Best New Year's Party

The Best New Year’s party.

            In the afternoon on 31 December, the boys and I were walking down the street—crowded with happy people, and a few beggars.  At each step, if you took a 360° sweep of the area 9 times out of 10, you would see someone carrying a full-grown turkey by its feet.  The neck would look like a snorkeler’s pipe and it twisted itself to see what’s ahead, probably unwary of the butcher’s knife waiting around the corner.  
Yes, I had my favorite Christmas present—a camera—but I didn’t think to snap this interesting site of fowl.  When you are in the moment, and seeing many curious things, a live turkey held upside down by its feet doesn’t seem so noteworthy.  I haven’t been exposed to an Albania New Year celebration, but I imagine there is someone in every family who knows how to prepare a turkey for dinner.

            As we were walking, who should walk toward us but Zelda, Maaike, Tanya and her son, Luca.  We couldn’t have planned it better! 
            “Where are you headed?” asked Maaike.
            “To the amusements—to the bumper cars, the balloon slide, etc.”
            “How wonderful!  Zelda has been begging to go there.  You go ahead, Tanya wants to buy some souvenirs and we’ll call.”  I loved the attitude and immediate change of plans with no confirmation of agreement—it was simply understood that Zelda would forego the search for souvenirs and come with us.  So I took off with three kids walking across town.  I prepared them to be disappointed because I was afraid there would be a huge crowd of people there, what with the holiday and all.  Usually, the Albanian kids don’t play nicely with others.  They push and shove as a normal course of behavior, and when they see that the boys are foreigners, they gawk or are nosey.  Today, though, we were pleasantly surprised by the lack of people at the games.  We have been to the balloon slide so many times in the past week, the young ticket taker knows us and if no one else is around, he lets us play as long as we want.  The balloon slide is perfect.  Kids can jump off the top, about 15 feet in the air, free-fall straight down and gently swoosh to a stop—no worries.



            Later, when we arrived to Maaike’s apartment, it was one cool episode after another.  To begin, I had brought over the makings for a pie crust and a banana cream pie mix.  I was talking with a Canadian guy who is married to an Albanian lady about holiday traditions.  He said they need to make their own.  On whim, at Hy-Vee about a month ago, I bought the pie mix with the intention of bringing over here.  I wasn’t sure when I would use it, but now I’ve decided that this will be my tradition.  I had never made pie crust and I was quite unsure about the whole business.  Maaike was reassuring when she said, “When I cook with a recipe, I think of it as a rough guide.  I try to do what it says, but if it doesn’t look right, then I guess and push on.”
            The first thing I needed to do was to thaw out the butter.  Even though I had had it outside the fridge all day, the temp in the house is so cold—50°—it was still hard as a rock.  We found a kids’ dish and set it on the ubiquitous space heater for a few minutes before adding it to the flour that I had brought over.  Luckily, I had measured the amount already because the only measuring cup in the house started at 100 ml (.43 cups), one-half inch from the bottom of a 5-inch diameter plastic cup that held as much as a liter (≈ quart).  So 1/3 cup was not possible with such a utensil.  I remembered the approximate amount from when I had smashed it in a 1/3 cup measure the day before at home.  During that attempt I had turned the butter into liquid when I microwaved it too much.  Someone told me that it would not be possible to use liquid butter and that I would have to start over.  Because I was unsure about the process, the fact that I was forced to guess at the amount of butter didn’t make me very happy.  I decided to ‘push on’. 
            I needed tin foil to keep the crust from burning (I think).  A different guy who is also married to an Albanian woman warned me that later today all shops would be closed until Tuesday.  By the time I remembered that I had forgotten the tin foil, one shop in the whole neighborhood was open—I took a chance.  The place was about the size of a kid’s bedroom, and just as messy.  My eyes were treated to a cacophony of stuff—everything you might find in a dollar store plus every possible kind of alcohol, bread, and fresh fruit.  I looked around the place and the owners looked at me quizzically with their upturned palms in an attitude of “What do you want?”  How could I explain ‘tin foil’ when I didn’t even know how to say ‘you’re welcome’?  I don’t even know how to say ‘tin foil’ in Russian, my only language besides English.  Then I saw them…a half dozen narrow boxes that looked like they might contain tubes sitting on the floor.  I could only point because there was a glass case of beer, candy eggs, tuna, pickled mushrooms, and yogurt in front of me.  One of the guys working weaved his way around the other stuff on the floor and made his way to the corner.  I pointed down.  He went to the bottom shelf.  Down further, I energetically gesticulated.  He went to the bottom of a stack of sponges.  Down, Down.  I telepathically was saying, “Below the RAID and the motor oil, on the floor beside the tubs of butter.  That’s right, inside the plastic bag with the socks.”  His hand moved sideways to three tubes of toothpaste. Down, Down!  I said silently. 

