Cookin'

Me cooking in the kitchen!

Yes, I’m currently back in the USA, but I still wanted to share what I did in Norway! Ok, back to me serving in Ålesund. I have to say they run a pretty tight ship in the kitchen, the meal plan is organized in advance, the menu is international just like the students at the base. They have a different main dish recipe every night and try not to repeat meals throughout the DTS year.  Rice however, seems to be popular, seriously I think I made rice everyday one of the weeks I’ve was cooking.  The students enjoy Chinese, Norwegian, Italian, Mexican, French, American cuisines.  

YWAM students dishing up

One of the responsibilities I took on was doing the dinners at the base each night. Dinner is ready and on the serving table by 4pm.  There were two of my favorite recipes that made it on the weekly menu (in place of others), chicken cacciatore and ribollita soup.  Meals are served buffet style. When the food is set out I got everyone’s attention, tell them about the meal, picked someone to pray and choose what table gets to be first dishing up their food. Mondays and Wednesdays I had students in the kitchen with me, helping prepare the dinner that night, which was a lot of fun.

Coffee cake for breakfast!

They helped me learn some Norwegian while in the kitchen together and it’s always fun just getting to know people and talking about food. This also provided the opportunity to teach them some new kitchen skills to tips too. One guy made the comment after I was explaining the “why” behind what I was doing, “that sounds like chef talk”. That question comes up a lot, are you a chef? Students who graduate culinary school don’t get the title, chef. Chef is something we used in school to refer to our instructors, which creates a lot of respect around the word for me. So I don’t call myself a chef, mostly for that reason. Kokk is the Norwegian word for cook, by the way :)  

Front entrance to the cafe

As far as breakfast, lunch and supper, the students normally take care of that themselves. I did two breakfasts for them just to switch up their routine and have something other than bread in the morning. Since it is a creative school and all I had fun with the coffee cake (recipe I got from Belize) and served it on colorful tray in coffee cups. The other breakfast I did was a big batch of scrambled eggs with different toppings for them to put on, cheese, tomatoes, fresh basil and green onions. The students weren’t expecting it so I think the breakfasts went over well with them :)

Food at Lyspunktet

Lyspunktet, what an awesome café (Christian owned and operated)! Everything from the atmosphere to the food, to the employees, to the standards upheld makes this place extremely successful in my eyes. And yet another testimony to God’s favor. Lyspunktet doesn’t serve alcohol and when it first opened the local pub and bar owners laughed at the concept of only coffee house/café. It has been around for several years now and has really become a well-known hot spot in Ålesund. Praise God! 

It worked out very well that they needed someone to cover a few shifts and I was there ready to serve so they put me on the schedule.  I did cooking, serving, clearing, washing dishes and closing. Probably the most crazy time was when there were 15 chocolate milkshakes ordered in a row and the blender over heated! I had to do them one by one with their old fashioned drink mixer. Little crazy, little messy but all good :) It was nice to see familiar faces there too, some of the students from YWAM help out at the café as well.  I pray for continued success for Lyspunktet and the students at the base!

God bless,

 

Auntie X 4!!!

Me & Krissy moments before delivery

Khloee Faith Mitchell

Indescribable what being in the delivery room with my older sister Krissy felt like, as my niece was being born. My nose was running, the tears of joy were coming and I was just praying to our Lord and King Jesus Christ!  8:41am this morning she was born. What a miracle, was one of my first thoughts, all the sudden there is this tiny baby with that newborn hiccup sounding cry and I was beyond amazed. 

Khloee and me

My sister did beautifully and the caesarian section was done in less than an hour. Praise God for babies and the gift of life! It's another one of those incidences where you are able to see God's faithfulness. There was much prayer for a healthy baby and smooth delivery in the months leading up to today and everything went so well. We have a good God!  

Watching the nurse wrap Khloee up nice and tight in a swaddle I thought to myself, she looks like a little jellybean and that may be the nickname I have for her :)  So precious, so sweet and in the delivery room before she was born I told Krissy that I’m getting the sense that Khloee is going to do something special (in life). 

God Bless,

Some Historic Sights

Throwing rocks into the pond with Jeanette.

