Electrical calamity # 2

Imagine my dismay to one day be in the middle of cooking a meal for a guest and run out of gas in the middle... I took it in stride, however, and promptly called the front desk to bring me another smelly canister. Unfortunately, the price of gas in Iraq had gone up enough that our hotel hosts decided to replace all the gas cookers with electrical units.

Sigh... Although bad enough that I now had to wait for the elements to heat up in order to cook, I was informed that I could only use one of the too-tiny, set-too-close-together elements at a time. I wasn't really sure whether or not to believe this until S used both hers at the same time (results pictured). Now all my dinner parties are on hold until we move. I mean, it was bad enough running to other peoples' houses in order to be able to cook properly; cook 2 dishes in my house and heat the dahl and rice in someone else's.