So today is Thanksgiving. And while the holiday is not celebrated here, my friends and I still love it so we decided to have our own thanksgiving. The food was all divided up, we all had our jobs- this was going to be a breeze. I was responsible for the squash (GROSS) and the rolls (Yummy! I have an amazing, super-secret, practically no fail recipe) and I was set to go.
I decided to ask a friend of mine to switch classes with me today (since today in English Class day and I didn't want to miss it) so I got up early and taught my class. The class was great but transportation was a real pain today (matatus just weren't stopping, it was a pain). I finally get home, and all the kids in the compound were playing outside becuase- guess what- NO POWER. Again. I mean this isn't a new thing. Earlier this year, we spent 3 months getting power only every other day. Life goes on. But today was Thanksgiving and I had food to bake- in my ELECTRIC oven. So what to do? Wait it out? There aren't a ton of options. So I called around to my friend who was cooking the Turkey (who doesn't live too far away from me) to see if she had power. I figured that since I hadn't received a frantic phone call from her, that she probably had power. She did. Ok. At least we would have turkey.
So I decided that I had time, I was going to start my rolls in faith that maybe the electricity would come back in time to bake them (its been known to happen) and they had to rise for like 2 hours total. So I started the rolls.
And I waited.
And waited.
And waited.
No power yet, that's ok, it still has time to come back before the rolls have to cook....
And waited.
I'm frantically trying to slow down the process (but how do you stop yeast from rising?) I'm moving the dough to the coolest part of the house. Still no power.
I'm calling around to friends to see if they have power and working ovens. We decide that I will bring the raw/rising rolls to my friends house (the one who is hosting this shin-dig). But now they are getting HUGE (because they were supposed to go into the oven an hour ago). Thankfully, another friend from my compound was going to the party too, so I didn't have to try to get my massive blob of dough on a matatu!
We get to the place where we are eating, the turkey just came out of the oven and I threw the rolls in and there we go! They turned out half-way decent for having risen for and hour and a half more then they should have!
But it was a great evening with some great friends! By the way, I gave up on trying to bake the squash with all the electricity issues. I sure didn't miss it! We all sat around and talked about Adventures of International Thanksgiving's Past (cooking 30kg's of potatoes on a Bunsen burner in India and mashing all the potatoes with a fork because we didn't have a potato masher (that one was me) and all the women there had a stories about other electricity-less Thanksgivings).
Now I'm watching the Thanksgiving episode of WKRP in Cincinnati- absolutely HILARIOUS!!! Its the one with the air-born-live-turkey promotion. Too funny! I love classic 70's TV shows!
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