My life in an Arab-Israeli Kitchen, Part 22 (Please don't ask...)

In food service, I suppose, questions are inevitable.  There certainly seems to be an endless supply of them in our kitchen here, though mostly they are variations of the same basic three or four questions.  Don't get me wrong, questions aren't bad in and of themselves, though they are often inconvenient.  Some questions, though, are definitely better than others.  So, if you find yourself in a cafeteria-style meal service situation, here are some tips to ask better questions.

The most common question genre relates to the type of food being served, and often sounds like this:
"What is THAT?" *notes of mild disgust*
which tempts me to respond with a
"It's FOOD.  Eat it."
Neither the question nor the answer in this case are particularly helpful to either individual involved.  

Even without the questioner sounding disgusted, it's not necessarily an easy question to answer.  The thing is, I rarely use recipes here, and even if I loosely follow a recipe, it's almost impossible to stick strictly to it because of the different available ingredients.  I may have been aiming for something recognizable, like lasagna, but it will be lasagna with yogurt and Israeli cheese, not the Italian cheese that people are accustomed to.  These variations make me hesitant to actually call it "Lasagna," making that a difficult question to answer.

Of course, other times, the things I make don't even have roughly equivalent names.  So when I have people come through the line and see a pasta dish and they ask,
"What is that?"
there's not much that I can tell them besides,
"Pasta," or maybe, "Pasta with chicken,"
which they should be able to see for themselves.

If you MUST ask what something is, I suggest trying something like this:
"That looks delicious, what is it?" or "That smells amazing, what do you call it?"

Please DON'T ask it like this:
"Do you know what that is?"
Let's see...I'm hanging out in the kitchen in an apron...I'm the ONLY person here...Without any really great leap in logic one could conclude that I'm likely the cook...in which case, YES.  I know what it is.  And on the off chance that I DON'T know what it is...you probably don't want to know either.

The second most common type question is related, but slightly different.  It is often asked by someone making a slight face, as if suspicious of attempted poisoning:
"What's in this?"
"Well, there are 20 people behind you in line, but no worries, let me take 5 minutes to list all the ingredients for you while they wait.  (Because chefs always give out their secret ingredients too.)"

I understand that some people have dietary restrictions and legitimately need to know if the dish in question has gluten, dairy, nuts, etc.  And I try to be understanding of people who choose dietary restrictions such as vegetarians.  Nevertheless, that is a terrible question.  If you are concerned that the dish in question might contain problematic ingredients, please ask specifically about those ingredients.  That saves me from having to guess what you really want to know, because most people who ask don't really want me to list all the ingredients.

If, however, you actually DO want to know all the ingredients because you're hoping to duplicate it...feel free to come back when there isn't a line and I can give you a basic idea of the recipe (though probably without exact amounts).

A third type of question relates to the amount given.  Depending on the person and their eating habits, I will either hear,
"Can I have some more?"
or
"Ohh, a little less, please?"

If you are the sort of person who never likes the amount you've been given, please try to understand.  We're trying to feed a relatively large amount of people in a relatively small amount of time, and it's impossible for us to gauge a person's appetite by simply looking.  We try to give a good amount of average food.  It will be too much for some people and too little for others.

If it's too much for you, it's okay, no one is going to force you to eat all of it.  I appreciate your desire not to waste food, but chances are good that whatever you don't eat will be thrown out anyway, whether it's on your plate or not.  And know that it can be vaguely insulting to the cook/server to have to take back food.

If it's too little, keep in mind that I'm expecting another 30 people to come eat after you.  There will always be enough for seconds (of some things at least), but I'd rather not give you more right now, because I want to make sure that there's enough for everyone to have firsts.  It's possible that I will run out of one option and I want everyone to have a chance, or it's possible that I have more in the oven that will be ready for seconds later, but I don't want to run out before it's ready.  Either way, if you MUST ask for extra, please don't act disgusted when I ask you to come back for seconds.  Trust me, you won't starve.

