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 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."

More weird things

1. Dishwashers.  I almost forgot about dishwashers.  I'll start doing dishes in the sink and look down and realize that there is a dish washer sitting there, ready to be used.  They really can be excessively useful.
2. Sugar is so SMALL!  And brown sugar is so...um...small and light?  I remember when I first started cooking in Israel, I was surprised by the size of the sugar grains in both white and brown sugar, and the brown sugar was fairly dark.  Apparently I got used to it, though, because here I am always surprised at how fine the sugar is.  Granulated sugar here is almost as finely ground as powdered sugar in Israel.  It's crazy.
3. The smell of freshly mowed grass.  I had almost forgotten about that too.  *ahhh*
4. Finally got around to making pita today.  I've missed it so!  For anyone who is interested, I posted the recipe and directions on my Other Blog, the one dedicated to things like cooking, sewing, crocheting, etc.  You know, just so I don't clutter this one up with recipes all the time.  If you like recipes, though, I will be trying to update that Other Blog more regularly.  (Yeah, the name is silly, but my old roommates and I used to joke about all our marriageable qualities.)

Welcome to my life!

So, I happened to watch an episode of Top Chef where their challenge was to make a meal for 300 airmen, with the supplies and kitchen equipment on the base, and I thought, "Welcome to my world." That's pretty much what I do daily at camp. Except with a lower budget, less equipment, fewer people, and less cumulative experience on my side. Most of the challenges they compete in I wouldn't even know where to begin, but with this one, well, I could relate.

In other news, I recently found out about a site with a number of online books. I haven't read much for fun for a long time, and they had some shorter books that I'd been wanting to read, so in the last couple days I've read Manalive! by G. K. Chesterton and Right Ho, Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse, both of which I recommend, for very different reasons. Here is one quote from each, respectively, which made me laugh.

"Imprudent marriages!" roared Michael. "And pray where in earth or heaven are there any prudent marriages? Might as well talk about prudent suicides.

Jeeves: "Yes, sir. Each time he endeavours to formulate a proposal of marriage, his courage fails him."

Wooster: "And yet, if he wants this female to be his wife, he's got to say so, what? I mean, only civil to mention it."

Jeeves: "Precisely, sir."

Blogging Duties

I have been sadly remiss in my blogging duties. I have some things that I have been pondering that I will try to post on at some point. However, I have so little time, and so much to do...it's difficult to find time to think, much less to write out any thoughts. So here's a brief update on my life, for any who might be curious.

1. I still cook. Lots.

2. I (with my assistants) made 26 loaves of challah bread for steak night this last Friday. Shabbat Shalom!

3. I went rafting on the Stillwater this last Saturday. It doesn't have much in the way of rapids, but there are some fun parts. It doesn't really live up to it's name...especially compared to the Madison. :)

4. So we had some fun water wars, and I got pushed/thrown into the river a couple times. Good times. We also got to eat food that I didn't make, which is always an exciting occasion for me.

5. Someone bought some Rocky Mountain Oysters at a resturant, and I got to try a small bite. Very exciting. It mostly tasted like fried food. Less exciting. But still cool.

6. We are into our second week of family camp. Two Buffet Nights down, three to go. First two actually went quite well, praise the Lord!

7. I have now survived, um...maybe 17 Buffet nights? (in my four years as head cook) and today was the first time that I carved the watermelon for it. It was fun.

8. This week is sort of, "Old Home Week" here at camp. By that I mean that most of the campers have come here for about a million years, and/or have been on staff themselves, or currently have a family member on staff... It should be a fun week.

9. Fire danger is still pretty low! I have high hopes of avoiding changing steak night to prime rib night.

10. I really should go to bed...it's way past my bedtime.

11. I'm pretty much out of random updates anyway. Really, pretty much all I do is cook things. Not that exciting to write about. Especially since most of them are things I've made numerous times before. Sad lack of experimentation. Oh well.

12. I'm looking forward to going back to Israel. Which has also been rendered much simpler, now that I have a visa. Yay!

13. So for now, over and out.

Humor and Life

First Joke:This is pretty much what I feel like at camp all the time...except more so. And I'm also probably not usually as calm and organized as she is. I usually forget the first question after the third or fourth. :)

Second Joke:
An engineer, a psychologist, and a theologian were hunting in the wilderness of northern Canada. Suddenly, the temperature dropped and a furious snowstorm was upon them. They came across an isolated cabin, far removed from any town. The hunters had heard that the locals in the area were quite hospitable, so they knocked on the door to ask permission to rest. No one answered their knocks, but they discovered the cabin was unlocked and they entered.

It was a simple place -- two rooms with a minimum of furniture and household equipment. Nothing was unusual about the cabin except the stove. It was large, pot-bellied, and made of cast-iron. What was strange about it was its location: it was suspended in midair by wires attached to the ceiling beams.

"Fascinating," said the psychologist. "It is obvious that this lonely trapper, isolated from humanity, has elevated this stove so that he can curl up under it and vicariously experience a return to the womb."

"Nonsense!" replied the engineer. "The man is practicing the laws of thermodynamics. By elevating his stove, he has discovered a way to distribute heat more evenly throughout the cabin."

"With all due respect," interrupted the theologian, "I'm sure that hanging his stove from the ceiling has religious meaning. Fire LIFTED UP has been a religious symbol for centuries."

The three debated the point for several hours without resolving the issue.

When the trapper finally returned, they immediately asked him why he had hung his heavy pot-bellied stove from the ceiling.

