Thursday, March 20, 2008
Saturday, March 1, 2008
sengal, career fairs, and chili
So as to this was one of the best nights I've had so far in Lithuania it deserves an update. Last week I received an email from a Westmont graduate who is working here at LCC. He's the intercultural director here and is in charge of many events, since LCC is a international university. He asked that each country that is represented in LCC cook a dish for the upcoming career fair. Normally, this would not be my thing. When I receive group emails from school I usually just delete them, but owing to my extreme boredom at times I actually responded saying I would make chili. Alright not very "American," but still part of the California cuisine.
I enlisted the help of Shala and Clayton and we cooked yesterday. So the career fair, designed like most, are so that employers from the big cities in Lithuania can meet upcoming graduates and offer them jobs and the food we were cooking was for the reception to follow. I realized after I signed up I was cooking for the two people who have truly reached out to me while I've been here, Ruta, the person who has been in contact with my since last semester about my practicum, and Craig, the guy from Westmont. Anyways, so then I felt good about doing something nice for them in return for all the encouragement they've given me.
So we yesterday afternoon went and cooked chili, in a country where we don't know the ingredients' names or even really how to make chili. And since I make a pretty good pico de gallo, I thought I'd make that too. So off I go to Iki, the grocery store, with my 50 lita budget. I found a variety of "chili" looking things. Such as a chipotle spaghetti sauce, bbq sauce, chili-flavored beans, and a generic "mexikan" spice mix. Clayton bought some meat. And we just started with tomato sauce... too sweet....then some "Mexikan" spices... just takes like spicy spaghetti sauce....onions?...garlic? And so on and so forth. And for some unknown reason, we made the best chili I had ever had. It was perfectly smokey spicy and meaty. And all the business executives loved it. Everyone wanted our "recipe" which made us laugh. The pico de gallo was good and we found some tortilla chips to go with and that was gone before all the other dishes were gone.
Another reason the chili went so fast was the basketball players from Senegal loved it so much. Haha, alright so something you should know. Lithuania is very racist so they are maybe a total of 5 black guys (not counting the ones from LCC) in all of Klaipeda. LCC recruited these 5 guys all from the same town in Senegal to come play basketball and study at the university. They are not allowed to leave campus because they might be attacked by Neo-Nazi gangs. Americans are supposed to be very careful when talking with them on the streets, because they might get beat up. So the point is these guys are from Senegal and have very few friends, cannot leave campus often, and play a lot of basketball. Let me also note, the shortest of the 5 is maybe 6'3, the tallest being like 6'11. They are huge. So since they loved chili so much and we had extra chili ingredients we offered to come back and cook for them again and play/teach them how to play poker. It was hilarious and a bunch of fun. Almost the entire basketball team stopped by for a bowl of chili and to watch us play.
This is why I came to Lithuania. I played poker with 5 guys from Senegal and 2 guys from Klaipeda. Funny how no matter what culture you come from a game of cards and food is the only thing needed to bring people together.
Much love,
Hannah
I enlisted the help of Shala and Clayton and we cooked yesterday. So the career fair, designed like most, are so that employers from the big cities in Lithuania can meet upcoming graduates and offer them jobs and the food we were cooking was for the reception to follow. I realized after I signed up I was cooking for the two people who have truly reached out to me while I've been here, Ruta, the person who has been in contact with my since last semester about my practicum, and Craig, the guy from Westmont. Anyways, so then I felt good about doing something nice for them in return for all the encouragement they've given me.
So we yesterday afternoon went and cooked chili, in a country where we don't know the ingredients' names or even really how to make chili. And since I make a pretty good pico de gallo, I thought I'd make that too. So off I go to Iki, the grocery store, with my 50 lita budget. I found a variety of "chili" looking things. Such as a chipotle spaghetti sauce, bbq sauce, chili-flavored beans, and a generic "mexikan" spice mix. Clayton bought some meat. And we just started with tomato sauce... too sweet....then some "Mexikan" spices... just takes like spicy spaghetti sauce....onions?...garlic? And so on and so forth. And for some unknown reason, we made the best chili I had ever had. It was perfectly smokey spicy and meaty. And all the business executives loved it. Everyone wanted our "recipe" which made us laugh. The pico de gallo was good and we found some tortilla chips to go with and that was gone before all the other dishes were gone.
Another reason the chili went so fast was the basketball players from Senegal loved it so much. Haha, alright so something you should know. Lithuania is very racist so they are maybe a total of 5 black guys (not counting the ones from LCC) in all of Klaipeda. LCC recruited these 5 guys all from the same town in Senegal to come play basketball and study at the university. They are not allowed to leave campus because they might be attacked by Neo-Nazi gangs. Americans are supposed to be very careful when talking with them on the streets, because they might get beat up. So the point is these guys are from Senegal and have very few friends, cannot leave campus often, and play a lot of basketball. Let me also note, the shortest of the 5 is maybe 6'3, the tallest being like 6'11. They are huge. So since they loved chili so much and we had extra chili ingredients we offered to come back and cook for them again and play/teach them how to play poker. It was hilarious and a bunch of fun. Almost the entire basketball team stopped by for a bowl of chili and to watch us play.
This is why I came to Lithuania. I played poker with 5 guys from Senegal and 2 guys from Klaipeda. Funny how no matter what culture you come from a game of cards and food is the only thing needed to bring people together.
Much love,
Hannah
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