teaching!

Omg I am going to teach Academic 1, which is the first level above advanced! Crimaninny, I don't know English that well!

Mona Uses a Pressure Cooker even though no one reads her blog

This evening I had to make an important decision: keep cooking the most stubborn beans in the world or give up and throw them out. It was a tense moment until we discovered a pressure cooker! ta-da! Don't worry, Dad, I read on the internetz how to use it... And now the beans are merrily cooking away (15 min in the pressure cooker) and nearly done! Happy days!

Beans....

So when I set out to cook dry beans, I forgot a crucial new factor in my bean cooking adventures: I am now living at more than 9,000 feet and stuff takes FOREVER to cook up here.

We're now going on hour 7...

News of the Day

In today's news from Quito, I still don't know what level I will be teaching, I've decided to start recording some of the new Spanish words I'm learning, and I am making a huge pot of black beans as we speak (type).

New words (!)
Cachete -- cheek
cachorro -- puppy or baby animal
sarten -- frying pan

more to come I'm sure.

Reading List!

Today is an interactive post! Woohoo! But this means that the tech savvy among you need to participate (I'm looking at you, people in your 20s). I am looking for book recommendations. I want to try reading something in Spanish, but I haven't had much luck finding the books I've been looking for. Therefore, I think it's time to broaden my search (also, at this point I would even like to find one in English to enjoy). Does anyone have recommendations for nice summer reading? I'm open to any suggestions!

Fieldtrip to Cayambe

I have so many new things to tell! First and foremost, I made Mexican pulled chicken this evening and it was delicious and everyone liked it! I am so thrilled and surprised!

In lesser news, we went on a little day trip outside of the city on Sunday and it was super fun. Andres' brother, Roberto, and his wife, Sylvana, and their daughter, Camila (Cami) age 3, took Andres and I to Cayambe. We ate really delicious food at this fancy cafe and Cami got to jump around in a giant balloon thing on a pond (see video below). For now, I am quite tired and I have to go pick up something to register my visa early in the morning, but take care! I miss you all!

Call for recipes!

So, who wants to help me learn to cook?? There are some restrictions though. First and foremost, the oven is broken and not likely to be fixed. I have a lot of beef, chicken, rice, and potatoes to work with.

Catherine, bless her, has already given me a few ideas. Broccoli beef, stir fry, quinoa...

And I am looking for more help! Some simple sauces and simple combination ideas would be awesome! Let me know what you think :). I have the comments set so that people with gmail accounts can post and you can post "anonymously" without an account.