Cooking Overseas

I like to think that I’m handy in the kitchen; I know that my family likes what I can pull off.  But cooking overseas can challenge anyone.  I was prepared for new ingredients or a small kitchen or not being able to read instructions on the back of the bags (thank you Google translate).  But I wasn’t prepared for this:

Yes, the stove top.  Such a seemingly easy thing to operate: push the “on” button, change the temperature of the burners, and off you go.

Except for the lock button in the bottom right corner.  Yup, every time you want to use the stove, you have to unlock it and then proceed with your cooking.  Do note the size of the cooktop however.  It is barely big enough for a good sized skillet and pot yet I’ve made teriyaki stir fry and rice (in a pot, not a rice cooker) and two different pastas on it so far.

Tonight’s challenge: the oven.

Where do you even start?  There are two dials.  One is clearly the temperature, in Celsius of course.  The other one?  Who knows?  And the 6 buttons in the middle?  Not sure what they do.  After some trial and error, I think that the buttons are for show.  Honestly.  I have no clue what they do and since there are no words, just some pictures, it really is hard to know.  The key was saying, “What the hey?” and turning dial on the left that says Shabbat.  I assumed it was used for keeping the oven warm on Shabbat but it’s actually the dial that controls bake or broil or convection.  It just happens to have a Shabbat setting too.

Hopefully our frozen schnitzel will be good tonight.  It's not going to hold a candle to something from a restaurant, which we will absolutely try, but it's easy and I'm still learning to navigate a kitchen the size of a New York City apartment's bathroom.