Cooking in another country!

It's always an adventure to cook in another country.  You have to find the ingredients you need and learn different names for various ingredients.  Baking soda is called Bicarbonate of Soda--sounding a little more serious than baking soda.
And baking powder comes in envelopes rather than the familiar round containers we're used to.  Each envelope contains about a teaspoon of baking powder.

And then there's the oven problem:

There are NO markings on the oven or grill knobs!!!  But we found this inside one of our cupboards:

A kind former tenant put these instructions to help us.  (The degrees are in centigrade.)  (And the grill doesn't work.)

Yesterday, we were having company for dinner, and I decided to bake my Hot Fudge Sundae Cake for dessert.  It's an interesting recipe where you mix the ingredients for the cake, then put brown sugar, cocoa, and hot water on top--and in the process of baking, the cake rises to the top and you end up with lovely pudding on the bottom--a family favorite.  350 degrees is 176 degrees centigrade, so I set the knob half way between the 150 and the 200 position.

Part way through the baking, I started smelling burning.  (We have a very sensitive smoke detector, so the first thing I did was to open the door and windows.)  Then I went to the oven to see it overflowing onto the bottom of the oven - - -  But it had cooked, and I took it out with grand hopes that all was OK.

The outside of the pan was caked with hard pudding, and when we cut into the cake, the pudding just had a hint of its potential.

As you can see, it still tasted good, and we're well on our way to eating it all up!  And topped with ice cream, it still had its own charm - - -  so not a total disaster - - -
So I'm back to the drawing board, and I'll try again next week (for our next set of company) and see if a lower temperature might make a difference.

A different way of life

We're learning new ways of doing things as we settle into Cambridge.  So many things we take for granted in America.

Ice is not so natural here.  Here is how I make ice:

Do you remember you mom or your grandmother making ice this way? 

And carrots:

,

I hadn't done carrots this way in ages, but fortunately, it's one of those things that you always remember!

And the hot water for our shower is different as well. 

We had showers like this at most of our B&B's as well.  It's an instant hot water machine.  You set the temperature you want and just push the little button in the middle, and that turns the water on and makes it the right temperature.  And you never run out of hot water.

And air conditioning:

If you want "air conditioning," you just open the window.  We have a couple of fans as well.  And notice that there are no screens!!  And we've only had two or three flies come in the whole time we've been here.  We haven't yet experienced how these ancient windows will do at protecting us in the cold weather.  That is still to be determined.

And traffic control is different as well.  They have some areas where only authorized vehicles can pass.  And to be sure no one else goes there, there are pillars!  When an authorized vehicle comes, there is come mechanism that allows the pillars to retract into the pavement, and when that car or bus is through, it raises back up.

It seems like a pretty good way to help only the right people to get through!

So we are learning to look at things differently and to appreciate the differences!

A Quiet Weekend

We were aiming for fun and practicality as we started our weekend in Cambridge.  We thought the first thing we would do would be to go punting on the river and then head on to run some errands.  So we packed up our stuff for the day and headed to the river, and this is what we found:

The night before it has rained majorly a little north of us (including flooding and power outages--it was the remnant of Hurricane Bertha heading our way).  And that caused the usually placid River Cam to have white water, and punting was called off for the day (as least for self-hire punts). 
So we headed on along our way.  We headed to the ASDA (which is what Walmart is called here).  It's 2 1/2 miles away.  But it was a beautiful day, and it took us to some parts of Cambridge we hadn't seen before--including some shopping areas we didn't know about.
Along the way, we passed by Jesus' Pieces (which is some lovely parkland--several pieces of land--all owned by Jesus College).

The second picture is an amazing bowling green, where people come to do lawn bowling.  And we walked through a number of regular Cambridge neighborhoods, without the towering spires of the University buildings.

The streets are pretty narrow, and cars need to take turns getting past the parked cars.  A lot of housing goes right to the sidewalk, and their outdoor space is behind--the back garden.

We worked our way to the ASDA:

It has a lot wider selection than a regular grocery store--more like our Walmarts.  We were able to find a number of things there that we had been needing--and some good deals.  So we bought our stuff, and packed it all neatly into our rolling backpack and a couple of other bags, and headed on our way back.

We broke the trip back home up with a picnic in one of the parks.  It was a good time to learn a little more about our city.

A New Way of Life

We are settling into our life in Cambridge.  But we're not in the US anymore!!  We're learning new ways of doing things.

The house we are living in is Tyndale House, a wonderful evangelical study center, with library, where Buist has a special study desk and where he can leave his books and study materials without having to pack them up every day.

Tyndale House was built in the 1800's, with various additions through the years, so it's got various issues of old houses.  Our apartment is on the third floor.  Our guest bedroom is those windows on the side at the very top.  And the windows on the front are the windows in the stairway outside our apartment.

Yesterday was a big day for us.  We got a new washing machine!  There was a washing machine here when we got here, but it didn't work, and they told us a new one had been ordered.  It finally arrived at about 8:00 last night.  The poor delivery men had to carry it up three flights of steps (as pictured) and then carry the old one down those same three flights of stairs.

What fun to have a lovely new washing machine!  I did my first load of laundry in it this morning.  (I had done a couple of loads downstairs in an unoccupied apartment previously.)  It will be so convenient to have our washing be so accessible.  And pictured below is our "dryer."  It works pretty well, especially using the fan to blow air across it.

And pictured below is our dish washing system.  Fortunately with just two of us here, it's not too burdensome.

Our stove is rather interesting as well.  When we arrived there were no markings at all on any of the knobs.  You can see that I've at least labeled which burner is which.  And even the oven has no markings!!  We found a card taped inside a cupboard door that had a picture of three different temperature options--in Centigrade of course.  I used the oven earlier this week, and the picture seemed accurate.  Thank you, former tenants.

And to finish off this post, here is my key shopping bag.  It's a rolling back pack.  We are learning to live without a car this year.  Suddenly, walking isn't something you do for exercise, but it's a necessity.  The nearest good supermarket is about a mile and a half away.  I can shop for what we need (You need to load your groceries on to the checkout counter, and then pack them up yourself--a challenge if there are people waiting behind you.) and load it into my backpack and roll it back home.  Then I can either carry it up the three flights of stairs--or unload some into a bag if it's too heavy--and do a couple of trips.

Fortunately the weather is far nicer here for that sort of thing.  (In Dallas, it would be almost impossible in the summer.)  But our usual highs since we've been here are in the 70's--lovely weather for a walk.  And so far we haven't had to fight the rain either--a blessing.