Home is where the tortillas are

As a participant in the Taking Route "Global Life" series, I mentioned our wonderful homemade tortillas (first appearing in this blog about 4 years ago). Due to requests from other sad Mexican-food lovers with a tortilla-shaped hole in their hearts, I am posting the recipe here. Buen provecho!

Ingredients:
2+ cups flour
1 Tbsp shortening*
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 cup water

* I use shortening (Crisco) as it is available here. You could instead use lard, or experiment with other fats.

Instructions:
1. Preheat griddle or metal pan at medium heat. A nice hot (preheated) pan makes a nicer tortilla.

2. Cut shortening into the flour. Add salt and baking powder and mix. Add water and mix well. I use a hand mixer with dough hooks (sounds fancy but it's not!). Once mixture comes together, mix with electric mixer for 3 more minutes, or by hand for ~6 min. Dough is sticky - if mixing by hand you may need to add flour (which is actually nice for the dough being less sticky, but makes it harder to roll thin later).

3. Let dough rest on a well-floured surface for a few minutes (there is always something else in the kitchen that needs doing, right?).

4. Break dough into Ping-Pong(ish) sized balls and set aside on the well-floured surface.

5. To shape the tortilla, flatten a dough ball and then roll it with a rolling pin or glass bottle. It is really essential to be generous with the flour dusting here!

6. Place tortilla on hot pan. Small and large bubbles will form within a minute or so. Flip tortilla to just brown the other side.

7. Remove tortilla from heat and place in a stack in a clean towel. If tortillas aren't eaten within a few hours, they store well in a bag (preferably in the fridge, if you have space and power and all that).

This happened today

There are many amazing things that happen in the international schools. Here is one.

Yep, that's my animal-crazy, environmentally-minded kid. And that is Jane Goodall.

I keep telling the kiddo that she's doing so much in her life that many people dream of doing (whether she wants to or not), but today she believed me.

On Doing Something

One of the occastional (or more often, if you allow) irritants of being a "trailing spouse" is the oft-heard question, "What do you do?"

Fellow trailing spouses tend to be fairly sensitive on this issue, as compared with the average person who is employed and/or single and/or not posted abroad in any capacity. Sometimes you can even judge their own level of frustration if they offer a different phrasing, "What did you do?" Because, clearly, whatever your market worth was before you started this whole expat thing, it is different now.

And, quite honestly, at least I have the kids/family thing I can fall back on.

One of the adorable little guys available at Beguiled
Child. Hand knit by a women's coop in Bangladesh.

Regardless, especially for those of us who face a consistent stream of changing countries, the inevitable process of having to define (or defend) yourself does take a toll. There is the "eh" phase, where you are busy with whatever personal issues, goals, or travel you may have, and the question doesn't bother you. There is the "formerly" phase, where you talk about things that have kept you busy, even if they aren't currently operational. There is the, um, "go away" phase, where you have been looking and looking for some kind of gainful employment and you do not get hired; one's answer during this phase tends to be said tritely with an entirely fake smile. Then there is the blessed "answer" phase, if you are so lucky, where you get to say that either you have a job doing xyz or you are waiting on your clearance for abc job at the embassy.

Personally, it's been a little on-and-off for me with the consulting and whatnot. This fall, as I was sorting through all the edifying, beautifully made, creatively inspiring toys I would love to put in my shopping cart for the kids for Christmas, I eventually came to the conclusion that I should start my own online shop. Turns out, this is entirely doable via an online shopping website platform partnered with a US-based fulfillment warehouse.

So, look for it - coming soon! Beguiled Child, Enchanting Toys. A place to find toys both constructive and cozy, no batteries, screens, or cords allowed.

Monkey business

Bringing baby home to Kathmandu is quite different than bringing (our first) baby home to suburban Virginia.

Once the little one is tucked up in bed, the exchange goes like this:

Me (exhausted): Is that the baby or is that a monkey?

Him (distracted): Just monkey.

Massive Change of Pace

Don’t get me wrong. I love being in the States – life is so convenient there.

But it’s nice to be back in Nepal, despite the pretty low post-earthquake morale here. After an extremely hectic home-leave, which was difficult in ways we are not ready to talk about in the packing and preparation of our house for the next tenants, we are back with our stuff, in the alternative life we live where I don’t have to do laundry or clean toilets, have minimal gainful occupation, and can stay home playing with the girls and the dog and watch the monsoon rain pool outside (and inside, but that’s another story).  

Now, if only I had some Trader Joe's in the freezer I could get started on making dinner...

On Shaky Ground

So, if you are going to get devastating news – for example, that a 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit the rickety city where your husband is – a good way to get it is to be awakened by a phonecall where the first thing you hear is your husband saying, “I’m OK.”
He is definitely shaken. Major aftershocks continue, people are panicked and living outside, the airport is swamped, and the infrastructure that couldn’t keep up on a good day is damaged, destroyed, or completely overwhelmed.
But he’s OK.

Oh, Mama!

New Baby Year came at last! 

Pregnant mom and firstborn moved back to the US, we changed schools, and had a new baby overlayed with the foreign-service issue of technically living (and hubby physically residing) in a

How can my heart not burst?

place that is different than where we had the baby. In our case, we are extending this period by several months.

Here are some highlights:

• Reveled in living in a place that belongs to us – Home is where the House Is! - despite the lack of furniture and household goods, check (Nov 12)
• No. 1 daughter strong-armed into attending excellent local public school despite her fears, check (Nov 23)
• Thanksgiving with dear US-based friends but without hubby, check
• 40th birthday celebrated while being really, really pregnant, without hubby, check (Dec 5)
• Amazing baby girl born after 2 weeks of “pro-dromal” labor and one hour at the hospital, with hubby, check (Dec 30)
• Comings and goings of parents and hubby, most notably husband’s paternity being up and heading back to Nepal, ouch (Feb 22)
• A bunch of stuff I barely remember, such as getting up 3 to 5 times a night for one child or the other or both; feeding baby while watching it snow; cold bus stop waits with a screaming newborn; cold shopping trips with a precariously sleeping newborn; piano lessons with an amazingly good newborn; library visits while shushing the newborn; skyping to Nepal; cooking dinner with the baby in the sling and the girl sprawled on the kitchen floor doing homework; before school breakfasts with my girl at my own kitchen counter; laundry at 1am; and snuggles in sunbeams with both my girls. . .check
• A visit from a dear friend who folded the 3-load-tall mound of clothes in the borrowed papasan, alleluia and check (March 22)
• Mom arrives, and the house is picked up, eldest dear-one has company during feedings and baby bedtimes, dinner dishes are magically done, bathtubs are usably clean, la! Thanks Mom, glad you’ll be here a while.