The three of us took a little trip to the Sunnmøre Museum. A fun cultural side note first. Byron and I picked up Jeanette from her daycare before this outing and I saw first hand one of Norway's corky (I think) traditions. Outside of the daycare I noticed this long row of baby strollers neatly parked under a little roof, as if it was made specifically for them. And it was, Norwegians have their babies sleep outside! The fresh air is "proven" to help them sleep better. I saw this more so practiced with moms who are visiting someone's house or at daycare etc. But it is totally true. Most likely, there were several babies bundled up tight and peacefully sleeping outside when we walked by. Just a fun fact that surprises me and I can't blame them, the air is wonderful here.
Alright back to our sight seeing adventure. On the property of this outdoor museum there is a  church (where Byron and Martha got married). We took a quick peek inside the picturesque church then strolled down the trail to a beautiful pond and where some Viking house are. We saw houses for livestock, a school for orphans and a few houses that looked like they were probably mansions back in the day. Beautiful craftsmanship and I took note of the use of wooden pegs. There were houses from the 1600’s even, pretty cool. We saw a few Viking ships too. Another cool outing in Ålesund.

Wooded peg securing front door step.

Earlier this year back home in Ballard, a group of us from church went to “Viking Days” at the local Nordic Heritage Museum. We toured the museum, did some crafts and had fun exploring the interactive Scandinavian inspired outdoor activities. Anyways, there was an activity where you could make your own pegs hammering wood through a piece of metal with several sizes of holes in it, creating a wooden peg. So walking around this outdoor museum in Norway, looking at how all these buildings were constructed I see all these round pegs. It brings be right back to this cute memory of watching Josh determined to make peg after peg and not wanting to stop :) We saw a few Viking ships too.

Another historic sight I saw was this house that has quite the story behind it. Here is my short version. So, alcoholism was huge in Ålesund in the early 1900’s.  Despite the preaching on repentance, the town soon experienced a great awakening. Around that same time a Christian man, Anders Nord heard from the Lord that a great catastrophe will soon happen and if he and his family stay in their house they will have nothing to fear. 2am on January 23, 1904 a local margarine factory went up in flames. 

House untouched by 1904 fire!

The fire spread fast through the town of wood houses and buildings, people were fleeing to the shore and to their boats for safety, but Anders stayed in his house as the Lord said. Ten thousand people were homeless because of the fire but his house was unharmed by the fire and stands to this day. Praise God for his faithfulness! The town was rebuilt in the charming Art Nouveau style we see today.

God Bless,

Happy Halloween!

Jeanette and I carving pumpkins.

Now I feel the holidays approaching! Just love the cold crisp air, the leaves blowing in wind and the smell of fresh pumpkin. It took searching in two stores but we found pumpkins to carve, mine came to about $6.00 (USD)! But it was worth it. It's one of those activities that brings you back, you get a little messy pulling out all the "pumpkin guts,"  get to be creative designing a face and get practice your knife carving skills! All good. It was such a fun afternoon :)

Mine & Jeanette/Byron's pumpkins.

Although Norway doesn't celebrate Halloween, a few Americans here keep  some of the traditional activities alive. For example, they had a pumpkin carving contest at the YWAM base. That reminds me, canned pumpkin like we get in the states isn't sold here, only canned pickled pumpkin (yuck!) It is a common item on the wish lists for the missionaries here, lets just say Barry's luggage was pretty heavy coming into Norway :)

Jeanette with face paint from church.

There can be lots of discussion on Halloween from a Christian stand point and such, one of those things where knowledge can change a holiday for you. I like to keep things simple and sweet to where it all comes down to where your heart is. It's funny too because only God knows our hearts. The past two Halloweens I've been a believer, I've volunteer at a Church Halloween Carnival, a "safe zone" with games, crafts and of course candy.  The church down the street, Philadelphia Church, coincidentally enough is doing the same thing, calling it Hallo Venn (Hello Friend). I might have to go and check it out, love to see all the kiddy costumes! Pumpkins from the base (below).

               Happy & safe Halloween to all! 

God Bless, 

Awesome Ålesund!

View from the dinning room of the YWAM Base

Wow, what a change. Climate, temperature, people and food! And I’m enjoying all of it! Bread is still a big staple here, as I found in the Mediterranean as well. Lots of bread, sometimes they have it 4 times a day. Fun fact: Most Norwegians have 4 meal times, breakfast, lunch, dinner then supper.

