Oh How Our Garden Grows

Oh my goodness, so much to catch up on. First things first, the garden is going well. I love to look at it and wander around the small patches of veggies popping up. However, I never really feel quite certain that I shouldn’t be more proactive when it comes to the garden and that can be a bit disorienting. Our gardener seems to take such pride and care in his creation, but I’m looking at the lettuce thinking it looks ready for the salad bowl and I wonder, “Am I supposed to pick that myself or will he bring it to the door when it’s ready?” These are things I should investigate when I’m not directly attached to a four month old. Oh, and by the way, no garden progress photos with this post (read “four month old”).

The gardener and I are chronically miscommunicating. I feel a bit bad for my housekeeper. She must dread it every time I go out the door with my crappy French and start talking to him. It’s almost certainly going to end with them speaking Malagasy, pointing seriously at various patches of land and me nodding along as if it all makes sense. The last time this got me with (1) an herb garden that is mostly tomatoes and (2) egg shells crumbled up on top of everything. By the way, I once heard about 5 minutes of a gardening program on NPR where they said to plant eggshells with your tomatoes. I didn’t really research this, but I was sure to confidently tell the gardener, “They do this in the United States.” He looked at me like I was crazy…then our housekeeper just told him to throw the eggshells on top. I just gave up….and, I’m still not sure where the herb garden plans went in all this.

Oh, and he really likes to water things…anything really. I hate to waste water. And yes, I’m a party pooper of a mother – no sprinkler play for us! Anyway, I gave up on the “Don’t waste the water” speech in the DR. I have my theories about why this doesn’t go over well, but I’ll refrain from presenting them here. Suffice it to say, our gardener is dedicated to the hose and sometimes I look out at my driveway and think it looks clean enough to eat off of. Right now his watering is causing me angst because in our house you can chose to water the lawn or take a shower, but you can’t do both at the same time. If, for any reason (read “a four month old”), my morning shower gets pushed back to 10:00 AM, I can be found, dripping with soap in my hair calling to the housekeeper to please ask the gardener to stop watering the dirt so I can finish my shower.

And THIS MOMENT people is when I think, “How in the world did I get here!?” Gardener?! Housekeeper!? Africa!? And then I go back to my brown water shower and feel so thankful that here…at least for now…we have hot water. Wouldn't trade it for anything.

Comfort Food for Thought

As it turns out, believe it or not, having three small children – two of whom are on summer vacation and one who is a newborn – greatly eats into my blogging time. Who would have thought? So, here I am with this long list of potential posts and things keep happening so the list keeps growing. I need to make some of these things priorities – like is it tortillas or vanilla extract that wins? Cookies or the garden? Perhaps a recap of the killer Indian I had out at a place called Le Terrace Exotique?

First things first I guess. I did make those tortillas from The Homesick Texan. They were fine. Actually, they were good. It’s just that it is so incredibly messy and time consuming to make flour tortillas and in the end they just never turn out quite perfectly. They always turn out good – it’s flat bread, best eaten hot with salted butter – but I am increasingly feeling like it’s not exactly worth the effort. Here is what I believe to be my tortilla truth – until I can find out how to make a flour (or whole wheat) tortilla that identically mimics Central Market tortillas I will not have found my tortilla Zen. Is this a challenge or am I giving up? Not sure.

 Now, on to the vanilla extract – success! I made these cookies this week (only without the chocolate chips). This vanilla extract smells perfectly and my cookies were a hit at home and with the few people on whom I forced them. Our nanny was the only one not impressed – when I offer her sweets she laughs and says, “I am not child.” I’m not sure what this means and I have decided not to investigate further – we’re only seven weeks into our relationship and I sense a discussion of her culinary tastes would only result in me being more confused…and with three kids I can’t spare the brain cells. Anyway, the extract looks to be the correct color and we didn’t get sick so I think I can totally file this under recipes.

You know, I have one more thing to say about the tortillas. We actually really enjoyed eating them and had a perfectly wonderful dinner of roasted veggie and black bean tacos with fresh avocado and pico de gallo. Although allotted one, we opted not to do a consumables shipment this tour and instead just packed the few consumables we purchased into our HHE. We bought things like ketchup and soy sauce and tahini, but not a ton of any of them. The only thing we brought a two years’ supply of? Black beans. Black bean tacos are our ultimate comfort food and that night we ate them – with gusto, our boys asking for seconds and then thirds. No complaints…and I ordered a bunch of corn masa to start on making corn tortillas because (1) I think that will be easier and (2) that’s what you need for fish tacos. 

