Adventures in the kitchen

Before I moved to Europe, I didn't cook. Period. Sure, I would throw an occasional Hot Pocket in the toaster oven, or fix myself a box of mac and cheese, but like most of my twenty-something college-attending peers, I relied heavily on take-out and bar food and frequent visits to my favorite Mexican restaurants. Embarrassingly, fast food was even a regular staple in my diet. When I think back to my old eating habits, it's no wonder that I was a bit heavier back then. If I would have kept that up I would have been fast-tracking myself for a season on The Biggest Loser (which I've become completely addicted to watching, by the way).

But luckily, moving to Italy saved me from a life of over-processed gluttony. It just wasn't possible anymore. First, I had to live on a grad student stipend of about 200 Euros a week, and eating out is expensive in any country. Second, Take-out isn't really part of the Italian culture. Third, I lived with a Sicilian... need I say more?

So, slowly but surely, I began to cook. At first Silvia, my Sicilian roommate, would do all the cooking and I would stand by, peering over her shoulder in awe. But as I grew more confident, I would make my own attempts, and things didn't turn out so bad. In fact, I realized that I really liked to cook.

Then, when I met Alberto, I was horrified to cook for him. He was Italian, with an Italian mother. How could anything I ever make measure up? But you know what... he actually loved what I made him... well, most of it. And I realized that cooking for other people is a really rewarding experience.

Since I've been living in Belgium, I've taken my kitchen skills to new levels. I scour cooking/baking blogs like they hold the secret to life, and I'm always inviting friends over to taste-test my new creations. Amazingly, these friends keep coming back for more, so I must be doing something right! Recently though, I've been called to a new challenge. My roommate Paola, who moved in with me in September, has a severe gluten intolerance, and she hates cooking. I take pity on the girl as I watch her eat tuna and corn straight from the can, and I just can't resist making her something warm to eat! Together, we've explored every kind of risotto possible, and her dietary restrictions have pushed  me to expand my repertoire to include things such as quinoa and chickpeas, things that I had never really thought about before, but that I've come to love. I think she's even starting to like cooking a bit, at least when we do it together.

But here's my problem. I make these great things, and I don't write down the recipe, and the next time I make them I have to look up the recipe again and try to remember what substitutions I made. I also have to reconvert all of the measurements to grams (I don't have American measuring cups or spoons here). Alissa, one of my best friends, has convinced me that it would be a good idea to blog my recipes, as a way to have an easily searchable index, and to share the goodness with anybody else who may be interested.  So, I'm going to give it a try. Next post, Buonissimi gluten-free chocolate cupcakes. Yum!