Cooking

From Alhannah

Cooking may be a challenge at first. Finding ingredients, and even thinking of what to cook in the first place, can be frustrating. We lived on spaghetti for the first week or so. After your orientation you will have a chance to go to a grocery store.

There is a web site that helps with converting recipes from English to American measurements (Science Made Simple), and you can go to Google and convert degrees from Celsius to Fahrenheit (or get out your calculator: multiply by 1.8 and add 32). You may want to bring spice mixes that you are familiar with, or fond of. The flat envelopes are light and easy to pack.

A few basic helps:

• A 113.5 gram stick of butter is about 1/4 pound.
• 400 grams of “mince” (hamburger) is a little less than 1 pound.
• 180 degrees Celsius is 356 degrees Fahrenheit.
• 4 cups of liquid is about a liter.
• Powdered vanilla can be substituted in the same measure for liquid vanilla.
• Pulses are lentils and come in every color of the rainbow (well, ok, not purple).
• Beef bacon and beef ham (available at Carrefour) are a good substitute for pork.
• Long life milk can be stored on the shelf and is great to have on hand for those there’s-no-milk morning emergencies.
• Condensed milk makes a good, inexpensive coffee creamer and comes in easy open pull top cans

If there are certain "luxury" food items that you just can't live without, then think about importing the item from your home country. Things like Frosted Mini Wheats or Cheerios may be available one month but then may not be available for another 6 months.