An Easter for the Books...

This Easter was a new experience for us and one that will always be remembered as "Our Easter in Sarajevo". So many things went wrong or turned out to be stressful ordeals that were not planned for but at the end of the day our Savior still conquered the grave securing our eternal salvation and giving us more than enough to celebrate.

Thankfully, we did get to attend church service at the only English service in town which is unfortunately held on the air force base here. I say unfortunately because Landon has access there but I do not. Therefore, we have to go through a long process to get in for the service and it can be stressful. The service itself was nice, about 20 people, and gave us the fellowship and spiritual connection we have really been missing here. We did not expect to have such a difficult time finding a church here after Landon easily found several services in Beijing. Hopefully, by May I will also have access at the base and we can start attending regularly.

The week before Easter, Landon and I excitedly sat down and planned out a menu for Easter Sunday dinner. The phrase "the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry" quickly comes to mind.

On Saturday, I made our dessert which was supposed to be a S'more-like cake requiring marshmallows. After hunting in the grocery store, we found multi-colored marshmallows on the candy aisle thinking, "Ok our dessert will just be Easter themed." When we got home Landon taste-tested a mallow to ensure that it was right. After Landon gave the mallows the thumbs up, I proceeded with covering our dessert in them and toasting them under the broiler. One slight problem is that our oven is not calibrated correctly and thus flambéed the marshmallows. I opened the oven door only to realize the mallows were on fire at which point I began hollering, "Landon, fire!" and reaching for the closet liquid. Thankfully, Landon is much quicker than me and he simply blew the marshmallows out. As we assessed the damage we realized just the top layer of marshmallows was burnt and simply peeled the charred remains away leaving an edible dessert. Thinking Landon had just saved Easter, we covered the dessert and headed to bed. Sunday afternoon, I uncovered the dessert and was met by what looked like chewed bubble gum. As I cut into the cake I realized the sugar content of the marshmallows here is obviously different than the mallows we are used to since the marshmallows turned into a stringy, sugary mess. I think the picture does justice....

For our main course we decided to have a standing rib roast. After overcoming the task of actually getting the roast (a guy at work went to the butcher for us with several pictures), we thought we would be in the clear. When I first unwrapped the roast, I told Landon I thought it looked odd and we dismissed it thinking the cut was just a bit off. I began preparing the roast which included cooking it in red wine. As I asked Landon to open the bottle of wine, we realized we do not have a cork screw in our kitchen. Being a terrific husband, he ran down to the market in search for one but came back empty handed. The next hour was spent trying to open the bottle of wine with a knife, a pair of scissors, and a potato peeler. In the end, the wine was opened. Note the cork floating in the bottle....

Once the wine ordeal was handled, I finished preparing the roast and put it in the oven to bake. After about 45 minutes the outside was completely brown so I decided to check the middle. As I cut into the roast I realized the texture of the meat was a bit odd. As I cut further I realized the texture was not the only concern and asked Landon to just cut into the entire roast. As we opened it up we were met with grey meat that was still bleeding. First of all, I have never had beef that was this texture (it was much closer texture to pork; however it is impossible to get pork here due to the Muslim traditions, so we are fairly certain it was not pork). Secondly, I have never had beef that was still rare and bleeding but grey in color. Landon and I concluded that it was either a) not beef or b) very poor quality beef. Either way, we decided we have both had enough food poisoning here and opted for a pizza. Our Easter dinner ended up being garlic mashed potatoes, salad, rolls, and pizza.

The roast before it was canned.

Our Easter Feast...

Landon enjoying his pizza. And yes, that is tartar sauce on his pizza (one of the new habits he has picked up).

In all it was an Easter we look back on and laugh. We have decided that I will not become the next Wolfgang Puck in this kitchen and agreed to stick to the successful meals we can prepare here: spaghetti, chili, and pancakes. Hopefully, this list will continue to grow but roast will not be making the cut.