Happy 2013!

Happy new year!

After the big office party on the 26th, I decided to have a quiet New Year's eve in. I celebrated by watching a lot of Parks and Rec and making tasty food. My new favorite is making bread pudding in the rice cooker.
Should you be so inclined to give it a go, here is my recipe:

Teresa’s adapted bread pudding recipe for the rice cooker
1 loaf white bread, left out to dry and then cut into squares

in a bowl:
2 eggs, beaten
1 full cup milk
1/3 cup sugar
Pinch salt
Dash vanilla (1 tsp?)
Few shakes of cinnamon (1 tsp?), sprinkle of nutmeg (1/4 tsp?)
1/3 cup raisins? (let’s be honest, no one eats it for the raisins)
4 spoonfuls of nutella (oh yeah)

whisk liquid mixture briskly with fork until well-combined.

Line steamer tray with foil and lightly butter, dump in bread cubes, pour mixture over bread and squish the bread pieces down into the liquid (if using nutella, pour mixture over half of bread cubes and then place the rest of bread in on top. This way the nutella won’t stick to the lid of the rice cooker but bake into the center of your bread pudding)

Put 1-2 cups of water into rice cooker, set steamer tray on top and put on “rice cooker” setting for about half an hour to forty five minutes, put on keep warm for another half an hour-ish to let set
Carefully remove steamer tray from rice cooker and enjoy!
Put foil over leftovers (still in tray) and refrigerate.

Merry Christmas!

Happy holidays to you and yours :)


(And no, I don't generally wear that hat at home in the evenings...but it is very comfortable. I do love to rock my Tsaagan Alt felt slippers though)

Holiday Spirit

Merry Christmas Eve!

I had a list of things I wanted to post about, how the holiday season has been here in Mongolia...

talk about Christmas cookie decorating party

lights when I leave work

random Christmas songs blaring

Christmas pot-luck plans

packages under the tree

my new earrings

my stocking

...but then I realized that I get to open presents in about an hour while skyping with my parents, and the Christmas nutella bread pudding (that I steamed in the rice cooker, oh ho!), smells really tempting...so...

An actual post will be forthcoming sometime soon. I'll make sure to take a picture of my stocking and my tree with presents underneath. Maybe there will even be a photo or two from Christmas day potluck at Christa's tomorrow, or the Arts Council party on the 26th to celebrate the year and exchange Secret Santa-esque (monita) gifts.

But for right now, I'm going to celebrate by eating a tasty home-made desert while wearing my special penguin socks and waiting to see the people I love most via webcam so we can open presents and be together :)

However you celebrate the holiday, hope it's wonderful!

Food....something to think about three times a day

Today I enjoyed one of my favorite Mongolian lunches: beefsteak with fried egg, gravy, rice, carrot salad, beets, and fried potatoes. With some traditional milk tea, naturally.

Besides hiam/sausage, I haven't tried to purchase and prepare meat here in Mongolia. Some of it is to escape the constant Mongolian meat diet, some of it is the interesting storage and selling of meat bits at the grocery, and some of it is even in the U.S. I only cook a few, very particular types of raw meat. It does make getting enough and tasty protein a challenge sometimes.

This weekend for the first time I successfully used my apartment's rice cooker, and I feel ridiculous for only just now using it (almost three months in to my stay here). As the weather grows colder yet the seasonal pot lucks continue, I've compiled a list of a few recipes to try with my new-to-me rice cooker.

First up, after Thanksgiving's time-consuming mashed potato process, I would really love to get some more mashed potatoes (and peas and carrots) into my dinner rotation.
http://www.tastebook.com/recipes/969206-Smothered-Potatoes-in-the-Rice-Cooker?full_recipe=true

Next, I'm feeling a nice, indulgent brunch for the Christmas week (and an excuse to eat more nutella).
http://aromatestkitchen.com/2012/09/26/bread-pudding/
I've made bread pudding in a slow cooker before, so we'll see how steaming in a rice cooker goes.


But for next week's Christmas dinner pot-luck, this will be the real test for the rice cooker:
http://www.food.com/recipe/pasta-in-a-rice-cooker-2007-231964
It's gotten several reviews, so I'm hopeful. My kitchen has a very limited selection of stove tops dishes and I only have one pan for the oven, so fingers crossed it works out.
Said oven pan will be full of this:
http://bakerstreet.tv/2012/10/nutella-shortbread-bars/
Which I'm pretty sure are going to be amazing and make up for any shortcomings of my pasta dish.


This may be a little more day in the life than you're interested in, but when living in a foreign country the daily necessities of life consume a good deal of mental energy. Just be glad I'm only sharing my trials and tribulations with food ;)

Breakthrough!

