Kitchen Recognition + Photo Journal Preview

I suppose if I'm going to do a photo journal, writing about it might be a good idea. But first, a word of unrelated news. At the beginning of his fundraising spiel Saturday night, Ari told a story about Isabella Freedman's team-based work philosophy that appeared in the kitchen last week:

"We have a number of non-Jewish staff and we decided to give them time off for Christmas so they could celebrate with their families. Our executive chef is one of those people. Also, last weekend, our sous chef's grandmother passed away and she was headed home, too. After I received this news, before I even made it over to the kitchen to find a solution, one had already been formed. And so, the potwasher, the dishwasher [me], a dining hall intern, and your yoga teacher/retreat manager were your chefs this week. And Adam (potwasher) was up until 5 am Thursday night baking challah for Shabbat."

Adam, Jonas, and I were in attendance and received great applause. Adam truly didn't leave the kitchen until 5 am Friday, after a 19 hour shift. Ahron and I happened over to the kitchen Thursday even in search of snacks and found Adam in a bind, not having touched the pots and pans from dinner but still over 100 challah rolls short. He'd only just found out earlier that day that the silent retreat needed two challah rolls for each retreatant to make an individual motzi, and by 11 pm there were 140 out of an ordered 260. So, we volunteered to help make dough for the rest. And the tablespoon extra yeast I added (compromising between a written recipe and the math I thought it got wrong) turned into a monstrous amount of dough and brought the total production to 366 rolls.

Anyway, Celena, our executive chef since Pesach, left us on Thursday and now in charge are Jen (previously sous chef), Merav (previously dining hall intern), and Adam (still potwasher extraordinaire), with me popping in occasionally when I'm not washing dishes, taking out the garbage, organizing cookware, or testing a new green cleaning product. The kitchen has turned away from a one-person-barking-orders led department to a flatter, team-based organization with vastly improving operations. Oh, and Julie's back as baker again and we're all joyed at that!

• • •

Two months ago, I took ownership on my first digital camera, at the same time completely changing my perspective on photography, especially of people. I'm still not fond of staged/posed people photos, but most of the pictures I'm taking are still scenery and people in various types of motion. I got a really good deal on a Nikon Coolpix P5100, Nikon's current top-of-the-line point-and-shoot camera, one I expect will last me many years. Some features I'll use right away; others will take me time to read and learn about.

Together with the latest version of iPhoto that came out over the summer, I'm revolutionizing the way I share my life with you. iPhoto is now event-based, meaning it follows the natural tendency to take a bunch of photos of a particular event and separates them from photos of other events. I've submitted a couple dozen of my photos so far to Isabella Freedman for potential inclusion in the 2008 program catalog.

Now, I've decided to journal the changing seasons at Isabella Freedman with focus on Lake Miriam and the life on its banks. I only just sparked the idea a couple days ago, and was greeted by the beauty of falling snow this morning to begin the journal. I took a couple dozen photos of it today, though only a few scenes will officially be part of my daily journal.

I haven't decided if this will be my last post to Blogspot, as I might switch to using my .Mac account. I might stick to writing in MacJournal or I might switch to iWeb. I'll let you know, but in the meantime, you can view Seasons of Lake Miriam 2008.