simple things

As you may have picked up, I enjoy baking. A lot.  And what better time to bake than at Christmas?  I have a growing list of cookies and treats accumulating for me to try out.  I'm thinking to create an arsenal of Christmas cookie recipes to use for years to come.

Sadly, the oven we are buying from the hospital was broken down -- but we were assured we could simply get the broken pieces from the US and all would be well. So that's what we did.  Electricians came multiple times in the last ten days to get the stove working, but in the end gave up. Something else was wrong and they couldn't fix it. I was ready to hop in the car to Nairobi to buy a replacement. I couldn't imagine Christmas without cookies!

There was a last ditch effort on Saturday to get it fixed. And it worked!

But when we turned the oven on the whole thing smoked, the inside was covered with soot, and the gas flame was yellow and lapping up into the oven. 

These are not good things.

I thought it might be because it just hadn't been used in a while.  Fortunately for me, Dexter (who'd given up the day going to tinker with the car) thought otherwise and was determined to set it right.  He called the electrician back and they worked some more and got it working properly!

I wasted no time getting right into the baking.  There's the oven decorated with a little Christmas cheer. The best part of this stove is that it is considerably bigger than the standard sizes here in Kenya.  Given the amount of baking I do it is nice to have two racks to get the job done faster! Or to do two different things at once!  It doesn't take much to make me happy.

Since I'm going to be munching on cookie crumbs a lot over the next few days, I thought it would be best to start the week off right.