Bread, jam, brown cheese, ham & cheese

In Norway I’ll be serving at the Creative YWAM Base in Ålesund. It is a prophetic school of the arts.  With the vision of developing the creative abilities and giftings God has given and use them to express and communicate His heart. There are different “tracks” students come to focus on; fine art, acting, music, dance or film. These students are here 9 months doing what’s called a DTS (Discipleship training school) where they cultivate their craft, learn and grow in the Lord, perform and participate in an outreach as well.

Byron, Liam, Jeanette & Martha Eggehorn.

This is the first location where I actually know people (missionaries) from my home town, more specifically, Byron and Martha Eggehorn. Both of them are part of the YWAM staff and Byron’s brother Barry is a guest teacher for Creative Week, that happens once a month. Flew in from Seattle to teach 5 days on song writing. Such a talented, creative family and it’s been so much fun spending time together! There are 30 students and about 22 staff and since it’s Creative Week at the base there are guest teachers too. I have been cooking dinner for the students and staff and really loving the transition from the computer business work I was doing in Albania to cooking with colorful foods and awesome smells and just hanging out in the kitchen with people. YWAM also is associated with a really cool café in downtown Ålesund, called Lyspunktet (point of light), I’ll be serving there too. 

Barry teaching in the music studio.

Everyone has been so welcoming at the base, it really is a close knit group of people. Once a month there is Family Night for staff, guests and previous YWAM students to fellowship, pray together, enjoy a treat etc.  It was so sweet that they prayed for me and did what Barry calls “popcorn prophesy”, about my stay here in Norway.  I’ve never had that done for me before, it was very special and they shared some cool things. We’ll see what the Lord has in store, it’s all good so far! 

God Bless,

Street fair & the Dentist

This was a fun event that came together pretty quickly. I had no idea other than we were serving hamburgers, hot dogs and some nachos. Laura, Pat and I went to church and headed to the street fair that was celebrating 20 years of renewed friendship between the peoples of the United States and Albania. Things were already in full gear when we got there and I was just planning on putting on an apron and helping out. It was crazy busy, constant hungry people from about 12:30 to 4:00.

This was the first time The Stephen Center crew has done anything like this, the constant flow of customers for fast food was new for them and I think a good learning experience too. I had a great time, just trying to stay on top of replenishing the buns, cheese, mayo, and lettuce. At one point we ran out of relish for the hot dogs while there were about 15 hot dogs left on the grill. The younger chef told me not to cut any more buns since we are out of relish. 

Laura, US Ambassador Alex & Chris

A conclusion he came to that no relish= no hot dogs ordered. I glanced at the grill saw the dogs and said the grill dictates what we prep, if you see hot dogs cooking, we prep what we have, if you see hamburgers cooking, you prep the buns. It was also one of the longest times I was working along side them in the mix of things. A lot of my work recently has been in front of my computer. Oh and I almost forgot, U.S Ambassador to Albania Alexander Arvizu made an appearance and got a hotdog! Who would have thought I would see a "famous" person in Albania.

Me, Agustine, Kao (Dentist)

At the Dentist

I first learned about Agustine (Albanian teenager)in February when Chris and Laura visited. I have been praying for him ever since, for his procedure approval at the Shriner’s Hospital in Springfield, Massachusetts (straightening his back), and then for his surgery once he was approved and then his healing. Such an testimony to God’s work! Been looking forward to meeting this 15 year old boy for 7 months now and what a sweetheart he is. Speaks excellent English, is very good with computers, has a great sense of humor and loves the Lord. His testimony has already been shared to so many people. Another missionary friend of Chris and Laura's came to Tirana for a week with his whole mobile dentist office set up. He set up shop in the downstairs of The Stephen Center and worked on the employees, local school kids  and Agustine. I happen to come down during Agustin’s visit, his first visit dentist ever.  The set up was quite impressive, from the sterilizing machine to the dentist chair made of cardboard. All to provide dental care to people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to have their teeth worked on. Kao (Dentist), asked if I wanted to be a dental assistant and had me use the suction wand while he was working on Agustine. That’s a hat I’ve never worn but I felt for Agustine and wanted to help speed up his first dental experience (shots, drilling and fillings).

