In church this morning, there was a healing service. Or something. They sanctified the building by squirting oil on the walls and praying real loud, and then there was a praise/anointing time. The ushers cleared the white plastic chairs from the front half of the building (this, we’ve learned, means that Something Big is going to happen). People crowded up close around the alter. The seriously off-key guitar started up. There was hand clapping, and a bit of swaying and bouncing.

It wasn’t until several songs in that the screaming started. People kept on singing, but every few seconds, someone would scream long and loud. We all sat up straighter and kept our eyes peeled for the action. Soon, a woman, surrounded by four spotters, was escorted to the back of the group. A fifth man hovered close, shouting prayers over her. The woman was screeching and bouncing wildly up and down. After a couple minutes, she fell over backwards onto the floor and someone brought a shawl to cover her.

And so went the next thirty minutes. By the end of the morning, the front of the church was covered with shawl-covered bodies.

This is the second time our Mennonite church has held this kind of service since we’ve been here. I’m beginning to think it might be a monthly occurrence. The first time this happened, the kids were somewhat traumatized. What with all the hollering men, the flailing women, the pushing people over backwards, the spotters, the wailing and sobbing, I can’t say I blame them. Heck, I was a little shell-shocked. This morning, though, my children didn’t seem too bothered. In fact, my younger son laid down in his seat and kept pestering me about what time the service would be over. As though people failing over in church was the most normal thing in the world.

This afternoon, my husband and I were discussing the morning’s events. “What is going through their heads?” my husband asked.

I had been pondering the very same thing. What are the people actually feeling? This culture is so reserved, so stoic and quiet—how can they switch into something so completely different, and in front of a bunch of other people, too?

The interesting thing is: some people don’t ever fall over. Even when the elders are shaking their heads with their laying-on hands, pushing at them so they have to walk backwards across the room, and invoking the holy spirit in no uncertain terms, they stay erect. Are they being stubborn? What does it mean that they aren’t Getting It? What makes a person fall and what makes her stay standing?

Regardless of what’s going on in people’s heads, I am convinced that there is a lot of sincerity. The guy who knocks people over and then flings his hands high in the air and barks Glory to God (the Christian version of the first pump) strikes me as a little showy, but for the most part, I see genuine love and concern in the eyes of the leaders. This is how they care for each other.

In our bedroom this afternoon, I said, “I don’t think these people are any more real or any more fake than people in our home church.”

And only after I said that did I realize how much I agreed with myself. (Don’t you love when that happens?)

There’s a lot of pomp at my home church and in any church I’ve been in. Heck, wherever people are gathered, there’s pomp. (Except maybe at AA meetings—I’ve heard those are pretty raw.) There’s a lot of Saying the Right Words and Minding Manners and Keeping Your Shit Together. There’s also, thank goodness, a lot of profound caring.

Knowing this—that all churches are made up of human beings and that some of the strange customs might be both showy and authentic—helps me to be less wary and fearful, less judgemental.

But don’t worry. I’m not about to get knocked over backwards any time soon.

No one in my family likes avocado but me. This is tragic because avocados are everywhere and they are cheap. There are scruffy, scabby, circular avocados. There are giant, smooth, tear-shaped avocados. There are big avocados, medium avocados, small avocados.

Buying avocados can be tricky. Sometimes I end up with ones that look gorgeous on the outside only to discover, upon opening them, that their insides are all mushy brown. When I asked the toothless woman squatting behind her basket of avocados (actually, I’m not sure if the woman was either toothless or squatting, but so many of the women usually are, that I decided that, in this case, it wouldn’t hurt to make an assumption) (also, I’m not sure if the women are actually squatting—I think they actually perch on little stools, but it’s hard to tell with all that skirt fabric) to pick me out a couple good ones, she simply picked one up, squeezed its stem end until it cracked open a little, peered inside to make sure it was nice and green, and then handed it to me. Oh.

There’s a new cookbook out. It’s called Absolutely Avocados. The title pretty much sums the book up. I’ve been seeing it everywhere, and I’m a little lusty over it. I don’t buy avocados in the states much, but boy, that book would be appropriate right here, right now.

Except for the fact that the rest of the family doesn’t like avocados. Losers.

