Slimy Squid and Carrot Cake Madness

Well, I finished my last day of teacher and cooking class today. It has definitely been a long but enjoyable week! I think I will sleep well on the plane home tomorrow morning.

Yesterday, in cooking, we made a Greek salad and calamari. The Greek salad turned out to be very tasty! It included tomatoes, cucumbers, spices, etc. and then we actually grilled the purple onion and red peppers before cutting them up and putting them in the salad. We also grilled a huge chunk of feta cheese. I put them all in my salad bowl and Vincent laughed at me as he usually does. He said, "Aren`t you going to cut them up? Those will be pick pieces to put in your mouth!" As I pulled them out of my bowl and started chopping, I said with a smile, "I just wanted the person who got that big hunk of feta cheese to feel pretty lucky!"

Calamari is made with the sickest (in my opinion) and slimiest piece of squid you can find. You have to pull out the spine and then try to scrape off the thin film of plasticy skin. It took me 5 minutes to do and made me want to throw up the whole time. Vincent said that the only way to have melt-in-your-mouth calamari is to skin off the slimy film before frying it, or else it is quite tough. Bon....I finally got most of it up and sliced it into rings. I then battered it up with egg and flour and put it in the deep fat fryer. Mmmmmm!!! I took one little bite and ended up throwing the rest away. Shhhhhh....don`t tell Vincent.

Last night, my host mom took the four of us staying with her to the local mall. It was huge...like really the hugest mall that I have ever seen in my life! We looked in every type of store imaginable, but I didn`t find one thing to buy. This is my only trip, I believe, where I will not even be bringing home one souvenir. Oh well. I do have lots of pictures to post. Last night we then took the bus downtown to see all the great nightlife. It was amazing! I loved the small band of drummers, the lights, the excitement...we got home after midnight but it was worth it.

This morning, class was canceled...yay! We went on a guided walk around the whole city. This was interesting! My favorite part was stopping in a chocolate factory. We were offered all types of free samples upon entering. I ordered a mini cone of Dominican Republic Vanilla Bean...OH MY!!! It was the closest thing to heaven that I`ve had in a long time!

The last cooking class today had on the menu carrot cake and chocolate chip cookies. Great treats, eh?! I had made them both before, but it was a fun and relaxing afternoon. The carrot cake turned out positivley delicious! We cut it in half and then poured the gooey icing in the middle as well as on top. It was a masterpiece. He said that I couldn`t take it home on a plate because I wouldn`t be here to return the plate on Monday. Instead, I grabbed a huge cardboard box and set it on top. Now I have this huge cardboard box to carry around all night. I hope some people in the street will stop and have a bite. If not, that will be a big pain to carry around.

The cookies were normal chocolate chip cookies but Vincent had bought all types of chips and nuts: peanut butter chips, white chocolate, dark chocolate, caramel, toffee, walnuts and pecans....the dough tasted delicious! However, the cookies all turned out like little flat pancakes. Vincent`s all turned into one big flat pancake cookie. He didn`t want me to take a picture of him holding the tray of cookies, but I begged him. It is good to see that none of us are perfect, even an expert chef. :)

As we were washing the dishes and Vincent was giving me his email address...BANG!!! A clap of thunder and the power went out. Vincent swore: SH--! I screamed. It was very scary! The lights went out and our super-sonic dishwasher went down. Standing by gas stoves and all this electricity, I got a bit nervous. Some generator lights later came on and we piled the rinsed dishes next to the huge dishwasher.

Well, it is happy hour now: 5-7 pm at a local pub. I have been talked into going, though I keep protesting that I don`t drink. I guess I`ll find something else to order. Should be fun to have one last good night talking to all these new friends.