Sugo di Pomodoro (Tomato Sauce)

This is for those of you that wanted some recipes. This is for homemade tomato sauce; it takes a little bit of work but it is well worth it.

The directions are a little vague, but here we go.

You need enough tomatoes to fill a two handled pot. Try to use roma and cherry tomatoes. Cut out the tops of the tomatoes and cut in half.* Add 2 onions cut in chunks, a couple of cloves of garlic, and a handful of fresh basil (Tear the leaves, don't cut), and one large carrot-cut in chunks.
Cover the pot and put on medium heat stirring occasionally. Don't add any water or salt; the tomatoes have enough water in them.

After the tomatoes and carrot are soft. Mash through a sieve. I have a thing with a crank handle that looks like a pot with holes in the bottom that mashes the tomatoes, and stuff. (Sorry I have no idea what it is called) Catch all the juice in another pot, and mash till all that's left is skin and seeds. It takes a while and you need a lot of muscle in your arm to crank all the juice and pulp out.

After you finish getting the juice and pulp, put back on medium heat (make sure there are no chunks). Add to taste salt, sugar, olive oil, and more basil (approx. 1/2T. salt, 4T. sugar, 1/2c. oil. More or less to taste). The sauce is ready when it cooks down, and gets more dense. It can be used for pasta or pizza sauce.

*You can also blanch the tomatoes in boiling water, take off the skins and scoop out the seeds. Then instead of mashing the tomatoes through the strainer, if there are no skins/seeds, you can puree in a food processor or blender.

Kicking into gear

Well we have had our plates full the last couple of weekends. Yep, we were eating. The weekend of October 11-12 we had church in Termini on Saturday afternoon, because the pastor's wife's father was retiring from ministry at the church in Palermo on Sunday. Our service on Saturday, was special because Shawn had his first opportunity to speak. He did well, and the pastor was able to take a break. Then we went to Palermo to eat pizza with some friends. They invited us to spend the night, which was a blessing, since we didn't have to make the trip back home. Sunday we went to the retirement service, then had a church dinner afterwards. Now, in Sicily, they are very passionate about their food. We were told "Mangia, mangia" (Eat, eat) many times and your plate stayed filled. (We didn't eat dinner that night.) Everyone was very gracious and welcoming. We had a great weekend and enjoyed the chance to fellowship with good friends. Guess I'll post about last weekend in the next post.

Food

The food here is amazing. We are thoroughly enjoying ourselves every time someone invites us to dinner, not to mention the pizzarias, gelaterias, and my personal favorite, the hot cornetti stand. It's a good thing we do a lot of walking or we would be in serious trouble.

You can walk around the corner from our house to the fruit stand, which carries a wide variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, everything from strawberries to cactus fruit to tomatoes for making homemade pasta sauce. Up the street there is a meat store that offers fireroasted chickens, which we have enjoyed several times. There is also a bakery where you can get fresh, hot bread every morning.

By far, our favorite places include: the gelato and the cornetti stands. Gelato is Italian ice cream, but it has a flavor that is unlike the American version. Flavors range from chocolate to pineapple and fruit flavors. The cornetti stand is 30 km away in Palermo, otherwise we would be very regular customers. Cornetti is a big, warm, flakey croissant that you can get different types of fillings in, including nutella.

And then there is nutella, typically a breakfast food, you can spread it on hot bread or dip fruit in it. They also make crepes, very thin sweet pancakes, to put nutella in as well. Nutella is basically the chocolate version of peanut butter, but it is made from hazelnuts instead of peanuts. Currently my favorite food to eat with nutella is strawberries. Buona, fragole! (Good, strawberries)
Suffice it to say, neither of us are starving. I am learning how to cook like an Italian through my gracious language tutor. Crepes with nutella are next on the list. Ciao for now.

Update Sept. 7th '08

Well, its been almost three weeks since we crammed our lives into a round of suitcases and then the suitcases into T's poor Seat four door.

The transition has been interesting, we have slowly started to gain a bit of a daily rhythm but are still somewhat in limbo, since the vacation season begins to wind down this coming week. Shops will be open regular hours instead of "vacation" hours, schedules will go back to normal, including our churches. So things will be "getting back to normal" as we try to meld our lives into a new and sometimes challenging routine. Challenges include: Laura for the cultural immersion, language and lack of familiar surroundings and "comforts", Shawn for lack of "familiar" crutches of home (reliable internet, ability to get out of the house and drive where we want, a normal schedule of responsibilities), and both for the lack of rest due to our neighbor hood yapping patrol, and oh yes, as one local paper presented it "The Infernal week of heat on the Island". However concentrating on the positives has been one of our goals, God blessed us with an apartment that is within 5-10 minute walk of everything but a large market store and the beach. the church is within a 5 minute walk and we have bread, fruit, supermarket, stationary, and (he he for Shawn) a computer store, basically below the house. So life is good, God is gracious and more than enough. Continue to be in prayer for us as we integrate into our church family in Termini Imerese, and that we will be able to overcome the challenges that come our way.

