Adventures in German Appliances Part Two: The Dinner Party

Being at the UN is for many of us a short-term thing, so as a result it seems there are an endless stream of goodbye parties and farewell get-togethers, as well as new faces and people to meet. It’s a rapidly revolving diplomatic door sadly.

So as a result, the time came for Rebecca, an Aussie who’s become one of my closest friends in Vienna, to say farewell, and so we decided to have a group of friends over for a casual dinner party last Saturday. Wanting to prepare something uniquely American, I decided upon Janie’s recipe for baked potato soup. It’s a relatively simple recipe, but complicated by the fact that I’m trying to prepare an American dish outside of America. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I awoke that morning excited, because I haven’t had an opportunity to do much cooking here. Then I remembered why: I am metrically and Celsius-ly challenged. All my life I’ve only known cups, tablespoons, and teaspoons, and I’ve only measured temperature in Fahrenheit, so it’s when you’re abroad that you realize that we’re the only people in the world who use this system. Literally, we’re the only ones. And it’s ridiculous. For example, experience the instant humility when you look at a recipe (that you were so thrilled to find in English) and realize you have no clue how 75 grams of butter is, or ¾ liter of water. Math never was my strong suit. Or you pick up a package in a grocery store, and the entire thing is written in German, so you have no idea what it says – and the required amount of ingredients is in the metric system too. Thanks founding fathers for making us so “special.”

Similarly, when trying to make a recipe from back home, you have to go into a grocery store and guessitimate on what the quantities you know (such as 1/3 cup flour or ¾ cup milk) will look like in grams and liters. Most of the time you can do reasonably ok with this, but it’s a minor irritation at the most irritating of all places in Vienna – a grocery store – so it’s even more exasperating. When I’m feeling in a crabby mood I’ll regale everyone with just what an experience at a Viennese grocery store can be like. But I’ll leave that diatribe for another day.

Now that I’m in the grocery store, I’m looking for potatoes, sour cream, cheddar cheese, bacon, green onions, milk, sour cream, and flour. I find the potatoes and green onions easily, though the potatoes are some of the smallest I’ve ever seen (almost fingerling), so I have to buy many more of them in order to equal the four large potatoes the recipe calls for. Continuing into the dairy section, I look for milk and sour cream, and again I find the milk easily – but as there are no gallon or half-gallon milk options, I have to buy several containers in order to get the seven cups I need. Sour cream is another story. I stare at the cream section, and none of the German names give me the sense that one of the items is sour cream. I hold the containers up to the light and shake them a bit in the hope of figuring it out by consistency. I end up going with crème fraiche, because at least I know what it is, and in a pinch it will do.

As I move down the aisle I get to the packaged meat section, and I am lucky to get the last package of American-style bacon – not Canadian bacon, not prosciutto, or anything similar but not quite right. And when I get to the cheese section, I remember that cheddar is an American cheese, born from the fine cows of Wisconsin, Oregon, and California -- not from the heifers of Österreich. Shit. But then I scan the section and find something vaguely orange, and its Irish cheddar cheese – hooray! Again, not ideal, but it will do. Finally, I go to the baking aisle, and nearly have a nervous breakdown when I see the plethora of flour options – or rather, what I hope is flour. I decide on the brand that has the kind German grandmother on the front (because, hey, Grandma can’t let me down, right? Right?!?), but as its written entirely in German, I have no idea which variety is which, and what will be best for the soup. I do the same shake I did with the creams, and try to fool myself into thinking I can understand the subtle nuances of flour. One round of Eenie-meanie-minie-mo, and I’ve made my decision and am on my way home.

I specifically decided against baking something for the dinner party because of the many opportunities baking would offer for me to royally screw things up. Our apartment, though lovely, lacks most measuring utensils. As a result, I do most of my ‘measuring’ with a black coffee mug that, when filled with hot liquid, changes color to display a large set of breasts. It adds that ‘little something extra’ to the overall cooking experience. And while it’s not a big deal in cooking to lack measuring utensils, in baking it could end very, very badly. Plus our oven is in Celsius, so I would have to convert all the needed temperatures from Fahrenheit – not a big deal, but a minor irritation nonetheless. And like the microwave, the oven also comes with a knob full of pictures, for which I only know the use of one. Or more accurately, my roommate Marlene told me once to use one of the settings when I cooked a pizza, and I’ve used it for everything else ever since. Here’s hoping I don’t burn the apartment down one day.

Once I’m home and get settled, we make the soup with only minor setbacks (like peeling the tiny cooked potatoes with our hands because we realize there isn’t a potato peeler in the apartment, and using ice bucket tons to turn the bacon), and it was a surprise success. It felt good to show people that American food is more than what’s on the menu at McDonald’s (a comment said to us by one of our friends). So all in all the night was a success, but I won’t lie and say that I’m not looking forward to being able to cook in our own home and be able to purchase and measure out whatever ingredients I need, and put them in an oven pre-heated to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Maybe with a cup of sour cream in one hand and an American flag in the other.