Well, Shut My Mouth!

I don't know if many of you know this, but Brian and I celebrated our first anniversary shortly after moving in here, and it didn't exactly go as planned. Brian was very thoughtful about it, and narrowed down our choice of restaurants to two carefully chosen selections: one by the name of "Sweet Potatoes" and one by the name of "Milner's." We had decided on Sweet Potatoes because it specialized in southern food, and we thought we should immerse ourselves in the culture. I was excited, got all dressed up, and when Brian came home we took off. When we arrived at Sweet Potatoes, it was closed. We were a little disappointed, but figured that we'd just go to Milner's instead, and that this must be how it was meant to be. When we got to Milner's only to find that it was closed as well, we grimly considered celebrating at KFC. Fortunately, we remembered one more recommendation that was made to us (a place called Nobles) which was opened, and was scrumptious. The night was lovely after all. However, the need for a visit to Sweet Potatoes still nagged in the depths of our subconsciences like unfinished homework.
When I went to pick Brian up from work yesterday, he spontaneously suggested a course of action that would remedy this; we went to Sweet Potatoes for dinner. And this time, it was opened. And it was good. My favourite part of the meal was the fried okra--a truly southern specialty. But even as I type this I realize that my previous statement is not entirely true: the bourbon pecan pie earned a place in our hearts as well.
As we were eating, I seemed to recall reading somewhere that there was a Sweet Potatoes cookbook. However, being inebriated by the quality and quantity of the food before us, I wasn't sure if this was a confused memory, or if it was indeed true. So, I asked our (wonderful) waitress. Her response was, "Yes, she did come out with a book, and she's here now so I can get her to sign it for you." A few moments later, we held in our hands an autographed copy of the book, titled Well Shut My Mouth. The inscription read "To Christine and Brian, with joy, from our kitchen! - Stephanie Tyson." We were pretty tickled! Being the sedentary (my sister's choice of language to describe me) creature that I am, I don't think I could handle eating southern food daily, but I can't wait to try some of these recipes. Especially the "smothered yard bird" or the "drunken pork chops." And to think I was planning on a dull evening at home. Well, shut my mouth!

American Junk

One aspect of life in the US that I was most excited about prior to coming here was the second hand shopping. I am embarrassed, but willing, to admit that I used to peruse the Craigslists of various American cities, a sickly hue of green (envy) washing over me as I would salivate over sock machines and spinning wheels that could be had for very little money, if only I lived in Spokane, or wherever else.
Now, as many of you know, Brian, with the help of my lovely mother in law, bought me a killer sewing machine last winter. I wanted to have a place to set it up so I could put it to good use. I almost bought a card table from Target (similar to Zellers) which would have been okay, but would have hogged more space than was ideal. Then I thought to check Craigslist. And for $15, I picked up this old sewing cabinet:

I saw on the underside that the production date was 1965. Does that make it an antique? Does anyone know what age a piece should be in order to earn the designation "antique?" At any rate, it was perfect because of how little floor space it takes up, while still providing an ample surface, via the fold-out feature, when I need it:

Oh, but *gasp* is there hole in the table?

Why yes, yes there is a hole in the table! This would have been one of those cabinets that came with a machine built into it. These ensembles typically had a mechanism that would hold the machine at the surface when you were using it, and would allow you to drop the machine beneath the surface when you wanted to put it away and fold the table up. Theoretically, I might have been able to replace the mechanism, but I didn't want to tamper with my machine much; I just wanted to have a surface to use it on. So, I made an excursion to Home Depot. I must admit: hardware stores are very exciting places for me. They're as exciting for me as visits to a yarn store, but a hundred times more intimidating. I like hardware stores because they feed my illusions of being able to fix absolutely any aspect of my dwelling place that I wish. Anyway, I did a bit of hacking, and this is what I came up with:

I fit a piece of plywood into the opening, and supported it underneath with a network of more plywood pieces. I covered the surface plank with floral fabric because I thought it looked more patch-worky and fun. How did my design hold up to the weight of the machine?

