International Markets and Personal Adjustments..as well as a nice recipe for Beef Stew

Yesterday I made Indian curry and our guest from India gave me the thumbs up.  He said I used a little too much red pepper though, and I told him it was a Louisiana thing (which is not true, I just followed the recipe..)

I've discovered a huge international market here, filled with produce, meat, and spices from all over the world.  One of the girls who works here at the hostel with me showed it to me.  She is from Ireland, and she loves cooking with food from all over the world as well, so she helped me find my curry recipe and the ingredients to go in it.  She is throwing a Christmas party soon where she will be cooking traditional Irish cakes and things of that matter, and I'm very excited- especially to get the recipes after I personally taste all of her delicious treats.

The international market is quite an experience.  You walk in and you smell all of the smells that you smell in an outdoor market in some foreign land- you smell the sweet and savory spices, the ripe fruit and veggies and the Spanish bakery items.  The market was filled with people from all over the world, chatting in different languages and shopping casually.  I did not feel like I was in Indy when we walked in.

My friend helped me pick out some goat chops since I wanted to try goat, and we also bought a Spanish pastry and some soy sauce on sale.  I cooked the goat chops right when I got home.  They tasted like pork chops to me, except better.

The hostel has been fast paced, then slow paced, then fast again.  We have had a staff Thanksgiving party, which consisted of many casseroles and pumpkin pie.  We have strung Christmas lights around the front and back door and hung wreaths.  I have put up an antique aluminum tree that I found in the basement and weaved garland up and down the staircase handrail.  The hostel is looking pretty festive right now.

Yesterday I had a spontaneous idea- I told Kevin we should drive to Cincinnati for the day.  He agreed, and last night, we actually had a guest check in from Cincinnati.  It turns out that this morning, he came to us and told us that he was stranded here and out of money, and he needed a ride to Cincinnati.  How strange, we thought.  What are the odds of this happening?  We know that things like this happen for a reason around here.  So we agreed to take him back home, and he was very grateful. 

We currently have a guest staying with us who is taking care of the lemurs at the zoo in Indy.  She is a lot of fun and she certainly knows a lot about lemurs...

This place is feeling more like home, even though we still have no idea how long we will be here.  The more people we meet, the more it feels homey.  I guess that's how it works.  It's amazing the amount of guests who stay at the hostel while looking for a permanent place to live in Indy.  One of our former guests now lives across the street from us and has been a true neighbor- coming over for movie nights and bringing popcorn and going for neighborhood runs with me. 

I have struggled lately with our small room that we live in, going back and forth with being discontent and content.  I knew when we moved here that our only personal space would be our bedroom and joined bathroom, and I was ok with it, but some days the room seems to shrink...
I have decided that I will love to have a bigger space one day, but that for now, this is a space that suits Kevin and I just fine.  I think it is very cultural to think that you need a lot of space.  Many people in other countries have the same size personal living space as we do, and they don't think twice about it.  It is all that we need right now, and I think it has been good for us to live simply, because it is teaching us what we really need, what living out "sacrifice" means, and how to appreciate what you DO have.  And plus, when our room is clean, it's fine- it's when it is messy that it seems smaller, and so that just forces us to pick up after ourselves!

Today as we were driving home from Cincinnati, we saw the sun set over the flat corn fields, and I took a mental picture of what I would frame as a stereotypical, beautiful shot of the Midwest.  Who knows how long we will be in this part of the country-- I want to soak it in as much as possible while we are here though.

Cincinnati was great- we ate at a local Belgium restaurant and walked across the bridge that, without realizing it, took us to Kentucky.  So technically, we went to two different states today, accidentally.

I am enjoying the social aspect of the hostel more and more the longer we are here.  It's funny, because when guests first arrive, I am not always as excited and energized as Kevin- but the longer they stay, I fall in love with them and their quirks.  It just takes me a little bit of time. 

I found a great recipe recently that I want to share.  It's perfect for a cold day, although it feels like spring in Louisiana here right now- humid and warm.  

Beef Stew (originally a  Paula Deen recipe, but I tweaked it a little bit, and here is my version)

• 2 pounds stew beef
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 cups water
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1 clove garlic, peeled
• 1 or 2 bay leaves
• 1 medium onion, sliced
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne (IF you want it spicy.  If not, use 1/4 tsp.)
• 2 dashes of ground cloves
• 3 large carrots, sliced
• 3 ribs celery, chopped 
• 6 new potatoes, skinned and chopped

Brown meat in hot oil. Add water, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, bay leaves, onion, salt, sugar, pepper, cayenne pepper, and cloves. Cover and simmer 1 1/2 hours. Remove bay leaves and garlic clove. Add carrots and celery and potatoes. Cover and cook 30 to 40 minutes longer. To thicken gravy, remove 2 cups hot liquid. Using a separate bowl, combine 1/4 cup water and cornstarch until smooth. Mix with a little hot liquid and return mixture to pot. Stir and cook until bubbly.  Add more water if needed ( I add about 2 cups more).


