Adventures in the Kitchen

Sometimes ministry isn’t big and flashy.  Sometimes ministry means serving in whatever ways are needed, even ways you might not anticipate.  In our case that means cooking.  Among other things, cooking in Zambia can be difficult.  Of course, it’s all a matter of perspective.  We are blessed to have a kitchen here at all as well as a stocked pantry.  Many people in this area can’t say that, so we are certainly grateful for what we have!

Our team shares the cooking responsibilities, and we trade off who prepares each meal.  In case you’re wondering, we eat mostly bread, peanut butter, and bananas for breakfast and lunch, and dinner is anything from whole fish to rice and vegetables.  There’s nothing quite as disconcerting as having your dinner stare up at you from your plate.

Last night Susanna and I tackled dinner together, and oh my, was it an experience.  Our task was pretty simple since someone else has done quite a bit of prep work earlier in the day.  We needed to boil the pasta, and we knew we had to do it quickly because the power would go out at any minute.  (The power goes out every day or so for a few hours at a time.)  While we do have a stove in the communal kitchen, it’s a rather finicky one.  What we learned too late was that, for the particular burner we were using, when it’s off it’s on and vice versa.  Despite trying to boil water in the electric kettle and pouring it in the already hot pot, that water refused to boil.  We had no idea the stove was basically off the whole time.  After trying desperately for 45 minutes, the pasta, which had been sitting in the warm water the whole time, was getting soggy.  After awhile even the most adventurous cooks give up, so that’s exactly what we did.  And wouldn’t you know, if you put enough cheese on anything it still tastes good! 

Just minutes after we had all the food on the outdoor table, the power went out, not to come back on for several hours.  (It actually just came on as I’m writing this.)  Doing dishes in the dark is a whole other adventure of its own!