If we’ve left the impression in these posts about the Kinrowan Estate that the Several Annies, the Library Apprentices here, are the ones that are the learners and we who teach them are just the teachers, then we’ve given you a false impression. Everyone here learns as much from them as they do from us. Perhaps much more.
Take the matter of Rebekah, a Several Annie from Israel who’s in her first year here. Other than the formal lessons chosen by Iain Mackenzie, our Librarian, each one chooses what they are interested in learning, be it something academic or something more hands on. As long as someone here knows what they’re interested in and has time to teach them, it’s fine with Iain.
So Rebekah, who has a strong interest in baking, got paired off with Brigid, our Head Baker. Being observant of Jewish traditions but not following strict dietary teachings, she fit nicely in our farm-centric kitchen, which includes a lot of meat of various sorts. What she added to the kitchen was a keen appreciation of Jewish cooking, including holiday treats such as hametashen, rugelach, coconut macaroons and mandelbrot, not to mention an awareness of the culture that created these goodies.
So our winter holiday season has been graced by a lot of great food that we hadn’t had before. And Rebekah in turn says she’s had a great time learning the practical aspects of production baking. Even her parents were very proud of her decision to seriously learn production baking, as her grandfather, before moving to Israel to live on a kibbutz, owned a bakery with his late wife.
Now I’ve got the jones for some of the rugelach that I know were just baked. Shall we head down to the Kitchen?
