A big part about studying abroad is the responsibility of cooking for yourself. Seeing as how I maintained my comfortability of having a meal plan back home, cooking for real was going to be a challenge.
Luckily, Sunderland continues to make it easy for us to find and buy food without feeling financially guilty. What I first had to learn was the names of all the stores that sell groceries: Tesco, PoundLand, Aldi, Asda and Sainsbury’s. Since students rule most of Sunderland’s city center, the stores are all within walking distance or a 10-minute bus ride.
The prices have been more than fair when it comes to the actual shopping part. Whether it’s fresh produce or pre-packaged bags of chips and candy, the most I have had to pay for any single item is three pounds. Though I’m still getting used to England’s bus system, I haven’t had a problem with putting food into the cabinets.
One of my favorite places to shop is one of the stores I mentioned above: Poundland. Because there is no such thing as taxes over on this side of the pond, everything in that store is one pound. They have many products at this store, from health and beauty products to cooking utensils to food. If you wanted to buy a baking pan, then you pay just one pound. Five boxes of Typhoo tea? Five pounds. It’s a good store to get boxed food, candy and the extra set of silverware that is needed for your seventh flatmate. Since I am a student, I shop there quite often because of the prices.
The actual cooking is the hardest part after trying to not feel guilty about going over your food budget. There are three Americans, two Germans, one Spaniard and one Korean that live in my flat. More than half of them have been able to cook for themselves their entire lives. Last week, my Korean flatmate actually made homemade sushi for all of us, right down to rolling it all up with the seaweed wrap. Her finished plate looked as if it came out of Food Network magazine. It made my version of cooking look absolutely pathetic. But when you’re down to the last few packages of pasta, a bag of cheese and some pork sausage, sometimes you have to use your imagination to come up with your next supper.
I finally decided one evening that I was going to make a real dinner for my flatmates as a way of just getting to know each other better. I settled on a recipe called “Lazy Pasta,” which is spaghetti with tomatoes, mushrooms, cucumber (I couldn’t find zucchini) and mozzarella cheese (I couldn’t find parmesan). It’s one thing to just cook for yourself because when you’re finished you’re just happy to be done and you never think about what it will taste like. But I was cooking for six other people who hadn’t eaten dinner yet, so my so-called “cooking skills” were put on the spot. The cucumbers were sautéed with salt and pepper since I didn’t have any seasonings and the mushrooms and tomatoes had a weird way of cooking themselves. My flatmates could tell that I was struggling with getting this recipe right because they kept asking if I needed help. By the time I put the finished supper on everyone’s plates, I was ready to be done with cooking for the next few weeks. It wasn’t the best thing I ever created with few ingredients but it suited the girls well enough.
I also decided to make dessert, which made up for the dinner. “Bloomin’ Baked Apples,” a recipe that I found on Facebook earlier that morning, was, in contrast, one of the best things I ever made. The smell of the cinnamon and caramel reminded me of the calming autumn back home that I miss every day. Some of my new foreign friends had no idea that apples and cinnamon went well together as food. They thought it was only in a Glade room scent that made it acceptable. I only laughed as I put another forkful of apple into my mouth.
Cooking has never been my forte and I could never cook half the recipes that some of my friends make every day. But that supper really made me more conscious about treating new people like family, and what better way than to fill their stomachs without having to go near the stove? If you live in an apartment, then you should try at least once to make a dinner for your roommates. You’ll learn a lot about your skills in the kitchen as well as how to make a lot with few ingredients.