At the end of last semester we had the students & staff vote for their 3 favorite meals. We counted the votes and put in order the top 10 dinners. Here were their options:
Chili & Cornbread
Pita Pizza
Baked Potato Soup
Tacos
Hamburgers
Huevos Rancheros
Teriyaki Chicken
Chicken Casserole
Lentil Soup
Chicken Parmesan
Barbecue Chicken
Chicken Curry
Mac 'n' Cheese
Pancakes
Rosemary Chicken
Chicken Fajitas
Black Beans & Rice
Lemon Chicken with Thyme
White Chili
Greek Lemon Chicken
And the voting results:
10. Chicken Parmesan
9. Chicken Fajitas
8. Mac 'n' Cheese
7. Chili & Cornbread
6. Baked Potato Soup
5. Teriyaki Chicken
4. Pita Pizza
3. Huevos Rancheros
2. Pancakes
And in first place, served at the very last Shabbat of the semester.... TACOS!
What would be in your family's top 10?
Friday, January 21, 2011
Saturday, January 1, 2011
December 2010
December was a full month! We said goodbye to our fall semester students and hello to our parents. Jeff & Carla arrived on December 2nd full of energy despite their very long trip. They helped us in the kitchen the next day when we served our final Shabbat meal of the semester. That night we had a Christmas vespers at a beautiful church - St. Anne's. The acoustics there are amazing! Dan and I had the privilege of heading up the Christmas choir. It was a nice final event of the semester. The next day a number of the students left for a week in Egypt, others left to catch their flights home and we left for Galilee.
In the 4 days we spent in Galilee we took them to lots of the places we went with our Physical Settings of the Bible class, but we also saw a few new things. We went bird watching at the Hula Nature Reserve - the Hula Valley is a large valley north of the Sea of Galilee that used to be all swampy until they drained it a number of years ago. Now it is largely used for agricultural purposes but with a few areas preserved as the original swampland. This was one of those places and is hopping with wildlife. Very cool. We also got rained on while we were there, which was a first for us in a long time!
And Finally, December would not have been the same without our good friend Cameron. Cameron took us to Bethlehem twice, answered all our parents' questions about Israel and Palestine in more recent history, was our companion all through Christmas and now New Years - helping us to be not as lonely away from family for the holidays. We've played many games, watched lots of movies, had many discussions, and shared lots of meals with Cameron. Remarkably he's still our friend even after all my whining during Settler's of Catan! We are very thankful for his friendship and enjoy his company immensely.
On the Mount of Beatitudes where we were able to visit with Jeff's cousin, Doug, who lives in Haifa.
In the 4 days we spent in Galilee we took them to lots of the places we went with our Physical Settings of the Bible class, but we also saw a few new things. We went bird watching at the Hula Nature Reserve - the Hula Valley is a large valley north of the Sea of Galilee that used to be all swampy until they drained it a number of years ago. Now it is largely used for agricultural purposes but with a few areas preserved as the original swampland. This was one of those places and is hopping with wildlife. Very cool. We also got rained on while we were there, which was a first for us in a long time!
Bird watching at the Hula Nature Reserve
Another new stop for us was to Nimrod's Fortress. I saw it 5 years ago and wanted to go and we saw it again this year when we were on our field study. It's a Muslim castle from Crusader times built to fight them off. It sits aloft in the Mt. Hermon range looking mighty impressive. We were so happy to be able to go and explore the ruins! It was a new stop for us and a highlight of our trip.
Dan & Carla at Nimrod's Fortress
After returning to Jerusalem and spending a few days exploring the city and a day by the Dead Sea, my parents joined us on December 11th. They came just before a massive sandstorm known as a Khamsin. The wind was crazy! It made the air so thick and difficult to see through. We felt grit getting into our teeth and eyes when we'd walk around. We braved the weather and explored much of the Jewish Quarter in the Old City on December 12th.
Dad at the Temple Mount Archeological Park - notice the wind and orange haze
Although the weather started off rough, things looked a lot better a couple days later after we got a bit of rain (almost a rain of mud as it pushed the dirt down from the air). We said goodbye to Jeff & Carla on the 14th and headed up to Galilee for another 3 days. A highlight for Dan and I was seeing snow! I didn't think we'd see snow this year, but we took a scenic route down from the far north to the Sea of Galilee and went through some mountain villages that had snow. We also got a great view of snow-covered Mt. Hermon. Beautiful!
Snow in Israel!
