Beens for supper

Lost English of the day: green beens. And is depass a word?
This is the second week of finals at school. There are a lot of finals, but there's only one or two per day so while it takes two weeks to finish them, it also means that you only have to be in school for 2 or 3 hours every day. Plus this last Sunday was Pentecost so we got Monday off.
Seeing as it was Pentecost and time is getting short, I went to the little protestant church Sunday to bid adieu. I think the congregation was a little fuller than normal, maybe 20 people. I was rather disappointed to see that wearing red is not a Belgian tradition for Pentecost. At home everyone decks themselves out in red from vermillion socks to crimson feathery hats and sometimes they even decorate the church. I was glad I had opted for the moderate side and not gone totally berserk with red clothing or I would have been rather odd looking among the primly dressed old ladies and easy-going soccer moms. I did enjoy the service though, and it was good to see some other Christians. I got some email addresses too and said some goodbyes. We also sang the French version of They'll Know We are Christians which was so wonderfully familiar. I can't wait to see my faith family at home. I'm even considering dragging my family to service after picking me up from the airport at 1 am because I don't want to miss a single Sunday!
Sunday afternoon we went to Denis' for a Father's day dinner with the extended family. The theme of the day was Spanish, so we enjoyed paiella, fritata, and many other Spanish salads, sausages, and calamari that I don't know the proper names of. It was all good, and we had a good time sticking ice cubes down each others' shirts and singing around the piano. Denis thoughtfully gave me a National Geographic with an article on a man who did a 7530 km tour of Alaska on foot. Crazy dude. Yet another occasion to practice saying goodbye.
Today I am responsible for supper, so I've been perusing cook books and pondering. Last week Jade and I cooked Costa Rican and made a chicken-avacado-feta salad. It was served in red cabbage leaves because we didn't have raddichio leaves, and it turned out pretty if a little crunchy. We also made a Costa Rican pineapple-prune upside down cake, which was super sweet but not bad. Unfortunately we learned the hard way that not all cream is whippable (gotta have at least 30 percent fat) but our cream still tasted good with the cake. If I have done nothing else in Belgium, at least I have practiced cooking dinner for people!