a marble rolling pin

A couple of weeks ago, one of the ladies here at the center, invited me to her house for an afternoon of bread-making. Growing up in the American culture, I never learned how to make bread. My mom used her breadmaker on special occasions, but it was never something that either of us really learned how to do. It's much easier to grab a loaf of bread while you're at the store, although your house smells much less tasty.  :-)

So here I am, at my friend's house learning how to make bread. She observed and left her weekly bread to my incapable hands {gulp!}. We measured and poured, mixed and kneaded, rolled and folded dough until I was comfortable with how bread dough should look and feel.
source
While our bread and rolls were rising, she asked what else I would like to learn. She listed off a few things that it's good to know how to make from scratch before going to the foreign field: yogurt (with powdered milk), tortillas, dressings, tasty(er) ways to take malaria medicine, and ready-to-go pancake mix, to name a few.

I said yes to it all, since we had a couple of hours to kill. She walked me through the process of yogurt-making (although we didn't make it), and she passed on her recipes for everything else. Then she proclaimed that it was time to make tortillas! As we began rolling out flat circles somewhat roundish blobs of dough she talked about tortilla-making tools. She is a marble rolling pin advocate; and after trying both her wooden and marble ones, I definitely agree! It totally beats the empty wine bottle that I had been using for a rolling pin at home...
source
Meanwhile, I'm having a minor panic attack, wondering how I can afford a marble rolling pin {it sounds so posh; and I didn't know they're actually pretty cheap} and how I can possibly even get something that heavy to Papua New Guinea in my suitcase without paying exorbitant airline overweight charges.

When I got home that evening, loaded down with all kinds of floury and yeasty goodness, and still wondering what to do about a marble rolling pin, I looked through the document that my mother-in-love sent me from PNG listing our overseas "possessions." She sent it to me a year ago, although I haven't spent much time looking through it. Wouldn't you know that at the very bottom of that list it said very clearly: green marble rolling pin.
source
It was like a little hug from God, just because He likes to shower His children with love. Here, I didn't even know that I wanted a marble rolling pin, but He already gave one to me over a year ago!

Encouragement, tortillas, humor, and blessings all wrapped up into one package. :-)

Labels: , , , ,