Another new thing for me was falling into the Sea of Galilee when we were poking around by the lake at Capernaum.
Boohoo I'm all wet :(
Dad found an ancient anchor or some other kind of weight. Then Dan found one, too. Too heavy to bring back, unfortunately.
Two anchors discovered in Capernaum
We had beautiful weather in Galilee. Our first day the air was the clearest we've seen up there. We could see so far and had lots of nice views from high spots. My folks found out why we were gushing so much that day when things were hazier the next few days. It was in the high 60's/low 70's during our time there. Back in Jerusalem things continued to be nice and sunny and in the 60's. We explored the places we hadn't been yet, sent Dad & Mom to the Dead Sea for a day on their own (!), and said our sad goodbyes on the 21st.
With my parents on the Cliffs of Arbel overlooking the Sea of Galilee
Since then things have slowed down for us quite a bit. We went to Bethlehem for a Christmas Eve parade filled with bagpipes and drums - an hour of different groups from local churches all performing. Our evening was a bit quieter back at the school where we got together with the other people still here for a Christmas Eve dinner. We had turkey, potatoes, couscous, rolls, and lots of dessert. It was delicous!
Little drummer boy in the Bethlehem parade Christmas Eve
And Finally, December would not have been the same without our good friend Cameron. Cameron took us to Bethlehem twice, answered all our parents' questions about Israel and Palestine in more recent history, was our companion all through Christmas and now New Years - helping us to be not as lonely away from family for the holidays. We've played many games, watched lots of movies, had many discussions, and shared lots of meals with Cameron. Remarkably he's still our friend even after all my whining during Settler's of Catan! We are very thankful for his friendship and enjoy his company immensely.
Cameron at his desk in the first weeks we were here
Monday, November 29, 2010
Thanksgiving
The Scene:
Heading up my first Thanksgiving Feast ever and it just happens to be for 88 people.
The Cast:
Dan & Paula: JUC Cooks
Dr. Wright & Diane: JUC director & his wife who keeps everything running on-campus
Justin & Mandy: JUC Student Life Coordinators
Reggie & Vince: JUC Undergrad Students
Joyce: JUC professor's wife
Other helpers: JUC students and staff who setup, made desserts, and helped in the kitchen both with preparations and cleanup
The Turkey: our dinner: 2 whole turkeys, 10 turkey breasts
The Oven: the temperamental big ol' helper in the kitchen that requires lots of attention
Plot:
Thinking about cooking Thanksgiving dinner for 88 people was nothing less than terrifying. But Diane, Justin and Mandy, Joyce, and Dan and I all met to talk about the details and that helped to calm me a bit. It was decided that Diane, Joyce and Mandy would each make a batch of rolls, check. Then Joyce said she could make the green bean casserole, check. Diane would make the sweet potatoes, check. And Mandy & Justin offered to help us with the turkeys, yay! All that was left were the salads, smashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, and cranberry Sauce. Dr. Wright had just returned from a trip to the States with lots of boxes of stuffing mix and gravy packets. That would be a huge time saver. So it seemed as though things would come together just fine.
Justin and Mandy stuffing the birds.
Reggie and the dancing drying lettuce
On Thursday, the day before our big meal (we had decided to have our feast on Friday in place of our normal Shabbat dinner), Reggie and Vince came up and cleaned potatoes and chopped lots and lots for us. On Friday we started at 1pm washing and stuffing the turkeys. We filled them with lots of aromatics - onions, apples, celery - and popped them in the oven. We checked the temperature every 10 minutes to make sure it was hot enough but not too hot (we have an oven thermometer now, which was a lifesaver!). After awhile the oven finally settled into an ok temperature. It's pretty fickle. If you leave it on temperature # 3 for an hour it might be at 350 or it might be at 500. #1 and #2 might drop below 300 or they may stay above 400, so it takes a lot of working to keep things cooking at a good temperature. The longer the oven is on, the hotter it gets. We even had a big fan by the oven that we would blow into it when we needed it to cool down.
Yay! The turkey survived the oven!
The decorated Thanksgiving tables seen from the steps leading up to the kitchen.
Lots and lots of salads! Lettuce, pears, feta, and candied walnuts topped with a balsamic vinaigrette.
