If any of you who are reading this are my friends from University of Maryland, you know that my roommates and I love our kitchen adventures.
For example:
We usually become such ridiculous fools while creating our culinary masterpieces that we’ve come up with the phrase “Who let this bitch in the kitchen?” By the end of the semester, it was a common greeting for each other.
During my first few weeks in Germany, I was hardly a bitch in the kitchen. I was more of a tired/frazzled/hungover idiot in the kitchen that all I could handle making was baked potatoes. Woof.
All that started to turn around this week, however, when I had some friends over for family dinner. We were all craving Italian food, so I whipped this out
Spaghetti with pesto and caprese salad. Yes, the pesto was jarred, but the caprese salad was good. Just cherry tomatoes, bocconcini, olive oil, balsamic, a ton of basil, lots of sea salt, lots of garlic pepper. It was my first time really cooking again. No recipe, just using my senses to make the most delicious food as possible.
Then, yesterday, THIS happened
This, my friends, is Milchreis. I came across it in the grocery stores here, but the Mensa makes some BOMB Milchreis. It’s kind of like Rice Pudding, but 203981209430948 times better. It’s warm, it’s sweet, it’s comforting, it’s filling, and it’s dirt cheap to make. So I decided to make it yesterday after braving the bone-rattling Berlin cold for an excursion the program planned for us.
I picked up dry Milchreis grains and some milk at the grocery store, dumped it in a pot, brought it to a boil, and then let it simmer until I thought it looked good (~30 minutes?). I ended up having to add extra milk a few time throughout the cooking process because I would get hangry (hungry to the point of anger, for those of you who don’t know) and impatient and turn up the heat, but that would only make the milk evaporate instead of gently thickening with the rice. Low and slow is MAD ANNOYING (still angry), but so worth it. Especially when you top your creation with cinnamon sugar and applesauce. My friend who is just as infatuated with Milchreis came over to try it with her two friends who are visiting, and they ended up eating the rest of the batch out of the saucepan. I also ended up making it again, four hours later, for dinner. Heck, it’s probably going to be my dinner tonight.
Sorry baked potatoes, but we’re on a break. The Bitch is back.
My friend Marnie and I 
A square, Aix-en-Provence
Marnie in Aix
Florence Duomo, dusk
Tripe sandwiches, Florence
Piazza Navona at dawn, Rome
Pantheon at dawn, Rome
Trevi Fountain at dawn, Rome
Campo di Fiori, Rome
Gemüsings 