Lastly, we had two great friends drive in from Nashville to visit for Turkey Day.  Spending Thanksgiving away from family was strange but we had a great time! I am so thankful for their company.

Hailey and Haley

Hubert the turkey

We were well fed for Thanksgiving...

we ate way too much of this stuff

 

A Little Bit of Clarity

When we first moved here, I thought we were coming to invest in guests and show them love.  I thought we had an answer for them, something to offer them....

Currently it is hard for me to state this as my main reason for being here.  Right now, I feel like the main reason I am here is to learn.

In everything I do, I want to give to others.  I want to give my time, my food, my space, my everything.  I want to live a life of sacrifice for others because I believe that changes people.  To rich people and poor people- to everyone.  I believe that when you give yourself to others, they experience love and it nourishes them and makes them into a more whole person.  I want to restore peoples' dignity, and I can do that just by treating them like they are worth my time.

But I am realizing that ever since we arrived here two months ago, I have received so much more from our guests than I could have ever expected, hoped for, or imagined.  I am here to give to them, and everyone I encounter, but I feel that I am learning and receiving so much more from our guests than I am able to give to them.  This is incredibly humbling.

This happens without me trying.  I live where I "work", so there is no escape from life among guests.  My life is in sync with guests.  I drink coffee with them, watch movies with them, even run errands with them and last night, I went jogging with one of them.  So this give and take happens without me even having to try.  It is just life- it just is.  We are around each other during the parts of our day where we are doing ordinary, day to day things.  There is a bond that happens when you share common parts of life with others.  It's the bond you have with your room mate or your spouse- except it is with a person who is leaving in a day or two, and so you mind your manners more around them.

I thought I knew why I was here when I got here on September 10.  I thought I had it all figured out- I thought I had it.  I hate when I think I have it all figured out, and then I realize I am no where near understanding, and I never will be.  I have learned so much from living in this hostel and living among travelers.  I am totally amazed by how different I feel now as opposed to two months ago.

I love to travel, and if I could, I would travel for years around the world.  That opportunity has presented itself to me throughout college in the forms of month long missions, and I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to take advantage of those trips.  Now, I am realizing that the same thing I love about traveling, I am experiencing to an extent at the hostel.  When guests from Germany tell me about the current weather in their hometown.  When a man from Syria comes close to breaking down when we ask him about the current state of his country.  And when a Nigerian asks me why on earth my husband and I need 2 cars.  And when local friends teach me how to play the Midwestern card game called Euchre.  I am traveling, because I am learning about different cultures.  I am not only learning, but I am experiencing life with the natives.  I am being taught, simply by asking questions to the person sitting next to me over coffee.  My world view and my perspective on life has been broadened, and I feel so fortunate.

It is hard for me to say that I am here to offer guests something, because they keep offering me so much.  It is hard to explain to people why I am ok with living in a tiny room where the bathroom is five feet from the bed and there is no wall to separate the two.  It doesn't make sense to me either, but I find myself ok with all of this.  The people here make it worth it.  When I am able to think clearly, and I am in a good place mentally, I realize that even though we are not building up our resumes or our bank account by being here, in other ways we are rich.  I feel rich because I feel blessed, and I feel peace because I feel that I am doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing right now.

Lastly, I have decided to start culinary school in January.  It is something I have always wanted to do and the opportunity has presented itself to me.  It has never seemed like the right time to do culinary school, and I never thought I would be going in Indy, but now seems like the perfect time.  It should take a year for me to get an associates degree in culinary arts.  I realized that the only thing holding me back from going to culinary school was Fear.  Fear that I would not get a job doing what I wanted to do, which would be either teaching those without resources how to cook as a life skill, or cooking nice food for those without food, or both.  Then I realized that Fear is never a good reason to hold back from doing something that you want to do, that you know can help others and make their lives better.  Fear doesn't get a say so.

