Has anybody reminded you that you rock? You're doing a great thing, helping a kid stay in school. The victuals sound great, what a bonus for such a good deed!
Quite a turnaround from how down he was a few weeks ago. He's been talking to an uncle in Tennessee a couple hours north of where his parents are, the uncle wants him to come live with him and go to college there...
Has anybody reminded you that you rock? You're doing a great thing, helping a kid stay in school. The victuals sound great, what a bonus for such a good deed!
We have a young man staying with us thru the end of the school year. His parents have followed work to Georgia, but they wanted him to stay here until graduation. Circumstances turned a few weeks ago and he was working full time just to make rent, dragging his butt into school all bleary-eyed and not caught up on his homework, and announced that he was going to quit school and go to work... of course Justine was not having any of that. So we have in our house a kid who, along with his clothes and some spectacular spangly boots, brought his own serious cooking gear including a molcajete. Tonight we had tacos by Isaac... not one thing on the table was store-bought: corn tortillas, refried beans, 3 different salsas, chicken (by Justine for our white-meat-only dinner guest) and the meat for everyone else... lengua. We just said "beef" and that's not a lie but he simmered a couple of big ol' tongues in water with a chopped onion and some salt for a couple of hours. Wow that was amazing and everyone demanded seconds. Some of them would have balked at "firsts" if we'd told them exactly what the beef was. . I made the roasted serrano salsa and the refried beans because I've been paying attention, and he showed me how to make the taco sauce from dried chiles, a fresh tomato, and a fresh whole serrano. It came out great and so so different from the stuff in a can. The beans... a gut-filler normally, real refried beans from beans we grow around here... are amazing. Wow. He cooked dinner for 12 by himself, directing a couple of us as needed. He's just turned 19. Gonna be eating well thru May.
Tomorrow he goes to work bagging oats or sunflower seeds, he'll join us for Easter dinner (he's making sopes), and on Monday I'm going to help him with his paper on Hitler.
Has anybody reminded you that you rock? You're doing a great thing, helping a kid stay in school. The victuals sound great, what a bonus for such a good deed!
We have a young man staying with us thru the end of the school year. His parents have followed work to Georgia, but they wanted him to stay here until graduation. Circumstances turned a few weeks ago and he was working full time just to make rent, dragging his butt into school all bleary-eyed and not caught up on his homework, and announced that he was going to quit school and go to work... of course Justine was not having any of that. So we have in our house a kid who, along with his clothes and some spectacular spangly boots, brought his own serious cooking gear including a molcajete. Tonight we had tacos by Isaac... not one thing on the table was store-bought: corn tortillas, refried beans, 3 different salsas, chicken (by Justine for our white-meat-only dinner guest) and the meat for everyone else... lengua. We just said "beef" and that's not a lie but he simmered a couple of big ol' tongues in water with a chopped onion and some salt for a couple of hours. Wow that was amazing and everyone demanded seconds. Some of them would have balked at "firsts" if we'd told them exactly what the beef was. . I made the roasted serrano salsa and the refried beans because I've been paying attention, and he showed me how to make the taco sauce from dried chiles, a fresh tomato, and a fresh whole serrano. It came out great and so so different from the stuff in a can. The beans... a gut-filler normally, real refried beans from beans we grow around here... are amazing. Wow. He cooked dinner for 12 by himself, directing a couple of us as needed. He's just turned 19. Gonna be eating well thru May.
Tomorrow he goes to work bagging oats or sunflower seeds, he'll join us for Easter dinner (he's making sopes), and on Monday I'm going to help him with his paper on Hitler.
We have a young man staying with us thru the end of the school year. His parents have followed work to Georgia, but they wanted him to stay here until graduation. Circumstances turned a few weeks ago and he was working full time just to make rent, dragging his butt into school all bleary-eyed and not caught up on his homework, and announced that he was going to quit school and go to work... of course Justine was not having any of that. So we have in our house a kid who, along with his clothes and some spectacular spangly boots, brought his own serious cooking gear including a molcajete. Tonight we had tacos by Isaac... not one thing on the table was store-bought: corn tortillas, refried beans, 3 different salsas, chicken (by Justine for our white-meat-only dinner guest) and the meat for everyone else... lengua. We just said "beef" and that's not a lie but he simmered a couple of big ol' tongues in water with a chopped onion and some salt for a couple of hours. Wow that was amazing and everyone demanded seconds. Some of them would have balked at "firsts" if we'd told them exactly what the beef was. . I made the roasted serrano salsa and the refried beans because I've been paying attention, and he showed me how to make the taco sauce from dried chiles, a fresh tomato, and a fresh whole serrano. It came out great and so so different from the stuff in a can. The beans... a gut-filler normally, real refried beans from beans we grow around here... are amazing. Wow. He cooked dinner for 12 by himself, directing a couple of us as needed. He's just turned 19. Gonna be eating well thru May.
Tomorrow he goes to work bagging oats or sunflower seeds, he'll join us for Easter dinner (he's making sopes), and on Monday I'm going to help him with his paper on Hitler.
We have a young man staying with us thru the end of the school year. His parents have followed work to Georgia, but they wanted him to stay here until graduation. Circumstances turned a few weeks ago and he was working full time just to make rent, dragging his butt into school all bleary-eyed and not caught up on his homework, and announced that he was going to quit school and go to work... of course Justine was not having any of that. So we have in our house a kid who, along with his clothes and some spectacular spangly boots, brought his own serious cooking gear including a molcajete. Tonight we had tacos by Isaac... not one thing on the table was store-bought: corn tortillas, refried beans, 3 different salsas, chicken (by Justine for our white-meat-only dinner guest) and the meat for everyone else... lengua. We just said "beef" and that's not a lie but he simmered a couple of big ol' tongues in water with a chopped onion and some salt for a couple of hours. Wow that was amazing and everyone demanded seconds. Some of them would have balked at "firsts" if we'd told them exactly what the beef was. . I made the roasted serrano salsa and the refried beans because I've been paying attention, and he showed me how to make the taco sauce from dried chiles, a fresh tomato, and a fresh whole serrano. It came out great and so so different from the stuff in a can. The beans... a gut-filler normally, real refried beans from beans we grow around here... are amazing. Wow. He cooked dinner for 12 by himself, directing a couple of us as needed. He's just turned 19. Gonna be eating well thru May.
Tomorrow he goes to work bagging oats or sunflower seeds, he'll join us for Easter dinner (he's making sopes), and on Monday I'm going to help him with his paper on Hitler.