T minus one day

Field trip...where there was nothing to do but look at this pond.


Oh my gosh I love this kid. He was hot and didn't have an umbrella
so he picked a leaf to shade himself with!


One of the most adorable boys ever


They love their stickers! They count as part of their "grade" so they
get really excited when they get some.


My co-teacher and our student Kate


The boys: practicing their song


And the girls!


Waiting in line! Probably getting in trouble...



Teaching the kids how to make cookies

Playing a game that Diana came up with


Teaching them how to "crack" eggs and "stir." New vocabulary!


Fighting over the last banana pancake! Rock-paper-scissors style.



Golden Bell. This symbol means "true."

Jason was one of the finalists in Golden Bell.
So proud of him! (this is the "false" symbol)


Roger and Transformer :)

Me and my lovely roommates! Me, Diana (also my co-teacher) and Moony.

Love this kid! (Roger)

Bumblebee thinking hard!

Me and Anne

Bumblebee...he did not want a picture taken!
He looks like a trouble maker, but is one of the
smartest kids in our class and so much fun.

Jason on the right is my student, I don't remember the other's name...

Cute :)

"Survival Games"

Chaos in the gym

Teachers goofing around

Today was the last day of actual teaching! Tomorrow we will have some games and testing and other activities for the kids, then the following day we all pack up and head out. It seems like this camp took forever to pass. But now that its the end, it seems like it flew by! I am so in love with my students and had a lot of fun teaching, although I'm as tired as I have ever been. It might be a little sad to say goodbye to these kids that I've bonded with and been inspired by, but I still am looking forward to coming home :)

Here are the Korean words/phrases I've learned so far during my stay (if you speak Korean, please ignore the phonetic spelling and horrific pronunciation):
Annyong haseyo (hello) (or just 'Annyong' if you're talking to a child)
Kamsahamnida (thank you)
Bali Bali! (Hurry!)
Ne (yes-pronounced like 'nay')
Anyi (no)
Man gi gi ma (don't touch me)
Piyante (pervert)
Hua jang shil (bathroom)
Opa (brother-used by females to refer to any male older than themselves)
Oma (mom-used by my students in reference to me cooking in an apron)
Annyong hikaseyo (goodbye-if you are leaving the other person)
Annyong hikayseyo (goodbye-if you are the one staying)
Hapyang (put your hands together in front of your chest-prayer position at the temple)
Pambay (bow)
Otokay (I have no idea what it means, but hear it all the time)
Assa! (awesome!)
Nakshi! ("Just kidding!" Actually, more like "psych!")
Hull ("wow" or any other equivalent utterance of amazement/shock/surprise/excitement)
Aish (kind of like "oh my gosh")

Lamb. Its what's for dinner.

When my roommate Megan said that she wanted to celebrate Passover, I immediately began looking for Passover-approved recipes. She invited some friends over and we settled on a semi-Kosher menu for the evening, which included lamb as the main course, of course.

I'm not really a big fan of lamb. I've had it a couple times and just didn't really enjoy it. But you can't have a Passover seder and not have lamb. I found a recipe for lamb kebabs with tzatziki that looked pretty good so we decided to go with that. But the first step was to buy some lamb. We started at Winco, where we didn't find any. Then we went to Trader Joe's. Then to a Halal market across from Joe's, where we walked in to hear the sounds of meat being hacked into edible portions. The guy said, "uh...can I help you?" When we told him what we were looking for, he told us to come back the next day. Well, we didn't want to have to make another trip so we went to Safeway as a last resort. We finally found some lamb, but not the cut we were looking for. We got it anyway and decided it would just have to do.



The recipe called to marinate the cubed lamb overnight, so we got to work preparing it. The cut we bought was basically like a boneless leg of lamb. With plenty of fat and gross things still attached. So Megan and I had to figure out how to cut it into cubes. This was nearly impossible, but we eventually got enough semi-cube meat shapes out of the hunk of meat that we bought. I thought I was going to have to make Megan do this all by herself as it kind of seemed gross. But I did it just fine, in fact had to do most of it after Megan left for a soccer game (which her team won). Although I had to wash my hands about 50 times and went afterwards to the Plaid Pantry to buy bleach to sanitize every surface, the job was done.



Because of the mess we made of the meat, I was afraid it was going to not only taste gross (as I thought all lamb did), but that it would also be tough. I started cooking it with little hope of it turning out well. After making sure it was thoroughly cooked, I tried a tiny bite. It was tender. And it tasted GOOD! Since we have no barbeque or kebab skewers, we just cooked it in a pan. And cooked some potatoes and peppers as well so it would still kind of resemble a kebab. We also made the tzatziki, a traditional Passover fruit-ish salad and some brownies...extra-Kosher brownies.





It was a pretty fun night! There were six of us girls here and Rabbi Megan led us in the seder, reading the script-type thing she got from a friend of hers. It was geared towards families, so that made it kind of funny since there were no children in our group! But we went through the ceremony, prayed and ate the meal! Everything turned out really well, I was happy!



