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Home cooking for Middle School boys
It's not a 9:00 - 5:00 job at Woodstock. As well as the weekly clubs (where Dot teaches crafts like knitting and cross-stitch to a group of kids) there's a monthly Saturday club. Last Saturday we had ten grade 6 boys up at the house for what was billed as "pancake making". The night before, we realised that trying to make pancakes with ten boys in a small kitchen wasn't a bright idea. We slept on it and decided on Saturday morning that what boys really want to do is light fires and cook stuff outside. So we ended up with the pancake makers in the kitchen and the "dhabba cooks" outside using two bricks to make a "chula" (a wood fire for cooking) and making "tawa rotis" (cooked on a "tawa", a flat steel pan).
Highly successful. The dhabba guys, mostly with some Punjabi heritage, turned out to be expert in mixing, kneading and rolling the dough, and the rotis rose beautifully. The pancake makers soon got the knack, and even managed to learn how to do the traditional English pancake-toss. Actually that descended into playing a form of badminton with two pans and a surplus pancake, but, hey, they have to have some fun!