A week or so ago, I found a link for an avocado mac and cheese (which, incidentally, didn’t come from Absolutely Avocados). I made it for supper. Everyone ate it, but they were non too subte in making sure I knew they wished I had made the real deal instead. I, however, had no regrets.

I demonstrated my devotion by snapping photos of my beloved both on the washing machine and in the light of the setting sun with the dog watching on.

Creamy Avocado Mac and Cheese
Adapted from Two Peas and Their Pod, though it was Lori Lange (Recipe Girl) who first alerted me to it.

I made a scaled back version (naturally), using only a little “real” cheese and a nub of cream cheese, and while it was plenty good, I suggest you stick with the full-cheese version. Yum, cheese.

Also, I had one heck of a time blending up the veggies in my expensive blender (that we hesitated buying because we thought it might be too extravagant but then went ahead and did it anyway, no regrets). I had to add hot pasta water, olive oil, and regular oil (several times over) until it finally turned into a blendable consistency. But maybe my blender’s just wacko. Yours will probably work fine.

Not that it matters for this recipe, but here: how to cut an avocado.

10 ounces dry macaroni (why not a full 16? Beats me.)
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 avocados, roughly chopped (minus peels and pits, of course)
2 tablespoons lime juice
1/3 cup fresh cilantro
S&P
2 tablespoons each flour and butter
1 cup milk
2 cups shredded cheese (Monterey Jack, Pepper Jack, white cheddar, etc.)
more fresh avocado, optional

While the macaroni is cooking, put the garlic, avocados, lime, cilantro, and some salt and pepper in a food processor or blender and pulse until saucy smooth.

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan and whisk in the flour. Whisk in the milk and cook, stirring constantly until thick and bubbly. Add salt and pepper to taste. Stir in the cheese.

Drain the pasta. Add the avocado and cheese sauces. Stir to combine. Check for seasonings. Serve, topping with chopped fresh avocado, if desired.

One of the things I miss most about the States is my kitchen. I miss the plethora of ingredient choices, the crazy-full pantry shelves and freezers, the ability to concoct and create with abandon, the space to stash my many creations, and the hungry friends and (non immediate) family who eat what I make. I miss having meat on hand. I miss Dijon mustard and the challenge of saying no to the non-local stuff (when I want to) and reading ingredient lists and buying organic when I think it matters. In other words, I miss being An Elite Eater.

To be clear, I’m not suffering any. To the contrary. We have an abundance of food. Our tummies are filled up frequently, and we even overdo it, on occasion (some of us more than others). We eat lots of veggies. There’s dessert.

But it’s different.

I don’t remember this restricted feeling being quite so…severe…when we were living in Nicaragua. Back then, we were newly married. I loved to cook, but I hadn’t found my groove yet…or as much of a groove as I would develop over the next decade-plus.

Since then, my recipe book collection has grown exponentially. I’ve discovered food blogs in all their excessive glory. Glossy cooking magazines show up in my mailbox. I collect liquors and chocolate and unusual grains and legumes. I have my own home with a huge garden, two big freezers, hundreds of canning jars, two regular canners, and a state-of-the art pressure canner that I’m scared to use. And we are six people instead of two—a lot more food goes down the hatch.

Stepping back this time around hasn’t been easy. In many ways, I’ve been forced to become a worse cook, not a better one. I’m regressing from butter to chemically-laced margarine and shortening, from our homegrown tomatoes to pesticide saturated red orbs, from brown rice to white, from sweet corn to field corn, from real vanilla to fake.

This second-rate cooking goes against every fiber of my very being, and at first it was downright offensive. The plastic-wrapped slices of processed cheese made my skin crawl. The kool-aid flavored tomato sauce that passed as ketchup made me want to spit. The waxy dipping chocolate coated my mouth and tongue like chocolate-flavored castor oil (it still does). I was doing everything backwards and it felt wrong.

But slowly, I’ve grown accustomed to this new way of doing things. The fact is, people the world over don’t have the food choices I’m accustomed to. It doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t make good choices when I have the chance—and I can hardly wait to place an order for a 50-pound sack of organic oats—but doing things this way probably won’t kill me. Food options, while fun, necessary, and important, aren’t the be all and end all. 

(Saying this does not mean I won’t be all over the deer balogna, canned peaches, wine, hard pretzels, and whipping cream when I get back. Because I will.)