That concludes our lesson on questioning the cook. :)  Please come back next week when we discuss...what happens to these kitchens when everyone is on break...*cue ominous music*

My life in an Arab-Israeli Kitchen, Part 21

Since I didn't actually have to work in the kitchen this last weekend, I suppose this is a good week to catch up on some things I meant to post on, but never got around to.  (That was a lot of misused prepositions.  Oh well.)

Ready for some random and unrelated stories?  (It's okay, in this kitchen, random is the norm.)

One of the joys of the kitchen is our gas stove.  And by "joys", I really mean "terrors."  Those of us who work there regularly have more or less figured out decent methods to light the stove without getting hair singed off various body parts, but others are not always so adept.

Oh.  I should specify.  These gas burners have no pilot lights or automatic lighters built into them.  No. The only way to light them is to turn them on fully and add a lighted match (by whatever method you deem safest).  And for some of these burners, "fully on" means flames a foot or two high.  It's not for the faint of heart.

Ok, really, it's not that bad.  Though I admit, sometimes some less experienced help with various things in the kitchen...and I cringe when I see them trying to figure out a way to light the stove.  It's a bit nerve-wracking.

Anyway, the real fun of lighting the burners is found in the matches:

I'm not quite sure WHY, but for some reason someone always seems to find that the best place for used matches is BACK IN THE BOX.  I mean, I suppose it's logical.  One thinks to oneself, "Hmm...I have a small stick that was recently on fire.  What to do with it?  Ahh!  I know, I'll put it in this flammable box with other small sticks that can easily start on fire!  That way, if it's still secretly smoldering, I'll know, because the whole small box will go up in flames!  And if it is really fully extinguished, I'll be sure to grab it next time I go looking for an unlit match.  It will ensure that I have to spend a few extra moments searching for a usable match, thus perfectly contributing to the general inefficiency of the kitchen."

Okay, I admit, it doesn't really seem logical to me either, but it is one more thing to laugh at. :)

In addition to the working burner in our stove area (only about half of them actually work, of course) we have this small grill.  It's a perfectly good grill, and is shown here being used for tortillas on a day when I had fewer people and more time.  It's just funny in that it's about 1/4-1/3 of the size of ONE of the grills we have at camp...and I'm pretty sure it's never been thoroughly cleaned in its life.  Any crewboys want to volunteer to come help in my kitchen here?  I could sure use you.

One of the fun things about Israel is all the different fruits and vegetables that are readily available here.  Two of the fruits below you will all no doubt easily recognize.  Yes, those are apples (probably golden apples) and oranges.  Any guesses on what the other fruit is?  :)  It LOOKS like an orange, but it's quite different.

One thing that I both love and hate about working in the kitchen here is...well...how to say it...the randomness of the ingredients and situations that you'll have to work with.  While I can make requests for items, I have very little control or knowledge of what will be available week to week.  Necessity is indeed the mother of invention...but it can also be the mother of the little children called "Stress" and "Panic."

Still, after the day is over and Stress and Panic have been dealt with and are off in a corner behaving, it can be kind of fun to look back on what necessity has lead to.

One week we were out of flour.  And white sugar.  It wasn't an insurmountable problem, but it was limiting.  Especially for breakfast.  But also for dinner - because I do try to make the students feel at home and happy, and that generally includes some sort of dessert.

At any rate, the lack of flour made me decide (don't ask me to explain the reasoning...just trust me that there was some) to experiment with making ricotta cheese.  It turns out it's pretty simple - and tasty - and much cheaper and better than buying ricotta (at least in Israel), and I've done it a couple times since.  It requires:

Milk (which comes in a box here) and pot and a stove,

 Warm the milk and add acid, in this case vinegar:

 Here you see the curds beginning to form.

Drain it gently, and here's the end result:

 (If you want a more specific recipe, many can be found on the web.  Most of them are pretty similar.)

It was a fun experiment - the scientist in me approved.  And the kitchen is always good for encouraging such creativity.