The kitchen was full of help on Friday! Chopping, plating, stirring. We had lots of people pop in and help us. It was great. The smells were wonderful and we all enjoyed having our traditional feast. After cleanup we went to the Wright's apartment for dessert. There was pumpkin pie, pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin bread, chocolate peanut butter pie, cookies, bars everything! It was delicious. We were appropriately stuffed by the end of the night. We definitely could not have done it without all the help we got! There were very little things that we could say we did all on our own, which is a nice place to be in at the end of a Thanksgiving meal.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Reflections on Culture Shock
I don't journal often, but there have been times that I've dusted off the old notebook to help myself mentally process through things. One of those times was December 12, 2005 after I got back from studying in Israel as an undergrad. Here's a bit of what I wrote:
...I miss Jerusalem. Being able to step out of our gate and walk through a great diversity of cultures in the Old City. Going with a friend to get coffee in the New City. Crossing the valley to go to Succot Hillel (a 24-hour prayer house). I miss the crazy mix of people that always had me laughing and rolling my eyes at the same time. Each with a unique way of looking at life and approaching you (God). All of us learning together as we explored the land. A place that I was so afraid of, people I couldn't understand, it is all so close to my heart now... When uncomfortable becomes comfortable. Then I'm asked to leave and be where comfortable has become uncomfortable. Churches instead of mosques, Christmas music instead of the call to prayer, snow instead of rain, English instead of Hebrew or Arabic, set prices instead of bargaining, cars instead of walking, painted walls instead of stones, food instead of Margo's creations (the cook at the time), peace and quiet instead of the traffic and activity of the big city. Yet Christ remains the same. And so I cling to Him as my world changes around me...
Well, I can assure you that I most thoroughly adjusted back into life in the States. So now I'm back to adjusting into this culture again. It's been interesting to see what is different now that I am not a student and in lots of other ways at a different point in life as I was back then. I think for Dan and I we've had to not only adjust to the cultures in Israel, but also back into the culture of a college. After being out of college for 3 years, having a place of our own, and learning a new pattern in life, it really is quite different to be back in this environment. We have an endless supply of social interaction, plenty of people to play games with at any time that we'd like, lots and lots of fun to be had. But it also can distract me when I don't take the time away to think, read, or pray. I've found that I've come to like quiet activities - crafting, reading, even housework. So we're learning that balance again. If we want to be busy here, we definitely can be! But it is harder to spend a day "at home" when your kitchen serves 50 and you eat 3 meals a day with the community. So the quiet times take more work to create.
I also grew to like America. When I was in college I was out of sorts with the US. I think I was feeling too sheltered at school and in the Midwest. Many of the people around me looked and acted like I did. When I came to Jerusalem I found so many different worldviews and people all around us who thought and acted different than I did. It opened a world to explore that I hadn't touched before. But living in Chicago (although still in the Midwest) the last three years showed me that the US has more to offer than I thought. I met people who challenged my thinking in the way they viewed things. There was more diversity around me - which brought with it great places to eat and lots of possibilities for seeing more of the world in the city in which I was living. So now I miss America and continuing our little life and ministry there. I do feel like God is using us here, but I'm glad that I also feel that we had a place in Chicago.
It feels a lot different than I expected to take a year out of our normal life to be here. On the one hand it's kind of a care-free time with lots to see and do. That's what I expected it to be like - just a big adventure that I loved every minute of. On the other hand I find myself wanting to move right along with our life as it was and I think about when we get home a lot. I miss our friends and family and just normal life in America. Then I feel guilty for not loving every minute of my time here because I know it's a once in a lifetime kind of thing. But there's a lot of the daily grind in our work, so it's not going to be blue skies and butterflies all the time. There are a lot of challenges with the culture, the people, the systems of doing things (or even more the lack of systems) that make our days difficult. I hold onto knowing that God led us here - we both agreed this is what we should do, so it wasn't just me seeking an adventure. I trust my husband and I know that he walks with the Lord. That helps me to know that the hardships will be used to strengthen us and prepare us for the life ahead of us. I also know that when I'm settled back in at home and we're working and caring for a house and someday starting a family and life is kind of mundane and normal, I'll know that we did this and be very glad that we did. I would have always wondered what it would have been like to take this year away and serve in Jerusalem. We'll come home with great experiences and important life lessons. These are the things I think about when I get homesick.