I think it fared quite well! From this angle, only St. Anthony has a view of my shoddy construction. The timing of this project was just right too: this past Sunday, we went to church at St. Timothy's. The service was excellent, and afterwards, our friend Kat took us around the ministry fair, where representatives from each of the church's various ministries had an information booth set up. Kat steered me straight towards the quilting station, and got me signed up for the quilting ministry. Our first meeting will be this Saturday. I was told I'll be working on a patchwork quilt to start, like what Claudine was working on before we left. I can't wait!

Pig(ott)s Eating Pigs

Remember the pork roast that tried to ruin my life the other day? Here's what became of it:
At least that's part of what became of it. Brian isn't usually a fan of pork, but he gave this one thumbs up, so I thought I'd share the recipe. It's a variation on a recipe I found on allrecipes.com. The original recipe is here: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/beef-tenderloin-with-roasted-shallots/detail.aspx

Instead of beef tenderloin, I used a pork roast which, incidentally, was exactly two pounds. And instead of shallots, I used regular cooking onions. The third and last modification I made was to omit the flour/butter combination called for in making the gravy, using one tablespoon of cornstarch instead (we're trying to eat healthier). I don't think we missed the butter at all, due to all of the other rich flavours present in this dish (bacon, onion, thyme, etc).
I did not boil the roast in the gravy in the end...I just carved it (which was a breeze using the electric knife) and served each slice with the gravy on top. I noticed the slices were a little rarer than we prefer, so before serving, I lay all of them flat in the roaster and popped it back into the oven for a few more minutes until it was done to our liking. They came out evenly cooked and just right.
The green bean bundles were extremely easy to make. Since there were just two of us, I only made two. This is what I did:
* I thawed two strips of bacon
* I counted out 15 beans per bundle
* I blanched the beans for a couple of minutes in boiling water, then drained them and sprinkled them with salt and garlic powder
* while the beans were being blanched I partially cooked the bacon in the microwave for a total of 50 seconds in 25 second increments (I highly recommend doing this in increments given how prone bacon is to popping in the microwave)
* I wrapped each 15 bean bundle in one strip of bacon, held by a toothpick
* the bundles were baked in the oven for 15 minutes at 375F (I did turn the oven up to 450F for the last 5 minutes).
I like my beans a little crispy, but if you prefer them to be soft, you could spend 2-5 more minutes in either the blanching or baking stage. Bon appetit!

How a visit to the Presbyterian church resulted in the consumption of bastourma (a true story)

As you may or may not know, today was our fourth week of church hopping. Early in the week, we had decided to visit a certain Presbyterian church near us because it seemed like it had a lot of potential to be a good match for our needs and beliefs. We saw on their website that they had two services: one at 8:30 and one at 11:30. We decided to go for the 8:30 service.
So...
This morning, of course, I slept in until 7:30. And when I woke up, I remembered that I had to defrost a piece of pork roast to make for dinner. I was running late, and had to deal with the fact that in my ignorance and prior inexperience of dealing with pork roasts, I failed to realize that one cannot simply freeze a metre long roast in its entirety, and then cut chunks off of it as one needs. After several minutes of sawing at this enormous hunk of meat, it became apparent that I was not going to have any success in completing the incision I had started. Also, it was delaying us for church. Accordingly, I threw the roast into the fridge and made a mad dash to get ready and out the door, feeling like a failure for not having a wonderful Sunday dinner in my stars.