I have been wanting an opportunity to communicate what I am experiencing here, but I have not found the words for it until now.  I want to be honest about our life here, and I don't want to paint a romantic picture, but I also don't want to be vague.  This lifestyle has so many challenges, and there are days when I just want to live in a normal house like a normal married couple and have a normal 9-5 job.  But most of the time, I am happy here, because it feels right.  There are days when I am so homesick that I can't focus on anything else, but I am always affirmed that being here is right.  Sometimes it gets lonely, meeting guests and having them leave a few days later, but the longer we stay here, the more friends we make that actually live here.  So it's bittersweet- just like everything in life, and I'm realizing that I can be a bit fatalistic naturally, but life really isn't that bad.

Thanks to my french press coffee and a little spurt of mental clarity this morning, I was finally able to update this blog.
I wouldn't be able to update if I didn't feel the support of those who read, so thanks for the comments and views.
<3

Fall is Here!

So much has happened!

A few days ago, my cousin Kaitlyn came to visit.  We had a lot of fun!  We showed her around Indy and experienced a music fest in Broad Ripple.  She got to hang out with a few guests as well, which gave her the full hostel experience.

We have a Fall Festival coming up this Sunday.  I have volunteered to make 200 cupcakes for a "cupcake walk" (a cake walk but with cupcakes.)  We will have live music, a food truck, a costume contest, and pumpkin carving.  I will post some pictures of it on here.  We have invited the entire neighborhood plus some, so we are excited to see who shows up!

As for a general hostel update, we got to know a recent guest from New Zealand who actually toured downtown with Kevin, Kaitlyn and I.  He enjoyed the Cajun cuisine at our local Cajun restaurant, and I tried to get him to take a box of Zatarans red beans and rice with him when he left, but he kindly declined my offer.  He is currently headed to Finnland to visit family.

We have had a girl staying here in a tent in the backyard who is a sculptor.  She is creating a piece a few miles up the road in Broad Ripple.  It is a sculpture that involves community involvement.  Kevin actually took a short video of her and posted it on the hostel website. It's very inspirational.  If you want to check it out, go here:

 http://www.indyhostel.us/blogs/who-and-why.htm

Here are a few snapshots of life here right now

Kevin made bread from scratch!

Museum of Art

Ethiopian Food

Our New Zealand friend came with us to the Speedway!

 More to come on upcoming fall festivities!

A Sneak Peak at Our Sneaky New Friend...

This is James.  He is named after a former guest who left his jeans here on accident.  Here are James' jeans on our new friend, James the scarecrow.

James is made out of recycled paper, leaves, recycled jeans, and a recycled pj shirt that I got out of one of my sisters' many goodwill bags.  His head is a trick-or-treat pale, and his hat belongs to John next door.

James has already frightened a few guests.  Last night at a cd release party at the hostel, one of the musicians walked by him and was startled.  Then he began to introduce himself to James, only to realize that James doesn't talk...

He is keeping the critters out of our garden and adding a harvest-y feel to our hostel.

More to come on events for Halloween... including a Fall Fest, pumpkin carving party, and Halloween night extravaganzas.  The hostel is celebrating the seasons well!

Our Surprise Visitor...

My dad called the hostel a few days ago with a disguised voice, wanting to book a room.  At first I thought it was a stranger that had a strange voice, or possibly a mental disability, but then I distinguished a farmiliar southern accent through the voice and finally figured out that it was my dad.

He booked out private ensuite and is staying two nights with us!  This is our first visitor from home.
He got here last night and we took him to our favorite Mexican restaurant- La Piedad.  From there we thought it would be a wonderful idea to consume large portions of local ice cream at our favorite ice cream shop- Brics.  Brics gets its ice cream from a dairy in Michigan and it is delicious.  (I am personally over frozen yogurt and going back to my childhood love for good old fashioned ice cream.)  We returned to the hostel full and happy and thankful for each others' company.

This morning I awoke to my father frying eggs and bacon in my dutch oven and making pot after pot of coffee.  Kevin and I joined him and opened all the windows since it was cool and rainy outside.  Our friend (originally from Nigeria) joined us as well, eating breakfast before he attended a local job fair downtown.  He came in from San Fransisco and was interested in working somewhere new, doing something different.  We all wished him luck and my dad was confident that he would land a job since he had eaten a piece of his fried bacon.   

Tonight we ventured out into Broad Ripple once more to enjoy food at a place called Union Jacks.  Kevin ordered french fries followed by potato soup because he couldn't get enough starch.  I had wings and my dad ordered fish and chips. It was a great meal!

The night ended with us all  coming back to the hostel and welcoming a lawyer from Chicago to check in, as well as catching up with our friend from Nigeria and asking him how the job fair went.  We also helped ourselves to some chocolate from one of our guests' Belgium uncle.  It was delicious!