Of course, my lack of control in the kitchen can also lead to some fun finds.  Like this year we apparently started getting some pork products from Beit Jala.  (No, our kitchen is not kosher.)  How fun to open the freezer and find bacon and ham!  While the bacon is not quite like bacon back home, it's still bacon!  And this bacon made these baked beans for our Easter BBQ a little more special and home-like:

 And this "star sausage" is close enough to pepperoni for us pizza-hut-missing Americans:

It's the little things like that: discovering new ways of making food and the appreciation of people that miss American food, that make work in the kitchen fun and worth it.

My life in an Arab-Israeli Kitchen, Parts 4-20 (A week in the Kitchen)

Recently, our main Arab cook, Sliman, was in the hospital for nearly a week.  He's better now, but suddenly, for a week, there was no cook for lunch and dinner, and with three short-term groups around, more people to feed than ever.  Todd (the breakfast cook) and I (the Sunday cook) filled in, each averaging about 1.5 meals per day.

With all that extra time in the kitchen, of course I have more eclectic pictures and stories to tell.

For starters, our kitchen is on the third floor.  Which means, of course, that there needs to be some way of transporting massive amounts of food to the third floor.  Thus, we have our food elevator.  I think "elevator" may sound fancier than it is.  Maybe...electronic dumb waiter?  At any rate, the picture is looking down its cables to where Yahya is loading it with fresh fruits.

On Saturday, of the week in question, it so happened that we got a meat delivery.  And I was the only one on campus (well, more or less).  So I had the joy of having the delivery men (who knew about as much English as I know Arabic) bring the meat to the area, figure out which buttons to press to raise the meat, unload it at the top, and send it back down for a total of 3 loads.  Phew!  Fortunately, help arrived just as I was finishing, so I had help packaging the meat (which came fresh, in a large bag, in a large box) and putting away the various veggies and frozen fries that came too.

Some days we had between 100-150 people for one meal.  Compared to camp that's not a ton...but at camp we have a much more efficient kitchen and a lot more help.  At any rate, 150 people can consume MASSIVE amounts of salad.  I would say that over 50% of my time in the kitchen was spent cutting various vegetables and making salads.

At one point we more or less ran out of lettuce, which called for some creativity in making salads.  Fortunately, we did have a lot of purple cabbage which, when mixed with some chickpeas and tomatoes and a few other odds and ends, did make a pretty good salad.  It's also quite pretty.  Especially when some of the leaves begin to die - then a whole spectrum of color becomes visible in them.  It's really quite beautiful.

 Of course, not everyone was on campus ever day.  Quite a few bus lunches had to be made as well.  Here Bonnie joyously works on more egg salad.

And for some reason which I can't quite fathom, every bus lunch MUST include carrots.  Apparently, it's not a real lunch without carrots.  Fortunately, we already had other people scheduled to make the bus lunches, so I didn't need to cut millions of carrots in addition to making meals. :)

Lots of people means lots of dishes, so extra help was assigned (from our limited staff) to make sure things ran smoothly.   Here Emily buses dishes while more students drop of their plates.

 One night I was in there late, working on getting things ready for breakfast in the morning.  At some point I looked down and found this:

Yes, that is a relatively large spider and part of it's web.  It was quite docile and easily removed...but I have no idea how it got there.  Not the most pleasant surprise to discover.

For one meal I made lasagna...and discovered that we have the MOST AMAZING LASAGNA PASTA EVER!  For one layer in one pan all you need is two sheets.  And the corners are already rounded!  How amazing is that?!

While cooking every day was a bit exhausting, it was, in other ways, a nice change of pace from Sundays.  Sundays I cook every meal and am pretty much by myself in the kitchen all day.  This week, I only  had 1-2 meals a day, and generally had help, or other people around working on bus lunches, etc.  It was less lonely.

We also hired a new kitchen helper: Hamse.  He's very friendly and likes to play loud Arab music in the kitchen and dance and sing along.  He also likes to try to tell us all things...and apparently doesn't understand that we don't speak Arabic.  I mostly look at him and smile and shrug helplessly.  Even a few of the students helping this summer who have had some Arabic have trouble communicating clearly with him.  Oh well, the kitchen has never been so tidy since he started working, so that's nice.