New menu look

The menu update: We've been through 3 rounds of drafts with the menu. Applied some menu strategy as far as where the placement of certain cost items should go etc. I don’t know how many hours I spent in front of my computer but at one point I had to take a breather and walk down the road, pick up a treat for later, walk back to the restaurant, order a banana split, watch part of a football (soccer) game and that seemed to do the trick. I was able to get back to work and meet the goal I set for myself that night. It’s about 90% complete at this point, just a little tweaking here and there. Can’t wait to see the finished product, and hope my work on it blesses The Stephen Center. The staff has been so kind and helpful in working with me on this project, making it an enjoyable experience all around!
PS-In Norway now! :)

God Bless,

Menu & Food Safety

Drafts of new menu

In the past week things have really been picking up here. The data collecting, analyzing and meetings of the previous weeks have set us up to design and create the new menu. I’ve never done something quite like this before so it’s a great learning experience for me and something that has been on the back burner for over a year now for them. Needless to say, my laptop has become my best friend, we are inseparable, many hours in front of it typing, designing and revising.

Me styling food for menu pictures

Laura has been working with me on this project, making the long hours fun and filled with laughter. We seem to get a little silly towards the end of the night from the intense time and focus we’ve been giving to this project. When I first met Chris and Laura in February, we “clicked” right away and now working alongside them, God is confirming that I was to serve in Albania, though the enjoyment and progress of the projects I’m working on. Praise God!! He is Good! I love Chris and Laura’s heart for God and there have been some good teaching moments too. I’m learning a lot from them and my eyes are being opened to new things.

Toni & I facilitating the Food Safety Class

                       In addition to the creating a new physical menu and critiquing the flavor of the food, I have been focused on food safety. It’s pretty funny because back home one of the phrases I get teased about saying a lot in the kitchen is, “Did you wash your hands?” and one of the first things I do here, is take the servers and cooks through a food safety class. Using a projector, the online presentation I had to complete to renew my food handlers card and Toni, the restaurant manager translate it in Albanian. The class lasted less than 2 hours, covered basic food safety information and brought up some good conversations between the employees.

Alesund, Norway

I’m really trying to make a good push to get some big things done before my little stint in Norway, in a week. I’m extremely excited about that opportunity. Among several reasons, for one, I’ll be putting on the chef hat more so than the business hat and have a change in scenery, boats, water, snow topped mountains, ahhhhh… It will be the third language I hopefully get to learn too!

Ok back to Albania, lots of stuff to do, God give me the wisdom, knowledge, energy and waking hours to complete the work I’ve started, may it be of high quality and bless The Stephen Center for years to come. Amen!

And thank you to those who took my little survey :)

God Bless,

Research

Check out the little survey I put to the right of the screen. Just curious what you think and I'll use the info to help improve The Stephen Center! Thanks.

God Bless,

The Albanian Kitchen

The Stephen Center

This particular opportunity is the most multifaceted of my travels so far. Cognitively pulling on knowledge from all of my previous schooling, from culinary, business and I guess a little bit of my fashion school as well. I had to laugh at myself about getting excited over the idea of doing a market survey, to get feedback from the local missionaries that The Stephen Center gets most of its’ business from. There is an art and strategy to putting together a survey- something I learned at UW and it excites me that I might get to do it in "real life" now and not just for a grade.

Me helping with catering job

Some of my time has been spent in the kitchen watching the crew; servers and chefs complete tickets. There, I’m mainly looking at accuracy, timing, communication and cleanliness. I’ve helped with a few of their catering jobs which is a lot of fun too, since God gave me the passion for organization :) 

This has also been a good time to build relationships with the Albanian staff (really the only Albanians I’m in contact with). One of the women in the kitchen is helping me learn Albanian, which is a lot of fun and beginning to become a passion for me (learning languages). Inevitably I’m also learning about the Albanian culture, their food culture in particular. There is one Albanian item on the menu which the 21 year old Albanian chef said he had for breakfast growing up, an egg and pepper sandwich. Picture an omelet with thinly sliced green peppers placed in between two pieces of white bread with a slice of cheese, then placed in a panini press. Haven’t tried it yet but doesn’t sound too bad? The other Albanian dishes I’ve had in restaurants nearby are hard to describe (don't ask me the names) but I would classify them as comfort food meals, warm, hearty and simple.

Albanian lunch (also served with rice)

Ok, back to The Stephen Center- they are blessed to have a good size kitchen to work in but I keep getting the feeling that they need some new equipment and possibly a different layout to really make the kitchen run efficiently.  I’ve taken pictures and created a diagram of the current kitchen and emailed them to some seasoned chefs I know in the industry to get their opinion. Another part of my time has been with the awesome accounting lady who is very helpful, patient and takes the time to explain the printouts I’ve asked for. That has been one huge eye opener, how different the accounting is, not wrong but presented differently than I was taught. Honestly, it took a lot of brain power to understand what numbers meant what as she was breaking it down for me. I’ve also spent a good amount of time analyzing the menu as far as taste and popularity.  