Standards – such a funny thing. From post to post we learn to live with inconveniences and without the things we most love. And yet, the reality of this is that at each new door we are presented with opportunities to alter our standards and seek out something a bit different. I guess I like to think we get better at it. Could it be that less than perfect tortillas are the yang to the yin of my vanilla extract? Or maybe we just get better at problem solving….which I can only take to mean that I need an inside connection to the Central Market bakery and their secret tortilla files. Anyone?

Vanilla Extract

I am a person of projects. I need them. They keep me moving along. My mental list of projects is long…which is really a good thing since some of my projects are probably kind of lame…or un-doable…and it might be best to never get to them (like that children’s book I wrote about 10 years ago only to discover that it already existed, ha-ha).

The list. My list of “Things to Do While in Madagascar” ranges from sewing more, to reading more, to beginning a daily meditation practice to, of course, cooking and baking. I’ve been doing my best with the baking and cooking. I committed to borrowing a baking tray from our sponsors and began experimenting with flours within our first two weeks here so I could keep up with my pizza making. The baking tray couldn’t replace my pizza stones, but it did a more than passable job I think. And, compared to Santo Domingo, the flour here (albeit in rather small bags) is fantastic. That’s the French influence I’m sure – the bread here is delish!

This past week we got our HHE so I’m now loaded down with all of my pizza making supplies and tons of other great baking and cooking utensils. We’ve unpacked all of our kitchen gear and the boys’ toys…everything else is still sitting in boxes while I set about the joys of cooking….and the children (at least the two oldest) are entertained.

I’m rambling here. Anyway, the first thing on my list was to bake some cookies. But, imagine my surprise when I headed on over to ShopRite, our local supermarket, and only found the most imitation of imitation vanilla extracts…in fact, they didn’t even try to call it vanilla extract, they just opted for “Essence of Vanilla”….which I think might also exist on the perfume aisle of CVS…next to Electric Youth.

For those of you who are not aware – Madagascar is the land of vanilla. But, to my surprise, vanilla (the type that is grown here and in the other islands of the Indian Ocean) is really from Mexico! I highly recommend a quick read of the Wikipedia article on vanilla – super interesting. So, there I was, standing in the supermarket and thinking, “What!?” When I got home I called my sponsor – “What’s up with the vanilla extract? Am I looking in the wrong place?” She said she had only seen the Essence of Vanilla. But, then she saved me – “You know, you can just put some vanilla beans in a bottle of vodka, right?” No, no – I did not know that. Definitely one of those moments when you question what other, everyday things you don’t know.

Project Number One! Vanilla Extract! Today I picked up the cheapest little bottle of vodka I could find and a big hunk of vanilla beans. I got 50 grams for about 4 dollars (that’s like 20 vanilla beans). I looked vanilla beans up on Amazon and 10 beans will set you back about $13. Needless to say, much, much cheaper directly from the source. I used this website as my guide. Only when I got to the end did I realize you have to wait three whole months to have the extract! But, Cooks Illustrated (yes, yes my favorite) says it only takes one week. I vote one week until cookies or these Wheat Thins that I saw posted on Pinterest (my new addiction).

So there you have it – what is going to turn out to likely be a two-year supply of vanilla extract is brewing away in my cupboard behind a giant bag of Malagasy pink rice.

Project Number Two? I am still, after all this time not satisfied with how my flour tortillas are turning out. Tomorrow I’m trying this recipe from the Homesick Texan.

Are you curious about the rest of the project list? ‘Cause, you know me making food in Madagascar has got to be super interesting to y’all, right?

Well, just in case, here’s a preview:

 • learn to make cheese (major development on that front – found pasteurized fresh milk today!),
 • find good fish and make beer-battered fish tacos (I have this super Canadian totally cheering me on about the tacos…I feel like it’s a challenge),
• plant tomato seeds…and attempt to have tomatoes as an end result,
• figure out something to do with Ball jars….lots of Ball jars which I bought, on a complete and total whim, before we packed out.

Cultivation and Personal Growth

I’m not really one for resolutions, but I am one for pretty regular self-examination. So, one of the things I am working on for this year is remembering to (1) be myself and (2) be true to myself. I was recently reading Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project (a really, really good book that I highly recommend – even if you’re already happy) and she found that in honoring and accepting yourself as you truly are you can be happier. She gives the example that she really wants to be the type of person who enjoys Jazz clubs, but she just isn’t. So, she just says, “You know, I’m just not that into Jazz clubs.” It’s not that you don’t try to make personal improvements; it’s just that you accept yourself a bit more. This makes sense I think.

