August 25th -- Shopping Shouldn't Be That Hard!

August 25th --Never Try and Bake in Germany

K, S and I are invited over someone's house for pizza tomorrow night.  I offered to to bring dessert.  S says -- "Hey, why don't you make chocolate chip cookies."  So I think to myself that cannot be that hard.  I know that I have to purchase some items, but I figure that I have to do that at some point anyway.  So off we go to purchase a mixer, a cookie sheet and measuring cups. A mixer because of the different electrical current/voltage.  A cookie sheet because ovens in Europe are much smaller than in the U.S.  Measuring cups because my stuff has not gotten here.  After a little sticker shock -- Kitchen Aid Mixers are even more here-- K and I find a deal at the second kitchen shop we visit -- Kitchen Aid Mixer with numerous attachments (including the meat grinder) for less than it would have cost for just the Kitchen Aid Mixer and the bowl.  I sent Chris a text explaining how much money we saved him.

O.k. the next step -- buying the ingrediants.  How hard can that be?  There must be universal baking products right?-- WRONG!  I stood in the baking goods aisle for five minutes.  I studied all of the products and then I almost started to cry.  I got my flour -- someone had already explained to me that I needed the 405 flour.  Next, I got my regular sugar (zucker).  But then it got ugly.  Where is the baking soda? chocolate chips? Brown sugar?  I stopped a woman and asked -- Sprechen Sie Englisch?  She said no but grabbed another lady in the store.  This woman happened to be French but she spoke some English.  I ended up with Braun Zucker (not at all like our brown sugar -- it is crystals) and backpulver (single-acting baking powder) and a very small (not so great tasting) box of chocolate chips.

After I left the store, I did a little research.   You cannot get baking soda or double-acting baking powder in Germany (Chris will have to bring some with him when he comes home from the U.S.).  The Germans use single-acting baking soda -- not good for S's chocolate chip cookies.  There is also no such thing as brown sugar as we know it in the U.S.  Either you have to buy it in the U.S. and bring it with you or you have to make it -- 1 to 2 tablespoons of molasses for every cup of white sugar.

So the question that remains -- How is it in the world where everything is connected that we are all so different?  I have to admit that the grocery store is one of the scariest places for me.  It should all be so simple, but from the carts to the different products, it is all so complicated.  I guess the answer is -- try some German recipes!