Friday I went over to my friend Alannah's house to cook. Alannah hosted a potluck at her house for the people in my group and any friends that they wanted to invite. So, I went over to her house early and we hung out and cooked all day. We also painted some keds. There will be pictures of those later though. While I painted my keds, Alannah made a chocolate cake. When that was finished I began to work on the hummus (which took 5 minutes haha) and Alannah started her second dish. Tater-tot-Hotdish? Alexandra arrived early too and we both watched her assemble this Minnesotan recipe. Unfortunately Costa Rica doesn't have tater-tots...or hashbrowns...or frozen potatoes diced potatoes for that matter. Costa Rican's like to do things fresh, and I can't blame em'.
So...this meant that Alannah had to make tater-tots by hand. I helped her shred some potatoes with a cheese grater, she mixed the shreds with an egg and some spices, then through them in this big ole pot of oil. I tried one before it made it into the rest of the dish, I have to admit it was pretty amazing. I've never had a homemade tater-tot ball before, but it was real good. Once the tater-balls were done frying she began to layer the dish. It went cream of mushroom soup, cream of celery soup, green beans, a layer of ground beef, a ton of white cheese, and then topped with the tater-balls to bake for about 45minutes. I'm not the biggest fan of dishes like that, but it was good. Everyone loved it too!
haha Alexandra and I throwing oreos
on Alannah's cake.
The Tater-Ball Hot Dish
There was SO much food at this potluck. There were cookies, brownies, cake, guacamole and hummus made by me, the taterball dish, burritos, two buckets of KFC, chips, kraft macaroni, vegetables, soup, wine, pop, and more. It was so fun though having everyone together. About an hour after the party started a whole bunch of Ticos came and started playing guitars and singing, and then people started dancing, and basically it was great. I love events like that. The ticos were super cool and mingled really well with everyone. All in all, a great night. Oh! I tried this really cute wine below:
This is the cute wine! Beso de Vino means Wine kiss in Spanish.
There's a cute little story about this bull that falls in love on the bottle.
The wine has coffee in it which was kind of cool!
This is the wine that my teacher recommended to us.
It's from Chile!
When the party was over we all gathered up our leftovers and headed home. By the time I got home it was around 11pm so my tico parents had already gone to bed. So, I just popped the leftover hummus in the fridge and went to bed. The next morning I woke up, got dressed, and then went to sit down to eat my usual delicious breakfast. Mama Tica was NOT a fan of the hummus in her fridge. Haha she tried to be polite when she asked me what it was. She was trying to hide this awful face from me, which means she must have smelled it while I was getting dressed. She hates garlic. Hummus definitely has a lot of garlic in it, or atleast mine did, and she was not a fan. haha. I also had to explain what it was, I don't think she's ever had/heard of it before. It was a little confusing and I'm almost positive she still thought it was disgusting....buut she would agree that the next part of my day was absolutely full of wonderful smells and delicious flavors. The coffee plantation.
We all met at the university at 7am with some of our teachers, and borded a bus for the plantation! In Costa Rica the coffee plantations are called cafetals. The cafetal that we went to was called Santa Maria de Dota. It's a coffee cooperative with many, many coffee farmers contributing to the coop. It was beautiful there. We watched a short coffee intro, with a free cup of coffee, and then explored the cafetal. We got to hike up this mountain where they grow the coffee and the view was spectacular. The little town that is in the center of all of these cafetals looked picture perfect against the bright green mountains and blue skies. I met this guy from Texas who was on a business trip/personal vacation for Whole Foods. His job is to help pick out different foods to sell in the store. So cool!! I talked to him for awhile about his job and food in general and it was all really cool.
The cafetales in the area all do their own composting with
red worms from California!
They mix the coffee casings in with the worms!
Not only is there coffee growing,
but gardens of regular vegetables like carrots and radishes!
the hiking begins!
hiking up the mountain! Look at all of those
Coffee plants!
Green coffee beans
The amazing view from the top of the mountain
This flower is a trumpet flower! Either from Mississipi or Missouri
I asked a women but she wasn't sure
We hiked back to our bus, and went to lunch. The lunch was so perfect. It was buffet style with just a couple options, but I loved them all. I had a simply cooked chicken breast which tasted heavenly, this interesting chopped up root dish that look kind of like rice, but was just tiny chopped root with some seasoning. It also was really good. There was a simple salad of cucumber, tomato, carrot, and lettuce (the very typical salad that people eat every day here) which of course was also great, and for the grand finally an endless supply of fresh cut avocados. They grow them in the mountains along with the coffee so I didn't feel to bad taking a lot...I think I ate the equivalent of one avocado so I didn't completely take advantage of the endless supply, but it was very much appreciated.
We also toured the coffee factory, which I have to admit was kind of lame. All of the equipment was dusty, and I didn't see a single bean the entire time. They don't start using the machinery till much later when they're actually harvesting. It makes sense of course, but I wanted to see some coffee action. However, we made our way to the coffee toaster where I at least got to see the different kinds of beans.
For the grand finale of our trip we went to the Bartista school, which is just where people learn how to make the perfect cup of coffee and at the same time make them look like a piece of art. It was cool, I had a lot of free coffee. At the end of the demo/tutorial we walked over to the cafe and had a complimentary drink and dessert. This is the grand total of my coffee intake for that day: a cup with my breakfast, a cup before that shot coffee film, two shots of expresso, a cappuccino, two samples of mocha lattes, and then my own giant latte at the cafe. Along with the coffee I had lunch of course, a cinnamon roll, and the rest of someones chocolate cake. I was a machine. Some might say a monster. This might be a little much, but I had to pee 4 times while we were at the cafetal.
The beans
Loving the beans
Everyone still makes fun of me for
going birdwatching. They have Quetzal coffee at this place so
of course Alannah took a photo of me.
(By the way, there are many photos of me since my camera died at the beginning =/)
My second helping of Mocha Latte
After we the cafe we all borded the bus again to head home. At this point I was REALLY feeling the affects of my coffee/food intake. I felt so sick. After an hour we stopped at a gas station, thank God, because I had to pee again of course. I felt so sick, but I was so hyped up from the coffee my hands were shaking so I ran around the gas station a lot and gave Katie and Joe piggy back rides to and from the bus. I had so much energy!! But at the same time I really wanted to throw up.
I made it back to my house at 7:30pm. Naturally my mama tica wanted to feed me, since my normal feeding time is around 6pm. However, I told her I felt sick from the awful bus ride (it was super bumpy/winding roads) and the mass amount of coffee I ate. I said after an hour, then I would eat. She was kind enough to just give me a brothy vegetable soup with some rice.
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