AND no one got food poisoning. Success!

sorry, more food....

I apologize for my food obsession. But I just love it so, so here is another food post!

Here are some delicious things I have made recently:

Chicken Pineapple Quesadillas. This combination, and how easy it was to make, made my roommate Megan and I decide we need to open a Quesadilla Food Cart in Portland. It would be amazing.

We had a giant box of Oreos leftover from an event my roommate went to. I wanted to use them to make something since they weren't getting eaten. These Cookies and Cream Cupcakes are amaaaaazing (frosting recipe here). I just need to get a muffin tin that will cook more than 6 at a time...

White Chicken Enchiladas. I'm not a huge fan of normal red enchilada sauce. But this was soooo good and cheesy and amazing. So amazing that I made them twice in the span of a week and shared them with about 10 people.

White Chili. A long cooking process (2 hours + to cook the dry chili beans), but sooo worth the time. The process involved boiling a whole cut-up chicken, which was quite interesting (and gross-looking), but ended up producing some homemade chicken stock! And the chicken was nice and easy to shred after boiling.

My roommates and I also made Mole recently. If you have never had Mole (which I hadn't tried until this fateful night), just imagine chocolate and peanut butter with chicken. I take that back, don't imagine that, it sounds disgusting. But those are crucial ingredients in Mole, and it is amaaaaazing. This is another dish that was made two times within a week. Shredded chicken, tomato, cocoa powder, peanut butter, green chiles...served over rice with corn tortillas and/or Juanita's chips (no other chips will do. ever.). So easy to make (although a bit messy), and sooooo good!

Michelle's (a dental student) practice skull ate dinner with us. He loved it too.

Aaaaand dessert: cupcakes (leftover from my after-school class) and Girl Scout cookies.

Besides cooking, I have been trying to try out some food carts lately. My roommate and I have been on a few food cart adventures, but I have only photographed one of them. Food carts are fantastic. Expect to pay from $5-8 on your meal, but it will be well worth it.

The first involved Peanut Butter and Jelly. I can't tell you how amazing this was. If I tell you what was on the sandwich (bacon, anyone?), you might be grossed out. But you just have to try it! PBJs Grilled, on NW 23rd-try the Good Morning or the Sun Up. Or anything else, I'm sure.

I also tried some Korean food one day as I was craving teriyaki chicken. Dosirak's (near PSU campus on SW 4th) lunchbox came with chicken, rice, salad and a spring roll. I ate alllll of it. And then almost died because I was so full. But oh so happy.

I also tried some Thai food near PSU. I love pad thai. One of my favorite all-time dishes. I had such high hopes from this food cart, as there was an adorable little Thai lady working all by herself making each order from scratch. I had to wait a while for my order, but didn't mind too much as she was fun to watch cooking and tasting the dishes occasionally. But then I got my pad thai. I am used to more Americanized versions I think, as this was too fish sauce-y for me. Quite disappointing. If you like fish sauce, you'd love this. But I like mine a little less authentic...

The other day, my roommate Megan and I were both home around lunchtime on a Friday (very unusual at our apartment), so we decided to food-cart it up. We went to the carts on Alder near 9th. We walked around for quite a while looking at the menus and figuring out what we wanted. We finally settled on Hawaiian and Southern BBQ. We each got one order, then shared our delicious meals. Besides being a beautiful day outside, the food was sooo amazing. From 808 Grinds, we got the Combo Plate, which included pork and Shoyu chicken. Along with rice and macaroni salad. The chicken was to die for. The pork was good too, but next time I'd definitely just get the chicken. We also got a pulled pork sandwich, which came with some sort of stew, from A Little Bit of Smoke. I love a good pulled pork sandwich and this one did not let me down. When I first looked at it, I told Megan, "It looks a little bit dry..." to which she responded, "just take a bite." And I did, and then I almost cried it was so good. No gloppy sauce was needed, just amazing smokey pork and some coleslaw. But then there was also the stew. Pork, potatoes, carrots, plus many other things, in a tomatoe-y sauce. It was sweet and tangy and smokey. Oh just amazing. This little meal came with a Moon Pie treat...banana flavored. We couldn't eat it. So instead we went to Ben & Jerry's for dessert.











Well all this made me hungry. So I'm going to go eat lunch, then go to work for a "mandatory" group exercise class (a new class the gym is launching). I need it after all this food...

But next time I go food carting, I'm going to have to try this Spanish Tapas cart!

raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens....

These are a few of my favorite things right now:

* Reese's "Fast Break" candy bars. They are peanut-buttery and chocolatey and nougaty. And so. good. I seem to be unable to resist the urge to buy one every day I'm at school. Addicted. I'm drooling just looking at this picture:

* Teavana tea shops. I bought some amazing loose-leaf peppermint tea there the other day. While gazing longingly at the million other kinds of delicious loose-leaf tea blends they had. (Another favorite thing: loose-leaf tea, in general. I don't know what it is, I just adore it!) I could spend way too much money there if I didn't have more self-control. Also, if anyone wants to buy me the "tea of the month" subscription, I wouldn't say no...