The interviews have officially begun. Today I had an interesting conversation with a Turkish organization. I ended up staying an hour more than I had intended, talking about heritage and development and other cool things like that while sipping traditional Korean lemon tea (delicious, btw). Back at the office, I got some behind the scenes details on the “culture and development” forum that will take place this week, and I’m all registered with the government palace like an actual person. Not sure if the lectures will be any more comprehensible than the other conference I went to (listening comprehension is still my worst skill-set, great for an anthropologist), but it may be more interesting talking to people about the forum and analyzing the speaker list anyways.

This afternoon I made two unexpected advances. First, a great talk with my NGO director about my time in Mongolia (past and present) and how I can be more engaged with 2013 projects. She is a really lovely and intelligent lady, and it was wonderful to talk through the reasons why I am here and to remember why I am excited about my project. Second, I not only heard back from the State Registration Office about my request for a list of arts, culture NGOs in Mongolia, but they went ahead and sent me a print out. It raises more questions than it answers, but it is definitely excellent data!

Every day and every week has a few rough patches, but I really feel like I’m starting to gain traction here. The more I learn, the more I also know that this is the right time for me to be here and be asking these questions. Even though the winter is cold and the night is very black when the power goes out in the office (ah, UB), I have bright hopes for the next several months.

As for this holiday season, I have a few packages/letters on their way to me to go under my little artificial Christmas tree, and I’m hosting a cookie decorating and cookie swap party this weekend. Overall, life is indeed good :) Thank you for sharing it with me.

a day in and some music

Another random bout of stomach sickness, so I spent most of today sleeping and then talking myself into drinking more tea out of my new Toy Story mug.

Here's a bit of fun for you, a music video from one of my favorite Mongolian bands that shows lots of famous Ulaanbaatar landmarks. Of course, since the video is animated every place looks much nicer than it actually is :)




At 0:50 the guitarist is sitting on the steps on the State Department Store (State as in nation state, not an American products store lol). My apartment is a two minute walk from there, and right now the storefront is decorated with a big christmas tree and lots of snowflake lights.

Hmmm, watching the whole thing through, feel free to skip 3:20 to 3:50 for an animated sex scene I totally was not expecting.



Anyways...

This is a music video by the rap band one of my co-workers at the Arts Council is in. There are several interesting rap artists who talk about problems in Mongolia and life in UB. You can see my friend Bilguun at 2:15



Mongolians seem to listen to lots of different kinds of music, and of course they always appreciate a song with a beat to dance to. Someone is playing such music rather loudly right now, somewhere above me...oh well :)

Life's little struggles

Two random bits of local color for you...

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday I am in the office. Every morning the cleaning girl in her neon t-shirts and track pants washes the floors and then leaves for a while. When she returns she wipes down all the surfaces, and I never quite expect her because I'm working. So I'll be typing away and all of the sudden she appears with her taciturn expression and inevitable wash cloth. I hurry to pick up my notebook, pens, mug, etc. as she brusquely wipes down the desk and sometimes the keyboard, the monitor, the scanner, whatever else on the desk that day and she feels looks dirty. I always feel like apologizing, no matter how many times this dance has played out. I really hope she has something to smile about at the end of the day...can't imagine cleaning offices was her ideal job.


As a method of survival in the ever cold-ening winter, I take my showers in the evenings so my hair is dry when I walk to work. It's now at the point where if I'm not wearing my facemask (air pollution today was 12 times the WHO standards, woo) that I can feel my nose hairs freeze. I usually get home from the office around 7:15, hopefully I've made and eaten dinner by 8:30...and then somehow I wind up on the internet and then it's time to skype and then I'm so warm and cozy that it is ridiculously difficult to convince myself to get in the shower. Overall I love my apartment, but the main area is incredibly drafty and the walk from the bedroom to the bathroom is turning into a real rite of passage. Some days go better than others :-P


Anyways...
I'll post some pictures of the ACM anniversary party soon, promise. And I've got a few good music videos to share too (not ACM related)...trying to plan more updates :)

Happy December!

Last night we celebrated the 10th anniversary of the founding of the Arts Council of Mongolia. It was a fun night, full of lovely people...but all the same, I'm glad that the planning and preparations (and the dance routine!) are over.

Here's to a new month and new research opportunities...excited to start interviews from a few different stakeholder groups soon.

And of course, it'll be nice to start getting into the Christmas spirit. If you would like to mail yours truly a Christmas card/inspirational poster/general letter-sized ridiculousness, it'd be best to send it before the 10th.

Even if I can't celebrate with my family and loved ones this year, I'm sure I'll still get plenty of holiday spirit. Here's a picture with my Christmas tree and my advent calendar,not pictured are my holiday penguin socks :)

Unfortunately the ballet isn't performing the Nutcracker this year, but there are plans for a cookie swap and maybe even cookie decorating, so fun seasonal treats ahead!

Happy holidays!