i love to cook

This should come as no shock to anyone reading this blog. I love to cook and bake. The Foodnetwork was like a dream come true after being slightly obsessed with cooking shows since I was in kindergarten. That´s right, The Frugal Gourmet, and Grahm Kerr were my favorites as I was rubbing my blanket, and sucking my thumb, or so my mom tells me. I don´t know if I am really any good at it, but I love to do it, especially baking. And thought I do have this passion, it is not something that has always been easy to follow. Let´s face it, cooking can be kind of expensive... yah, if you have most the ingredients and spices on hand, it´s not so bad, but having been a college student 4 of the last 5/6 years I haven´t had the best stocked kitchen, not to mention I have moved every year for the last 6 years. Another inhibitor is quantity. Yes, I want to make the whole recipe, be it a casserole, lasagna, cake or otherwise, but who´s going to eat it all? Me and my roommate? Two people for a recipe that is supposed to feed 6-8 is a little daunting, not to mention unhealthy even spread out over a couple of days. However, all my luck changed in coming to Germany.

Here I have a built in family of 5 to cook for, an 'unlimited' budget seeing as that the family pays for food, and the time to try out new things. It is amazing. I have been able to test out a lot of new things, as well as expose my host family to some of the things that I like to make back home. I end up baking a lot more which is oh so fun, and really what i like to do the best. I do this a lot of times with the kids, because it´s a great (learning) activity they can help with, that yealds pretty/tangible/tasty results. It´s all been really fun for me. Last Friday i made homemade soup for lunch, traditional German apple cake in the afternoon, and on Saturday Lasagna for dinner. And yet, I never get tired of it because there is always something new to try.

You know how people ask the question 'What would you do if you never had to work again, but still had money?' and your answer is supposed to be the career you really want to do. Well, that is basically the situation I have been put into, and all I am really doing is traveling, reading and cooking... maybe I should take the hint.