Jump to recipe for pear cardamom strudel

During the spring break of my semester abroad in Ireland, I traveled to Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic with two American friends. We were on tight student budgets, so we didn’t eat many fancy meals out. Instead, we bought cheese, bread and yogurt from grocery stores and picnicked by fountains in public squares. In the evenings, we waited our turn to boil noodles in hostel kitchens.

One day in Germany, we stopped in a bookstore where I found a beautiful Bavarian cookbook. It had hand-drawn illustrations alongside boldly outdated recipes – like stuffed roast pigeon. I fell in love with it, instantly. I agonized over whether to pay the steep price of (I think) 13 euro. After all, that kind of money could buy five to seven hostel spaghetti dinners. With cheese. Eventually though, I decided it was worth it. And a tradition was born. Ever since then, I have collected a cookbook from every country I have been lucky enough to visit.

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Jump to recipe for award winning rhubarb bars

You will not be surprised to hear that I am a huge fan of cooking competition shows. And not just the classy ones where everyone is civilized and kind and the grand prize is an engraved plate presented over a larger-than-average tea. No, I also like the ones hosted by d-list celebrities, with kitchens full of people running and yelling “behind! behind!” – where, if the contestants can’t make a dessert out of peach O’s and catfish in 15 minutes, they lose out on $10,000.

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