Week 8: New Zealand!

Our weeks are very loosely defined.  Sometimes they start and end 7 days apart, other times they are only 4 days long or extend a few extra days. 

This week we didn't get started on things right away and were busy with preparations for going out of town for Thanksgiving, so we were not quite as involved as some previous weeks. 

When we mentioned choosing a country, MonkeyD ran to look at the globe again.  It's nice to see that she is enjoying that part of our project.  I think her choices are made based on the way the country is represented on the globe.  We have a small gem-stone globe, sort of like the ones here: http://www.1worldglobes.com/1WorldGlobes/GemstoneGlobes/gt150gmb.html.  Regardless of the reason, the choice was New Zealand.

We flipped through the pages of National Geographic's New Zealand by Barbara Jackson, just to look at pictures. 

The only folktale that I found at our library for MonkeyD's level was Punga The Goddess of Ugly by Deborah Nourse Lattimore.  MonkeyD and I both really enjoyed this story and we referred to it several times when topics came up that had been mentioned in the book.  It's about two Maori girls that must learn to properly perform the haka dance.  MonkeyD had fun demonstrating her version of a haka for her dad, my mom and me. 

We looked up youtube videos of people performing the haka.  Two of the videos that we enjoyed were http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BoNmpvkavo and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7pMvn5_3Vw&feature=related  Both of these videos were a little bit scary for MonkeyD though. 


We made a lunch based on the recipe and suggestions given in The Kids' Multicultural Cookbook by Deanna F Cook. We had Paraoa Parai (Maori Bread).  Before we ate I gave both of the girls mokos on their chins using an eyebrow pencil.   We would have included a kiwi parfait too, but kiwis were too difficult to find in the grocery stores.  Perhaps this was because of the time of year or something. 

Week 7: Iran!

MonkeyD spun the globe and picked Iran to be our focus country this week.

 

We watched the DVD The Little Travelers Iran  towards the end of the week, but I wish that we had used it as an introduction to the country.  This is the first video we have watched from this series, but I will be sure to look for their other videos in the future.  It's a 40 minute tour of Iran, narrated by two little girls.  They have a very interesting blog as well, http://thelittletravelers.typepad.com/.

 

I tried to take the easy route to trying out some Middle Eastern food by buying some hummus.  (I know, I know!  Why buy hummus when its simple to make fresh, yadda yadda...but I have actually attempted making fresh hummus in the past and managed to fail miserably, so I decided to buy the canned version that happened to be in the International Foods aisle at the grocery store).  It was pretty tasty.  But more spicy than I expected.  MonkeyD tried a little bite and pointed out that it was too spicy for her.  Lil' Pistol shocked me by eating more than one helping with her little crackers.  Then all of the sudden she started crying and wiping at her mouth.  I guess the spice got to her!  The Big Bad Dad pointed out the words "HOT!  SPICY!" to me on the can when I told him the story.  Oops!  Sorry kids! 



Baghlava



 

Fortunately, The Big Bad Dad was in the cooking mood over the weekend, so we sampled a few different dishes.  The first was Baghlava.  We got the recipe from the book Cooking the Middle Eastern Way by Alison Behnke.  We have used the cookbooks in this series for a couple of countries now and I highly recommend them.  They give a brief introduction to the country or geographical area at the beginning of the book.  Then they give a menu example and corresponding recipes for each meal of the day.  The last section of the book describes a few holidays or festivals and some typical recipes for those occasions. 

 

We brought our Baghlava to a party and it went over very well.  Lil' Pistol had helped me shell the pistachios and MonkeyD had helped The Big Bad Dad with some of the measuring, mixing, layering ingredients and buttering the layers.  She had also gone with him to the international foods store that we just discovered in our community, World Harvest Foods (The Big Bad Dad said this is one of his new favorite stores!).  Strangely, MonkeyD refused to sample the Baghlava.  Lil' Pistol followed her big sister's example, probably thinking that her big sister was onto some evil plot of the grown-ups to trick them into eating something bad.  But, the next day, when Lil' Pistol thought she was being sneaky, she sampled some of the Baghlava and must have liked it because she kept "sneaking" some more.

