On my yearly visits to Germany I realize how the once familiar becomes unfamiliar, which often leads to funny situations. A few years ago I wanted to bake an American cheesecake. At the grocery store I paced up and down the cooler section several times looking for eggs and eventually asked a sales clerk. He stared at me, then walked me to a different part of the store with a shelf fully stocked with eggs. I stood there perplexed and it dawned on me that in Germany, unlike in the United States, eggs are often not refrigerated. Continue reading
Comfort in a clay pot
When I met my husband, he had been living alone with his two children, 8 and 10 at the time, for several years. I was a 30-something having little experience with children, let alone ever any responsibility for anyone except myself, and an only child at that. As I slowly began to settle in the vast and unknown terrain of parenting, the kitchen was the place where I felt the most comfortable. Continue reading
New farina app
French do it, Arabs do it, Indians, Dutch and Germans do it… grandmothers and guys do it… non-cooks and cooks do it: bring back typical foods from their home country that are impossible or difficult to find in the United States, or very expensive, or not the real thing. Continue reading


