I am desperately sad about the demise of the first thing i purchased in Germany (the very very first thing I bought in Germany however, was a juice concoction of the citrus variety in Frankfurt International because I thought perhaps my body was lacking in vitamins due to my first (remembered! sorry about parentheticals inside parentheses) international flight. I remember this date because it was May 13, 2008 and besides being stamped inside my passport, it was one of those life-changing dates you always remember despite efforts otherwise (and May is full of dates anyway; Bastian and I had our first kiss in May; I miss my parents on my birthdays; Bastian moved to Lübeck for his internship in 2010 in May, May 28 to be exact; the ground is reliably green again; and so on).
(And you know when your best friend/fiancé does something that you find utterly repulsive but it is endearing, you have to admit in a kind of begrudging way? For instance, Bastian just walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, dipped a spoon into the Fleischsalat and ate this, depositing the spoon in the sink and returning Fleischsalat into refrigerator in one motion, returning to his computer. I do not condemn anyone who wants only a bite of anything; HOWEVER, I really do not like Fleischsalat, Sam-I-Am. The texture and smell put me off completely. Of course there are things I love that Bastian does not agree with (root beer floats, s'mores, Swedish Fish, peanut butter as a necessity and not an accessory, I KNOW, I KNOW).)
But really I wanted to talk about the demise of my RICE COOKER. OH NO OH NO OH NO, I said when the red light just did not go on despite the number of times I unplugged-and-plugged-in the rice cooker. And of course we were in the midst of making curry. How do people watch rice cooking on the stove (striking the proper balance of simmering-without-boiling-over and then transitioning this to JUST the right amount of steam?) and cut up vegetables and combine spices to make curry sauce and fry the vegetables? I've NEVER had to ask myself this question, not even rhetorically! And now I had to, technically!
So, after 2 nearly disastrous batches of rice cooked in a pot on the stove, I think I have it. It didn't even stick to the pot's bottom, which I daresay was even a problem with my rice cooker. Our limited counter areas do not allow anything broken to occupy space which could be used for anything else, even when said broken object deserves a couple more days due to sentimental reasons. So finally, with Bastian at the institute and Polly sleeping on her blanket on the windowsill, I bade farewell to my trusted friend in a quite unceremonious fashion by putting him into our Restmüll. Then I had to take him out because on second thought, maybe there is some kind of rule about throwing away small appliances. I bought the rice cooker in early August 2008, after moving into an apartment with two roommates, after we'd decided to have a "moving-in party" with sushi. In past experiences I'd always trusted my Kent roommate Jess with the sushi rice and she always made it on the stove. But I was homesick and perhaps a little weepy and in those early months, I felt at home in the Asian food/wares store under the Hauptbahnhof because I missed the stores back home too. I admit I am still not above buying cans of severely sub-par and overpriced kimchi and eating it with Jasmine rice from the cooker (sob!) in a downright gluttonous fashion because I miss the DELICIOUS huge jars of kimchi I used to buy from the Cuyahoga Falls Asian food store (sob!).
I read an article about how what a mother eats while pregnant affects the tastes of the child. My biological mother must have eaten gallons of anything of the pickled and/or vinegary variety, white rice, curry of any fashion or origin, strawberries, an abundance of seeds (sunflower, pumpkin, pistachios, almonds, walnuts), grape juice, raw mushrooms, soups and stews especially those containing barley, citrus fruits (although my enjoyment of them relies partially on the satisfaction of peeling one orange segment from another in a wholly clean, juice-spill-free, white-skin-on-the-outside-less way; sound optional but preferred), raw onions within a dish (also a food where I derive pleasure on other senses than taste; here it would be the slight crunch of, well, actually any vegetable between your teeth, with the exception of zucchini, I found out this past week), and also there is the salted nori sheets you can find and for a quick snack you will never beat putting some rice on this nori, adding sesame seeds, rolling this up and eating quite messily.
The foods that I suspect are of a "nurture" rather than "nature" liking include: well, aforementioned things that Bastian dislikes, brownies, carrot cake, tea with milk, raw vegetables (dipped in Ranch dressing optional; I can't help this, perhaps the midwest has something to do with it?), ears and ears of sweet corn (also something to do with the midwest I am sure, and I would like to note my sacrifice of looking proper while eating when it comes to corn on the cob because it just tastes better from the cob and adding melted butter (or in my case margarine; I sincerely prefer the taste of margarine over butter) and personally, black pepper with a miniscule amount of salt is just not an option so you really have to just deal with having grease perhaps on and outside your lips), popcorn, cherry Starbursts, grape Bubbleyum, pancakes (OF COURSE) with maple syrup (OF COURSE), waffles (I mostly want to point out here that one of my cousins put peanut butter instead of butter on his waffles and put syrup over this; I was skeptical but tried it and let me tell you, I am glad I am related to him, thank you Jerrod), cupcakes with a layer of frosting and sprinkles, and for that matter blueberry muffins made with real blueberries and not the dried ones so when you bite there is a sweet sticky burst of blueberries, corn bread, Mexican food, sweet potatoes in ANY FORM (I do not particularly like regular potatoes though, which is unfortunate because German people really seem to), coffee cake, THANKSGIVING DINNER, feta cheese, hummus, mint chocolate chip ice cream, tomato soup with lots of chunks of tomatoes, basil, a glug of olive oil and black pepper with grilled cheese sandwiches cut in half for dipping (Bastian JUST ate this for the first time about a month ago, can you imagine?), I also have an affinity for putting Tobasco sauce on anything savory, not EVERYTHING, mind you and and so on and so on.
Some American food that I don't like would definitely be hot dogs. They disgust me to no end and I would much rather fill a bun with sauerkraut than let a hot dog take up this space (I mean this sincerely because I truly love sauerkraut but I could see how this is not clear), and barbecue food in general probably only because of my distaste of meat, which also takes out steak and bacon.
I only really wanted to say something about my rice cooker. I might as well buy myself a new one since I remember the last one being about 20€ and perhaps this time I can find one resembling my rice cooker in Kent, that is, fire-engine red.