Easter, Etc

Woodstock is pretty stingy with handing out long weekends, but this year we gratefully received a day off for Good Friday. I spent the day in the hot climes of Dehradun to get some shopping done (best purchases were ripe mangos, fresh strawberries, and lots of flowers!). Saturday and Sunday seemed like they would provide me with lots of free time, but I was wrong.

I anticipated having chunks of my weekend taken up with school activities. First, the Junior Senior Banquet (aka prom) that was held on Saturday Night. Second, the all-school Easter Chapel service on Sunday evening. Both were fun events, but the combination of having to dress in formals and spend two evenings in a row chaperoning students was not exactly relaxing.

The real time consumer was preparing for an Easter Brunch. As I've mentioned before, I am an advisor for 10 seniors. They are fantastic and they love coming over for a home-cooked meal. Usually, I make them help cook, but this time I decided I would do it all myself. Cooking for 11 doesn't seem like a lot of work when I consider how many times I've cooked for 50 or more people at Wilderness, but here it's a little different:

First, I have a gas stove with only two burners.

My countertop stove with its attractive gas cylinder. Yes, that's a pressure cooker on the right burner...I'm slowly mastering the art of using it. (No bean volcanoes since last year!)

Second, in lieu of a real oven (which are hard to come by), I have a large toaster oven that fits one small pan (maybe the equivalent of a 9") as well as a small bread pan at one time. It also doesn't cook evenly and is horribly inefficient in keeping its heat.

We don't have a microwave, so the only way to keep things warm is to set them on top of the oven.

Due of these limitations, I spent a large portion of Saturday and Sunday morning preparing the following: Veg and non-veg quiche, cinnamon rolls, bacon and sausage, and a fruit tart. I love that there are virtually no shortcuts when cooking here - everything is made from scratch and always tastes delicious.

Posing with the feast.

Nothing beats Sunday brunch on a sunny porch.

The students took my camera and took an obnoxious amount of photos of the Easter basket and flowers.

Delicious fruit tart topped with mango, kiwi, banana, and strawberry.

Inhaling the fruit tart.

Besides the delicious food, I forced my students to partake in Easter traditions. A few of them are Christian, but only one or two had ever dyed eggs or participated in an Easter Egg hunt. Naturally, I felt it was my duty as their advisor to teach them. They had way more fun than I anticipated dying the eggs.

Pretty serious egg decorators

Sonam's eggs.

Jocelyn's egg

Maari's egg.

Ngawang and Lan's eggs

Not sure what they are doing. (On the far left, Ziri is definitely showing off her "Mustache Club" t-shirt). Over the course of the morning, the whole group definitely reverted to small children.

Long after decorating them, they were still obsessed with their Easter eggs.

The Easter Egg Hunt proved to be even more fun. In Onkka family tradition, I included the famous Golden Egg. Each student was allowed to find one egg and then also compete for the Golden Egg. One student told me that the hunt was a pretty lame game. I countered with, "Then why did all ten of you start sprinting across the yard as soon as I gave a hint?" They were totally into it, even if they say otherwise.

Lan posing with the first Easter Egg she's ever found!

Must find the Golden Egg...

Finally catching sight of the Golden Egg (note the boy in the blue jeans springing into action)

And he leaps to victory! (And the boy on the right is claiming that he saw it first!)

Victory!

The prize? PEEPS! Thanks to a care-package from home :)

The whole group after a fun morning.