A good cup of tea....

Last Sunday,  I met a lovely couple in church Heather and Phillip Ashley. Heather will be one of my interns! She is a med-peds rising intern at Childrens!!! Phillip is a rising ortho intern at UK. We had a three hour tea party on my porch  after church where we discovered that we share much in common in  life plans, philosophy about medical missions and intense love of chai.  It has been a delightful blessing to have them here.

One of the things, I have tried to perfect this time is being able to have visitors both Western and Kenyan over and serve them in close to proper Kenyan fashion.  Thanks to some excellent teachers, I can make Kenyan chai. I usually pair Kenyan chai with cookies or cake. My chocolate chip cookies are a favorite around here and are requested at EVERY social event I attend. Apparently, last time they tried to make them after I left and were unsuccessful.

Kenyan Chai:
-fill a pan half with water and then with milk
-add 1/3 cup or so of free standing Kenyan tea leaves
-Boil
-Strain the tea into cups and serve hot enough to burn your tongue!

Chocolate Chip Cookies KENYAN style (adjusted for high altitude and Kenyan butter)
-Combine 2.5 cups of flour, tsp of salt and tsp of baking soda. Combine 2/3 of white and then brown sugar, two eggs, half cup of kimbo (shortening) and half cup of butter +/- vanilla. Slowly add flour. Add Chocolate chips. Bake at 375 (or around 180 C) for 10 minutes.

I have been a busy, busy hostess.



Right after the Ashleys left, my lovely former Kenyan roommate Joyce and several friends arrived and we had more tea. :D. I continue to attend bible study on Tuesdays with the same group (minus Joyce who now lives in Navashia!), this past Tuesday I discovered mendazi which are Kenyan donuts which are excellent! On Thursday, I had the group plus Heather and Phillip over for more...yep you guessed it CHAI. We had some diverse, serious conversation about palliative care, death,  faith healing, Somali pirates and Kenyan politics. I am blessed to have such good Kenyan friends here. Although I am running out of tea and milk.

This week I will attempt to make Kenyan dinner for a sweet single Mom and her son  who are both little people who have some variant of SED.

In honor of chai and my new friends the Ashleys we went on a spontaneous trip to the tea factory/plantation. I had heard about this from my neighbor and turns out I think we went to the wrong place because it was very much a modern factory rather than a hike through fields of tea. But oh well, we saw the tea fields, learned A LOT about making tea, sampled tea and discovered how much TEAVANA  rips us off after buying some wholesale tea. Not to mention how much I bet the Kenyan farmers get ripped off. hmmm Fair Trade? I think not.

We came home and had tea and Kenyan food at the local cafe Mama Chicos.