I finally realized how unique Chinese cooling is until I tried to cook it in this foreign country without a sizable Asian population nearby.
At the supermarket, I struggled to find corn starch to make the simple egg drop soup. The Greeks pointed me to a box with corn on the cover but apparently is for making a sweet drink mixed with milk.
Next I tried to find soy sauce. So much of delicious Asian cooking depends on soy sauce; but the Greeks could not find it, either. Instead, there are just rows and rows of pasta and olive oil.
I was also overwhelmed with the selection of rice; however, all yellow rice. I did not think this was a big deal, until I starting boiling a small boil and it congealed into this glutinous rice jello.
In the end, I did find my corn starch and soy sauce in the smallest box/bottle I’ve seen them in. And I succeeded in making my moms soy sauce chicken, even if the soy sauce was oddly sweet rather than salty. And the fried rice that I made still came out pretty tasty (especially when I diced all the turkey I bought and poured the sauce from the chicken). And the potatoes that I left boiling for too long still made a nice mashed potato.
The boys that I shared the meal with seemed to enjoy it. Not sure if they were so hungry that it was to the point of any food is good food or if they were just being nice to me. Either way, it did good to my heart to have them praise my cooking, even after all my mishaps.