 



Kookoo-e Gol-e Kalem



The next day we tried out Kookoo-e Gol-e Kalem.  This was a vegetarian cauliflower dish.  Unfortunately, this dish didn't taste as good to us as it smelled.  The fun part of this meal was that we ate on the floor, like we saw them do in the Little Travelers video.  MonkeyD thinks it is so much fun to eat on a blanket on the floor!  She was in the greatest mood as she set the dishes out for us and directed us each to our place.  We tried to find a traditional Iranian music channel to listen to on Pandora, but I don't think we got the right one.  It was fun way to eat, but definitely a messy experience with Lil' Pistol dropping sticky rice all over the place.



Chelow kabab with chicken



 

Another meal that we had was Chelow kabab.  I think that all of us thought this rice dish was delicious. 



Persian pistachio nougat



 

The last homemade Persian treat that we had was Persian pistachio nougat.

We finished off our Iranian culinary experience with some sherbet.  This may have been a bit of a stretch, but I had read that the idea for the sherbet that we eat here originated in Iran with a sweetened fruit juice, http://www.answers.com/topic/sherbet .

 

We concluded our introduction to Iran week with a little field trip to a local imported rug gallery, Eastern Rug Gallery.  We asked to have the rugs from Iran pointed out to us.  We were also shown rugs from other areas of the world.  MonkeyD showed me which ones she liked and we talked a little bit about the different colors and patterns in them.

 

The books that we read this week were:

• The Rich Man and the Parrot retold by Suzan Nadimi - We enjoyed this colorfully illustrated retelling of a tale by Rumi. 
• The Legend of the Persian Carpet by Tomie DePaola - This was a fun story about the beautiful Persian carpets.  It piqued our interest in Perisan rugs and added to our trip to the imported rug gallery. 
• The Earth Shook by Donna Jo Napoli - I wasn't too excited about this story - for our purposes.  It was a little too dark to read to my not-quite-four-year-old.  If only there were time to read every book alone before reading it to the kids.  It's about a little girl whose home is destroyed by an earthquake.  When she wakes up the people are all gone but she meets some animals.  Each animal threatens her.  In the end, she makes peace with all the animals though. 
• Count Your Way Through Iran by Jim Haskins and Kathleen Benson - I thought this book would be a great, simple introduction to some things from Iran (like the tar instrument, some animals found in the Caspian Sea, and the Towers of Silence).  However, MonkeyD didn't give the book a chance. 

 

On Amazon.com we listened to (and MonkeyD danced to) some music clips from a CD that I had tried to get at the library but was unfortunately not available, Rough Guide to Music of Iran.

 

We didn't make a craft this week, but I did find this website, http://www.ehow.com/list_6712810_persian-crafts-kids.html,  with some suggestions of crafts.   This website, http://www.atozkidsstuff.com/iran.html, is a list of helpful links for learning about Iran too. 

Week 6: Hungary!

This week we chose a country to learn about by having MonkeyD flip through the pages of Children Just Like Me by Barnabas and Anabel Kindersley.  This book shows photographs of children, their families, their homes, pets, etc from many countries around the world.  MonkeyD chose a picture of a girl holding a flute and said that she wanted to learn about the country that this girl, Monika, was from.  So we spent the week learning about Hungary. 

Unfortunately, the recipes that we tried out this week didn't go over that well with our kids.  The first recipe that we tried was for rakott burgonya, a casserole with layers of smoked sausage, potatoes and hard-boiled eggs.  I realized part way through making this dish that I could have had MonkeyD more involved in this There was a lot that she could have done to help with the layering of ingredients, but I was rushing to get the dish done while Lil' Pistol napped.  I think that the dish might have gone over better with the kids, but they don't like hard-boiled eggs, and something was wrong with our oven that evening so things didn't heat evenly.  

Another evening we had Hungarian Stuffed Peppers.  I liked that I could use my crock pot for this recipe.  I thought it was pretty tasty.  MonkeyD ate some of hers, after I let her add ketchup and mustard :-)  Lil' Pistol may have had one bite, I'm not sure.  She really doesn't like trying new foods! 

