When life gives you lemons…make lemonaide!  Lately, the political situation in Nepal has been a bit rocky leading into and following the signing of their new constitution.  India is the only country who is unhappy about the constitution, partly because Nepal won’t allow foreign born people who become Nepali citizens to become Prime Minister.  As a result, India is closing it’s border to us.  This has decreased the availability of petroleum products, cooking gas, and essential basic commodities.  Lemons.

There continues to be a bandh (travel restriction) close to the border of India due to disagreements regarding the constitution.  This means I can’t travel to a large town called Dhangadhi where I usually go every month to use the ATM and go shopping.  Lemons.

I recently got word that a large grant I applied for was approved!  The money will go towards distributing mushroom mycelium to 16 groups of women who will each grow 50 bags of mushrooms in a dark room in their village.  It is an income generation project that will also add to the nutritional value of their diet.  Now that the grant is approved, I need to start purchasing large quantities of materials for the project to distribute to the groups.  Unfortunately, the easiest, best place to find those materials is where?  Dhangadhi!  I’m not sure when I will be able to start traveling there again.  Lemons.

While Nepal has been metaphorically handing me and other Nepalis lemons, the past month it has also been physically handing them chook, which is a local fruit that tastes like a hybrid of a lemon and a grapefruit.  I watched my mom collect baskets full of chook and wondered what she planned to do with it.  Before she used them all up, I decided to use a few of them for a little experiment.  I decided to make lemon jam.  

Lemon jam doesn’t even really exist in the states so I’m not sure why I thought that it would taste good.  I guess I just wanted a challenge. Orange marmalade maybe, but lemons can be tricky.  Looking for guidance, I refered to the source where I always go in times of culinary puzzlement…the “Himalayan Cookbook”.  The “Himalayan Cookbook” is a recipe book that various volunteers have contributed to since the 1960’s.  In it, I found a recipe for “citrus jam”, so I had hope that it would work.  

I was particularly interested in making jam because I had recently finished a 40oz jar of Laura Scudder’s Natural Peanut Butter from the US and had a great empty glass jar that my family has been waiting to repurpose for some time.  I washed out the jar that morning and announced that I would be making chook jam that night.  They all had tried jam that I brought from the states and were on board with the project.  The only thing I needed from them was sugar.

That afternoon, I mentioned to the ladies at the Health Post that I was planning to make chook jam.  Two of them were curious and accepted my invitation to come observe the process.  When I got home, it was game time.  I reminded my younger sister Neera that I wanted to make jam, and she sent my younger brother Yogendra to the store for sugar.  My friends and I peeled the chook and separated the peel.  While peeling and chopping, my friend Jamuna took some of the fruit and mixed it with sugar, salt and chilli.  This is how chook is usually eaten.  It was a strange taste at first, but actually very tasty with a good amplitude of flavor (salty, sweet, spicy, sour).  

By this time my brother had returned with a huge 5kg bag of sugar.  The directions said to boil the peel three times in water, replacing the water every time, so my brother and I did that.  My brother Yogendra is 14 years old and is the most enthusiastic sibling I have when it comes to wierd American experimentation projects, especially when it involves food.  With every project I decide to dedicate time to around the house…from planting vegetables, to cutting bamboo, to making cake, he’s there.  He has also recently been coming to me a lot for help with English, which is cool.

So there we were, boiling and draining lemon peel while my two other friends looked at us a little funny wondering why three times was necessary.  Then we added the peel to the fruit, mixed it together and boiled again.  This time for 40 minutes.  Now, 40 minutes was a long time to wait, so we sat down to eat dinner.  As I sat, eating my food, I stared off into the night and wondered if the jam was really going to be tasty, or not.  As an optomist who likes a challenge, I imagined it being something like really sweet lemonaide in jam form.  

Then it was time to add the sugar.  The recipe said to measure the fruit mixture and add an equal amount of sugar.  By that time, the fruit mixture had amounted to about 6 cups of fruit.  I looked at the fruit, then at the sugar, then at my sister Neera.  Neera is a strong young lady and the oldest sibling.  She has lately been cooking all our meals and is the one I give my rent money to every month because she is educated and good with money.  I was a little anxious of using 6 cups of sugar for a failed experiment, but I knew from past failures around the house that they never get mad about it.  I decided to add about 4 cups of sugar.  I could always add more if that wasnsn’t enough.  

As the jam continued boiling, we had 25 minutes of time to fill so I opened up my laptop and played Despicable Me 2.  Cartoons with lots of slapstick humor and fart jokes are pretty universally understood by people woldwide.  It doesn’t take a degree in English to appreciate that sort of humor, so it was a success. 

Then I returned to the jam.  By this time it was a turning a nice amber color so I took it off the stove and reached for my first taste.  It was not good.  Dang.  Maybe another taste…nope.  So bitter!  My brother tasted it… “Teeto chha!” He said.  “It’s bitter!”  Oh great.  What to do now.  It was the peel that ruined it I think.  That’s something even sugar couldn’t help I was afraid.  My brother was laughing. 

“Chook ko jam…dherai mito chha!” / “Lemon jam…very tasty!” He said.

When my family says stuff like they aren’t trying to convince me that they really like it.  They go right to sarcastically joking about it.  It’s pretty awesome.  

My brother decided that we should bring some to my sister and friends in a little bowl, say that it is suuuuuuper tasty and tell them they have to eat the whole thing.  So we did.  My sister held the bowl in her hand and looked at us trying to judge whether or not our enthusiasm towards watching her eat it had any mischief behind it.  She tasted it.  

Her face immediately changed into discuss and my brother and I laughed and repeated “chook ko jam…dherai mito chha!”  

We later joked that we should sell it in the bazaar.  Five dollars per kilo.  My brother added that people can only taste it after they buy it though.  Good thinking.

I told my sister that I could pay her back for the sugar that I used since it was such a huge failure.  

“No”, she said “It’s ok.  It was funny.  We had some good laughs.”

That was four nights ago.  Attempting to redem myself, last night I announced that I would like to make dinner once a month.  I added that it wouldn’t be like the chook ko jam, it would be something tastier that I know how to cook.  It was quiet for awhile, then they all agreed that that sounded like a fun plan.

The moral of this story is that sometimes life gives you lemons.  And sometimes the only way to deal with it is to try to make lemonaide.  But even if the lemonaide doesn’t come out right, even if you can’t change the way India reacts to the constution, or the problems with Nepali transportation, if you are surrounded by a group of friends who laugh it off, hand you more sugar and say “lets do it again”, then you are truly blessed.  It’s not always about the result, but the journey.

Next time I’m making fried chicken…everyone loves that, right?

My sister holding the jar of chook jam.  We found one person who likes it and doesn't want me to waste it.

After making the jam, my family juiced the lemon/grapefruit "chook" for later use in cooking fish, vegetables, etc.