The Tools to Get the Job Done

Obviously, if you're going to cook and serve meals in your new home away from home, you'll need things to cook with and things to serve the food on. However, you're only going to be there for a short time in most cases--a semester to a year. What a waste it would be to get more than you need only to have to turn around at the end of your stay and give it all away.

The obvious thing is to buy only what you really need, but what is that exactly? Well, that depends on you. Some people aren't going to cook very often no matter how badly they desire the foods they love. Those people will need the very minimum of cookware. Others love to cook and may need more. My advice to you is to get one medium-sized skillet and one medium-sized sauce pot to begin with. This will fit many of your most basic cooking needs. You may need to practice a little creative handling if you want to cook, say, spaghetti and need the pot for both the sauce and the noodles, but it's possible to make it work.

What if one skillet and one pot isn't working out for you? Well, depending on how often you envision yourself cooking items that require more than two pots, you can do one of two things: find another student (or residence association, if you have one) with the pot you need and borrow it or go out and buy it. Personally, I found I needed more pots so I now have two skillets and two sauce pots--one large and one small of each. I know other students I can borrow other pots from if I need them.

So, you have something to cook your items in, but you need something to serve with and to serve on. Just like back home, I've found cooking and serving utensils to be fairly cheap and easy to find. The same goes for eating utensils--at least here in Europe (not every country will have the same types of utensils, so maybe someone else can pipe in with alternate experiences on this point). If you look around, you should be able to find a discount store with items that will meet your needs.

Dishes are another matter. For plates, bowls, and saucers, my friends and I picked up an inexpensive set at a discount store and split it, with each of us receiving two of each item. This has worked out very well for us. If you don't have anyone to split with, then weigh the prices of individual dishes against a whole set. You'll likely still get off cheaper by only buying a couple of each dish. If you wish to invite your fellow students over to dinner, you can request they bring their dishes and utensils with them.

If you want hot drinks, you will need at least one mug. You can probably get by on just that one mug by using it for both hot at cold drinks, but a set of glasses to serve drinks in to guests is not usually terribly expensive.

Another option is to clean out jars and re-use them as glasses. Yes, I'm showing my redneck side with that option, but it works, and it's good for the environment ("Reduce, Reuse, Recycle"). You can use the same principal to create holders for utensils, pens, etc. out of soda bottles. Just cut off the top, and you've got a handy holder without spending anything additional on it.

Well, that's all for this post. If you have any questions regarding the topic of this post, feel free to leave it in the comments. If you are currently studying abroad and wish to offer a different perspective on this topic, feel free to comment on that as well.

Happy cooking!

About This Blog

Hello! This blog is the brainchild of two Southern American students studying abroad in France. As such, some of the entries in this blog will be geared more towards students studying in France--where to find ingredients for certain recipes and what they are called in French, for instance. We do hope, however, that all study abroad students will find it helpful.

We found--as many people who spend a good length of time abroad do--that the local cuisine (as good as it was) was beginning to lose some of its novelty. We longed for some of the foods we had grown up with and had not had since we left home. Determined to have some good Southern cooking--or any cooking that reminded us of home, for that matter--we set out to find out how to make it in a place where "Biscuit" refers to cookies and crackers, "Bacon" is what we call "Canadian Bacon", and cornmeal is nowhere to be found.

This blog will tell of our adventures in figuring out how to cook the foods we love and how to do the same yourselves.