Cookin' in Kosovo

Here was a little wake up call. I had this great idea to make cornbread to go with our chili tonight. Tom was nice enough to go to Camp Bondsteel the other night and buy some provisions at the PX. He bought some packages of Betty Crocker cornbread and muffin mix and Hormel Chili. I am all jazzed up about making this and having food like "back home". First thing I realize is the oven controls are kind of um, different. For one thing, the temperature only goes up to 275 degrees. So it dawned on me, "ohhhh....Celsius" so being internet-ready I happily Googled a Celsius-Fahrenheit chart (how does anyone on the planet exist without Google??). Then I set the oven temperature but there are all these other little pictures on the knobs that I have no idea what they mean. This could get interesting.
Back to Betty Crocker. I have eggs I bought from the green grocer today so -check. Milk - check....we bought some in a little carton at the Interex the other day. And I bought Gold Butter on Kelly's advice....she said it's the "only" kind to get here....it's imported from Germany. Butter-check. Then I realize that the butter wrapper does not have those handy little lines on it marking off tablespoons! So I'm eyeballing it. Tom doesn't have any measuring cups and spoons here, either. So I have to eyeball the milk, too......all I know is the little carton of milk is 0,5L....I wonder what the heck that is??? Half a liter, maybe? What's a liter? Forget it......right now the oven is starting to smell funny....I don't think Tom has ever had it on....I hope it isn't burning up the wood floor underneath!
2-24-06
Just realized I had forgotten to update this. The results of my Chili Dinner, while not exactly a disaster, it wasn't exactly a resounding success, either. The good part is I figured out what the little picture on the oven knob means....the one I used, anyway. Turns out I had it on broil! Now that I look at it, it is so obvious! Anyway, the result was that the cornbread looked okay (although I thought it baked awfully fast), it was gloppy in the middle. So I cut the outsides away and it was really good. Then the next mistake I made was putting the gloppy part back in the oven (yes, it was still on broil).....it came out charred in about 2 minutes! That was fun cleaning up that pan. No, I don't have a dishwasher here. I am the dishwasher. The good part on the dishwashing thing is, the water is about 212 degrees here. I guess there is a boiler ....not just your average hot water tank. I want one of these when we get back to Idaho.
The chili part was only so-so. I had added a can of diced tomatoes to the Hormel chili so I thought I could kick it up a notch with the package shown above of the red powdered pepper. It did NOT do a thing other than just make it very red! Good news, though, Marcia and Kelly gave me one of their extra jars of McCormick's Chili Powder....for the next time. Some friends had gone back to the States and brought them two jars. They couldn't use that much chili powder if they made chili every day for the remainder of the mission. Thanks Marcia and Kelly!