Excerpt Chapter 5, Morocco 1952 Running a household was no easy task in Morocco. The kitchen needed our special attention. The cooks knew nothing about keeping the Sears & Roebuck kerosene stove in good working order. Neil and I spent many a Sunday afternoon taking it apart, cleaning the wicks, and then figuring out how to put everything back together again. Neil took it upon himself to study the manual, and he demonstrated dogged determination to finish the job. I was ready to give up on this messy business more than once, but we had no choice if we did not want the stove to get sooty and produce a smell that permeated the whole house as happened one time. In desperation I convinced Neil to invest at least in an electric oven which was available locally. We went downtown and selected one, which blew our budget, and ultimately a lot more. The first time we used it with great hopes. It got hotter and hotter and then exploded. The entire house smelled of burned wires. All the fuses were blown. What had happened? We had been sold a bill of goods. We were on 220 volts and the oven was built for 110. No wonder it was incompatible and downright dangerous. We were lucky the house did not catch fire. The oven was irreparable and the store pleaded innocent and did not refund us any money. We were back to square one. In Sicily it was charcoal stoves, in Casablanca kerosene models. What would it be at our next post? I needed a reliable stove--one I could turn on and use without having to worry about unintended consequences-- if I ever wished to improve my cooking skills. It was not to be for a while. Flashbacks of a Diplomat’s Wife Reviews John Boyle, Professor CSUC DACOR Bulletin Retired Officer Magazine AAFSW by J. Edgar Williams Dan Barnett, Chico Enterprise Record
A personal memoir about the episodes of the wife of a United States Foreign Service Officer starting in the late 1940’s.