So I have decided to include a food portion in my blog and I know some of you are thinking why? Well lucky for you I have this blog to explain. I have decided to include a food portion because I need to desperately expand my kitchen knowledge and I think this will be a good way to actually do it because I will have somewhere to put my new found knowledge and keep me overall accountable for setting this goal.
Why make this goal you may be asking, well I can't cook or I should say I can't cook well. I have lived on my o
wn multiple times now in different cities and different countries and last I checked I am still alive, so I can obviously cook something. I can cook but I can only cook for myself and maybe another person if I accidentally make too much but I hardly qualify that as cooking for more than myself. Everything I cook is basic. Think pasta, rice, chicken, eggs and all the possibilities I can make with those few things. However while I was an au pair part of my job was cooking dinner for the kiddos during the week because their parents got home later. Let me tell you this was probably the hardest thing for me and stressed me out daily as an au pair. This was my first experience cooking for other people and not just other people children so if you have spent any time with children you probably know kids like their food a specific way and won't eat it if they know it wasn't made to their specific tastes. By the end of my time with my host family they told me I was great but my place should be no where near a kitchen. However I hope to change that.
Which brings us to story time because I have an amazing story about my first week as an au pair and why I should not be allowed in a kitchen.
Storytime: Tuna Surprise
My first week as an au pair was crazy. I was with strangers and trying to learn where I fit into their lives. It's not like I was handed a list of things I have to do and they leave me to it. No you just kind of have to go with the flow of things until you see what you can do and where you fit in. Well my first week I had to cook dinner for the kids. Ok I thought I can do this, where is the Mac and cheese or do you guys like grill cheeses? So I asked what they would like for dinner and of course its never the same. I can't remember what they said that night but I admitted to the cleaning lady there with I did not know how to make what they wanted. So the cleaning lady really helped me out for the first few nights showing me where things where and how to make some of the things they like. However once she left me on my own I was a mess, whatever I did something wrong happened. I'm still convinced the world is telling me not to cook like ever, but I will prevail! Anyways the night I was left on my own, one of the kids said they wanted rice with tuna. I was like finally something easy and simple like I can not mess this up. So I made the rice, tasted it to make sure it was to her liking and I was thinking yes maybe this isn't as bad as I thought. Too soon Mackenzie, too soon. I finished the rice and put it on her plate when I went to go get the tuna. The last time we cooked something with tuna the cleaning lady grabbed this already open, round tin and put the tuna into the food. So this time I opened the cupboard and saw a round tin that was already opened and thought ah perfect. It even had that fishy tuna smell so I was like it must be tuna(fun fact: at this point I could not read or understand Italian) and added it to the rice. Called her over and said dinner was ready, she took one look at it and was like why does it look funny? And I being the adult that I am said oh its fine please just eat and she just keeps commenting that it looks different than usual. However she did say it spelt like tuna so she finally said ok and ate a forkful. Enter the cleaning lady. The little girl yells look Mac made dinner and didn't ruin it. The cleaning lady looked impressed for .2 seconds because she saw the food and said what did you put in this and I said tuna and pointed to the can. She grasped and grabbed the bowl from the girl. I was like what, what did I do? I fed a child CAT FOOD. It was not tuna, and to make things worse I told her to eat it. After the cleaning lady took the food away, I was on the verge of tears because I for sure thought I was going to be fired. I knew I could not hide this from her parents because well she's 6 and going to tell them as soon as she sees them. Once again extremely lucky because as soon as her parents walked in she ran right up to her mom and screamed Mac gave me cat food, and her mom just started laughing. Laughing hard and looked at me and said Mac its going to be a long six months because you will always hear about this. Don't worry they never let me forget, in fact to this day they still bring it up. So there is my cooking horror story and why I need to start doing it for real.
In conclusion, I hope to fill this section with more cooking stories but less scary and more yummy. I will try my best to also write about places I eat because well the food here is amazing and its a shame if I don't share at least something with you guys. Eventually, maybe I will add some advice like places to go and where has the best apertivo. We'll see whats in store!