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