All the kitchen time also gave me the chance to experiment with a couple things.  We had some nice eggplant which I thought I should use for the salads.  So I tried my hand at making babaganoush.  Here's the eggplants roasting over an open flame:

I think it turned out pretty well.  I don't have a whole lot of experience with it and how it should taste, but I had Tamer, another Arab helper, try it.  He said it was good, and he should know.  Success. :)

For another experiment I tried to use up some cream that was about to go bad and made truffles. :)

Finally, we all got a break from the kitchen.  We escaped campus and Cameron took us to a sushi place where we happily ate food that we had not prepared and celebrated Sliman's return to the kitchen. :)

Much delayed...

When I lived in Israel in 2010, there were two things that were promised to be opened shortly: the newly renovated Israel Museum and the Light Rail.  The Museum had been closed my entire 2 years in Israel, and the renovations had taken longer than planned.  The Light Rail was at least 2 year delayed in its opening.  Thus, these two things I should have been able to experience were still closed when I left in July of 2010.  And, of course, they both opened shortly after I left.  Such is life.

Fortunately, I managed to get back to Israel, and this week I rode the Light Rail and went to the Israel Museum, all in one day.

Campus was mostly empty this week, but one of the students and I decided that the Israel Museum needed to be visited.  And, unsure of the bus system, we decided to take the Light Rail.  It doesn't really drop one off really close the museum, but the walk isn't bad.  We ended up walking the whole way home, which didn't take much longer...but the Light Rail was an experience worth having.

Riding down Jaffa Road

Here we're crossing the famous bridge.  Whether you like it or hate it, it's quite a landmark in Jerusalem.

Once at the museum our excitement was great.  One of the first things we saw was this:

The original four-horned altar from Beersheva.  Probably dismantled and put to secondary use during the reforms of Hezekiah (or a similar Judean King), it was found and reassembled by archaeologists, and sent to Jerusalem.  

Objects from the "Cave of the Treasure" were also displayed, including this intricate scepter.  All these things date to the Chalcolithic Age.

There were many archaeological finds that excited my interest, but perhaps one of the coolest to finally see was this one:

I know it doesn't look like much, but it was found just across the valley from JUC at Ketef Hinnom by my very own archaeology professor, Dr. Gabi Barkai.  These two small silver scrolls contain the oldest known text of Hebrew scripture (the priestly blessing from Numbers 6)- considerably older than the Dead Sea scrolls.  

One of the prettiest displays was the ancient glass room.  I especially liked that little bottle on the bottom.  So brilliantly colored.

There are other wings to the museum, aside from the all important ancient history/archaeology wing.  There's sections for Africa, Asia, the Pacific Islands, and the Americas.  Yes.  I came all the way from Montana where there ARE American Indians to see this display in Israel about American Indians.

We finished off the visit with a look around the Second Temple Model of Jerusalem (which I HAD seen before).  See that wall in the picture below?  The section with two towers and then, a little ways down, a small gate?  That's where JUC is now.  If my understanding is correct, our office is actually on top of the remains of one of those towers.  And the remains of that gate, possibly the gate of the Essene, those remains are in our cemetery.  As you can see the Temple and other important remains in the background, you can get a feeling for how close to everything we are here.

I'll try not to bore you with any more details of pottery and statues and swords and arrowheads and...  Yeah, very cool stuff.  Come visit me and I'll show you. :)

My life in an Arab-Israeli Kitchen, Part 3 (The Wedding)

Some of you may know, I don't really like sharing my kitchen under the best of circumstances.  I mean, I'm happy to have co-workers, but it's hard to deal with people who don't belong invading the space.  Fortunately, this week I only had about a dozen people to cook for.  It was most fortunate because there was a wedding on the campus and there were people invading my kitchen all day.

I walked into the kitchen at about 7am to find this:

I only have one or two good work spaces, and there were flowers on one.  Again, fortunately, there wasn't much to do for breakfast.

