The Samoan Kitchen Table Adventures

(Our Home in Amouli. Baby brother with Masina the cat and Axle the dog - they came with the house).

Traditionally Samoans don't have kitchen tables.  They eat their meals sitting cross-legged on the floor on a mat.  But, we were a palagi (white) family living in a concrete block structure commonly referred to as a hurricane house in the village of Amouli on the Island of Tutuila (American Samoa).  How we came to live in American Samoa in 1992 when I was still a teenager is another story. 

We didn't use our kitchen table to eat at. We ate in the living room - where it was brighter and cleaner (the kitchen was scary).  Our kitchen table was large and rectangular that had huge gouges in it, as if the previous tenants enjoyed stabbing it with their bush knives or carving vague words into it.  The only time I used it was to make cinnamon rolls to sell in local bush stores to earn enough money to attend school in Hawaii.

I would get up at 4:00 in the morning to make the cinnamon rolls.  Using the oven was kind of tricky as it was a little tempremental.  When we first moved into the house, we had to clean the wood ash out of the oven before I could use it (the previous tenants were obviously technologically challenged). One morning my mother had turned on the range and set an iron skillet on it to warm up.  After a few minutes the range started making popping noises and I turned just in time to see a bright blue arc of light launch the skillet two feet into the air as sparks shot everywhere.  We learned quickly that in order to avoid been electrocuted when we cooked our meals, we needed to wear our rubber sandals. 

If Samoa had a health department (maybe it did, I don't know as the thought never crossed my mind to even check), I'm sure my little business would have been shut down in a heartbeat.  The place crawled at night with roaches, hermit crabs, frogs, centipedes and the occasionaly bat and chicken.

By 6:00 am I had three dozen cinnamon rolls that I delivered to three different bush stores; one in Tula, and two in Amouli.  They sold for 50 cents each, of which I got 25 cents.  They were very good - better than Cinnabon I would wager since I used New Zealand Butter and Milk which was the sweetest I had ever tasted. One bush store owner, apparently not familiar with the concept of cinnamon rolls, complained that the rolls were "too sweet and sticky".  Hers was the only store that didn't sell out of the rolls, so I quit stocking with her. 

I spent many mornings rolling out the dough on that table while dreaming of attending college in Hawaii - but that is another story. 

Until then, Eat Well, Be Well, and Be Happy.