Stahlke Adoption

Never Again

When Jonathan and I lived in Germany, we sometimes ate in the student dining hall at the University of Halle. One of their dishes looked like a frosted cake, but I discovered instead that it was a small head of cauliflower smothered in cheese sauce. Not exactly the dessert I was expecting, but interesting nonetheless.

Years later, when it came time in Kyiv to cook for our newly-acquired children, I thought of this German dish and figured it was Eastern-European enough to pass muster. Was I ever wrong! Five years later, the kids still talk about that cauliflower. None of them ate it, and we ended up going into town and buying hot dogs from a street vendor.

A few days ago, I cooked another dish that will probably be remembered and not repeated. We were out of vegetables--nothing canned, fresh, or frozen except for a bag of onions. So I fried fifteen small onions and put them into rice soup. It tasted pretty good, but there were a few problems.

None of the children could do chores after supper because everyone's eyes were stinging so badly from the scent of onion in the air. And all of us smelled like onions for two days. One of the older boys told me that he wouldn't mind eating them in the summer, but not during the school year when he had to be around other people! I'm sure he meant girls.

posted by Stahlkes @ 6:04 PM