After breakfast I had a group of people in the kitchen preparing salads and such until just before lunch.

They took over a large portion of the fridge, too.  I was afraid to touch anything for fear of knocking flowers off the shelf.  Or wounding the cake.  

And then the bride came and made her first appearance from my balcony.  It was a little odd to have members of the wedding party traipsing through the kitchen while I was working, but she did make a lovely bride.

Here's the wedding in progress.

 And after the wedding there was dancing to loud Arabic and Hebrew and English music.

It was a unique experience, and not the most convenient.  But they were nice people and it was fun to observe their celebrations.  

In other kitchen news we have a new faucet.

 

Isn't it lovely?  And it doesn't take all my strength to turn off the water!  So exciting. :)

And I made calzones for dinner.  Sometimes things don't quite turn out as I would like, but sometimes... I amaze myself. :)

My life in an Arab-Israeli Kitchen, Part 2

My second Sunday in the kitchen was a little busier with everyone there all day.  

This is my sink area, in all it's rather dingy glory.  

 The windows offer a nice view, but are none too clean.

The faucets are confusing and I usually have to turn both sets before water actually comes out.

The spray nozzle does work, I think...but I don't use it.

And we tend to only have hot water at certain times.

The lesson of the day, however, comes from the little beige container on the shelf by the window.  That is the soap container.  I don't really know where the soap comes from, or what type it is...but there's always some in that container, with some water and often a scrubbie-type-thing.  The point is...

NEVER LOOK INSIDE THE SOAP CONTAINER.

You will not like what you see.  You can reach in and "grab" some soap" or the sponge...but never look.  Grab blindly.  It's better that way.  Trust me.

You really don't want  a good look at the odd lumps of....soap?  bread?  something? that you try not to feel floating around.  Nor do you want to see the dead bugs and scum floating on the surface.

Just repeat to yourself, "It's soap.  I'm going to use this nice soap to make my dishes all clean."  Don't think about it.

On the brighter side...there was good food to be had.  

I made caramelized onions.  Cutting onions always makes me cry, especially in large amounts.  And when you caramelize them they get so small...it's a little depressing.  But they are delicious.  I believe these were to go with the Arab-style dish, Mujadarrah.  

I also made two desserts.

Lemon bars for lunch.  (Somehow...we ended up with no less than 3 boxes of lemons in our walk-in.  Large boxes.  This was over a month ago now, so I think we're down to one, partly because some of them started getting moldy and were thrown out.  It's very sad.  But I did use some for lemon bars.)

 Muffin brownies for dinner.  With chocolate pieces in the middle.

And to finish off, this is the serving line at lunch time.  Salads and dessert along the wall.  Mujaddarah and caramelized onions in the warming area, ready to be served.  (At some point, expect a full kitchen tour).

We apologize for the delay in the broadcast of this episode of "My life in an Arab-Israeli Kitchen" and assure you that the series will continue.  :)

My life in an Arab-Israeli Kitchen, Part 1

I've been considering doing a series of blog posts on my experiences working in the kitchen here, because it's never dull.  And if one doesn't laugh, there will be tears instead.  So perhaps some of you would enjoy sharing in the laughter.

A few disclaimers first:
1. I make no claims that this is normal for either kitchens in Israel, or for kitchens primarily run by Arabs.
2. In no way is this meant to be discriminatory against any race or religion.  It just happens that most of the workers in our kitchen are Arab (probably at least in part because it's far from kosher), but some are Muslim, some are Christian, and at times some have been Armenian.  So it's a mix.  And they are all very nice, and the result is a kitchen that is nothing like any American kitchen I've seen.

And with that, on to week one, my first Sunday in the kitchen.  (I have some catching up to do.)
March 4, 2012
It was my first Sunday back, I was a little jet-lagged, and I don't remember much.  It think it was a fairly easy day, with most people gone most of the day.  It was fortunate because, though I had worked in the kitchen before, it had been over a year, and everything had been re-arranged.  It took even more time than usual just to find the proper ingredients.  And, as always, some of them were simply absent.  Garlic, for example, was no where to be found.