A third evening The Big Bad Dad made Hungarian Goulash.  You can't really spend a week learning about Hungary without at least having the word goulash pop into your head, right?  It was a yummy beef stew for The Big Bad Dad and I, but MonkeyD made faces before even trying it and then finally giving in and telling us she would eat six bites.  Lil' Pistol wouldn't even give it a try :-( 

Since Hungarian recipes are known for their use of paprika, I tried simply adding a little paprika to our green beans.  I put some on the side of MonkeyD's plate and told  her to try it and see if she liked it.  She actually ate the paprika alone, saying, "mmm Yum!" and then when it was almost gone she said she didn't like it.  So, I don't exactly know what to make of that ;-)

I know that the strudel recipe that I had picked out would have been a big winner with all of us, but I ran out of ambition to make it :-(  I'm sure that we'll have it sometime soon though, since I bought the dough to make it already! 

A wonderful friend of mine is married to someone from Hungary and when I asked her for suggestions for this week she mentioned that vitamin C was discovered by a Hungarian, and she suggested drinking a glass of orange juice in honor of that fact.  So, although the main dishes that we prepared didn't go over well, we had no problem getting MonkeyD to drink a few glasses of orange juice.  She wondered aloud, how could orange juice have vitamins in it and be good for me when my tongue thinks it tastes so good!?  She also shared her knowledge of vitamin C in orange juice with her little sister. 

My friend also passed on the trivia that the first (noiseless) match was invented by the Hungarian János Irinyi.  So, I pointed this little fact out as I lit a candle during dinner. 

We're looking forward to receiving a postcard from these friends when they visit Hungary next week.  She said that the stamps from Hungary are collected around Europe. 

We borrowed a couple of CDs from our library of music by well-known Hungarian composers.  We listened to Bartok - Lili Kraus' piano music and Solti Mephisto Magic.  Mephisto Magic had music by Franz Liszt, Bela Bartok, Leo Weiner and Zoltan Kodaly.  I mentioned that the composers were from Hungary and then we just listened to the music in the background as we went about our playing.  Naturally, both girls were inspired to do some dancing too.   And, I couldn't help but show MonkeyD the Hungarian Rhapsody - Tom and Jerry clip (though I don't usually let her watch Tom and Jerry because of the violence). 

MonkeyD and I tried watching Liszt's Rhapsody.  She isn't quite old enough for this movie though.  She would have preferred a cartoon, I'm sure!  But, at the very first scene she asked me if that was Hungary.  I said yes, but clarified that that is what it looked like years ago.  She wanted to know what it looks like today and speculated that it probably has lots of tall buildings now.  So, I think that she was observing the backgrounds of the movie, the music, and the costumes.  She didn't understand why some people were being mean to the young boy in the movie or why he was trying to lighten his skin by washing it, and that gave us a short conversation about how there are many different skin colors.

The books that we read this week were:

Climbing Rosa by Shelley Fowles.

Two Greedy Bears by Mirra Ginsburg

Little Rooster's Diamond Button retold by Margaret Read MacDonald

The Little Golden Lamb retold by Ellin Greene 

The Brand New Kid by Katie Couric 

All of these stories were requested to be read more than once throughout the week.  The first four books were based on folk tales from Hungary.  The last book, I found in a search for Hungarian children's books.  It's about a class that has a new kid in it.  The story never actually says that the new student is from Hungary, but since the summary of the book on the library's website said it was about a new student from Hungary, I introduced it that way to MonkeyD.  It's helpful in starting a conversation about accepting people that look different from us and being kind and inclusive to new students at school. 

I read that embroidery is an important part of Hungarian culture, so this seemed like a great time to introduce MonkeyD to embroidery.  We looked at some images of Hungarian embroidery on the computer, then I drew a simple flower picture (based on an image we had seen) onto a scrap of fabric.  I used colored pencils to draw the picture and then let MonkeyD choose the embroidery floss that she wanted to use for each part of the project.  After 3 or 4 stitches she was remembering which side of the fabric she needed to put her needle through.  The difficulty she was having was pulling the thread too far and pulling the needle off.  We fixed that by tying the needle onto the thread :-)  She seemed to really enjoy this project and it gave her some satisfaction to know she was doing it on her own.  She proudly showed The Big Bad Dad and requested to work on it again.