Saturday, November 18, 2006

 

TURN ABOUT IS FAIR PLAY

You all know by now about Elad my CM (Computer Mumche). He has saved my life many times over. He knows everything about computers - how to make them behave - how to make them do what you want them to - he can even talk me through a problem on SKYPE - I'm sitting here - he's sitting there - and he just tells me what button to push - and Voila! - problem solved.

I always feel such an idiot - the solutions are so obvious - why didn't I see them? He never makes me feel an idiot - he makes me feel that it's just an area in which I don't excel. Smart boy.

So - a few weeks ago Elad moved into a new flat with his new girlfriend. (Absolutely darling - the girlfriend.... the flat I don't know about.) And this flat has a real oven - not the toaster-oven he's been cooking with all this time. Derechagave (by the way) - did I tell you that Elad is a real cookie maven? He simply cannot begin to work on my computer unless he has something to drink and a plate of my home made cookies in front of him.

He decided - as long as he has a real oven - that he wanted to bake cookies. As part of my lesson
he told me to send him an attachment with a cookie recipe. Yes - I'm finally able to send an attachment. Simple, you say. Simple for you - difficult for me.

Then came the phone calls - "How much is in a cup"? Simple - a cup is eight ounces. "How big is a cup? A teacup? A coffee cup?" No - a measuring cup - but a measuring cup for dry ingredients. Aha - but here we use milligrams or millilitres or kilograms - not American cups, or pounds or ounces. So I did the conversion for him.

Then came another phone call - "What's do you mean when you say bake at 350 degrees?" Again "Aha" - here we use celsius (centigrade) not farenheit - so again I did the conversion and told him it was 180 degrees celsius. (The British use the term "gas mark 5" instead of degrees - but that's another problem just to make life exciting when you are trying to convert recipes.)

A third phone call - he has no vanilla essence but he has vanilla beans - can he use them? Of course, I said - and told him what to do - including putting the empty pod into a jar of sugar so that he will then have vanilla sugar.

And a fourth phone call - "The cookies aren't hard." Right, I said - that's why they're called Chewy Oatmeal Cookies - they're not meant to be hard.

And that's when the lightbulb went on - we each have our own area of expertise. That's when I began to feel as clever in my field as he is in his field. I can bake and cook with my eyes closed - and read a recipe and know what it will taste like. Hooray for me! But I can't straighten out my computer to save myself.

By the way - he said that the cookies were delicious.

Stay Safe.

Rena

Comments:
everybody loves your cookies...me? my favourite are the chocolate chip merangueeee ones...oy the diet, the diet!!! stay safe
 
Is that a hint? OK - after Thanksgiving.
 
chocolate chip merangueeee
that is a good reason to come to jerusalem
Ilanit
 
So when are you coming to visit? Let's do dinner - or a Saturday lunch - just let me know.
 
Post a Comment



<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?