Moving to a new country for an entire year will force a person to learn a lot about themselves. The classic depiction of kids’ learning experiences abroad is often found on social media as a picture and a quote of something along the lines of “omg X country is amazing! The culture and people are so much better than home! I want to stay here forever!” or “throwback to when I was in X country! It changed my life! Take me back!” For all of those cliché posts about how much one country changed a young person’s life, I’m here to tell you my story and how my life has actually been changed by one learning experience in particular. It all starts with my love of food.
Anyone who knows me knows that I can eat like a horse. My mom always makes the joke that when I was baby, the only three things I did were nap, smile, and eat and that to this day I still only do those three things. While she hopefully doesn’t believe the latter part of that joke, the former is definitely true. It got the point where our neighbors back in Philadelphia used to complain when I came over their house because I would eat all of their food. To this day, I don’t feel bad about it for a second. A growing kid has to eat. Fast forward 23 years and I’m living in Ireland with the same eating habits, but this time there’s no option to eat a neighbor’s food… Rut roe (Scooby Doo voice).
In fairness to myself, I did cook a little bit in college but only the most basic meals. Even then, I only lived two hours from home which meant I’d be able to return home often enough and bring back food that would last a while. This year, that all changed. I was faced with the choice of either eating blandly cooked food for 10 months or learning how to become my own personal chef. I’m six months into accepting the challenge, and it’s going swimmingly. Besides a few mishaps here and there, I’ve been able to expand my cooking horizons by adding foods like baked beans, golden potatoes, and all types of vegetables into my dinners. For breakfast, I’ll touch up my eggs with a little avocado to along with pancakes/a bagel and granola with Greek yogurt. Lunches consist of turkey or tuna with avocado and chips. The key is to change it up every now and then but stick with the core courses, in case you wanted advice from a 23-year old self-proclaimed chef.
My new found hobby may do a little more damage to the old bank account but the feeling of a satisfied stomach is priceless.
