Birthdays Pilares-Style

Every Saturday morning of my work weekend, I join my girls in some kind of work around the Ranch. God bless Tía Delmy because she understands my loathing for chapearing (using a machete to cut down grass) and has pretty much said I never have to do it again. At worst, I have to rake the chopped monte. Fortunately, yesterday I went with 4 of my girls to the kitchen to make bread. This involves putting ridiculous amounts of fattening ingredients into the mother of all KitchenAid mixers and attempting to prevent your girls from losing their fingers. Also mandatory are mini-flour fights and making fun of your volunteer for not knowing how to make perfectly round balls of dough. But the best part is what we do with the leftover dough. Yesterday was María Girón’s birthday, so I fashioned a bread-cake out of dough (a pizza-like circle with her first initial in the middle and little pelotas all around the edges). I also made a little house, hearts, and a kitty face. Deysi made a little man whose arm and head were later secretly eaten by two culprits who shall remain nameless (ahem, Kimmie and Saravia). We then put our 14 trays of rolls and one tray of treats (doused liberally with sugar) into a huge ancient oven that looks like something out of an old Welsh village (she said from experience). I came back from mass early to celebrate with my bread-making friends and the birthday girl. Ensue hilarity. We made fresco with two kinds of Zuko (Honduran KoolAid) and all drank out of the same used Pepsi bottle (small wonder we all get sick, huh?) and took lots of photos and videos with my camera (I wish I could upload them from here, but you’ll have to wait until January – we made a special one for you, Mom). My tía was so tickled with how well it had gone that she wants me to do it every time we have panadería duty. We worked really fast and even the girls who complain about it had a good time. She even told me I could leave early because I’d worked so hard that day. Nice! I didn’t leave early, naturally, as that would be out of character for me. But it was nice to be appreciated for something that really didn’t feel like work at all.