Post 6

Tulumbi

This week, I decided to take on making a doughnut-like dessert called tulumbi. Although many claim it to be a Turkish dessert, it’s very popular in many Balkan countries including Albania and Macedonia. It’s always a staple at any Albainian event I go to.  

I figured since I was at my parents’ house, I would try making a dish I wouldn’t attempt on my own. It was nice to have my mom by my side, but (just as I expected) there were some bumps along the way. The toughest part about this process was not having exact measurements for all of the ingredients.  My mother never cooks with recipes, so I found myself getting frustrated when she would say things like, “add enough flour as needed in order to thicken the dough”. On top of that, for the ingredients she did give me, she often used the metric system (2Kg of sugar, 1L of water, etc.)! I like to be precise and do things by the book, but that’s not how my mom rolls! Despite the frustration, I was glad to have her monitoring me along the way. My tulumbi turned out great, and I feel confident I can make them on my own next time :)

     

   

Post 3 - My Sentence

My Sentence

Well...after some contemplation, I’ve decided to switch up my Genius Hour project. After practicing Spanish on Duolingo over the past couple of weeks, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m not going to progress in my speaking skills as much as I’d like to without dedicating more time and money to learning it. I realized that I needed to hear and attempt to speak it each day in order to get better, and I wasn’t getting that conversational piece from Duolingo. In my first post, I wrote that I wanted to do something that would cause me some frustration, and sure enough, that happened. Although I know I would make progress, I wouldn’t make enough in the 8 weeks to make myself feel like I’ve accomplished anything.

So, that brings me to my sentence: 

She tried, she failed, she moved on to something new.

After this little setback, I had to go back to the drawing board. I decided to circle back to my original 3 ideas. The baklava is a bit much to take on, but I figured I could still use the same general concept of learning to make traditional Albanian foods. I’m not really a cook, so this’ll still cause some frustration. The plus side is that I’ll at least see results more quickly and hopefully that’ll keep me motivated.

My mom about fell over when I asked her to help me learn to cook some traditional foods. Let’s see if she ends up eating all her words about her American daughter never being able to cook!

Even though I was keeping up with my goal, I wasn't getting the conversational piece I was seeking.