D-Wayne and I

I know I have really slowed down on this blog and don't write so much anymore but when I have the motivation and something interesting to write I make sure to put it here. Well a few interesting things have happened recently so here goes.  Roughly three years ago I was living in Auckland New Zealand and I met Dwayne (via Couch Surfing). Here in Colombia organized events from Couch Surfing are not that popular but in New Zealand that was exactly the opposite. We had a weekly meeting in Auckland and usually monthly outing somewhere. It was at one of these events that I met Dwayne. So I was pretty excited when I found out he was coming here to Colombia. I managed to convince him to come visit me in Bogota so it was really great to see him again. He was here for 4 days staying in my apartment and luckily the girls were cool with it all. Did I mention that Mark has moved out and I now live with a Swedish girl and a Colombian girl. I am surrounded by estrogen all the time but all of us get along really well.

It was nice when Dwayne was here because I got to be a tourist again for the first time in a long while and I even got to do some things I have never done before. I took him to Monserrate (the view point above the city) and to particularly touristy places but he seemed to have fun and I did as well. We did visit a few places I had never been before. Luckily the weather held out for us, (For the most part) I enjoyed playing tour guide in my adopted city. Dwayne was the perfect house guest and I am really glad I got to see him after three long years.

The highlight of his visit here was when we made New Zealand meat pies. For those of you who don't know what they are, you should Click Here it had been so long since I had a proper meat pie, I was super super excited! Because they just don't exist here in South America. I fell in love with them when I lived in Oz and NZ and you can't even really find them properly in The States. We found a decent recipe and then went on a quest for the freshest ingredients. Luckily I live very close to a farmers market type place where you can get everything cheap and fresh. The only thing we couldn't find was pre-made pie crust so we had to make our own. We calculated the whole process from start to in our bellies would take two hours. Because you had to prepare the meat and veg and then let it simmer. It actually took us 4.5 hours haha.

We prepared everything according to the recipe we found online and it all worked out great except the crust. It was ok but not perfect. I wish we could have made it better. After 4.5 hours of slaving away we had three meat pies with excellent filling in a mediocre crust. It still tasted almost like Heaven to Dwayne and I after being deprived for so long.  Even Andrea (My Colombian roommate) liked it! Cornelia is a vegetarian so she missed out big time hehe. Next time I make this I am going to do better on the crust and maybe make one large meat pie instead of three little ones. I also could make a stew just purely out of the filling and not even bother with the crust. It was that good!

This was the first time in recent memory I have actually cooked something from scratch (with Dwayne's help of course) and if I get good enough at this I am actually considering selling these meat pies. I know Colombians would love these! So wish me luck lol. Yall take care,Tyler

P.S. Here is a great video for your enjoyment.