Sunday, April 8, 2012

Alternative Easter

Easter: another holiday away from home. *Sigh*

BUT, as with my other such holidays, I found a way to celebrate and stick as close to my normal holiday traditions as possible. And, along the way this time, I discovered that I am growing more and more like my Mom's side of the family.

A few days ago, Karina and I got in contact with Grace, a friend of Melanie and Marissa's whom we'd met in Chiang Mai when we visited in February, and made plans. See, Grace's in Tainan right now for a study-abroad type opportunity, and we wanted to hang out. And, as three displaced English-speaking Christians in Taiwan on Easter, the idea came easy: we should celebrate Easter together!

So, after a few days of ironing out details, it was decided that Grace would take a train to Zuoying, meet up with Karina there, and then they'd both take MRT to Kaohsiung Arena, where I'd be waiting with my scooter to shuttle them both to the church down the road. Afterwards, we'd all head back to my place to make--and, of course, eat, Eggs Benedict.

Church was fun in that it marked the first time I've seen people I know in service, apart from those I go with, as we ran into first Annie (an LET at Samia's school) and then--amazingly--the couple from Kinmen and Taitung! I really need to start remembering their names, if we're going to keep running into them all the time...it was a fun surprise, for sure!

After playing shuttle again, I jetted back to grab some last second groceries (hm, perhaps eggs might be a good thing to have for Eggs Benedict?) before Karina and Grace met me back at the apartment. Then commenced my first solo attempt at my family's classic Easter food, complete with the notoriously difficult-to-make Hollandaise sauce.

And the sauce...well, it failed, honestly. I had been excited to try, since we do actually have a double boiler here, but as it turns out, that pro doesn't quite balance out the fact that our gas-burning stove doesn't do "low" well, or at all. I turned it low, then lower, then lower--and it turned off just as the eggs transformed themselves into a scrambled puree. Luckily, a Taste of Oregon recipe for blender Hollandaise came to the rescue, and as I worked on that, Karina toasted the English muffins I'd found at a Western bakery (it turns out they were filled with cheese, which, while not perfectly authentic, was a much nicer filling surprise than it could have been), and Grace experimented, quite successfully, in egg poaching.

The results, while not exactly pretty, were at least quite delicious, and Karina, Grace, Analicia and I had a nice little Easter brunch of make-do Taiwanese innovation.



"Karina, smile!" yields this result, every time. :)
Family traits coming out: it isn't really a holiday unless I'm making food and serving it to a group of people!
Aftermath...
All in all, a pretty successful venture in holiday meal-making. Also quite successful in revealing to myself that holiday meal-making is an absolutely important and ingrained concept to my idea of celebrating. It felt slightly like Easter today because I was running around cooking (and later, cleaning) like a crazy person, and serving the results of my labors to friends. I really am turning into my mom!

Also helpful in making today feel like Easter was the wonderful gifts brought me "by the Easter bunny" via Alex and Melanie--including Cadbury eggs and jelly beans. Yumm!!!


Of all my holidays away from home thus far, this one has done the most to make me realize how much of home I've brought with me, in the form of traditions and of mindsets.Though today did not feature a massive feast and Easter egg hunt with my dozens of cousins or a lovely cooking session with my Aunt Christy and Uncle Pat, it did stay true to the core concepts of Easter at home: celebrating Jesus' resurrection, making special food, and sharing that special food with others. So even without my family's presence, I had a lovely alternative family Easter this year.

1 comment:

  1. I had tons of fun today too! We should really do this again! :)

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