Cooking!

During my exchange year in Germany, I couldn't let the McBrayer tradition of cooking go unnoticed. To connect and spend time with my host family, I have cooked a couple of different recipes that I obtained in the US. So far, they've all turned out, and I'm planning on cooking much more for my host family in future months.

The first thing that I cooked in Germany was my mother's legendary chocolate chip cookie recipe. The ingredients and directions that my parents snuck into my luggage before I departed in August finally went to good use. As it turns out, flower and sugar are a little different in Germany, so if I wish to make the recipe again, it might just not be the same.

The second thing that I cooked was a "blooming quesadilla ring" for lunch one day. With the help of my younger host sisters, we were able to construct a beautiful and delicious dish that, with the help of the family, we almost completely finished.

Cooking in Germany is, of course, not the same. First of all, there is the difficulty of knowing where everything is in an unfamiliar kitchen. This is part of the reason why I always ask for sue-chefs that know where everything is. Second, Europe uses the metric system, which means that all of the measurements that I read on recipes have to be translated into liters, milliliters, etc. Finally, gathering ingredients isn't always easy. The inventory of supermarkets in Germany are far from the same as in the US, so every time I cook I have to think of substitutions. Furthermore, living in a very rural part of the country, my only shopping options are the small supermarkets in the surrounding villages. For example, for the quesadilla dish, while Cheddar wasn't too hard to find, Monterey Jack Cheese was obviously nowhere to be found, so at the supermarket cheese counter, I just pointed at a random white cheese and hoped it worked.

As I continue shopping for ingredients and cooking meals, I'll eventually become more acquainted with what ingredients I can get my hands on. I've already showed my host family my childhood chocolate cookies, as well as Mexican food, so what's next?