I know this is your favorite song!

 I praised the Lord when I beheld this glorious sight in the store:

Mrs. Cake does not come close to Mrs. Crocker.

If there's one thing I miss from the U.S., it's CAKE. Sure, Colombians have what they call cake, but it just isn't the same! Here it's more like sweet bread. You just can't replace cake. 

I hoped Doña Torta wouldn't do me wrong. I mean, it's kind of hard to mess up with a pre-made mixture, right? And hopefully it would taste like the cake I know and love! The trouble started with my impatience toward letting the butter reach room temperature. I don't have an electric mixer here, so I just mashed it up the best I could with a wooden spoon the family has. The directions said, "Beat butter until creamy," (in Spanish and English). As shown below, it is evident that that didn't exactly happen:

Step 1: Throw all ingredients in a bowl. Step 2: Pray.

Buuuut I just carried on and hoped for the best. One packet of cake mix, 4 eggs, and 13 tablespoons of water later (and hoping that the spoons they had were equal to tablespoons, as measuring spoons are few and far between), I was ready to mix, and mix I did! There is something funky-smelling about Colombian vanilla flavoring, though... the mixture was not nice to eat. That could have been a good thing. I snacked on pasas instead.

But they did not satisfy the craving for cake.

Matilde was very interested in the whole process. And by "interested" I mean that she was very interested in sitting on the washing machine and meowing for more food every time I took a step in her direction. I tried to stay away from there.

Why, Matilde, why? Your food bowl is full!

An hour later I got this beaut:

"Her sweat and blood went into this cake, and you will not leave the platform until you have consumed the entire confection!"

Name that quote!

And as luck would have it, it tasted great! ALMOST a taste of home. However, I'm not sure how I will get through the rest of this year without frosting... I might just have to (attempt to) make some!

In other news, I have started a conversation club with some adult faculty members that work at the University. This is one of the social projects I am doing, which is one part of my Fulbright scholarship here. I am happy to report that the adults are eager to learn English and willing to do the activities I suggest! We practiced vowel sounds this week, and related palabras like "true" and "goose" to get a new saying - "true goose." I have two older men (in their 70's, I would guess) in the club, and they got a hoot out of "true goose!" I would call them Statler and Waldorf, but they are too sweet for that. My favorite exercise is when we say words very slowly to practice vowel sounds that do not exist in the Spanish language. The word "mother" is an example. It is impossible not to laugh when I have a group of people staring at me and saying, "Muuuuuhhhther," over and over again! We've been having a good time :)

Statler and Waldorf

 Thanks for being here with me today! Good luck with all of your cooking endeavors - I hope you can carry them out with more confianza then I do mine. Have a great day! :)

pasas = raisins

palabras = words

confianza = confidence