When it was mentioned we were learning to make fudge, one of the Sri Lankan women said, “What?” I then asked the rest of them if they’d had fudge before. “What’s that?” was the response I got. You’ve got to be kidding me! Especially the way Visaka snarfs down the chocolate – this is hugely surprising.
So we made fudge. And let me tell you – it was a huge hit. Visaka snuck as many samples as she could. It was actually pretty hilarious. When Sis Bennion dumped the fudge down on the counter to beat, Visaka grabs the pot to lick it out. I mention to her that she should be careful – the fudge is very hot and it’ll burn her. She says she doesn’t care – she’s burned herself this way before, and it’s always worth it, or something to that effect.
Later, after she licked the pot, she mentioned she had blisters inside her mouth. “Didn’t I warn you? Didn’t I warn you?” Yes, she said. But I don’t care, she said. It was too good, she said.
She actually walked around with that pot for a good ten minutes or so, sucking all the fudge she possibly could from it.
We actually made two different types of fudge. Visaka had her hands in that one, too – snarfing bits while it was cooking. 😀
Here’s the comment for the day – Visaka was the worst of the lot. Okay, so the rest of us sneaked bits here and there, but Visaka? Every single time I turned around, she was sneaking more! 😛 The rest of us – well, we were, for the most part, rather much more discreet about it. 🙂 And Visaka wasn’t the only one licking out bowls, but . . .
What also doesn’t help Visaka’s case are the facial expressions she seriously, doesn’t she look guilty as sin? She knows she’s been caught in the act. . . 😀
Also, I had asked everyone to bring two dozen sweets for a sweets exchange.
There was my intention, and then there was the follow-through.
Intention: This is regularly done back in the ward I was in in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada, North America, Western Hemisphere, Planet Earth. That’s for the geographically challenged. If’n ya like, I can provide longitude and latitude and even provide you with a quick lesson as to how longitude and latitude work. Just say the word – I aim ta pleez.. Only there it was called a Cookie Exchange. Everyone brings two dozen cookies, then you trade your cookies for other peoples’. Basically, you walk away with four
packets of half a dozen cookies each of someone else’s. So you walk away with four varieties that you didn’t make, so more variety in life. Does this make sense, or am I just imagining things? Or am I just repeating myself over and over and over and over and over? 🙂
Anyway, when I first presented this as an idea to Visaka, the Relief Society President, she said that not all the sisters in our branch have ovens. Therefore, not all of them can make cookies. Therefore, why don’t we change it to sweets exchange from cookie exchange – that way, those sisters who don’t have ovens can still bring something suitable. Yeah, why not? And of course it makes sense. And seriously, not everyone has an oven? Yup. It happens here.
Follow through: or lack thereof. Well, I forgot to explain myself to almost everyone, so at the end of homemaking, we started putting together these little gift packages with the stuff we made during homemaking. Turns out, half the people had brought their sweets out and were allowing full access to everyone to put into the sweets dishes they were making.
See, we’d made two kinds of fudge, plus dipped marshmallows in chocolate (well, it was supposed to be chocolate, but since we used it all in the fudge, we dipped them in still wet fudge instead) with sprinkles on top, and Chow Chow Truffles. Sister Griffiths had brought some oblong little dishes for us to put what we’d made into, with tissue paper at the bottom, plastic wrap around it to keep everything intact, then ribbons tied around it, too.
And that’s where people were putting their sweets. That is, the ones they brought for the sweets exchange.
If I’d had half a brain, I would have said something sooner so the rest of us could bring our sweets out and do the same thing.
As it was, I was slow on the uptake, and I mentioned it only after we were halfway done. But still, we got the job done, and that’s what matters. Right? 🙂
As an orientation, I’ll see if I can tell you everything that’s in this little dish, starting at the upper left hand corner. Chow Chow Truffles. Then Potato Toffee (the cream colored thing on top of the green thing). The Green Thing is also a Potato Tofee. Orange and pink are Coconut Toffee. The sprinkled thing is a fudge dipped marshmallow. The cream thing to its left is another Potato Toffee. The brown slice just north of that is a Milk Toffee. Then the pink thing is a marshmallow. Okay, so Fahim helped me. He comes in real handy with things like these sometime. 🙂
But then, we ran out of the little oblong dishes, and still had sweets left over, so I took a plate down to the missionaries playing basketball in the parking lot. Or what I thought were the missionaries.
It turned out that the window I looked out of only overlooked the missionaries, but there was a whole passel of other men playing volleyball. So instead of two or four men, there were closer to twenty.
So when I walked out the door with plate full of sweets, all of a sudden, I’m wondering if there are enough. Oh well. I call them, get their attention, and by dribs and drabs, they come over and empty the plate. This is no surprise.
Armed only with empty plate, I go back up to the kitchen, finish up what we’re doing, pack up my sweets, and then Visaka and I photocopy our first ever Relief Society Newsletter.
