• the quotidian (2.25.13)

    Quotidian: daily, usual or customary; 
    everyday; ordinary; commonplace

    The diligent student: up at 5:30 to do homework.
     

    Organizing my kitchen: in lieu of cabinet space, a bunch of new baskets.

    Lunch for one: flour tortilla, beans, avocado, tomato.

    Skyping!

    Using up the care package colored chalk all in one glorious, messy go.
    (Thank you, Zoe!)

    Curtain-filtered sunlight: I slept in till 6:30 yesterday morning! Such luxury!

    A small rug for our bedroom, purchased in Santiago Atitlán.

    My study: yet to come, a little bulletin board, shelf, and a couple potted plants.
    Fixed: the old washing machine!
    (I’ve named it The Santa Maria
    because something as miraculous as this
    —A MACHINE THAT CLEANS MY CLOTHES!—
    deserves a name.) 

    Dr. Seuss trees: they’re everywhere!

    Boys and a dead snake on a stick.

    Boys and firecrackers.
    Filling up the pool at The Big House.

    Power outage: supper by candlelight.
  • birds and bugs

    The other day I stepped out on the porch and my daughter screamed at me to stop.I looked down.

    What I thought was a stick—and what I nearly stepped on—was a bug, er rather, a very large and scary-looking millepede.

    We all gathered ’round, snapping photos, gesticulating wildly, and trying to ascertain (by drawing on our vast stores of millipede knowledge) whether or not the creature was poisonous.

    We finally decided it was better dead than alive—aren’t bright colors often synonymous with I’m Poisonous Please Kill Me…or did I just make that up?—and the creature was disposed of.

    (Since then, we’ve found them in the house. Also, I’ve learned that they are not poisonous. This, however, does not make me not like them any less.)

    A couple days later, José came running up to the door. A bird had just crashed into their window, he said. It was lying on the ground, stunned, and since I like to take pictures, he thought I might want to come see it.

    I didn’t really react—I’m not much of a bird person, let alone a stunned bird person—so, when José realized I wasn’t hopping to it, he brought to bird to me.

    And then I saw why he was so excited. It was a hummingbird.

    Well. I got my camera out right quick and did that poor stunned bird some photography justice.

    I had never seen a hummingbird up close—it’s miniscule body and shimmering feathers were quite the eye candy.

    It started waking up a little, opening its beak (can you imagine the
    headache it must’ve had, crashing into hard glass with that pointy
    thing?) and flicking its tongue. José carried it back up to the house and gently set it free.

  • pan-fried tilapia

    A little while back, our neighbors gave us a couple pounds of frozen tilapia fillets. Unsure of how to proceed, I stuck them in the freezer and let them sit there for a couple weeks. But then this past Saturday, with the dreary, rainy weather threatening to pull me under, I decided a special supper was in order.

    The fish-giving family had said that we should fry the fillets, but I’m no expert, so I resorted to Google. However, Google was decidedly unhelpful, so later on when my husband headed down to visit the neighbors just for anyhow, I had him call back up with their recipe.

    “Salt the flour till you can taste it,” my husband explained over the cell phone. “Dip it in egg and then the flour—do it two times to make it extra crispy. And then fry it in lots of oil, about a half inch.”

    I did just that (plus boiled a bunch of broccoli and made some lime-chili butter to garnish the rice) and we all went wild and pigged out. (Except for my younger daughter, but she didn’t count because she had a bad attitude.) The next day after church, we ate the leftover fish in sandwiches.

    The decision is unanimous (except for the younger daughter who doesn’t count): we have to make the fish fry a weekly tradition.

    (That night when my husband was visiting the neighbors, he got to watch the father process a fish. After catching a tilapia, he simply sliced off the fillets on either side of the fish without even killing it and then tossed the carcass in a bucket. That’s it. The fish didn’t even flop around, my husband said. I’m equal parts impressed and grossed out.)

    Pan-Fried Tilapia

    1-2 pounds of tilapia fillets
    1-2 cups of flour
    lots of salt
    lots of black pepper
    4 eggs
    1-2 cups of oil

    In one bowl, beat the eggs, and in another bowl, stir together the flour and salt. Taste the flour—if it tastes salty, you’ve added enough salt. Add a bunch of black pepper.

    Pour enough oil into a skillet to fill it about a quarter inch (or more). Heat till shimmering.

    Dip a fillet into egg and then flour. Repeat—egg and then flour. Place the fillet in hot oil. Fill the pan with the flour-coated fillets, and fry for about two minutes on each side, or until the crust is golden brown. Drain the fillets on paper towels. Serve hot.

    Leftover fillets make excellent sandwiches. Simply reheat in a hot skillet and place between two pieces of bread with the toppings of your choice.