...I miss Jerusalem. Being able to step out of our gate and walk through a great diversity of cultures in the Old City. Going with a friend to get coffee in the New City. Crossing the valley to go to Succot Hillel (a 24-hour prayer house). I miss the crazy mix of people that always had me laughing and rolling my eyes at the same time. Each with a unique way of looking at life and approaching you (God). All of us learning together as we explored the land. A place that I was so afraid of, people I couldn't understand, it is all so close to my heart now... When uncomfortable becomes comfortable. Then I'm asked to leave and be where comfortable has become uncomfortable. Churches instead of mosques, Christmas music instead of the call to prayer, snow instead of rain, English instead of Hebrew or Arabic, set prices instead of bargaining, cars instead of walking, painted walls instead of stones, food instead of Margo's creations (the cook at the time), peace and quiet instead of the traffic and activity of the big city. Yet Christ remains the same. And so I cling to Him as my world changes around me...
Well, I can assure you that I most thoroughly adjusted back into life in the States. So now I'm back to adjusting into this culture again. It's been interesting to see what is different now that I am not a student and in lots of other ways at a different point in life as I was back then. I think for Dan and I we've had to not only adjust to the cultures in Israel, but also back into the culture of a college. After being out of college for 3 years, having a place of our own, and learning a new pattern in life, it really is quite different to be back in this environment. We have an endless supply of social interaction, plenty of people to play games with at any time that we'd like, lots and lots of fun to be had. But it also can distract me when I don't take the time away to think, read, or pray. I've found that I've come to like quiet activities - crafting, reading, even housework. So we're learning that balance again. If we want to be busy here, we definitely can be! But it is harder to spend a day "at home" when your kitchen serves 50 and you eat 3 meals a day with the community. So the quiet times take more work to create.
I also grew to like America. When I was in college I was out of sorts with the US. I think I was feeling too sheltered at school and in the Midwest. Many of the people around me looked and acted like I did. When I came to Jerusalem I found so many different worldviews and people all around us who thought and acted different than I did. It opened a world to explore that I hadn't touched before. But living in Chicago (although still in the Midwest) the last three years showed me that the US has more to offer than I thought. I met people who challenged my thinking in the way they viewed things. There was more diversity around me - which brought with it great places to eat and lots of possibilities for seeing more of the world in the city in which I was living. So now I miss America and continuing our little life and ministry there. I do feel like God is using us here, but I'm glad that I also feel that we had a place in Chicago.
It feels a lot different than I expected to take a year out of our normal life to be here. On the one hand it's kind of a care-free time with lots to see and do. That's what I expected it to be like - just a big adventure that I loved every minute of. On the other hand I find myself wanting to move right along with our life as it was and I think about when we get home a lot. I miss our friends and family and just normal life in America. Then I feel guilty for not loving every minute of my time here because I know it's a once in a lifetime kind of thing. But there's a lot of the daily grind in our work, so it's not going to be blue skies and butterflies all the time. There are a lot of challenges with the culture, the people, the systems of doing things (or even more the lack of systems) that make our days difficult. I hold onto knowing that God led us here - we both agreed this is what we should do, so it wasn't just me seeking an adventure. I trust my husband and I know that he walks with the Lord. That helps me to know that the hardships will be used to strengthen us and prepare us for the life ahead of us. I also know that when I'm settled back in at home and we're working and caring for a house and someday starting a family and life is kind of mundane and normal, I'll know that we did this and be very glad that we did. I would have always wondered what it would have been like to take this year away and serve in Jerusalem. We'll come home with great experiences and important life lessons. These are the things I think about when I get homesick.
Friday, October 29, 2010
The Past Month
Hey guys!
I'm really behind on posting on here and just don't know what of all the things that have happened in the last month to write about. So instead of trying to summarize one event, I decided I should just write a list of some of the things that we've done since I last posted on Septemeber 24th.
Dan's birthday happy face.
Lewis at 3 1/2 months with Grandpa.
Rehearsal. We didn't take any pictures ourselves the day of, we were too busy having a good time!
On a boat on the Sea of Galilee - beautiful morning.
I'm really behind on posting on here and just don't know what of all the things that have happened in the last month to write about. So instead of trying to summarize one event, I decided I should just write a list of some of the things that we've done since I last posted on Septemeber 24th.
- September 30th: Dan's birthday. Rampart walk around the Old City of Jerusalem and a delicious dinner at Focaccia topped off with the most wonderful Hot Chocolate Cake for dessert.
- October 8th: awake for 24 hours traveling back to the United States for Brad & Dana's wedding. Bonus: all you can watch movies/tvs on Canada Air. Felt sick from watching so much :)
- October 9th: Moore family bike ride to Council Grounds, ice cream, good food all day.
