Mastering the Art of French Cooking in Cape Trib.

Here at the station, I've been cooking a lot. Pretty much every evening since I arrived for myself and 3 or 4 other people. It's been really great to cook in a big, well-supplied kitchen. I can request any groceries I want and there's all sorts of interesting foods growing around here to find.

Tonight I made gazpacho for the very first time. I don't think I've ever even seen gazpacho before, but Helena spends a lot of time in Spain and requested that we try to make it the other day. The groceries came in with a ton of tomatos, so tonight was the night. It turned out so well. I will definitely be making it again in the future. I also made a banana bread cake with butter icing for dessert. The bananas came from a tree down the lane and the coconut came from the beach. It was so good. The director said it was the best banana cake he has ever had. The other day Helena injured her hand very badly while digging a ditch for the new water system. She split her ring finger from the tip to the base of her second knuckle and lost her finger nail. She has been in a lot of pain and after dinner she told me, in her sweet broken English, that thanks to me (and my banana cake) she could forget the pain for a few minutes. I think that's one of the best compliments I have ever received.

Last night we had sushi. It was very delicious. I've had a lot of practice though, thanks to Nat and all our Guelph sushi events. I even made the thin fried egg filling and it turned out perfectly. We ate sushi for dinner and again for lunch today.

The girls are requesting that I write down all of my recipes for them, but that's really hard to do. A lot of the things I've been making are just things I know how to do. The director told me he'd have to take away my passport so that I can't leave. I've already decided to stay one extra night and they're happy because that means one extra dinner. They are planning the things we need to eat for the next few meals that are left and have decided that we need to start cooking lunch as well.

I've had such a great time here and I'm so glad I decided to come live in the rainforest for a couple of weeks. Courtney, the new volunteer, will be in Auckland at the same time as me, so we'll hopefully be able to meet up again. I also have open invites to visit Paris and Normandy and another stop to make during my tour of the UK. I don't know how I'm going to fit this all in.

This weekend will be a really great one too. Tomorrow will be my last day at the Bat House. Sunday Courtney and I are going to climb Mount Sorrow. It takes 7 hours return, but the view of Cape Trib and the ocean will be worth it. We're going to leave in the morning and take a picnic. On Monday we're going on the boat to the Great Barrier Reef. Tuesday, I'll catch the bus into Cairns and stop at the crocodile sanctuary and the organic biodynamic hippie-dippy ice cream shop on the way back south.