(I'm not putting a picture, so use your imagination to conjure up an awkwardly frozen roast here)

When we got to the Presbyterian church, we saw that the lot was empty. Brian noticed a sign on the door: today's service was to be held at the Millenium Center downtown, and would start at 10:30. Fine, we thought, we would grab a coffee, hang out, and then head on over. But the downtown of Winston-Salem is not one that is alive on Sunday mornings. Even Starbucks was closed. After some driving about, we passed by a place called "Alex's Cafe." I wasn't even going to stop, but Brian thought it looked like it might do. We went inside where we were greeted with a picture of Jesus hanging over the kitchen door. We ordered breakfast, and then proceeded to partake in one of the strangest sequences of coincidences ever.
Something about the waitress made me think she was middle eastern. She had no accent, no crazy curly hair, but even so, I was quite sure. And then I noticed a tray of baklava on the counter. I asked her about the baklava, and sure enough, seconds later, we were exchanging our mothers' techniques for making baklava, and discovering that we were both Egyptian. She brought out her mom, Gigi, and her little sister, Christie; we had a good gab, and swapped contact info.
We discovered that there is a Coptic community in Winston, but they don't have mass every week because there isn't always a priest available. For those other weeks, people either go out to Raleigh or Charlotte, or miss church (since both of those cities are a bit of a ways away). Gigi told us she was just heading out to church, but she'd be in touch.
We finished up breakfast, were off on our way, and found the Millenium Center. When we got in, we thought there had been a mistake, because it looked like we walked into a wedding. It was an elaborate hall with banquet tables and flower arrangements. It turned out that several churches had joined for one worship service/farewell party, and there was going to be a band and dinner. We were strongly encouraged to stay, but we felt really awkward just standing there while people grouped around the banquet tables with their friends. We decided we'd leave, and try the Presbyterian church another week, when the service was more typical of their weekly meetings.
Brian felt that we should still make an effort to go to church. We thought we'd try St. Timothy's again (the first church we tried with the incense and good sermons). Of course, the GPS couldn't locate it. We tried to navigate, had no luck, and decided to call it a day and head home. Just as we had decided this, we passed a sign pointing to St. Timothy's. With much reluctance (I don't know why I was reluctant) I made a u-turn, and soon we were pulling into the St. Timothy's lot.
And as we were passing by their chapel to get to the main church, we noticed...can you guess? A Coptic service! We were even in time for the Gospel! We stayed for mass, and afterwards, were warmly welcomed by the very tiny congregation. Gigi was so happy to see us there because she wished she had thought to tell us to come when we saw her at the cafe. A couple our age invited us, along with another new couple, to their place, where we were served bastourma as an appetizer. This preceded a delicious dinner. (So there, pork roast! I didn't need you after all!) We had a great time, and learned a bit about the efforts to pioneer a Coptic church in Winston-Salem. We also resolved to meet again together soon, and to figure out what services the church needed. And we laughed at the day's many accidents:

* If I had successfully thawed the pork roast, I may have come home to the smell of rotting meat
* If we had known about the relocation of the Presbyterian service, we wouldn't have stopped by Alex's cafe and met Gigi
* If we had stayed for the Presbyterian service, we wouldn't have gone to St. Timothy's, and of course:
* If we didn't go to St. Timothy's, we wouldn't have found the Coptic service

Moral of the story: sometimes a day that begins with nothing going your way can be the best kind!

PS We were completely unaffected by the hurricane, thank God!

Defective Washer

Today, I used my new washing machine for the first time. Towards the end of the cycle, it started rocking back and forth, the floor was shaking, and my fridge, which is in another room, was swinging like it was going to fall. And I thought to myself, "well this is a defective washer."
Then I got online and read about the 5.8 earthquake centred in Virginia, which is only a couple of hours away from us. I hear all y'all in the GTA felt it too. I hope you didn't throw out your washers!

Blog Binge

Throughout the week I kept wanting to write individual posts about various things, and didn't find time to...so they snowballed. This means that instead of each one of these topics having its own rightful post, they are now being jumbled up into one rambling entry. The topics I am treating in this post are:
1. laundry
2. project spice
3. pictures of Sunday dinner
4. this week's farmers market trip
5. church hopping

So let's begin!