Probably the most exciting part of the day was the "Adventure of the Oven."

The kitchen has acquired a new oven recently.  The old ovens were a terror.  They would take literally hours to warm up (ok, sometimes maybe only one hour) to a reasonable temperature.  When I was there, the temperatures could be somewhat regulated.  There were knobs that allowed you to sort of choose "high," "medium," or "low," though what temperatures those corresponded to, I have no idea.  Apparently though, those regulators utterly ceased working, causing the ovens to grow ever warmer as they stayed on.  They were never great to work with, but they became nearly impossible.  It was decided that a new oven was needed.  

The old ovens are on the right in the picture.  The one on the left is the new oven, in all it's glory.  (Also pictured is Yahya, the Muslim man who helps me with dishes and odd jobs.  He doesn't speak much English and I speak basically no Arabic...but we smile and gesture and manage okay.)

This oven apparently does EVERYTHING.  It has been called "the ipad oven" and such nomenclature is fitting.  There seem to be no less that approximately 1,294,002 settings available.  When turned on, the menu below is generally the first thing you see:

 As you see, there are many choices.  Some of them I'm not sure about, but chicken, fish, and eggs are pretty clear.  My finger is on the "baked goods" button.  When that one is pressed, this next menu comes up:

So many choices!

I choose "cookies" and these settings came up to be tweaked: 

I'm honestly not quite sure what such settings do to the oven.  I suppose they affect temperature, humidity (it has the ability to cook by steam, or by regular convection, or by both), and length of the timer.  I'm just not quite sure how to set those settings to get the kind of doneness on a cookie that I want.  And I generally don't have time to experiment much.  So I've been using the more manual settings - choosing a time and temperature myself.  

These pictures are actually from a different morning when I ended up subbing for the breakfast cook (who was unwell).  I made an egg and potato breakfast casserole:

If nothing else, this new oven does heat up wonderfully quickly.  It also cooks quickly and pretty evenly.  

Tune in next time when we'll have more adventures from "My life in an Arab-Israeli Kitchen."

Return to Calvary

This last Wednesday I joined the "Church in the East" class on their field study to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, or the Church of the Resurrection as Petra, the teacher of the class, prefers to call it.  

 

To us evangelical westerners, this ancient and eastern church can be a very alien place.  Petra's love and passion for this church, all its history, and all that it stands for, gives a much needed glimpse at the true nature of the church.  

The history of the church itself is fascinating, dating back roughly to the 4th century and the time of Helena.  It currently houses seven denominations, if I remember correctly.  (Greek Orthodox, Catholic, Armenian, and Coptic, for starters).  I think the flag below may be the Armenian's.

It's been added to and subtracted from, depending on who was in charge at the time (Byzantines, Muslims, Crusaders, etc.) and how much money they had.  And now, over a thousand years after it was built, Christians from all over the world still journey here to remember the death and resurrection of our Lord.

 There is meaning and symbolism in everything.

 In every little detail carved in stone, or laid in mosaics.

There are layers of history in every room, carved into every stone.  (These crosses are left as "holy graffiti" from visitors, for ages past.)

 

We looked at the dome over the tomb, a relatively recent addition/repair.  The design was done by an American protestant.  Just another way this place brings all denominations together.

I also got to see the area under the main dome for the first time - it's always been roped off when I'd been there before.  Jerusalem has been known as the "navel of the world" and the temple was considered the navel of the navel.  When Christianity took over the area, someone (Jerome or Origen, I think) suggested that the navel was now centered between the cross and the tomb, under this very dome.  

 

 Reminders of the story of Christ are everywhere.  It's a good place to go to think and remember.

 The last place we visited what Helen's Cistern.  I hadn't been there before.  It had great acoustics and a boat.  

Of course, when entering or leaving the church, one cannot fail to notice the mosques, squeezing in about it.

or the lovely signs posted on them.  

 For all that, the church still endures.  Maranatha!