* The Pioneer Woman. Her recipes are so amazing. And easy-to-follow. And I can't stop making them. My roommates have also come to appreciate her and my "Pioneering" obsession. As in, "Amy, were you Pioneering again today? Can I have some....?" Some of my favorite recipes so far?

Mulligatawny soup (I heart curry powder. Deeeelish!)
Pear Crisp (YUM. Definitely making that again. This weekend...)
Cauliflower soup (I love soup, period.)

* Safeway's website. More specifically, their coupon website, "Just for U." I made my sister teach me some of her bargain-shopping ways and am trying to learn to use more coupons like she does. If I'm gonna be cooking all these Pioneer Woman recipes, I'm gonna need to learn to shop wisely or I'll spend all my rent money on groceries. Their website makes it so easy and all you do is "add" coupons to your Safeway club card, so you don't actually have to bring the Safeway coupons into the store. They automatically ring up when you buy the qualified item. Granted, you still have to bring in any manufacturer's coupons you want to use. But I got 2 packages of Kraft shredded cheese for $3.98 instead of $7.98 thanks to this deal :) A whole $4 savings!!!!

* Stacy's "Simply Naked" Pita Chips. I could eat a whole bag of these in one sitting. Actually, I just ate about half a bag in one sitting. They are amazingly delicious and salty and yummy.


* My TomTom. This thing is genius. I don't know how I ever survived without one before. Tom's smooth, calm voice directs me wherever I need to go. I love him.

* Flashcards. These are the greatest study tool ever. Too bad I didn't use them for the Spanish midterm I failed......




Here is one thing that used to be my favorite, and would still be if I had it:
* The Sandisk Sansa Clip mp3 player. I loved this thing, loved it so much. So tiny and user-friendly and with so much memory. But I left it on the plane from Madrid to Philadelphia. Either that or the girl sitting next to me stole it when I went to the bathroom (another reason why you should avoid using airplane bathrooms at all costs). Whatever happened, US Airways, or some US Airways passenger, now has my Clip. I hate US Airways after that flight anyway, so we'll just blame it on them. I should demand they give me a replacement. Anyway, if you ever need a little tiny mp3 player, go with this. I still think it's better than the Apple's Shuffle, even though they finally redid the tiny iPod and put buttons back on it. More memory, a screen, and you have more than just the "shuffle" function (including FM radio), for less money. Sigh. I miss you, my dear friend.

Also, I now have this song from the Sound of Music stuck in my head. I hope you do too.

P.S. I just realized all but one of those has to do with food. That's kind of pathetic.

more food...

As previously stated, I love food. For that reason, I have been cooking a lot more lately. Actually I think there are a few reasons for that. First of all, I watched Julie and Julia with one of my roommates. Not that it is the greatest movie ever, but it made me want to cook! Also, I have roommates. It is much more fun to cook when there are people who can enjoy the food you've made! (Plus I don't want them to think I'm a slob who survives off of like frozen meals or anything.) So I cook. ;)

I brought some fun stuff home from my time in Europe. Some couscous spices from Morocco, curry powder from Switzerland (not that curry has any relation to Swiss food at all), cinnamon from Morocco. And some delicious meal ideas from Spain.

I tried making a tortilla española, which is a typical Spanish dish. It's eggs, onions and potatoes. Pretty hard to mess up, right? Not for me. Its all about the heat-you have to let it sit and cook for a while, and if its too hot the bottom will burn before you flip it. Too low and it will never cook. So my first attempt didn't turn out all that great. Although it tasted good, it just didn't look real pretty. See the evidence.


I also used my Moroccan couscous spices. AMAZING. The couscous I had in Morocco was one of the best meals I think I've ever had. So much couscous. So many delicious veggies. And amazing chicken. So I tried to replicate it: I steamed some veggies, cooked some chicken with the spices, mixed some spices into the couscous (which I had made with chicken broth), then put it all together. I used zucchini, carrots, potatoes, green peppers, garbanzo beans and a little bit of onion. So good. Good thing the spices will last me the rest of my life, cuz I will definitely be making that again.

Next up I made some soup. I love soup. I also love the Pioneer Woman. So of course her cauliflower soup was amazing. I only made half the recipe, and it was still enough to feed me and my roommates for a few meals. I used more veggies than the recipe called for, since I had things I needed to use (zucchini, potatoes, carrots, corn). Also, Trader Joe's sells this soup veggie stuff ("mirepoix" is the technical term), that is genius. I have an irrational fear of onions. I don't like them anyway, but sometimes you just need a few in a soup. But I can't make myself chop one up. So this mix came with diced onion, carrot and celery. Perfect for soup. More perfect for not having to chop an onion yourself. Turned out delish!




What's next, you ask? Why, this is!