I’ve applied this to myself in the realm of my garden. I have always really wanted a vegetable garden. I absolutely love getting fresh veggies from the garden. My whole life – from my early childhood in Indiana to driving through the Texas Hill Country in our pre-FS life to just about every international adventure - has been punctuated with stops at roadside stands to load up on just-from-the-garden goodies.

But, here I have to confess, despite the joy I get from seeing fresh veggies and herbs begin to pop up from the soil, I have no real desire to tend my own garden. I don’t mind dirt and I love being outdoors, but I just do not have the skills or patience to manage the earth and the seeds and the watering and the sunning on my own. I wish I did. I really wish I did. Besides the fact that I would get the tasty, healthy pay-off, I have this romantic notion that a woman who tends a garden with dirty hands, a smudge of soil on her nose and a floppy hat must be very sexy…in a rustic, Little House on the Prairie sort of way.

So, anyway, I'm practicing being true to myself…and I hired a gardener. His name is Arthur and he works every morning. It’s autumn here (and the dry season) so he rakes the leaves and waters the plants. He also turned my empty, but perfect garden space into a true garden. And, he made these wonderful little signs! This little plot of land with its little green beans starting to pop up makes me really happy.  Having a reliable, kind and honest person to help it grow makes it that much better.

The garden spot - pre-Arthur

Green Beans!

Carrots

Chinese cabbage...not sure what I'm going to do with it.

The view of our house from the garden

Fourteen months later - Madagascar!

What a break that was, huh?! Yes, fourteen months ago I was not especially feeling bloggy. In fact, I was feeling rather overwhelmed with the arrival of the end of our first Foreign Service tour. In all honesty, perhaps blogging is exactly what I should have been doing, but I didn’t feel my heart was in it and I just kept feeling like I was running out of things to say. But, as the last several months have left me with a running mental list of blog posts, I figure now is as good a time as any to get back into it.

So, here goes.

But, first things first. What in the world have I been doing for the last 14 months? And, why am I getting back to For Lack of Tacos now?

Well, here it is, the last year in 100 words:

Last beach trips in the Dominican Republic.
Last days of work with Peace Corps.
Saying goodbye to DR friends.
Crazy stuff happening in Santo Domingo.
Pack out.
Mommy/Daddy trip to New York in October.
End of my first-trimester (yep, that’s right – there are 5 of us now…and the dog!).
Oakwood.
Our oldest started kindergarten.
French…November - March.
April – baby girl arrives! Joy!
Minor freak out about moving half-way across the world with a newborn.
Pack out.
Hard times saying goodbye again. Sniff sniff.
Two days in Paris.
Madagascar.
Great welcome.
Hints of feeling a new home beginning here.

So, it’s no haiku, but I think that sums it up.

Now, onto the interesting stuff! We are here – in Madagascar! Madagascar!! This is largely the reason I just can’t resist getting back to writing. This is, quite seriously, like no place else on Earth. And, while For Lack of Tacos has long since stopped being a “food blog” per se, I still love food and holy cow, do they have good food here! If I’m not careful I’m going to be leaving here with two doughy thighs that will look a lot like the baguettes with which I religiously stuff my face.

But, as always, it’s not just about food around here. As you can tell from my summary up there, this transition has been seriously intense. Moving to Santo Domingo was not without its challenges, but moving here, with our two oldest children now 6 and 4 and a brand new (seriously adorable and precious) baby girl in tow has brought me face to face with the question, “Why do we do this again?” And yet, day after day, I see why we do this. No, there still aren’t any tacos stands, but that is still okay.

So, I’m back here. Making grocery lists again. Trying to feed our family. Trying to turn the simplest ingredients into yummy treats and hoping I do it all at least a little gracefully and with at least a tiny bit of humor…and wine. And, I just keep praying we don’t stop finding ways to make it all make sense and learn our lessons – because, you know, it really is a great adventure. Yay!

As always, thanks for reading. Stay tuned…

Life Goes On...and On...and On

Wow…I had such plans for blogging. And, I pretty much have been, but not here. We have a family blog and somehow right now that seems to be where my energies are. Life in the Foreign Service starts to seem so normal I wonder if there’s much to write about. Then, I see all the stuff that is definitely NOT normal…or that I never envisioned I would consider to be normal…and I think there’s just too much to write about.

I went through a phase this spring of feeling like my life was not in my hands. I’ve spent time abroad before, but never this long; and although I love it here, this was a phase of culture shock I had not anticipated. I realize now that it’s not just the living abroad, the feeling of being mildly left out of the decisions of my own life is Foreign Service Culture Shock. I worked as a social worker with immigrant children in the States and I remember drawing out the culture shock cycle on a piece of scratch paper for them. I would explain that the fact that they were young, couldn’t speak the language and, often, undocumented made their culture shock all the more complicated. I should have remembered this for myself….not that I’m any of those things, but you know what I mean. Culture shock is a guide – each individual, crazy life changes the cycle. In the end, it’s not much a cycle at all…more like your sh** just dumped randomly out of your suitcase.