- October 10th: Seeing friends at Bible Pres., Adam & Meg Francour's wedding, seeing Fred, Virginia and Lewis.
- October 11th: Virginia's birthday! Good Lewis time, lunch at Epic with Fred & Virginia, Sushi for dinner at the Madison Moore's with Jeff & Carla joining us.
- October 13th-14th: Merrill time. Lunch at the Checkered Churn with Sue J., wedding preparations and hang out time with Brad and Dana, board games, phone conversations with friends and family.
- October 15th: Rehearsal and rehearsal dinner at the Candlewick B&B
- October 16th: Brad and Dana's Wedding day! Beautiful ceremony at Bible Pres. followed by dinner and dance at the Grand Theater banquet hall. Fun time had by all, so excited for the newly wed couple!
- October 17th: Trip to Chicago with Chris Cimino. Wonderful time catching up with friends in Chicago, attending small group Bible study.
- October 18th: Breakfast at Ann Sather's with our friend Robyn, picking up last few wanted items from America, long haul back to Jerusalem.
- October 23-26th: Field study to Galilee. Saw so many ancient sites, beautiful places, so much green, stayed in Kibbutz owned resort village cottage place. Good trip, so exhausted by the end.
- October 28th: visited the Renaissance festival in the Christian Quarter of the Old City. Highlight were the girls dancing with fire - batons, swords etc.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Kitchen Excitement
Last night was quite the night. We decided to make Chicken Parmesan with the Chicken Schnitzel patties that are of plentiful supply here. That went well - put the chicken in the oven and then added a piece of cheese on top. We don't actually have Parmesan... but that's ok :) We made Marinara sauce and noodles to go with the chicken. It came out well! When the Schnitzel was just about done our helper, Tamer, went to close the lower bottom door to the oven and lost his hold on it and let it drop. The door fell right off. The same thing happened a few weeks ago to our morning/lunch cook (wow, it's been long enough to say a few weeks and it still falls within the time we've been here!). He opened the door without oven mitts, found it too hot and let go and the force of the heavy door falling caused the little loop that holds it on to break and the door fell. When that originally happened our Campus Manager maintenance all around kind of guy welded it back together. I guess the welding wasn't strong enough because the door is off again! Here's our sad ol' oven with just 3 temperature settings, except now the bottom door is missing again.
But do not worry, that is not the end of our night's excitement. So we had no lower oven door, but everything was baked anyway and it still worked as a place to keep things warm. Dan and I served the students as we normally do until 6:30 when we take our own meal and either Tamer serves or everyone can serve themselves. When we came back up after eating there was a strange smell in the air. Tamer was in the back of the kitchen washing dishes and asked Dan if he smelled something and said his eyes were watering from the smoke in the air. So the three of us tried to smell out and find what was smoking. It smelled strange, almost electrical rather than a normal fire. We couldn't see anything smoking, but it was obviously in the air. So Tamer called William, the campus manager, and he told him to turn off the power since it could be something electrical and there is a main power something or other in the kitchen. So Tamer shut off the power to the entire campus. The whole place was black. It's funny how quickly people just adjust to the power going off. A few people found candles that they lit, others found flashlights right away and started to come up to find out what happened. Some students started a game of Sardines. We had to wait for awhile before William made it back to campus. In that time we also had gotten our flashlights and I wiped down all the tables in the dark and then started putting away leftovers by the light of my flashlight. William came and Dr. Wright also came to the kitchen to see what was going on and if help was needed. They discovered the source of the smoke - the dryer. There is a washer and dryer in the kitchen for the towels, rags, and apron/smocks. It had been filled with the kitchen smocks and towels, perhaps overfilled, and the clothes caught on fire. I didn't actually see the result, but I heard that they were inside the dryer smoldering. The rank smell was the plastic parts of the dryer burning. The guys pulled the dryer outside, hosed off the inside, pulled the clothes out and hosed them off too. We are glad it wasn't an electrical problem and that there were no other issues resulting from it. I had heard that you're not supposed the leave the dryer on when you're not home, now I know that's a real concern!
Monday, September 6, 2010
Introduction to the Kitchen
Hello to everyone from Jerusalem!
I know that is not new news... We have been here for two weeks tomorrow. I don't know if any of you can relate, but I've felt like I needed some time to settle in and get a bit more comfortable before talking about it too much. That phase has passed and now I will begin to share :) Of course I still might get distracted and have long breaks between posts. But that's to be expected, I suppose.
Anyway! Onto the good stuff, right? (I know, right?)
