One Small Step for Womankind, One Giant Leap for Woman

Pumpkin pie. Roasted chicken. Mashed potatoes and gravy. Rice. Cabbage. Yes, all this and more can be and was on the menu for last Thursday, aka T-day! Thank you, thank you, l'd like to thank my mom and my grandma for showing me what I know in the kitchen - bet you didn't think I had it in me, huh, Ma? And I'd like to thank the CH boys .... or is that "I'd like to blame..."? I dunno, maybe both.

Cooking hasn't been easy here. When you have microwavable things up the wazoo back home, and a simplified interest in food here, it leads to meals that mostly consist of Guyanesed versions of American food, like scrambled eggs and farine, or tuna salad in bake or baked beans with clap roti. I`ve definitely had some culinary moments of pride, some of which I commemorated with pictures. Yup, that veggie fried rice, a stew-like dish, pumpkin curry, different types of noodles, french toast... and then of course, there`s my endeavors into the meat group - preparing and then cooking fish, and once chicken that I declared inedible afterwards. Though admittedly, a lot of what I cook, I don`t feel is fit for the queen, or even our village captain. So I`ve been shy to share my cooking with my Y people, even though they`ve allowed me the opportunity several times.

So I dunno what it was, on Thursday, that actually got me movin and groovin in CH`s kitchen, but move and groove I did. Out of desire for maintaining tradition and trying to bring a little of home to Y, I planned to try to make pumpkin pie. Baking is more of my thing anyway, and I LOVE me some pumpkin pie. So Mr. So-where`s-the-turkey? himself brought back supplies we might need, and on Thursday morning (so I'd have time to start over if I messed up), I started chopping pumpkin (with help). Early on, I realized I needed evaporated, not condensed milk, I didn't know what the round nut things were until someone told me they were nutmeg, and while I was in the process of making this one sort of pan function as a pie pan, an actual glass pie pan appeared out of thin air. The recipes I looked up were American, and functioned on Fahrenheit, but the gas stove at the CH was Celsius, so I had to find a conversion chart. But despite all this, everything went smoothly. The crust worked well, the pumpkin stewed beautifully, and the mixture of spices I used were fun.

One pie was for our weekly teacher's lunch, and another, I was making for after hours at the CH.Yet again, Mr. Turkey (that nickname works on so many different levels, it's great) was requesting turkey, and perhaps out of contentment in doing ok with the pies, I finally agreed to try. And then pumpkin pies turned into pumpkin pies and roasted chicken (obviously, a turkey could not be as easily obtained), and then THAT turned into pumpkin pie, chicken and side dishes - you can't have just chicken for dinner, can you? So I mentally added mashed potatoes and an attempt at gravy to the menu, and Frannie talked about adding fried rice to it, as well. Heck yeah, we've got a feast on our hands!

From 6 til 9, we were in the kitchen, my hands going into uncharted territories with that chicken, and taking off it's neck. With pointers from a fellow volunteer herpetologist, Chris, the chicken was cooked and finished by 9 ish. And the potatoes and gravy from scratch were finished, too. Chris thought, and I agreed, that we needed veggies with the meal, so he steamed some purple cabbage. For the gravy, I heated water, stirred in flour with pepper and salt, then added juices from the chicken and some purple cabbage stock... yup, our gravy was purple - but it totally thickened and tasted good! Frannie's rice came out first, and we started covering and waiting. Thanksgiving dinner, though we hadn't intended it to be, is done around a table, all eating at once, so to me, it was only natural we waited for those who were out on business to come back. I actually was feeling bad the food was taking so long to cook, though we certainly finished before they come back.

They return around 10, and it's not the time they come back that finally propels me into an insanity I think only females can possess, it was the fact that they came in, having already eaten and requesting "just some pie." (You know who you are, and you know this was quite a ballsy move on your part.) At first, I said ok, but then I began to get frustrated; I cooked a meal, one that you, joking or not, requested and knew was coming. Here I am, busting my novice ass off, and creating what was NOT a disaster of a meal, and it was gonna be demoted to "tomorrow's food"?

I am proud to say I had the guts to insist a small portion of food was served and tried. Thank you, boys, for accepting orders slightly humbly. Only slightly, though. I had to learn to compromise, too, and throw my fantasy of a meal around the table out the window. Still, though, as we sat on couches with plates on our lap at 10:30 Thursday night, and I had a forkful of mashed potatoes, purple gravy and a piece of roasted chicken, it felt and tasted like Thanksgiving, and it tickled me beyond belief. To not even be expecting Thanksgiving dinner, let alone be the one to cook one (of course, with the help of two great co-chefs), but be eating it in the middle of the Rupununi with some of my favorite people was pretty damn cool.

I finally got a taste of my pumpkin pies, and while they weren't my grandmas' they definitely contained the essence of pumpkin pie. I even got to pick at the chicken bones, and go for a small second of pie later. Pretty damn cool, people, pretty damn cool. And I gotta say, I didn't miss home too much on Thursday. Seriously, just knowing that THEY were enjoying a Thanksgiving meal, even if I couldn't enjoy it myself, was satisfying. The only thing I truly missed was the wine with the meal (and the preparations... and after the meal....)