10.03.2008

UAB and Muffin Day

Our UAB arrived yesterday afternoon. UAB stands for Unaccompanied Air Baggage, for those of you who need a new acronym in your life. It's the stuff that we wanted sooner than the stuff which will come on the slow boat via China Antwerp. And too bad if you want it all right now, because you only get 800 pounds or something.

So let me tell you about UAB:

Toy trucks!

Blocks!

Fruit Snacks!

The Kitchenaid!

Powdered sugar! Brown sugar!

Paper towels!

CHARMIN!!!

I know it's only been two and a half weeks, but doing without these little things can really get a person down. And can I just say that unwrapping a bundle of real! cooking! utensils! from packing paper feels like Christmas. Sure it's just a can opener. But it's mine. And it works. Woohoo!

Only had a one moment of distress when it appeared that the pendulum to my cool living room clock hadn't made it. But Henry helped me find it in all the packing paper. And now we can know what time it is without looking for the cell phone.

Here's a small note in case any of you are packing UAB and think it will be a great idea to pack a Costco variety pack of potato chips. The little bags don't handle air pressure so well. About half of them looked like Henry had already gotten a hold of them (i.e., they were popped open). Just so you know: Doritos - not so yummy after two weeks of being open. Cheetos, though, still pretty crisp. I think that speaks to the high quality of preservatives and unnatural ingredients found in them?

My only other complaint is that the cookie sheets and the roasting pan that I love and use frequently in my American life will not fit in my cute little oven. And that kinda steals the joy away from the brown and powdered sugar for a day or two until I can hitchhike to the store and get me some cute little pans.

***

I made some muffins for Cal's class last night. I will never be able to make them again because they were a concoction comprised of a butter pecan cake mix (courtesy of the comissary), what little butter we had in our butter dish (as a substitute for oil because the only kind I had on hand was sunflower and that does NOT go well in baking), two eggs instead of three that the box called for because that's all we had, and some quantity of mushed banana (I can't be sure how much it was because Charlie was "sharing" the bananas with me as I mixed it up...)

(By way of explanation, "grocery shopping" is not the hop-in-your-car-and-go-to-the-store-and-find-exactly-what-you-need affair that it might normally be elsewhere. For starters, no car. And we'll leave the discussion of the stores and their supplies for another post. Plus, UAB was here, so I didn't want to buy a bunch of duplicate baking ingredients but I didn't have time to dig through and unpack the boxes before baking...)

So anyway, I whipped up these muffins and since I am sometimes rather cupcake and muffin challenged, I was happy that they didn't overflow the pan and weren't too gooey or resembling hockey pucks. All of which might have been possible.

Cal took them to school today. The idea being that they have been doing the letter M all week and it was culminating in Muffin Day today. Each of the kids were to bring enough muffins for everyone in the class to taste and the students would make graphs of flavors, favorites, etc. They've also been talking about their five senses this week, so they got to taste and describe the flavors. You get the picture.

"Cal, where's the container that you took all the muffins in this morning?"

"The teacher kept it. I guess I'll bring it home next week."

"How was Muffin Day?"

"It was great. I tasted two kinds of mussins: Strawberry and the ones you made."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, and Mrs. P had one of the ones you made and she said they were delicious!"

"Oh, good. I'm glad everyone liked them."

"Well, none of the kids except me got to taste the ones you made. Only the adults."

"Really?"

"Yeah, Mrs. P shared them only with the teachers."

Hmmm. Interesting.

I'm thinking my muffin invention was a success? But maybe too sophisticated for the 5-year-old palate?

7 comments:

Real said...

When we were in Belgium the oven and fridge were so tiny. And we didn't have a car either so I had to walk two miles with three kids in a double stroller to get what groceries I could carry two miles back. I had to go like every two or three days. Memories.

What an adventure you are having!

As a side note, we were so interested in what you guys were doing that my husband actually started looking for jobs with the state department and seeing if that would work for us.

Not likely, but still

NOBODY said...

I can't believe you can make muffins on the fly like that. We would have had to invent Mockey Mucks if it were me on "M" week.

Fortunately, the gestapo run my son's school, so uh, we don't do ANYTHING.

Bo's learning M and senses too! Who knew.

They are also learning emotions and he told me last week, "I just have two more emotions to learn, and then I'm done. I just learned about surprised and excited. I think I've been excited once or twice, but I'm sure I have never been surprised."

Poor kid.

Janelle said...

Interesting!

I'm glad Calvin is enjoying school.

Gabriela said...

That's so funny the kids didn't get any (a sad kind of funny).

Ah yes, the air shipment. It's better than Christmas. The normal shipment is good too, don't get me wrong, but usually by the time it gets there, you don't have room for most of it and you're asking, "why did I pack this???".

An Ordinary Mom said...

Sounds like you are having many a adventure over seas.

Hmmm, what a very interesting muffin story. Glad he is liking school!

Linda said...

I love it. I am TOTALLY looking forward to the "Shopping" post... And I think I'll try making those muffins...

Just out of curiosity - are you on a military base? Does Calvin go to an English only school? Details, I need some details! Otherwise, I might be tempted to make something up and share with you MY version of your life in Ukraine - and my imagination has only grown since the mish so many years ago... playing with kids has done that to me. My Brain truly has died...

The Amazing Trips said...

Either too sophisticated for the 5-year old palate >> OR >> too yummy for the teachers to share.

I don't think there is a single natural ingredient in Cheetos, so it's no wonder they don't go stale!! (Oh, but they sure are tasty!!)