Tomorrow my dad leaves, but only after he is done drinking the rest of the coffee and frying the rest of the bacon for breakfast I'm sure.  We have been refreshed by this visit and are excited about our future friends and family visits to come!

Kevin and Dad in the private ensuite.  Antlers from Purdin, Missouri on the wall behind them!

Lastly, if you are looking for something new to do with sweet potatoes or looking for a more exciting option for hash-browns, this recipe is for you.  I made it Sunday night for some friends and they ate every bit of it! It's a recipe originally from Emeril, changed by me a little bit.

Sweet Potato Hash Browns

you need:
3 sweet potatoes, shredded
1 cup chopped onion
2 cloves minced garlic
2 T. butter or oil 
5-10 pieces of cooked bacon, crumbled
salt and pepper to taste

all you do is:
Cook the onion and in olive oil in a dutch oven over med. heat until tender.  Add the garlic, cook 2 minutes.  Add salt and pepper to taste. Add the shredded sweet potatoes and stir, cooking until potatoes are tender.  Add salt and pepper to taste again.  Add crumbled bacon and viola! Sweet potato hash-browns.

If you are truly Southern, you can cook the bacon first, then, keeping it in the dutch oven, add the onion, garlic, and so fourth, frying everything in the bacon grease!

Or for healthier options, substitute a healthier oil (olive oil, etc.).

No matter what type of oil you use, it should taste delicious.

Garden Update:

Arugula

We have TONS of spinach!

Our radishes are coming up!

Adventurous Moms and Midwestern Cajun Cuisine

The days at the hostel have been slow lately, but this weekend the pace has picked up quite a bit!

One of our recent guests came in from Michigan for a conference.  She was a mother of 4 who had stayed in hostels all across Europe in college.  She told me that she used to be a thrill seeker, but now that she has 4 children her idea of "fun" has changed.  Now she does things that are fun for her AND her kids, like digging holes in the backyard in the summertime and filling them with water to play in.  She also told me that she loved her family very much, and there is nothing that she would rather be doing more than staying at home with her kids, making home-made pizza on Friday nights, and enjoying her husband.  Of course, there are moments that her children would drive her crazy, but for the most part, being a full-time wife and mom was her favorite thing in the world.  As she was telling me this, we were putting her sopping wet clothes in the washer that became soaked from the puddle she stepped in downtown as she was chasing her bus to come back to the hostel.  I loved that these two sides of her could exist at once- this adventurous, daring woman who has traveled the world and loves her family very much, and also appreciates the fun and adventure that they have to offer her in the present.  She told me that the fun just looks different now, but it's still just as good.

That is the best part about managing the hostel- the guests.  They offer so many perspectives and stories, and each time I talk to a new guest I feel that I have been enlightened in a new way.  People have so much to offer one another, and I'm learning that if you are open to looking for those offerings, it can enrich your life immensly.

Along with guests enriching our perspective, a couple who recently stayed here left Kevin and I a gift card to Panera Bread with a thank you note on it, reading "thank you for the warm hospitality--use this for a date night!"  How NICE!  That was today and we have already used it :)

We have great guests here.  Right now Kevin and I are eating Cajun Cuisine with a guest from Portland and watching football.  We are eating drunken chicken over rice, which I have never had in Louisiana, but it tastes good in Indiana!

The weather is pretty chilly here.  We bought coats today and we have been wearing them around town.  Meanwhile, locals are sporting sleeveless and short-sleeved shirts.  I don't understand how they are not cold, seriously.

Before I conclude this blog, I will add that many many people here enjoy commenting on my southern accent.  They tell me that Kevin does not have one, but mine is very strong. Hm....

Waiting on Radishes by Kevin

Out of all the vegetables and fruits I could grow, I’ve heard that radishes are one of the easiest.  It’s even suggested that they are a great plant for children to grow because it only takes thirty days from seed to harvest.  Some of us need to see the fruits of our labor a little faster.  Here are my soon to be Radishes.

 I’m Kevin Singletary and I just started managing the Indy hostel about one week ago with my wife Hailey.  Wondering what that has to do with radishes?  We’ll see if I can tie it together.  Here we go. 

Transitions are supposed to be hard and they usually are.  We moved all the way from Ruston, LA, a college town of about 20,000. We loved it there.  We loved the sunsets.  We loved the smells.  We loved our favorite Mexican restaurants, El Jarrito and La Tienda.  But most of all we loved our friends.

