Thursday, March 17

I went down to Kiko and her sister Grace's kitchen this afternoon to try baking peanut butter cookies (with some of our precious butter).  Kiko began the fire like a motu, with hard wood and dry coconut shells to make it nice and hot.  She built the fire in a small portion of an old barrel that she always uses for her motu.  We traded phrases in English and Lavukaleve as we waited for the fire to die down. 

I learned that it's rude to tell honored guests to "come eat" (euiba).  You have to say, "Come look at the food" (eleba), instead.  When the sisters thought the fire was ready, they put a small piece of roofing copper on top of the fire and placed the cookie sheet on top.  They covered the barrel with it's lid and placed more fire on top.  Within a minute, Kiko checked the cookies and announced they had burned.  We decided to try again after the fire had cooled down and little more, and the second batch was a little less burned.  The last batch was almost perfect, just a little too brown on bottom after only four minutes in the "oven".  We decided to try again next Wednesday morning and tweak the fire a little bit more to create the perfect batch of cookies.  But now I know how to say something has burned (hoieb)!