Ten Ping’s dress is coming along, but not nearly finished yet… well, the dress is almost done, but not the set. I am planning to add some white heirloom lace to the bottom and I found two pieces of wool felt that I might use instead of the cherry red or the pink Ultrasuede that I showed you on Friday. The wool felt could be decorated more easily for her jacket, so we’ll see…
Here’s what the dress would look like with the wool felt for a jacket. The first one is kind of a hot pink and might be too “shocking” but it looks very pretty with her coloring and the dresses flowers…
Here’s the second one… maybe a dusty pink and it’s pretty soft on the eyes… it’s not quite so drab as my picture looks.
I’ll keep working as quickly as I can. The yard sale wiped me out… according to my fitbit tracker, it logged in my sleep from Saturday night as 11 hours and 33 minutes… of course I did go to bed at 8:30… I was so tired. That made up for the 3 hours and 54 minutes I got the night before the yard sale! :o(
On a non-sewing note… we were invited over Sunday afternoon for lunch by our friends from Columbia, South America. Sara wasn’t there, but her mom and dad cooked for us. We had a lovely pasta dinner and salad and then for an “afternoon” snack, Edgar wanted to make us a traditional Columbian treat… Arepas… it’s pronounced like R’ ee pas with the accent on the “R.” It’s a kind of cornmeal pancake like thing…
Edgar mixed up super fine corn meal with a little bit of brown sugar, salt, and water till it formed a dough consistency. Then he added shredded farmer’s cheese and mixed it up with his hands. He did this in a bowl on the table so I decided to snap some pictures as he worked.
When he got it the right consistency, he could pick it all up like this… I wanted to taste it, so I took a little pinch and it was kind of like pie crust texture…
Then he rolled it into balls about the size of a large clementine or a plum. He had enough dough to make 18 Arepas.
He flattened them with his hands and laid them in a hot skillet lightly sprayed with cooking spray, and they started to brown.
He had 4 skillets going so he could do them faster…in fact they said it was a record for him… 18 Arepas in about 45 minutes…
Here’s a little bit closer look at them…
When they were done, he melted a whole slice of farmer’s cheese on the top and served them to us warm…
They were delicious… It’s funny how you think you’ve probably tasted every taste there is, but we were surprised today. They were sort of soft with a little bit of a crunch, and very good! They were sort of like a potato pancake my mom used to make, but were a little tastier… In Columbia they always have them for breakfast or a snack… no other times… I liked them very much and would make them for supper if I were them. They can be served with something like ham on top or a fried egg…
They sent 3 home with us, so I’ll have to experiment… :o)
I’ll try to work on Ten Ping’s dress set tomorrow…
See you then,
Blessings, Jeanne
Arepas. My sister has a friend from Colombia and she has sometimes tried to cook Colombian food. While the US has a very wheat based cuisine, Colombia does not, and the bread is challenging because we don’t know how it should taste. The thing about arepas is that they need to be served hot and they do not reheat well, Fr. Hernan says. That’s probably why they aren’t served as part of a meal. They seem to be one of Colombia’s national foods — the sort of thing that that inspires talk of home and good memories among Colombians. I haven’t seen a recipe that includes brown sugar, which seems to me an excellent addition, and the cheese looks like a good idea too. I’m going to email my sister a link to this post. I’m so glad you included the pictures. They help a lot to show us the proper consistency. Arepas from Venezuela, where they are also a national dish, are not quite the same as the ones from Colombia. The Venezuelan appear often to be stuffed.
I’m looking forward to seeing Ten Ping’s outfit finished. Are you going to make shoes that match her jacket?
Hi Marilyn,
Everything you said about the Arepas it’s just the same as what Alba and Edgar would say. We learned a lot just by watching Edgar make them and it was fun. We had one this morning with an egg on top of it and it was very good. It is now 12:30 in the afternoon and I’m still full from that thing.
I’m sure Yen Ping will get some new shoes…
Thanks Marilyn,
Blessings, Jeanne
Marilyn’s comments are so interesting! So Columbians don’t have the spicy foods that Mexicans have? Everything looks so yummy, and the whole process looks like fun when you do it for a group, and then get to eat it pronto!
Oh, Ten Ping’s dress will be so sweet. You know, Jeanne, I’m thinking the softer dusty rose fabric would look better on her, and maybe you could make a small 3-D rose out of the darker pink and lighter pink, to echo the rosebud on the dress? By 3-D, I mean to cut petals, and sew the edges together to gather them. I really don’t know how else to say it, but it would be a sweet addition other than a flat flower. Then maybe a headband or something with the same flowers on it? That might be cute!
Hi Linda,
Alba and Edgar don’t like Mexican food and it’s hard for us to even get them to consider eating a taco or going to some place that serves Mexican food. It’s just not the same. They don’t use spices like you would think they do, but they just use little bit of garlic and salt for the most part.
I still haven’t decided which pink fabric I’m going to use for the jacket yet, and who knows maybe I’ll just make all three and let the winner have a few choices for Ten Ping. I was thinking of doing the exact same thing that you said about a little 3D flower on the jacket.
Thanks Linda,
Blessings, Jeanne
The Arepas look good and sound like they are tasty. Thank you for sharing this interesting type of cultural food. What a wonderful opportunity it is when knowing people from other parts of the world, to learn their customs and their different types of food.
Ten Ping’s dress is so pretty. I actually like both pinks for a jacket. They are perfect as an accent color with the material’s colors. The white sounds interesting too. Either way, Ten Ping is going to look adorable in this outfit. Ten Ping is such a sweet little doll.
Hi Paula,
It is always fun to try new foods and even more fun to see them prepared right in front of you. It was really interesting watching Edgar make the Arepas and then it was even more fun tasting them.
Like I told Linda..I might just have to make more than one jacket!
Thanks Paula,
Blessings, Jeanne
Those Arepas look yummy! How fun to see the process right in front of you.
I’m for the 2nd pink. Not quite as bright. My Ten Ping and Jar Lu said that the jacket could be worn with a dark skirt for school as well. They are very fashion conscious.
Hi Joy,
I need to get in my sewing room and get busy on “something.”
Tell Ten Ping and Jar Lu I said hello!
Thanks Joy,
Blessings, Jeanne
Hi Jeanne!! Gigi (Ten Ping’s friend) says to tell you she votes for the bright pink. But then, Gigi always wants bright pink–it’s her favorite color! LOL
Very interesting, about the Arepas. When you say “farmer’s cheese”, what is that, exactly? The picture of the Arepas with the cheese on it, the cheese almost (but not quite) looks like mozzarella.
I guess the most far-flung international food I’ve tried is mealie, which I had at a braai (rhymes with “try”–a bbq and potluck) at the end of a week’s work at the Trans World Radio headquarters in Manzini, Swaziland. I think the braai was out at the transmitter site, but my work (setting up a subject file for the missionaries’ home school library) was done in town, in the TWR headquarters building. Mealie is a kind of pudding or porridge made from corn, by the way. I remember seeing them make it and I tasted it, but I don’t remember much beyond that. Of course, it was over 17 years ago!!