May/Sara

January 21, 2074
Dear diary,
Tara's little social function was a real success. People left smiling, for the first time in days. It was good to get our minds off of our troubles, if only for a few minutes. I took advantage of the time to ask the Teacher chef, Dan, for the recipe. Here it is:

Mock veal cutlets:

Wash one cup of lentils, and soak over night; in the morning strain and parboil in fresh boiling water for 30 minutes; drain again and cook until soft in sufficient boiling water to cover them; rub through a sieve and to the puree add 1/4 cup of melted butter, 1 cup of fine Graham bread crumbs, 1 cup of strained tomatoes to which a, speck of soda has been added, 1 cup of blanched and chopped peanuts, 1 tablespoon each of grated celery and minced onions; season with 1/4 teaspoon of mixed herbs, salt and pepper; blend all thoroughly together, and form into cutlets; dip these into egg and then in fine bread-crumbs; place in a well-greased baking pan, and brown in quick oven; arrange around a mound of well seasoned mashed potatoes, and serve with brown sauce.

Brown sauce:

Mix thoroughly 1 teaspoon of peanut butter and 2 tablespoons browned flour with 1 tablespoon cream; add gradually 2 cups hot milk, and stir and cook until the mixture thickens; just before serving add 4 tablespoons strained tomatoes, and a little salt and pepper.

Mashed Potatoes:

Rinse potatoes and peel. Cut into small chunks. Boil in water until soft; strain. Mash thoroughly, adding butter, salt, and pepper to taste.

Sweetened Carrots:

Wash carrots and cut into thin slices. Boil in enough water to cover the carrots with a good amount of honey: 2-3 tbsp honey per cup of water. Boil until carrots are soft; retain water (can be served chilled as a beverage).

  

Of course here, we don't have real milk; we use rice milk and a soybean/palm/olive butter substitute. The food is delicious, after the first few weeks you don't even notice it's not real products anymore; but I will say that I sure do miss catfish. Peanuts are an important crop for us because they add nutrients to the soil. They're one of the very few plants actually grown in the soil, as the ground here is not conducive for plant growth; most of our plants are grown in hydroponic bays. However, that will change as the water reclamation and waste extraction, plus the plants that give nutrients to the soil, begin to work together to create fertile topsoil. After several years we'll have enough plant life to allow us to sustainably expand and have more people living in the community.
On a more personal note, May asked me out! We finally had a chance to talk on our off-hours; we had such a fun time. We have so much in common, even tho I'm a southern belle and she's a Chinese mountain girl. There's so much more to each of us than our nationalities; living here, in Lunar 1, has really helped me experience and appreciate that. We're going to go bowling at the rec center Tuesday. She showed me some of her paintings, and I showed her some of mine. They're amazingly similar: she favors free-flowing forms to lines and angles, like me. She has a beautiful painting of a waterfall. Time for my shift! I better run or I'll be late!
~Sara