Making Cake

I'm writing this blog post first before I get to in depth about the projects and our special guest visitor. WE made a cake or dessert or a delicious treat today. I don't know exactly what you call it but it's muy rico (Very Delicious). I say We because I was just the translator for the recipe. Pati can't read English so I had to make the tansition for her. Also she wanted to do all the steps in making my mom's famous pumpkin dessert. Pati is an amazing cook which I think I've already mentioned in a couple blog posts. But she also learns new recipes from people that come down. Most people that come down don't spend a high frequency of time talking with Pati. Mostly because the people that come down for a week mission trip don't have time or possibly don't have the spanish knowledge to talk for extended periods of time. Pati has been one of my great aids in teaching me Spanish. Even though Musco is her first language she is going to school and because she is learning so much spanish there we are able to practice quite a bit. She really is a great blessing to me expanding my vocabulary and and the many hours I've spent practicing with her. She is very patient and forgiving of how many times she has to repeat thing over and over and over and over. Although I feel like she does like to poke fun and make with me to. I know I can always make her laugh, but that is very easy to do, she is a very happy person.

And because try to push myself more and more everyday. I really ended up getting out side my box a couple today. I've been hanging out in the kitchen alot with her and learning all the words I can. Like grapefruit, Limes, Carrots, Pumpkin, Beans, Corn, and Squash. Yesterday I was mentioning to Pati that the Squash she brought in was HUGE. I asked her a bunch of question about it and cooking with it. It cooks very similar to Pumpkin. So I said my mom has an amazing recipe with Pumpkin and that we might be able to try it. Well Pati's face lit up with excitement. She love learning new recipes, she is quite the wiz kid in the kitchen. But she very busy with life this week so our two options were to wait of till next week or do it today. Luckily the Super Che(New supermarket had exactly what we needed) Usually we would have to wait for the next 3 hour trip to Acapulco to find something as exotic as Betty Croker white cake. But lets get on with the story right.

My mom sent the recipe down in an email. BUT mom isn't going to send the recipe down in Spanish so I had to translate it for Pati. Pati and I battled on word confusion for quite some time today. And it wasn't just in the making of the cake it was also the shopping list. So I went shopping. That was a mistery in it's own. I'm not a big fan of the Super Che. I get so confused about the organization of the story. But I can't explain it well enough to do it justice. Also try asking for a white cake mix when you don't know the word for mix. Every employee I ask kept sending me to the bakery. I was kinda frustrating but finally I found a guy to help me. Who would have guessed the butcher spoke just enough Englsih to fill in my missing pieces. Or try cooking a recipe from scratch when you usually just get all the materials from a can. Cooking completely from scratch is very satisfying but also terrifying. Or try cooking in a world that thinks in the metric system when your recipe is geared to the American style of cooking. Or translating thing in your head on the fly. OOPS. That was my big error today. I put to cans of evaporated milk in the dessert instead of 2 cups. Don't worry things turn out fine. It was delicious. I welcome the challenge, and even though I felt liguistically defeated for most of the day. Every one was very encouraging and loved the desser, at least Pati and the 14 7th grade boys, Sally, Barbara, Susi, Me and some parents really liked it.

It was a great day and sorry if the picture make you drool a little bit. I've been dreaming about this dessert for quite some time and I didn't think I get it till I got back in December.

Scott Ekstrom