Anyway, I needed time for reflection…and time to assess what was and was not within my power.

Work stress? Definitely within my power – it was time to reevaluate my priorities. I feel I did so successfully and things are much more under control.

Learning French? What the hell - I’ll learn it or I won’t, but I will give it my best shot – AFTER my huge work event ends in early June.

Firing the guy who does a really bad job of cleaning our pool? Well, here’s where I have a hard time with the pity party I throw for myself…because…well…we have a pool. But, you know what, if I can’t hang my own pictures on the wall or call whomever I want to fix my leaky faucet, then I am damn sure going to fire that guy and figure out the freakin’ pool by myself. So, through a bit of insanity…and, I won’t deny tears, I got the pool ungreen, learned how to prime the pump and test for and add chemicals. Seriously, I am almost as proud of this as I am of the fact that my kids are polite 80% of the time.

And, the list goes on. It was a crazy spring. I spent my week in the US feeling like I was in a total bubble. By the last few days I felt like the break from Santo Domingo had been good. By the time we got back I was ready to be home…this home – here.

And, now we are five months from D-Day. We have put up a calendar on the wall where we mark our plans – the beaches still left to visit and the normal every day things that must get done in the midst of it….that might include blogging here…it might not. I guess we’ll see.

The Final Quarter Begins...almost...but first some tacos

It’s after 10:00 PM, I’m exhausted and yet I feel like I just cannot let another day pass without blogging. We have been so, so busy, it’s difficult to find even a few minutes to get things down. We’ve had the normal busy stuff – a visit from the in-laws, a three-year-old with a broken arm (with two boys and an accident prone husband, such injuries can be categorized as “normal” for us) and loads of work (I am organizing a national conference and my husband has just moved to his final rotation – American Citizens Services).

Plus, we’re now within days of officially entering our final 6 months. This has hit me in ways I hadn’t expected. For instances, if something is frustrating at work, it’s hard to focus – I see myself almost out the door. And, if I find myself in a meeting with the super amazing local professionals on my conference planning committee I think, “How can I leave this?” Then, I see the boys whizzing away with their amazing Spanish and I think about how they’re going to lose it in a sea of French and Malagasy. I imagine a few years from now saying, “When we left the DR they were fluent in Spanish.” We’re seeing new friends make their way here and “old” ones prepare to leave. Our closest friends from the 144th will be heading off to China and El Salvador – to me this seems like a guaranteed minimum two-year separation. That makes me sad. And then again, what a reunion we will all have for a few months in DC!

All this has left me feeling emotional and reflective and sometimes anxious and other times really impatient to get on with the show. On a daily basis I have found myself feeling alternately more in love with my island than ever and seriously frustrated. This weekend I finally just gave myself a good kick in the ass and decided to get over it. The goodbyes will suck. They will suck now and next year and the next and the next. But, they will get easier and I believe a million times over that it’s better to live an adventurous life with the crappy moments than a dull one of perfect ease. And nothing can change the incredible experiences we have had here – the ways in which we have grown, our boys have grown and the way a small decade-long dream has turned into a reality. We still pinch ourselves.

Of course, all this mushy happiness doesn’t change the fact that I am giddy with excitement of spending Semana Santa in Austin! In just a few short days we will be touching down. I am already eating every meal here knowing that these old beans and rice have nothing on my Austin food heaven. I have figured up that we will be spending approximately 187 hours in Austin over the next week. How much can I eat in that span of time? WHAT can I eat in that time frame?

Admittedly, we probably eat better here – more basic food, closer to the Earth. We have both slimmed down quite a bit. We eat out less. It’s good for us, BUT man do I get sick of it. Sometimes I look down at a plate of roasted chicken and white rice and I dream of a huge plate of Indian or Thai or Ethiopian or, of course, Tex-Mex. Sometimes I just want a dinner of chips and salsa and beer – GOOD chips and salsa and beer. It’s food for the soul and I’m eagerly awaiting the recharge.

I’m not really one to stuff myself, but I can fill every moment with my favorite food and drink with absolutely no problem. So, if you have ever wondered what one person could eat in Austin within 187 hours (‘cause I’m sure you have, right?), stay tuned. I’m gonna’ food diary our trip. ETA four days. Stay tuned.