The Joy of Cooking

I baked a cake tonight, a simple box cake. Easy, right? Yes... except all of the directions were in every other language except English. Normally when this happens, German is my saving grace, but this time, no such luck. I just assumed German was one of the languages but didn't check this particular box at the store. I very slowly tried to decipher the Polish, Czech, Hungarian and Slovak directions. Then I remembered what I always tell my students: "You can read a book just by reading the pictures." A ha! I saw three eggs, butter... mixed it all together and put it in the oven. 20 minutes later as I start to blog, I look at the box again and realized, $*%@!!! MILK! I forgot to add milk! How could I miss that on the picture? I didn't add the milk! My attempt to get ahead of myself for the bake sale on Friday, book club on Thursday, and my son's snack day was all for nothing!! Serenity now, serenity now, SERENITY NOW!

... Now, a little while later and many deep breaths that followed, I can laugh. Sort of. The cake looks okay but doesn't taste quite right. Hmmmm. My book club would notice, but will the elementary kids? Can I pass it off as a baked good for the bake sale? Certainly the 4 year olds won't notice. They eat their boogers for heaven's sake. Maybe my attempt at baking in Polish/Czech/Hungarian/Slovak wasn't in vain after all.

We deal with situations like this often. I bake from scratch more than I ever did before (this box-cake-disaster-notwithstanding), to avoid the aforementioned cooking drama. My good ol' Joy of Cooking and red/white checked Betty Crocker cookbooks have been priceless in my now-Hungarian kitchen. I've gone through dozens of bananas, dried cranberries and eggs to keep up with all the snack days and bake sales. (Side note: the bake sales kinda kill me. They kill EVERY mom. But the ones here always benefit charities like the victims of the Japanese tsunami, the orphanage, the victims of the Red Sludge, so I'm happy to do it). I am not a baker. Noooo. But things like muffins, scones, banana breads, simple cakes, etc... I can do that. Reading the instructions in German is not easy, but it gets me by. My favorite is when there are English instructions (rare) BUT they are covered up with a giant sticker with the ingredients in Hungarian. Ahhhh yes. Now THAT happens a lot. {sigh}


Grocery shopping is still a chore, even in our familiar stores. I still buy too much and the checkers give me a once-over when it's my turn to check-out. The Hungarians... shoot, all Europeans... are like my grammy: they love to go to the store. every. single. day. They put a few things in their baskets, buy one liter of milk that will last them 2 weeks, and that's it. Me, I've got 12 liters of milk, fruit/veggie sacks times ten, snack foods, cereals, wine bottle, breads, toilet paper, more wine, laundry soap, toiletries, wine, cheeses, 8 cartons of yogurt, a few more bottles of wine... I shop for armageddon. Every mom in America does. But not here. This is why I am sweating bullets and pitting out my shirts every time I go to the store. I have to pack my own groceries at warp speed while the checker hurls them at me along the belt. I'm not kidding. She (and 99% of them are 'she') sits all comfy and relaxed in her chair (99% of them have CHAIRS) while I do all the work.
I'm not sure what got me off on this shopping tangent... but shopping and cooking here are not my favorite things to do. I feel I've become less of a cook than I was before, which isn't saying much. Venturing outside the comforts of what can be made easily is not appealing to me at the moment. It's damn hard to go shopping here. Ask my Mom, she'll agree (right, Mom?!) The plus side? For the first time in my life, I am seriously considering hiring a cook. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think such a thought could be my reality, but you know what? It's lookin' better and better all the time.