More Danish Pastries, Apple Pies, and an Update

I have moved on from the land of a thousand hills! I have not given up on this project, and will continue until I finish, even though the deadline and blogging are long since passed/passé. I am now living in a compound where food is provided and it is hard to cook anything for yourself. So the project is on hold for the time being. But before I get there, the last thing I baked from the Pie Bible while in Rwanda were some Danish pastries: Danish snail buns and the “alligator”. This was way back in September, more than half a year ago…

The Danish snail buns, I made for a potluck brunch with my work buddies. We had been meaning to do it for so long and managed to do it only once before I left. Looking back at my time in Rwanda, most of what I remember is just working a lot! And then coming home, too tired to do much else. But there were the little bright spots: going to Sole-e-Luna for quiz night and congratulating ourselves for not coming in last, searching for new coffee shops (a little bit pointless since everywhere has amazing coffee), going to the market to buy gitenge to have yet another dress made, having long lunch breaks because, well just because, and the little home gatherings we managed to have once in a while. I wish I had worked less and explored more. But as a workaholic, I think this will need to be “worked on”, slowly, in the future.

The alligator was a bit of a flop because it didn’t keep its shape while baking and spread out into more of a bread. But it means that I’m done with all but one of the Danish pastries! I don’t think I’ll make Danish pastries again once I’m done with the project – you have to go through the hassle of both proofing and layering. While the results are amazing, I’m not sure it’s completely worth it…

I was back in the land of the morning calm for Christmas and New Year’s. I did a remake of the designer apple pie for Christmas dinner because it is such a gorgeous pie and I didn’t like how it turned out the first time. That was such a long time ago! I have to say, I really have improved since then! After living in Africa for two years, I appreciated tremendously all the little and large conveniences Korea had to offer. I enjoyed the food like a foreigner hooked on Korea and ate everything shamelessly. But I realized, all over again, that I am more of a tourist in Korea; I have grown more detached from its cultural “myths.” So while I see that everything is beautiful and wonderful, they are quite empty to me. I foresee at least a few more years of floating ahead.

And the present day. We were stuck in the compound all day because of outside events, and it was a lucky thing that I had gotten my ingredients just barely in time (I had just bought the apples when we were called back). It was a little difficult baking in the kitchen in the compound. Everything is industrial sized: they keep flour and sugar in trash can sized bins, the pie pan is as big as 2 normal pies (so the filling ended up being a bit sparse because I didn’t realize it in time..), and there was only a one liter measuring “cup” to do all the measuring. But I’m really glad that they let me into the kitchen at all, as I probably got in the way of the staff’s lunch and dinner making routines! Besides getting to bake, it was a revelation to see how food for a lot of people is made. I never imagined how everything has to be orchestrated just so: all the vegetables have to be peeled by hand, someone has to continuously do the mountains of dishes, everything is cooked in abnormally large pots and pans (I could barely pick up one of the cutting boards). And there were just so many people I had never seen before – the silent and invisible people who run the compound. I’m not sure if I will bake another pie here (again, I was probably such a nuisance), but it was an experience!