1. We are officially grownups now. Don't believe me? See for yourself:

As of Friday, we are the proud parents of these big blobs of machine. I'm so excited about having them! I remember reading a meditation about a woman who felt sorry for herself because she'd read about these prominent women in the Bible who had maids helping them with their tasks, and she wished that she had maids as well. And then she looked around her house at all of these machines that took care of all this work for her and realized that she was surrounded by maids. So here they are: our new maids!
I thought this would be a good time to talk about laundry detergent. One experiment I have always wanted to try is the making of laundry detergent. Recipes for doing this are everywhere. What stopped me before was a lack of time, and a bit of difficulty finding the ingredients. Now that I am (insert the term that means the opposite of gainfully employed here), and given the ease of finding the ingredients, I think I'll try it out sometime. The recipe I've found that's safe for using in high efficiency machines produces a liquid detergent. I think I prefer powder, so I'm still shopping around for the perfect recipe, but at any rate, the ingredients are always:

* borax
* washing soda
* soap (REAL soap, either liquid or bar, but most of what you get at supermarkets/drugstores is not actually soap...soap is made of fats and hydroxides)
The soap that is most commonly recommended in these recipes is one called "Fels Naptha." This is something you won't find in Canada--at least not by that name. But not to worry...in Canada, Sunlight makes an identical laundry soap bar that can be bought at Home Depot (which also carries borax and washing soda); those laundry soap bars are ideal for these recipes. And I just learned that they are excellent spot cleaners for stained clothes as a pre-wash treatment (especially on stained collars, I hear). I wasn't looking for a reason to test this out, but the reason came: I had neon yellow turmeric stains on my jeans, and the Fels Naptha took them out beautifully! Why did I have turmeric on my jeans? Read on and find out!

2. The Spice of Life
Brian and I have a LOT of spices, and we've never really had a system for organizing them aside from throwing them into a box in a drawer, in no particular order. What ends up happening is that once a week, we think we don't have chili powder, so we buy an enormous jar of it. And then we later discover that our chili has been breeding, and we have 5 jars of it. And I can never find the basil which I was sure was lurking in the bottom of the drawer (because it doesn't exist). I read about various systems of organizing spices, and came up with a scheme. It took me a couple of days to implement it, but I finished it yesterday, and am pleased with how it turned out.
First, my top ten most commonly used spices go in the spice rack I swiped from Mom:

All other spices go into similar jars in a dedicated drawer in the kitchen, in alphabetical order:

Of course, there might be extra quantities of a spice bought in bulk that exceeds the capacity of one of these spice jars. My solution:

I picked up a bunch of these hilariously tiny containers at the Dollar Tree, and put excess spices in them. These in turn went into a larger container, which went in the freezer. It was a lot of tedious work, but seeing the difference it made in my efficiency with preparing dinner tonight made me so glad I did it! Speaking of dinner tonight...

3. Not much to say. Homemade bread, and roasted whole chicken. But we wanted to show you pictures:

Hopefully you can figure out which is the bread, and which is the chicken.

4. Yesterday we got up bright and early to beat the crowd at the farmers market. We got there around 8:30, and it was already about 30 degrees. One of the vendors asked if I was enjoying the cool weather. I started laughing, and then had to explain to him that I'm from Canada, which made him laugh. Anyway, our pick of the week was this guy:

Now, I feel a bit funny posting a picture of a watermelon; it's not like y'all haven't seen watermelons before. But you'll notice this one has seeds! I was so surprised to see this because I haven't seen a seedy watermelon since I was a little kid. As soon as I saw the seeds, I recalled a conversation I had with a woman at work a couple years ago where she was lamenting that the watermelons you can get now are seedless, which don't come close to the seedy ones in flavour. I'm not sure how true that is, but this watermelon was a delicious one. Very sweet.

5. Last but not least, a report on our church hunt. Today we tried our third church: Holy Cross Orthodox church in High Point (High Point, Greensboro, and Winston-Salem are referred to as the "Piedmont Triad" or simply "The Triad" collectively). It was about a 35 minute drive, and a fairly scenic one. Holy Cross belongs to the Orthodox Church in America. The service was lovely. One of my favourite sounds is the harmony that is characteristic of the singing in Eastern Orthodox churches. It was a small church--very similar in size and feel to the Chapel. They even had a similar stay-for-a-while-and-eat-after-liturgy type of gathering, where people brought in dishes that they made. Everyone was quite welcoming, and we discovered that a few of the members of the congregation live quite close to us.

