I’ve been in my kitchen for the last few hours, getting things put away from shopping and fixing food. Tonight the family had tacos for dinner. It made me think of how Mexican food was one of the easiest and quickest meals to cook when we were in the States. Grab yourselves some tortillas off the shelf, some refried beans from the can, some greens, some burger to fry and mix up with taco seasoning, and some shredded cheese. Throw it all together, and BOOM dinner is ready.
That is not what happens here. As I prepared tacos for dinner, I was musing about how it is now one of the more time consuming meals. I can buy pinto beans in a can but then I need to blend them and cook them for awhile to make “refried beans”. I can brown up hamburger and add some seasoning (yes!) but I have to shred some cheese (no worries). But, then I have to make the flour tortillas. That is the part that makes it more arduous and makes me not want to make Mexican as often as I used to.
In the States you should wash your produce when you get it home, but here it is even more serious because there can be some deadly stuff on those fruits/veggies. And, I can’t just use water from tap which can be equally deadly. I have to use bottled drinking water. In my itsy-bitsy tiny kitchen, washing a lot of fruit and veggies can be quite a feat. I often wish for some more counters, cupboards, drawers, and some room for more than one person.
I also have been the one who gets to greet the roaches. I had a run-in with one this morning that crawled up the leg of my jeans while I was washing dishes. I also REALLY don’t like the sink. There is a catch (plastic basket) that fills up the sink hole to trap food. Pull that sucker out, and there are often a couple of roaches there, ready to explode out into the sink. By the way, these are big roaches…. And so, I’m always carefully scanning the sink trap, seeing if I reallllly want to pull it out and empty it or not. I have also resorted to scooping everything out of it with a spoon so the critters can’t get out. That part is a little more difficult about living here. It’s not something I like very much—I’m not a fan of those bugs.
But, my intention is not to have people feel sorry for me! I was just musing about how different things can be. Many people here have a helper who cooks and cleans. That can be a real game changer and has the potential to make things in the kitchen even easier than they can be in the States. I don’t have one and still don’t feel like I want to have one for several different reasons but I do realize that could be an option. I have benefited from that before and in many ways it is really nice. There is no way that you’ll ever think about or even realize the extra work that has to be done when there is someone to do it for you! 🙂
I’m going to keep thinking about what is easier and what is harder in other areas of our lives…. 🙂
sharonbernhardt 