forced to cook

Like many children of my generation, I grew up in a packaged food household. Even though my mother was a member of a natural foods co-op when I was little, we still ate a lot of things from boxes. I know my mom knows how to cook, but she just never really liked it. Instead she is a baker- I think that nothing makes her happier than a good batch of cookies. I truly am my mother's daughter in this way; I love to bake, but I've never really liked to cook. (Don't ask me about this distinction- I don't really know why. Maybe it has something to do with cutting and chopping meat and vegetables- I don't like to do all that prep.)

A few years ago, some of my friends started a cooking club where every few weeks we would choose a fun theme and then get together and share our cooking interpretations of the theme. I had great fun with this group and was happy because it forced me to find new recipes, try new techniques and cook rather than bake all the time. I loved cooking club, not only because it was great food, but of course because it was a twice monthly get together with good friends. This is one thing that I am truly missing here in Albania.

But Albania is forcing me to cook. While I suppose that it would be possible to get by without cooking here (maybe if I lived in a bigger place with a few more restaurants), Albanian cuisine really is a meat and potatoes affair (with rice) and occasionally a few good vegetable dishes; if I want any variety in my diet, I have to provide it myself. While I have to admit that my diet does contain a lot of pasta, I have also started to branch out: tacos, tuna casserole, chicken parmesean, curry. Sometimes I have to get a little bit creative on ingredients, but for the most part I can find things that I need (or I brought them or had them sent from America). One of the most useful things that I brought with me in fact was an all purpose cook book (Fanny Farmer). The great thing about this book is that it has information (and drawings) about all different kinds of ingredients, as well as instructions on how to prepare all sorts of different things. The only difficulty I've found with the book is that it always assumes that you not only have access to all ingredients, but also to all kitchen utensils and appliances.

I don't think that I will ever be a master cook (and I will probably always bring cookies to pot-lucks like my mom does), when I get home I will have added a few more things to my basic repertoire of foods and I think I'll be able to get by with a few less things out of a box.

Have oven, will bake
One of the first necessary purchases for my new apartment was an oven. I have a gas burner and a wood stove, which is fine for some things (like making pasta and keeping my house warm), but I figured that if I wanted to bake cookies, I would need something else. Mike survived in this house for two years without an oven, but Mike obviously wasn’t a baker. So far, my strategy for buying things for my house goes like this: I have a craving and then I go buy everything that I will need to fulfill that craving. Last week it was pancakes. To make pancakes I needed: basic ingredients (milk, butter, sugar, etc), a frying pan, a spoon (for scooping) and a spatula (for flipping). Mike had a frying pan and spoon, but lacked the spatula. Yesterday I had a hankering for cinnamon buns. Supplies needed: ingredients, rolling pin, mixing bowl (this would have been nice for the pancakes too- I just used a pot), oh and of course and oven. This is my oven- it looks a little like a space ship, but it seems to work pretty well (although I have to guess on temps because it just has “warm” “hotter” and “hottest” settings. Oven thermometer might be nice- hint, hint mom). The oven also came equipped with a pan that fits nicely inside and when I bought it from the shop, the owner carried it two blocks home for me. And here are my cinnamon buns. Yum.