TOM'S BIRTHDAY

Tom thought that it would be fun to make pizza for the Center to celebrate his Birthday.  So we announced it and said that anyone who would like to help was welcome.  Kakda was the first student to arrive and got to help make the pizza dough.  Bread is not a big item in their diets.  They had not witnessed yeast before so were amazed to see the dough rise and most wanted to touch it and  knead it.  I had fun teaching them that skill.  

 Awy, the Center cook and Teacher of the Bible was kind enough to get and prepare vegetables for the pizza toppings and for a vegetable plate.  There were cucumbers (which are sooo good in Cambodia), tomatoes, green peppers and Pineapple.  If you look closely you will see that their cooking utensils are a little different than mine back home.

 Makara was the first to knead bread.  She was simply patting the dough at first but soon learned that it was an exercise experience.  We made 3 batches of dough with 6 cups of flour each and made 6 large pizzas. We came up with a few new vocabulary words today.

Samrith and Sreyrath soon joined in cutting the vegetables.  The peppers and the Pineapple were cut to add to the pizza.  The Cucumber and the other veggies were used for the relish plate.  However, when pizza is available the Center Students are really not too interested in veggies.  They get those everyday. 

I hope that you can see the fancy way that pineapples are cut for sale.

Sinoun is familiar with the kitchen as she works with Awy regularly.  She prepared all of the pans for the pizza with oil.  Opening the cans of pasta sauce seemed to be a new experience for her as well.  Very few cans are opened in this kitchen and fresh items are purchased daily at the market nearby.

Quite a crew of students showed up to help make the pizza.  We prebaked the crust for about 10 minutes to stop the yeast as there is only room for one pizza in the oven.  So it took quite a long time to bake all of the pizzas.

Sreynich was impressed with the pizza after the students added sauce, ham, chicken, pepperoni, bacon, tomato, pineapple and green peppers and topped that with white cheddar cheese.  Shopping for the toppings was an eye opener.  Meat is quite expensive here as is cheese.  We bought a 5 pound brick of white cheddar cheese for about $25.  The chicken breasts were reasonable.  The sliced ham lunch meat was $4 per pound.  The bacon was a about $3 per pound.  The pepperoni was $9 for 2 rolls about a foot long.  The combination was very good.  We went to shops that catered to foreigners to get what we wanted.

 And the table is ready for about 24 people to share pizza, Pepsi and relishes.  Not quite enough room for everyone around the table but with pizza that is not a big deal.  Everyone seemed to have a good time and I do think that this was about the best pizza that I have ever made.  Must be the help of the students.  They seemed to enjoy it as much as Tom and I did.

 And for dessert....Oreo Cookies of course.  That is Tom's favorite so he shared them with 2 cookies each.  No one turned them down.  You can see that Tom still had a few to spare.  Everyone sang "Happy Birthday" to him and Tom and I sang the Birthday song that wishes God's Blessings to them.  

Notice.....the relish plate is not empty.

Floors are mopped after every meal.  That is nice since we all go barefoot inside.

The kitchen was almost clean after cooking, and the students cleaned after the meal.  What a great Day, as usual!!