Chicken foot soup

Yep, tonight we had chicken foot soup, called Menudos de Pollo (which basically means chicken parts soup). It's served over rice along with chunks of carrots and potatoes. Actually it was far from just the chicken's foot...it was everything else associated with a chicken too...but I'll just let your imagination run with that one. I sat across from a kid who had a foot and some other parts in her bowl (I was a wimp and asked for only the veggies in my soup). The foot looked kind of a like a hand...and after awhile I thought that maybe I could bring myself to try this at some point, until....I got a chance to see the pads on the bottom of the foot. As I watched her suck on the toes, pads and all, I realized that it may be quite awhile until I get the courage to join her.

One day recently we had leaf soup. It's basically rice soup with really small dark green leaves in it that were picked off some tree here on campus. Believe it or not, the soup was quite tasty, like a good rice soup, and the leaves just added a nice dark green color.

As you may well know, I'm basically incompetent in a kitchen. So it was a plus that my meals are included as part of my monthly fees here...even if the food is interesting much of the time. However as fate would have it, due to me working in the city at the book ministry causes me to get home much too late for dinner. (My monthly fees will be reduced.) So I pack my lunch most days (yeah for peanut butter and jelly!) and have had to reintroduce myself to the concept of using a stove and oven for my evening meal. Kim, my roommate back in Richmond, likes to cook so she pretty much did all the cooking and I became quite spoiled. My cooking specialties included cereal, grilled cheese sandwiches, and popcorn in the microwave. So it seems like God has a sense of humor as he sees me standing in my kitchen here, scratching my head, and wondering what in world I'm supposed to do.

By the way, if you come visit, I promise we can avoid all the extra special meals here. I now have access to the menus :)