(Also, mine is the angst of a newly relocated and slowly adapting person. With time, these aches and pains will—or would, if we were staying longer—fade.)

(Also, it’s not that Guatemala is without it’s own wonderful food discoveries. Tayuyos (more on these later)! The Anna Belly strawberry jam has whole berries in it! The cornflakes are so good—a blend between Special K and regular cornflakes—that we’re contemplating bringing back an entire suitcase of them! The yogurt has a runnier, more natural texture, and there are real fruit chunks in it!)

When we first arrived here in Guatemala, I was cooking for survival: simple foods, high calories, lots of eggs and lots of bakery breads. I was aiming to keep the children full, to provide them familiarity and safety via their plates, and to not irritate their occasionally roiling bellies.

But now I’m branching out, pushing them more, introducing new foods, serving more than one course, making desserts that involve more than spreading icing on store-bought crackers. The other night, we had leftover sweet-and-sour lentils and rice, some sauteed chard, broccoli with a lemon-garlic-butter sauce, roasted white potatoes, fresh red cabbage (contributed by our dinner guest), a salad of roasted carrots and sweet potato with avocado, and the crowning glory, hot apple pie with a real butter crust and vanilla ice cream. It was the most variety, and for sure the most vegetables, we’ve had at one sitting since we’ve been here. It was glorious.

I’m learning things, too. I’m learning to stock up less and use up more. I’m learning that cooking red beans with one dried hot chili lends a lovely flavor to the whole pot, that cookies made with shortening can be every bit as addictive as those made with butter, that granola is a non-negotiable and it doesn’t need to involve much more than oats, sugar, oil, and salt, that packaged tomato sauce is delightfully easy and tasty, that reconstituted powdered milk can almost pass for delicious, and that chocolate cake doesn’t need much chocolate to still be scrumptious.

This last one was a real shocker. I’m forever being wooed by the darker, richer, denser, and sexier. (We’re talking about chocolate here, not men. I’ve already got The Man.) It turns out, however, that a barely-chocolate-y chocolate cake can be plenty delicious, too.

I learned about this cake when I sent out my plea for simple recipes for my baking class. I got a boatload of recipes via Facebook, blog comments, and emails, and they’ve all been carefully scrutinized and filed (thank you!). One of the recipes I made straightaway (along with the pineapple upside down cake and the mango coffee cake) was a chocolate mayonnaise cake.

I am already quite familiar with mayonnaise cake—cake that uses mayonnaise in place of butter or oil—but this recipe leaped out at me for two, no three, no four, reasons.

1. Cocoa is expensive and a bit of a luxury ingredient—home cooks don’t use it much—and this recipe called for a minuscule amount: not quite three tablespoons for a 9×13 pan (as opposed to the more typical 12-plus tablespoons).
2. Mayonnaise is The Condiment of Choice here. People put it on everything from corn-on-the-cob to french fries to pizza. Mayonnaise in cake is just the next logical step.
3. No fancy equipment required, just a spoon and a bowl.
4. No eggs or milk means it’s cheaper to make!

I made the cake once and we liked it, but it was so thin that I had trouble taking it seriously. The second time, I doubled it, iced it with some leftover frosting, and the fans went wild. I made it again this week because I’m experimenting with a non-butter frosting recipe to teach to the girls and I needed a place to put it…and because I wanted more cake.

I’ve taken to calling the cake Depression Cake because it’s a cutting-back recipe and because the allrecipe contributor said her mother made it during the Depression. Also, because I already have a there-is-not-anything-depressing-about-it chocolate mayonnaise cake in my repertoire.

Depression Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake
Adapted from allrecipes. My friend Christine, a mother of four who is currently living in Germany, pointed it out to me. Christine says that in lieu of icing, she simply dusts the cake with powdered sugar.

3 cups flour
1½ teaspoons baking soda
1½ cups sugar
1/4 cup, generously rounded, cocoa
2 teaspoons baking powder
1½ cup full-fat mayonnaise
1½ cups water
1½ teaspoons vanilla

Stir together the dry ingredients and blend in the wet. Pour the batter into a greased 9×13 baking pan. Bake the cake at 350 degrees until the edges are starting to pull away from the sides of the pan and there are cracks in the top. If icing or dusting with powdered sugar, allow to cool completely.