And here we are one week into a new adventure, managing a hostel or as many of my American brothers and sisters accidently translate into a hospital, or my favorite, a brothel.  We have had so many good experiences here in such a short amount of time.  We thought we might be waiting for those experiences like tomatoes (3 months), raspberries (2 years), or even asparagus (3-4 years).   

But I’m learning new things.  I’m learning that you can make friends in one week.  You can make a small space into something great.  And you can enjoy what you do.  We’ve connected with so many travelers coming through the hostel and Indy locals during this small time.  Just like growing anything, all we did was water and throw seeds, someone else made it all happen. 

So now, I wait on radishes and wonder how many great experiences and friends I will have to talk about when they arrive in thirty days. 

Autumn in the Midwest

I snapped some photos of some gourds and pumpkins at a local garden center.  I've never seen so many different looking gourds!  I thought they were very interesting and they put me in the spirit for Fall.

Look at those stems!

I think the lady working there thought I was crazy.  Along with snapping pictures of gourds, Kevin and I bought a few packets of seeds to plant for the cooler weather.  We are planning on planting mixed greens, rhubarb, and basil (in a pot inside).  Here are a few pictures of Kevin's garden work so far

Soon to be radishes and green onion

Garlic!

Lastly, our new compost pile

On the menu tonight is Black Bean and Sweet Potato Soup. I just got over a cold and this is the perfect cure-for-the-common-cold-soup! My friend Mary-Margaret gave me the recipe.

Black Bean and Sweet Potato Soup

2 tsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 sweet potato, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 1/3 c. water (I use beef broth)
1 15 oz. can of black beans, rinsed or 1/3 of lb. of dried black beans, cooked
1 can of diced tomatoes
2 tbsp of cilantro, chopped
1 tbsp chili powder
1 tsp of chipotle chile
2 tsp cumin
juice of one lime or two, why not?

Sautee chopped onion and sweet potato. Add garlic, chili, chipotle and cumin and cook for 30 seconds. Add water and bring to a simmer. Cover and cook at a gentle simmer for 10 minutes. Add beans, tomatoes & lime juice. Bring back up to a simmer and cook for 5 minutes. Stir in cilantro and you're done!

The hostel has been a little slow lately, but tonight Kevin has volunteered to make a "bus-stop run", which means he will be picking up a guest from South Korea at the bus stop! That should be fun.

 Happy Tuesday!

Our Newest Member of the Hostel...

Say hello to our hostel's newest family member.

What do you think she's thinking about?

Her name is Boom Boom.  She came from my home in Louisiana.  Now she resides in Indiana, in the downstairs bathroom of the hostel.  How does she look? One of our guests from Australia today told us "She looks like she feels better now that you've hung her up."  I agree.

Yesterday I was feeling a little blue.  As Kevin and I were finishing lunch, we had a guest arrive from New York.  The three of us ended up drinking a pot of coffee together and having a wonderful conversation which lifted my spirits so much that I became inspired to make gumbo from scratch with a new recipe.  So I went to the store and bought the ingredients, and invited our New York friend as well as our Australian friend mentioned above to eat dinner with us.  

But here's the catch- they are both professional chefs.

So this made me slightly nervous--what would they think of my food? 

I asked them each to give me their chef critique.  They both told me that it was wonderful and not to change a thing.  This boosted my confidence greatly.

Good gumbo and good company.

This recipe had tomatoes, chicken, sausage, garlic, bell pepper, onion, celery, and green onion.  Our New York friend let me use some of his duck fat to make the roux- - -delicious.

Today we received an official garden tour from John.  Turns out we have the following growing right in our own yard:
Arugula, spinach, tomatoes, radishes, and cucumbers.  I had no idea!

Cucumber, radish and radish tops

spinach

I have heard that you can eat radish tops by themselves...how 

do you prepare 

them though? If anyone has any thoughts let me know. 

Thanks for reading! 

Behold. Before and after pictures of our room, as well as some extras!

BEFORE...

AFTER!

Notice that our bed is in front of a door. We decided to put it in that corner to save space and to mainly use our private stair entrance.

Kevin's closet is in the left corner here.

Louisiana cotton which is being displayed above the potty

Our bathroom

Our basement window

 

Full view of the room from outside the door behind bed

 and a little peak at the hostel...

Our private entrance door

My first addition to the hostel's decor...pumpkins!

tomatoes from the hostel's garden

and some fresh sage

Lastly, okra and tomatoes. Kevin and I were craving a taste of home, so we used okra from my grandfather's garden (that somehow made it from Louisiana to Indiana and stayed fresh) and cooked up a spicy, yummy meal.

More to come!