today I had a little ham and fat from a chicken I cooked but you can use any meat or veggies you have. Then you add a little tomato paste or ketchup and your cooked spaghetti. You eat it with more ketchup and maybe Tabasco and picklis, the cabbage salad that's beside it. If you're Zèzè you SLURP the SPICY picklis juice that your wife almost can't stand it's so hot.
New day here... It's Zèzès birthday and we're expecting about 50 people here in a few hours. Ben’s bought chicken legs and Zèzè gave some relatives money to buy plantains to fry, but not sure where they are. Some guys have come and gone…. Bringing a bunch of Cokes.
So we’ll see when the party starts. My part was the cake. Everything is so expensive here so you have to be a little bit careful but I think they turned out well. I used a crazy cake recipe… no eggs or milk, and substituted lime puree for some of the water. I was making a good effort with my worn out potato peeler to zest lime too but gave up. Added some cinnamon and cut back on sugar and hey the dough was good. I made a batch of my grandma’s pie filling pudding last night and got it really cold and mixed it with some dream whip. Gonna put it in the freezer so it really chills and add it right before, and top it with toasted coconut. There’s been bad stuff in the streets so Zèzè went out early to find my coconut. I was gonna use the water in the cake but we had a small miscommunication as in he threw it on the steps to break it open instead of opened it with a machete and then was like, “Oh you needed the juice?” LOL… And I lost my cheese grater so I made a big effort to shred it with a butcher knife, then a paring knife, and the results were less than awesome. So hopefully these ladies will bring a grater otherwise the coconut may have been in vain. I will also confess to leaving it on the counter and ants got in it so I quickly put it in the freezer, killed the ants, and washed it thoroughly so when all the relatives come it will be nicely in the fridge like I am a proper housewife. Trick!
Vanilla Crazy Cake
1 ½ c flour
1 c sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vinegar
½ tsp salt
5 tbsp oil
1 c oil
1 ½ tsp vanilla
Have no idea if people liked it. I didn't hear any comments about the food. I know they like the really sweet powdered sugar icing but hey if you're paying you choose what you can do lol. I cut them into 65 pieces and based on what was left after we made plates for everyone there were 60 here.
The party menu included...
Banan peze and picklis. She used only my 2 heads of cabbage for everyone.
A lettuce salad made with one head of lettuce and a cucumber and 4 tomatoes. I still don't know how I was supposed to cut it up but one of the aunts said I did it wrong.
Lasagna... I LOVE their pasta DISHES. Mom made a sauce with onion and bell pepper and 3 cans of evaporated milk and maybe 1/3 cup grated cheese total? (They use a can with nail holes to grate with and Quiara may have lost some fingernails while grating her coconut.) The hamburger meat has a tomato sauce with quite a bit of Tabasco.
Anyway the party started at 8:30 and I was exhausted when it was over. I sincerely hope everyone had a great time. And I'll write more about my day today...
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