So for my birthday, I told the Sisters I wanted to cook. It took some brainstorming to figure out what I could make. I really wanted to make green enchildas or fajitas but making the tortillas from scratch seemed a bit overreaching for my first ktichen venture in Haiti and also the sisters, like most Haitians, are not a fan of spice. I decided to make a chicken pot pie. I went to the kitchen right after breakfast on Saturday morning. I told the sister that I needed chicken so Marie Fleur, one of the lady workers, came in five minutes later, holding a squaking chicken in hand. Hmm, killing and dressing a chicken was not in the online directions. Fortunately, Marie Fleur helped me- it is quite a process. After killing it, you have to boil it a bit, pluck the feathers, flame it again to get the remaining quills, boil it again for a bit and butcher it. Afer that, it was a piece of cake or I should say pie. The carrots, celery, and onions were fresh picked from the garden that morning. The only other difficult part was starting the oven. You have to start the gas and then light the stove from a distance. Mode is scared to do this after burning her arm and some of her hair Also the directions called for 400 degrees. Since there was no temperature gadge, all I could tell was that the oven was really, really hot. But the chicken pot pie turned out a success and Sr. Danielle even asked me to show the recipe to the Saturday cooking class.
My next culinary experiment will be pancakes. I found some Aunt Jemima syrup in Cap Haitien which inspired me.