After learning to bake bread from scratch in college, the kitchen became my favorite room in the house. I continue to thoroughly enjoy creating edible treats and so much of our home culture involves gathering with friends or family around food. Before we moved overseas, getting rid of my kitchen items was much more difficult for me, especially my Kitchen Aid mixer, than most other possessions (except maybe the rocking chair I used when the boys were babies). After moving here, kitchens soon became a place I feared. Ok, not entirely, but they are so very different. People do most of their food prep on the floor, the kitchens in general are much messier, and the tools are not the same. So it is only natural my kitchen here looks much different than the kitchens I was use to in the States. Let us go on a tour of my overseas kitchen for you to see yourself what it looks like. Keep in mind it may look different than the typical U.S. kitchen, but it also looks
very different than most kitchens here.
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My Kitchen
complete with a washing machine instead of a dishwasher |
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Dinking Water and Gas Stove
Middle left is the one and only outlet in the room. |
The pan rack has been a favorite aspect of my kitchen as it saves precious cupboard space and is conveniently above the stove. There isn't anything like Home Depot here so we had to order the wood pole specially made from a wood worker, but it was well worth the couple week wait. All our neighbors have a two burner stove.
If they have a an oven it is placed on top of a burner when needed. When people see my oven, bought in the big city, they all are amazed and immediately assume it is electric. We intentionally buy gas in a larger tank, rusty blue on bottom right above, to last longer as I frequently use the oven. We get a new one about every 3 months. Most people have a tank about 1/3 the size. As for outlets, there is one in each room of our house = 4 electrical outlets in the whole house. So as in the picture above we use a special adapter giving us three additional outlets, then run an extension cord with additional outlets on the end around the top of the wall for the fridge and washing machine which are opposite the oven.
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ALL of my cupboard space
Thank goodness for a little extra counter space too, which was intentionally put on wheels to move appliances closer to the ONE outlet in the room. |
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| Refrigerator and Washing Machine |
Most people have refrigerators about 2/3 the size of ours. There are people though just outside our complex that don't have one at all. Having started out in this country with one that was about 2/3 the size, our current one seems quite nice though I know it is pretty small in comparison to the standard fridge in the States.
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French Press for coffee
Most locals just stir the coffee grounds straight into the hot water and let it settle before drinking.
I still like my coffee "Good to the last drop" |
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| Our Toaster |
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| Our Waffle Iron |
Our electrical appliances (aside from the fridge and washer) consist of a blender and a mixer, I actually found a Kitchen Aid in the big city!!! Most people here own a rice cooker, but I'm not willing to give up my counter space. I usually cook rice in the pressure cooker as I still burn it on the stove top. Truth be told I had no idea what a pressure cooker was before some overseas training, but it has been really handy, especially for beans and rice. I can't say I miss having a microwave, though occasionally it would be nice for reheating a drink.
As I enjoy cooking and baking it has been nice to find a way to have a functional and familiar kitchen. Such different kitchens are a reflection of the differences in food and since so many of our customary foods are not available here, I have also had the pleasure of learning to make many things from scratch. Some foods are not worth the time and effort for me, but there are many that have become part of my monthly menu.
Tortillas, Bagels, English Muffins, Granola, Grape Nut type cereal, chicken broth, and yogurt are all foods I have learned to and frequently do make. Most aren't too difficult, but I would never have thought of learning to make them in the States as they are so much easier to just buy at the local grocery store!