We have done and seen a lot, but for now I will mostly talk about the cooking and daily stuff since that is what the title is about. I don't have a lot of pictures of the kitchen yet, so stay tuned for that. A few things that we noticed first about the kitchen:
1. Oven temperature choices are 1, 2, and 3.
2. There is an abundance of chickpeas (even though we buy our hummus), olives, pickles, water chestnuts, and okra.
3. The pots are really heavy :)
4. There isn't much for measuring/weighing large quantities, we end up doing a lot of estimating.
5. Everything is in Hebrew, some things have English also. Time to learn our Hebrew alphabet!
There are between 50 and 60 people at a normal dinner. I'm still not entirely sure how many students there are exactly. There are also a few staff members who live on-campus who join us for dinner. We have cooked 9 meals now, so we're pretty much experts ;) Ok, not really. But we do feel like we've learned a lot since our first meal on August 27th.
Speaking of our first meal, here's a little story. Dan and I decided to make spaghetti for our welcome meal for the students when they arrived on that Friday. We would serve it with garlic pita (pita is the bread of choice here) and a fresh salad. So I looked up a spaghetti sauce recipe in my huge cookbook (it took up half my carry-on!) and we multiplied it to feed 60. First we didn't have enough canned tomatoes and had to try to figure something out with tomato paste instead (that pretty much threw following a recipe out the window), then we had to guess how much spaghetti noodles we were making since the bag wasn't in English. Well, we ended up making WAY too many noodles. We had lots and lots of leftovers and felt really silly about that. But what can you do? It was only our first time. A few days later we made some more sauce (since our last batch was a bit shy), layered the noodles with some cheese and stuck it in the oven to create a spaghetti bake. It was a huge hit and I think that might be the primary way we serve spaghetti here from now on :) It seemed to retain the moisture better, too. So that was our first night at work. I was really stressed and worried about everything. I've been that way on other nights as well, but so far everything has worked out ok. We've been 5 minutes late with dinner only twice :D
And just for proof that we're actually here...
And here are the students eating some food we didn't cook:
I know that is not new news... We have been here for two weeks tomorrow. I don't know if any of you can relate, but I've felt like I needed some time to settle in and get a bit more comfortable before talking about it too much. That phase has passed and now I will begin to share :) Of course I still might get distracted and have long breaks between posts. But that's to be expected, I suppose.
Anyway! Onto the good stuff, right? (I know, right?)
We have done and seen a lot, but for now I will mostly talk about the cooking and daily stuff since that is what the title is about. I don't have a lot of pictures of the kitchen yet, so stay tuned for that. A few things that we noticed first about the kitchen:
1. Oven temperature choices are 1, 2, and 3.
2. There is an abundance of chickpeas (even though we buy our hummus), olives, pickles, water chestnuts, and okra.
3. The pots are really heavy :)
4. There isn't much for measuring/weighing large quantities, we end up doing a lot of estimating.
5. Everything is in Hebrew, some things have English also. Time to learn our Hebrew alphabet!
There are between 50 and 60 people at a normal dinner. I'm still not entirely sure how many students there are exactly. There are also a few staff members who live on-campus who join us for dinner. We have cooked 9 meals now, so we're pretty much experts ;) Ok, not really. But we do feel like we've learned a lot since our first meal on August 27th.
Speaking of our first meal, here's a little story. Dan and I decided to make spaghetti for our welcome meal for the students when they arrived on that Friday. We would serve it with garlic pita (pita is the bread of choice here) and a fresh salad. So I looked up a spaghetti sauce recipe in my huge cookbook (it took up half my carry-on!) and we multiplied it to feed 60. First we didn't have enough canned tomatoes and had to try to figure something out with tomato paste instead (that pretty much threw following a recipe out the window), then we had to guess how much spaghetti noodles we were making since the bag wasn't in English. Well, we ended up making WAY too many noodles. We had lots and lots of leftovers and felt really silly about that. But what can you do? It was only our first time. A few days later we made some more sauce (since our last batch was a bit shy), layered the noodles with some cheese and stuck it in the oven to create a spaghetti bake. It was a huge hit and I think that might be the primary way we serve spaghetti here from now on :) It seemed to retain the moisture better, too. So that was our first night at work. I was really stressed and worried about everything. I've been that way on other nights as well, but so far everything has worked out ok. We've been 5 minutes late with dinner only twice :D
And just for proof that we're actually here...
And here are the students eating some food we didn't cook:
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