food.

Here's a rundown of some of the meals I've been eating - I thought y'all would probably be curious!


breakfast:

• My favorite breakfasts are on Thursdays & Sundays: we have bread & bananas!
• If it's another morning, I usually make my own breakfast (the kids eat things like ramen noodles & ground rice patties for breakfast...not my breakfast of champions). 
• I will make scrambled eggs or oatmeal at about 8am - by that time the kids have all eaten and I can get in the kitchen without interrupting the cooks & the flow of the morning
• The cooks make lunch for the kids to take to school each day. One morning they made fried rice with egg & bell pepper - and I ate that for breakfast :)
• I also brought 24 granola bars & packs of trail mix...so I've also eaten one of those in the mornings instead of cooking hot breakfast. 

Lunch:

• Every work day I eat lunch at Daughters. It's great. We have a wonderful cook, and the kitchen is upstairs right next to all of the sewing machines. So I can smell lunch cooking all morning.
• We will always have rice, and then usually some sort of sambur (gravy) to go with it. 
• A lot of times we have some sort of combination of eggs, lentils, garbanzo beans, tomatoes, carrots, onions, chilies, & lots of spices.
• Some days we have chicken with the rice. The chicken is not cut in an uniform fashion, so you sort of have to pick out the bones like you do in fish.
• We will also sometimes have homemade flatbread with our meals - it's great. 

Supper:

• I eat supper at k-homes each night. We have similar things to what we have at Daughters.
• I really like it when we have hard boiled eggs cooked in this tomato-chili-onion sauce. I know that doesn't really sound good, but I think it's great. 
• We've had potatoes twice I think since I've been here. I get so excited when I see potatoes in the pot - I most definitely like potatoes 1000 times more than rice :)
• My least favorite thing is spicy chopped beets - I've always thought beets were not good. They do, however, make a wonderful color on my napkins back home - that's my favorite use for them.

This is white rice, radish sambur, and potatoes. Can you see how the plate has a rim so you can use it to help you pick up the food without spilling it? 

There are certain rules to follow when eating. 

1. You only eat with your right hand, with no utensils. The women at Daughters tell me it's because you won't get strong if you eat with a spoon or fork.
2. It doesn't matter what's on your plate, you still only eat with your right hand. The plates are rimmed so you can push food to the sides to get some leverage to tear your bread or your chicken. I'm getting good at eating chicken pieces with their little bones with just one hand.
3. You sit on the ground with your shoes off and cross your legs (indian style) with your plate on the floor in front of you. Even young children learn this rule.
4. You must finish everything on your plate. It's not acceptable at all to throw anything away. If you have too much (especially at Daughters), it's ok to let someone have some of your excess. But it must be eaten!
5. My first 2 meals here were SO HARD for me to finish all of my food. The ones who were serving me really wanted to give me a great meal since it was my first time at k-homes, and then my first time at Daughters. But they gave me SO MUCH rice. SO MUCH. And I don't even particularly enjoy rice :) 

• At Daughters that 1st time, I was the last one sitting on the floor eating - trying so hard to keep swallowing the mound of rice on my plate that felt like it was growing instead of getting smaller. I was determined to finish it and not hurt their feelings or offend them, but I was also so close to just throwing up. Two of the women came over to me and told me I could be finished if I wanted to. I gratefully nodded my head to that! I had almost finished - maybe 4 more big bites would have taken care of it. That's the only time I haven't finished all of my food! 
• I have learned to not let them put so much on my plate - and I've gotten the hang of eating rice twice a day. The women at Daughters like it so much when I tell them the food is good - and it really is good.