February 3, 2011. One of my responsibilities is cooking for missionaries. They arrive, they depart, they come to the mission home for all kinds of reasons. We also have zone leader councils here at the mission home and they spend the night. So, over the 6 week transfer cycle I cook LOTS of meals. Here I am at ASSSO, that's right...3 S's. It's a kind of Costco. Missionaries have big appetites and it's more about the quantity than the quality. This past week we even helped out with a youth conference. We had 23 spending the night here at the mission home along with breakfast. They were great young men from Pisa, Florence, Napoli and Rome. It's so important to bring the youth together so they can feel the spiritual strength from each other.
I brought lots of cookbooks to Italy. Problem is I can't find about half of the ingredients! So, I'm learning to cook italian style. They have wonderful produce here! One thing on the market right now is the "blood orange". It's from Sicily. A very sweet orange with streaks of red throughout it. Never seen it before! But I really like them. Plenty of pasta, gelato and lots of good pizza. Shopping and cooking...a big part of being the mission mom!