            I could hear him thinking, “What does this silly foreigner want in this pile of junk?”  I brightened unnaturally when his had lit on the treasure.

            At different stages of the crust-making (I performed in stages because of my apprehension), Zelda performed a rendition of the musical Tarzan in the living room.  She jumped around searching for tigers and other dangers, while other party goers where enlisted to play the parts of gorilla parents, Jane, the leopard and I’m not sure who else.  One attractive feature were the wonderful cartwheels and hand stands from the Iowa boys as they showed off the skills learned at tumbling class in the summer.
            The crust was placed in the oven as I looked another time at the recipe.  Suddenly (and thankfully), I read for the 100^th time, but for the first time with 100% comprehension, that I needed to place a double layer of tin foil on top of the pastry at that moment, not later.  Shout, turn, grab the pan…cover with tin foil and back in the oven.
            More Tarzan.
            The kitchen had no real mixing bowls, no measuring spoons, no tin foil, no oven mitts, but she DID have a mixer.  I found this out after I had asked my new Lithuanian friend to mix the topping with a fork.  After she had done an excellent job of this for a minute, she asked how long she would need to do so.  I said, “Well, it says that we need an electric mixer on high for 3 minutes.  I guess you will need to work hard…unless…Maaike, do you have a mixer?”
            “Yes, I do.”  As if she had been waiting for that request all night, she immediately pulls out a hand-held machine, perfectly suited for the job.

            I had told Maaike earlier in the day that I would need some empty tin pop cans for a science experiment.  Without missing a beat, she said, “Then we buy some Coke and have a burping contest.”  While the pie was in the oven, I limbered up my throat muscles.  Without drinking a drop I shocked the audience, and gained praise from my progeny.  The four children were seated and ready to drink. The burping commenced.  This was a fantastic event for us, but the boys are just at the age when, with looks of great admiration and wonder on their faces, they say things like, “You know Alvian?  His brother knows someone who can burp the whole alphabet!”  Possibly, it was not a fair fight because I have had more than 40 years of swallowing air grossing out my sister, trying to get the excess gas from my stomach.  I won.

            Then Tanya used her Italian cooking skills, acquired during 6 years in Italy, to prepare outstanding white sauce and red sauce to go with the excellent pasta. 

            As the evening wore on, the sounds of bombing, sparkling, and whizzing outside were growing more and more persistent and noticeable. 
            After the pasta, we went downstairs to the concrete courtyard, and lit several triangular items of intense light and whooshing sound.  Nothing great to those of us who bring more sophisticated experience to the table, but the youngsters—particularly the big O—were duly impressed.  We also had tiny, substandard sparklers.

            The final event before the big moment—air pressure demo.   I have guided students to crush cans with air pressure many times since learning the ‘trick’ while employed at the Maryland Science Center.  This December, however, I am using the book, Potentially Catastrophic Science Experiments to direct some of our activities.  In the book, as a demonstration of the power of air and steam, the authors direct the reader to heat cans containing a small amount of water on a frying pan.  When the water inside is boiling, we are to put the cans upside down into a pot of cold water—thereby producing the desired smashing.  After several minutes of waiting for the cans to heat up, the effect was far from dramatic.  About this time, I noticed on Maaike’s countertop, an electric teapot—a staple in European homes. 

            “This teapot is part of an ideal method for this demonstration of seemingly super-natural, natural power.”  We took a lid from a container of oatmeal, heated the water, poured it into the can though a funnel, dumped it out, placed the lid and presto!  Crushing begins!  I’ve seen people take the can and plunge it into water and the can is smashed instantly and impressively.  In my opinion, however, MY way, with the lid and hot water is a much more effective display.  With the plastic lid, the crushing does not take place all at once, so the gradual impact of the air pressure is clear and present.  In this case, just as I said, “Many times I’ve seen it when it is dented a few times to the point where it falls over.”  At that exact instant, a dent ensued and the can fell over.

            At midnight, we took out the banana cream pie that had been in the ‘fridge for a couple hours and feasted mightily.  Next time, it will be banana cream from scratch—this time, it was powder with added milk—tasty, but terribly artificial.

            On the whole the evening was my greatest New Year’s Eve because the kids were the focus.  From bumper cars, to Tarzan, to burping contests and banana cream pie, we all greeted the New Year with gusto.