Shifting focus.

WE ARE HERE!!!!

Well we made, our luggage made it, and the car made it from the airport to the apartment. Now if our energy reserves will just make it as well we will be set.

God is amazing, and sometimes funny when you look back over events. When we arrive in Rome, our second stop of the trip, we went to the internal check in desk to get our boarding passes for our last hop. They inform us that my checked luggage was fine, however... Laura's was probably getting ready to come out at baggage claim which was an 11 minute walk from where we were then standing, back in the direction we had just walked 10 minutes from. Then we would have to exit the airport Terminal B (international) and re-enter Terminal A (domestic) to check in Laura's luggage and get her boarding pass. So annoyed but realizing that the poor girl behind the counter had nothing to do with it we went on our way. So we arrive at the baggage claim, which was right around the corner from our original arrival gate, to find lucky that nothing had started to come down the luggage chute yet. Then comes the money shot, as we are standing there waiting for L's bags, where looky there here comes my guitar sliding down the chute, complete with tag that clearly states the last hop of it's trip is to be PMO (Palermo). So completely annoyed at the whole situation, tired from lack of sleep we choose to focus on the new seemingly newly hired girl back in Dulles and how much of a dunce you have to be not to check luggage though to the last stop after having been told 3-4 times to make sure that it was (yeah Ok I know I could have looked at here baggage claim tickets too, but I looked at mine, mine were Ok so hers should have been too. Right??) So, we wait for the rest of my bags to come out assuming they also would not have been sent through to the end of the trip, only to never see them come. We decide that maybe they actually sent them in the right direction and haphazardly pray to that effect, assuming that some one at the check-in counter will be able to give us confirmation of this. We get to the check-in window and get started and are informed that they have no way of knowing where the rest of our luggage is and short of filling a lost and found claim there was nothing to be done at this point. So we check the other bags in are told that we should be charged again since they are being rechecked (praise God we weren't) and are finally able to walk back towards the boarding area, deciding that we would trust God to get all the luggage there safely.

It's interesting looking back over things and reanalyzing the events with a non frustrated mindset. We realized that our luggage had been checked-in separately, so traveling in the mind of the baggage sorter independently. If the girl in Dulles had not made the mistake that she had, I could very easily at this point have no guitar, remember that was one of my checked pieces that was checked through to Palermo. So God provided and came through as he always does for us. Sure he could have just made the whole situation easy and just had the bags checked like they were supposed to be, but then what would have been the life lesson in that. We would not even be thinking about this whole situation now, if everything had gone according to planed. Sure we would have thanked God for providing safe passage but, not have been reminded that he works in ways that we my not always understand, or want to understand at the time, but if we keep an open mind and are willing to peek outside of our little boxes we'll see that He is able and willing to do all things for those that are in Him.

At the airport and waiting...

Well we made it through security, got our bags checked, and are seated at the gate. The excess baggage fees ended up being a little less than we had anticipated, so even less that shipping a bunch of boxes. We are looking forward to sitting down on the plane and doing NOTHING for the next seven hours. We do want to express our deepest thanks to those of you that helped us out over that last month. Your efforts in making up for our shortcomings were very much appreciated. Well God bless, and we will talk to you all soon!!

Update

It's hard to believe that we have only ten more days left in the States!! The immensity of it all is starting to kick in. We are starting to get excited but at the same time realize the awesomeness of the task before us.
The house has been rented, someone is dropping off a check for the car this afternoon, there is only painting and grouting left on the room, and then we get to start the cleaning process.
God is good and He always provides.
Please be in prayer as we start to pack that we would remember the things we need to take with us. Also begin to pray for our flights: for an easy time at security, for safety, for our luggage (we a only a one hour layover on our first stop) that it will all get through. Also be in prayer for our second week there, it will be the week of the Vacation-Seminar which is the same event we participated in last year. Pray that is will be a time of refreshment both spiritually and physically for all those involved.

First Entry

Well our date of departure is rapidly approaching. We leave on the 18th of August from Dulles International at around 3pm. Our bags are not packed and we are not quite ready to go, well physically any way. The room is almost finished but not quite, we have a handful of interest in the houses, car is not yet sold. We rest in the knowledge that God's timing is not always in par with ours. I would much rather have everything in order and planed out, but if that was the case, how could He teach us to place our trust in him. God is good and has all things in His hands. Please be in prayer that we will be able to trust Him in something this small to in turn learn to trust Him in the larger things in life.