His answer was succinct. "Had plenty of wire, not much stove pipe."

I can't tell you how often I have seen this sort of scenario played out here. Scholars argue over the smallest things, often reading enormous ammounts of information into the tiniest statement but ignoring the simplest and (to me at least) most logical answers. It kind of drives me crazy. Let me explain a bit.

The stove basically represents the facts on the ground, whether it be text from the Bible, archaeological or geographical evidence, or text from some other ancient source. The engineer, psychologist, and theologial all represent possible different interpretations of the facts on the ground. The trapper actually knows the truth about the stove, but unfortunately, all the "trappers" in this land died years ago and can't tell us why they built or wrote in such a way. So the different scholars argue about the proper interpretation. In all fairness, many times they probably do come quite close to the actual reasons. Sometimes, though, their theories seem as ridiculous as the three theories about the stove.

One example that comes to mind is from my Matthew class. You are probably all aware of the passage in Matthew where Jesus pronounces woe upon the scribes and Pharisees. (Matthew 23) Apparently this is a big deal. Here are some of the views I've seen represented on what this passage "means:"

1. Maybe it means that Matthew (or whoever the author was) and the small group of believers around (aka "the Matthean Community") him were upset at the Pharisees and other Jews for some reason. Maybe the Jews were persecuting this small group of Christians so Matthew included this scathing rebuke in his gospel.

2. Maybe Matthew meant to imply that all of Israel was utterly rejected by God (which could open the door to some pretty sever anti-semetism).

3. Maybe Matthew only meant to imply that the leaders of Israel were utterly rejected by God (thus preserving the gospel from being anti-semetic).

4. Maybe it was part of the attempt by Matthew to distance his community from the Jewish community and to set themselves up at the "true" followers of God.

...and my thought is, "Maybe Matthew included it in his gospel because Jesus actually said it, and maybe Jesus said it because the Pharisees at the time that he spoke were actually hypocritical." Which is not to say that the book and its contents can be completely separated from the time and location in which it was written. On the other hand, I don't think it can be separated from the time and place which is being written about, either. I think it is going too far to imply that some of these passages were made up by the author of Matthew in response to circumstances facing his community. Doubtlessly the gospel applied, but good grief.

Back to the stove joke, while the trapper probably has some ideas in all the areas the experts discussed, when someone has to choose between freezing to death or setting up a stove that works, well, that person isn't likely going to be considering all the symbolic and scientific implications of his stove placement. He's going to be pretty pragmatic about it. I could be wrong, but I would think that the same would be true of the authors of the texts we have. Most of the time they were probably trying to get the story down. They may have put a spin on it to teach a lesson or included some symbolism or some such thing, but I find it hard to believe, as some scholars seems to imply, that they wrote with 24 and a half different layers of meaning and that by the simple statement "X" they really meant "Y", "Z", and "A" ... and "B" for good measure. The scholars have far more time to discuss the stove than the trapper had to make it in the first place. I want more scholars who put themselves in the shoes of the trapper!

(Ok, I'll stop ranting now...that one has been building up for a while.)

Update

I've been really bad at blogging this summer. Sort of a combination of too much to do, too little time to do it in, and nothing much to say. I cook all day. Not a whole lot to say about that. I suppose I could post recipes in my "Wifely Skills" blog, but that would take too much energy. :)

At any rate, we recently started family camp, and I sort of have mixed feelings about that. Tonight was especially, well, sort of "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH." So to start off, campers were just starting to get served. I was working on warming up some more mashed potatoes so we wouldn't run out. As I was running around doing that, a man came into the kitchen and asked to fry a fish he had caught (since he couldn't eat the meatloaf.) Side note here: campers in the kitchen generally isn't a good thing. We can't let all of them in the kitchen (obviously) so even one sort of sets a dangerous precedent. Even one adds to the chaos and confusion. On the other hand, we try as much as we can to accommodate campers. So I told him that generally campers weren't allowed in the kitchen (which he kindly understood) and then I make an exception and let him cook his fish. On my way to deal with that, another lady asked me about a PB&J sandwich, and as I was focused on fish, I ordered someone standing around to help her. ;) Later on in the meal, as I'm still running around with potatoes and various other things, I am informed that we are out of ranch. Why I had to be the one to get the ranch I don't know (generally that's not my job), but I did it. Shortly after that I am informed that the salad bar is out of bowls. On my way to get bowls a camper asks for a fork and I direct him to ask someone else in the kitchen. Then another camper asks if we have mustard. As I grabbed the bowls I said, "Yes, just a minute." So I drop off the bowls, go grab mustard, and hand it to him. I sort of felt like I was the only person there. Can you not see others to ask?? That's why we have waitresses! Also, one or two people requested cottage cheese. I hope they don't ask for it every night. There's a reason it wasn't on the salad bar. I don't know how many PB&J sandwiches Megan had to make, but it was a little insane. Crazy family campers. I realized, though, that I still need to work on being a servant, and on being calm when I'm being asked 10 questions at once. That's not something I deal with very well. So God's still working on me.

In other news, I get to see the counselors more often now, and they're a pretty cool bunch. Lots of red-heads this year and we hope to get a picture all together on Sunday. I talked to a Canadian tonight and he was impressed with my French, considering I only took 3 years in high school and that was over 10 years ago. Of course, we only exchanged a couple sentences, but hey, I'll take what compliments I can get. Also, the "death by chocolate cake" when called by its real name can lead to many awkward conversations. That's pretty much my life right now. :)