Walk the World

Today, on 7 June 2009, hundreds of thousands of people across the globe in 24 times zone walks together to raise funds and awareness for United Nations World Food Programme's work to end child hunger. The event is named 'Walk the World', one of the biggest global events against hunger. The WFP walk in Indonesia is also sponsored by the national philanthropy organization Dompet Dhuafa.

WFP's school feeding programmes provide meals to over 20 million children each year, giving them the food and the motivation they need to go to school and build a better future for themselves.

Alternative to 'Walk the World' is 'Walk the Web', where each dollar donated on 'Walk the Web' counts as a mile walked, with WFP's target to achieve 25,000 miles walking distance around the world. I am unable to join the walk itself today, so I've made a small donation, with a glimmer of hope, that it'll make a difference in the life of a hungry child.

Looking forward to join again next year. See if you can find my photo in the Wall Against Hunger, if not, look closely.

Nanner Puddin'

During Spring Break 2002, six students from IU including myself, went for an Alternative Spring Break week where we volunteered at a small community of Ivanhoe, Virginia. I will tell you more about it sometimes, but there is this recipe that we copied from Phyllis - one of the coordinator at Ivanhoe - which I'd like to share with you.

The Nanner Puddin' is hands-down the volunteers' favorite during day one. Unfortunately, none of us were aware that nobody put the puddin' back to the fridge, so it rotted on day two *_*

We never replicate the recipe again afterward (at least not that I know of), so maybe an experiment is in the house (warning: possible high fat content if ingredients are not carefully substituted). Enjoy!

Banana Pudding Deluxe (aka Nanner Puddin')

• 3 boxes instant vanilla pudding
• 5 cups milk
• 8 oz sour cream
• large bowl cool whip
• large box vanilla wafers
• approx. 5-6 bananas

Mix pudding with milk until thick. Mix sour cream and cool whip and add the pudding to the sour cream and cool whip mixture, stirring well. Layer wafers, bananas, and cool whip mixture. Repeat layering, ending with the cool whip mixture as your last layer. Sprinkle top with wafer crumbs and refrigerate.

Washington DC - Day 62 (July 24, 2005)

We went out for lunch today. The three of us (me, Salman, and Mariam who just came two days ago for a visit) picked an Ethiopian restaurant, Meskerem, for our afternoon consumption. Meskerem is located in the Adams Morgan area, which I think probably the most unique but undercovered DC neighborhood. It's so ethnic, cool, urban, and organic that I didn't feel like I'm in DC the whole time. Weird, huh? You just have to visit this area whenever you come to DC, it's not a hugely popular tourist destination so it'll be like the beaten path for your itinerary.

Meskerem is authentically Africa. Indoor settings (except for the basement) and furnitures were different from most ethnic restaurant I've been in. The table is the most striking. It's actually a basket, standing low at knee-level, where we eventually shared the food together. I ordered Yebeg Fitfit, a lamb-based dish, and Tej for beverage. While all of us ordered different things, we ended up sharing due to the large portions and serving style (remember the basket?) We ate with bare hands, scooping up the dish with our injera, a spongy pancake-like staple bread (similar to Indonesian kue apem but without the sweets). The food was so good that I even raided Salman and Mariam's injera after they were too full to continue ^.^

We were just enjoying ourselves that day, I think taking more than 2 hours in that restaurant alone. Good experience, I highly recommend Meskerem.