For the past several times when I came to make a dinner at ODS, J. asked whether we can make tomato soup and grill cheese sandwiches. Both were not in my personal cook book, but both sounded like easy to make (and it was sort of a shame I never made them myself). We made plans, and she specifically asked to make grilled chees sandwiches on the sourdough bread. I told her to make sure to tell the staff who will be shopping for ingredients what they should purchase.

We started with the soup because it was more work. Everything went great except for when we desided to puree the ready soup with the blender. It was “not required” but the recipe suggested that if we would do it, we should puree the soup in batches. Again, averything went great except for the last (the third) batch: I do not know what I did wrong, but when we were done, I couldn’t get the blender off the base of the blender, and somehow turned it the wrong way so that the top got detached, and a super hot soup pored down. I tried to catch at least some of it (my mistake), and a as a result, the half of my left hand got burned: it all turned red and was hurting really badly. And unfortunately, they didn’t have the anti-burn lotion in their first aid box.

Fortunately, there was an ice box on the counter, and I had en empty plastic bag in my backpack, so for the next hour-plus, I was holding a bag of ice over my left hand, changing the ice every 15 minutes. After an hour, I saw definite improvement, and knew that there was no permanent damage. Honesty, it was the first time in my life the burning made so little harm. My hand hurt after I had to throw away the last portion of melted ice when I was on the train, but it lasted for a very short time. By next morning, I didn’t feel anything, and I only a very small portion of my left tumb had some pink on it, the rest of the skin was fine.

Oh, and we made the sandwiches after the mess was cleaned, and they turned out amazing! I will definitely make them at home, and maybe I will even give another try for a tomato soup!

The last time I was at ODS, I spoke with one of the staff, N, who always supports my efforts to make a difference and loves my cooking, especially baked salmon. We agreed to try to make a baked salmon dinner when I am back from the conference. Although I am “not supposed” to communicate with staff directly, with the absence of a coordinator, it was my only option.

Everything worked great, and it turned out that no matter how infrequently I come to the ODS these days, everyone remembers baked salmon :). All ingredients were purchased, except that I asked to buy eight lemons, and there were only two (although big ones :))

In addition to making baked salmon and mashed potatoes (which are also an all-time hit), I brought half of the apple cake, which I baked on Sunday, and the amount of praise and the number of “thank you”-s was way above average.

That’s all I need. I am happy that I made other people happy 🙂 and received so much good vibes!