6. Bonus section: we miss you all a lot. Thanks for reading.

Feast!

It would be an insult to my heritage if I did not immediately write about the culinary condition of our new home. After all, our people live to eat. I will say this: at the outset, it looked pretty bleak. But be joyful, good readers, because the story has a happy ending. First I'll deal with the cost of food:

It's true that it is easier to eat junk than real food if you don't know where to look here. For example, we couldn't get over the fact that deep fried bologna biscuits were 99 cents each at Burger King, while a single red pepper was $3 at any of our local supermarkets. I was actually quite worried about being able to afford nutritious, healthy food. So, being well trained by my father, I first did what he would do in a situation like this: I got a Costco membership. That was a relief because their meat prices are more like what I was used to in Toronto, and you could by a clubpack of six red peppers imported all the way from Ontario! How exotic! Also, Tilapia is well priced here which is great, because we want to add more fish to our diet.

Next, I'd like to tell you about item availability. I came here prepared for the fact that there would not be as much variety as what we were used to in Toronto. This is just common sense; you can't expect a southern 230 000 person city to have the variety of the 5.5 million person city we just left. But I am consistently surprised by what I can and can't find. For example, it boggles my mind that in this land of deep fried bologna biscuits and deep fried ice cream (I'm not making that up), the only kind of yogurt you can buy is low-fat, or fat-free. I'm definitely pro eating healthy, but come on! When it comes to yogurt, I say: go fat or go home. How did I cope? I bought a gallon of whole milk and a litre of whipping cream. Yes, that's right--whipping cream. It wasn't enough for me to just use whole milk...I had to add the fat of the whipping cream just for spite. I used a ratio of 4 parts milk to 1 part cream to make my own yogurt using our crockpot. It was a bit runny, so I strained it through a cheesecloth. The result:

 Mmmmmm. Better than ice cream. I especially like it with the Valley honey that Father Max gave us! Here, though, you see it pictured with a locally grown peach which we bought from a farmers market.

And this may be my favourite section of this post. The farmers markets here are a Godsend. People in this community know how expensive food can be and are always offering helpful advice to us on coping with that. The best piece of advice we got (from several people) was to buy our produce at the farmers markets. There are so many of them here, and they are wonderful! Good quality, good prices, and lots of variety. Here was my favourite pick from our first visit:

White bidingan! Of course I stuffed them. They weren't quite like the mahshi bidingan we've had in Egypt...tougher skins. But it was fun anyway. Speaking of mahshi, my mom keeps torturing me with stories of grapeleaves pouring in from the church yard and from Mary's yard. You would think that, nestled in the forest as we are, we'd be swimming in grape leaves. It's all ivy here. I'm tempted to stuff the ivy....although I recall a story of my mom attempting to use maple leaves, and she says that was disastrous. I'll let all y'all know:
a) if I actually getting around to doing this and
b) if such an experiment results in an edible end product.
Until next time!

Welcome A-blog!

Thanks for visiting! The purpose of this blog is to keep our friends up to date with our goings on in Winston-Salem. It's called "Life in the Dash" because:
1) It's the name of our local baseball team, derived from the dash between "Winston" and "Salem"
and
2) Our life here is a bit of a "dash" if you will--a something in between; something temporary. And while that can make it tough to want to settle right in, it's a great reminder of the transience of that other dash: the dash between the day we were born and the day that we leave this world to go meet the Emperor Beyond the Sea.
So, with that being said, we feel really blessed with our surroundings here. Everything is so lush and green. Outside of each of our four windows, this is what we see:

And our freeways look like this:

Lovely, isn't it? Stay tuned for more from the Dash!