Monday, July 19, 2010

B-n-KayKay's Kichen & Other Random Craziness

This past week was a Blast! A mixture of sugar, caffeine and a new responsibilities!

Our cook is on vacation and since I am the "trained in everything" girl, these next couple weeks I am the cook! At the beginning of the week I was not feeling 100% excited about this but now I am lovin' it! This is only because of the development of B-n-KayKay' Kichen. B is another volunteer that I am teaching the kitchen stuff too. And of course, I am KayKay. We have turned the cooking into a crazy experience. We may not be the most efficient or speedy cooks, but we are by far the funniest! I think any mistake possible has happened while we were making blondies, cookie, raspberry bars! Like when I got into a fight with the whisk..... or got butter all over myself and the counter.... or the time we were going to make a 1/2 batch and got talking and oops it's a full batch..... or how about when the marshmallows boiled over and attacked the stove top....... Maybe not the most efficient cooks, but by far we are the most fun! Our craziness has also ran out of the kitchen and spilt over into the coffee bar. With the development of iced mochas, iced chia tea lattes, and changes to our cold drinks. We began experimenting again and started testing it out on our friends!


Thursday morning we took an early trip the the St. Peter and St. Paul Cathedral. I took our 2 new volunteers to see it. Well... one of them is a history guy that likes to explore old buildings. As he was walking around the smaller chapel on site, trying to find a way in he stumbled upon a fence. And behind that fence was a skeleton! So, I immediately became interested. After hearing a few words in English the team digging up the skeleton opened the gate and had a chat with us. They are excavating 2 different sites near the Cathedral. They have found parts of the church, graveyard, and some other buildings. All of these pieces they have found date back to the 15th century. And we got a private tour of it all by the guy in charge of the excavating! One of the volunteers even got to climb down into the whole and check out stuff with them! It was so neat to see the discovery in progress and it was really impressive to see a skeleton from the 15th century being discovered









Finally, we have been given new rules and some new coffee skills this week. As much as I just love rules..... (since when do I follow rules) these ones needed to be adapted.... Well, ok maybe they are good, we just need to find creative ways to follow through with them. So, I have to wear an apron all the time now.... well aprons make great capes! And I am learning how to make the best shot of coffee ever and how to educated the people on the best shot of coffee. And that is a great task for......
Super Coffee Girl!


Yes! It has been a fun week!

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Time Flies And We Keep Moving On

I had a realization that I have not written anything in a really long time! We are in some ways really busy at the shop and in other ways things are moving slowly.

We are pushing full steam ahead with the Krakow shop. In a week there will be a meeting with the final contract signing for the building. Once that happens it will be a push of work to get the shop open in October. There is a lot to get done in a couple months! Luckily we have one Work & Witness team coming from Pittsburg! Yes, my home church is coming in the beginning of August to work on the shop. I am excited! I was given the job to be the organizer on the Poland side of things for the Team. It is not as easy of a job as I expected. But, it is going to be a great experience!

At the Poznan shop, things are slowly trucking a long. We had a great Bon Appetite Party! We sold lots of drinks. Everyone loved the food we sampled! The band was great! We changed our hours at the shop and added all the salads, wraps, and baguettes to the menu. However, the students have left the city for holidays and the temp is rising, so our business is declining. We are hanging in there and brainstorming different ways we can build the business back up.

We had a new volunteer couple arrive from the States a couple weeks ago. They are amazing people with a huge passion for coffee and ministry! I am excited to see all of the plans and suggestions they have to bring changes in the shop. I have also had the privilege of showing them different things around Poznan in the mornings before we go to work.

I am now trained in every aspect of the shop! I am now a master behind the bar and in the kitchen! I tried very hard to be fired out of the kitchen during my training the past few weeks. But, no matter how many questions I asked, spoons I dropped, or challenges I made, I was not kicked out of the kitchen! I think our Chef found me more entertaining then challenging. I guess I am destined to be stuck in the kitchen after all!

Please continue to pray for us as we try to find ways to bring business in the Poznan shop back up. Also, pray for the Krakow shop, that we get all the contract settled so we can begin the work of getting that shop open!