"Wife Training"

     Well, since term has ended I've finally had some free time over the last few weeks which has been delightful. Along with some sewing, knitting, and other projects, I have been doing quite a bit of housework, cooking, and baking....this I have affectionately called "wife training". 

     Being in the middle of two sisters who can both cook splendidly, I stuck to the easy things like baking banana bread, and cooking taco chip ole...everything else simply got me into trouble. It's not that I can't follow a recipe, it's just that the most unusual catastrophes seemed to always come up when I was in the kitchen, not with Janice, or Elizabeth, or mom...only me. So I did the only logical thing one can do in that kind of situation and I handed over the cooking and baking responsibilities to my very capable sisters and mother, and contented myself with cleaning the house instead.

    Well, here I am in Africa with no sisters or mothers to hand things off on, and I found myself not only being in charge of my meals three-ish times a day, but in the bush where practically everything needs to be made from scratch!

    Believe it or not, I've quite enjoyed making things from scratch such as bread, tortillas, sweet breads, etc. and I have been fairly creative and content in the kitchen so far. Every night I check out allrecipes.com for new stuff to try out, and I figure if I've got a recipe (I usually only go for the four and a half - five star ones), and the ingredients then I can do it too! I can learn from any mistakes that I make, and only I have to live with them (with no little brothers to laugh at me!). I'm quite relieved, because I always figured I'd be that pathetic newly married woman whose poor husband starves for the first year or so until she kinda sorta learns how to put unburned food on the table, and he finally stops looking forward to visiting his mother's house during meal times! 

    Anyway, when I've graduated from wife training then maybe I can really count myself as the typical, accomplished homeschooling girl....well, at least until I have to knit a sweater, that is.