I was joking just the other day, saying it’s hard being a food critic, I had to try the strawberry waffles today :) what is funny, all the staff watches for my reaction when I go to take a bite. In culinary school I encountered this a lot, constantly sampling food I made, other students made, or the chef instructors made.  It’s a humbling feeling because I don’t feel like some expert whose word is law but more so my heart is to help/serve The Stephen Center wherever they need it. And since they ask for my opinion I give it to them.  I’ll share one critique I had, it was with the pancakes. 

Chris doing side by side taste test

Flavor was slightly different and texture was heavier as well. Go to find out they had been using semolina flour (traditionally used for pasta dough) instead of all-purpose flour. We did a side by side comparison and sure enough everyone agreed the all-purpose tasted better and more like home for the Americans and as far as texture was concerned, we changed the consistency of the batter. So there you go. 

Still a good amount of work to do but it's exciting and I pray I'm doing it in God's strength and not my own. Praise God for this serving/learning opportunity for me! He is just simply amazing and filling my heart with love, in more ways than one:) 

God Bless,

Tirana

Albanian Flag

My first week in Tirana was getting to see some of what Chris and Laura are involved in. Chris is quite the visionary and Laura is an extremely hard worker, the two seem to complement each other very well. Their network of ministries spans 3 countries here in the Balkan region of Europe so we only saw a portion of it all. Bob, Pat and I had the pleasure of visiting one of Chris’ visions in progress, the rehabilitation center for handicapped kids. 

Inside the restaurant

God’s grace has been on this project from its inception with the physical building being donated and constructed by one group of generous people, the interior walls completed with the quality volunteering hands of another group. Still needs electrical, equipment, staff etc. but as you know, our Lord is our one provider. Can’t wait to see the impact this place will have once it gets up and running. The second place we visited was the terminally ill children’s wing of the local hospital here in Tirana. 

John 3:16 on sugar packet

 Laura organizes catered cinema days for the kids with pizza and gifts and lots of fun. My heart really responded to that idea. As we were walking through the halls I was getting ideas of a fun craft day I could organize for them. We spoke with the woman who oversees this area of the hospital and asked what the needs are. She was very humble and sweet and thanked us for visiting and our interest to help. Not the easiest of days, reminds me to praise God for the healthy kids in my life.

Outdoor seating at restaurant

The Stephen Center Restaurant and Bed & Breakfast are rather nice. I love the outdoor seating, perfect in the cool mornings before the heat and traffic has set in. My mission in Albania is to kind of act like Gordon Ramsey on Kitchen Nightmares. Without the swearing, loud outbursts and violent behavior. Essentially, I’m here to critique, for lack of a better word, the restaurant. Everything from the wait staff, timing, catering, service, menu, taste, organization, costs and income. 

Chinese Chicken Salad

It’s more of a consulting role I’m in right now. What makes it pretty interesting is that I’m alone in the kitchen with 3-7 Albanian speaking staff with only 2 somewhat speaking English. I’m also working closely with the accountant to pull up records to analyze cash flows, which I enjoy as well. Praise be to God, with the college I’ve done, business administration and culinary arts, I’m pulling from both those backgrounds to hopefully help improve The Stephen Center and keep it running well!

International Protestant Assembly

Sunday the six of us Bob, Chris, Pat, Ken, Linda (vacationing missionaries from Czech Republic) and I went to the International Protestant Assembly where Bob gave the message. After being in Greece for 3 weeks it was nice having an English speaking pastor as well as English worship music. There were about 100 or so people in attendance and quite a lively bunch at that.

Pastor Bob Forseth Preaching

Two older gentlemen were dancing in the aisle and I heard several whistles during worship as well. Many of the songs were upbeat with the sound slowly building in intensity. Just so much fun! Creating music is such an awesome art and I'm gaining more and more respect for those very talented people who do that :) Visiting churches around the world has been an amazing part of my adventure. I love that I can go to a church and be welcomed by God's children and instantly feel at home. We are all part of one huge family in Christ. That's the way I felt visiting this church for the first time, like family.

God Bless,