La Comida y Praga

There's been very few things my host mom has cooked for me that I haven't liked. However, the other night for supper we had a bowl of mushrooms with bacon bits and a hard-boiled egg. This is probably in my top 3 foods I haven't liked. After I was about half-way finished she asked me if I liked it. I told her that mushrooms aren't my favorite but I really like them when they're with tomato sauce for some reason. So she has me get a carton of tomato sauce out of the refrigerator and pour it over my food. I then was able to get the rest down without a problem. She started laughing and said how lucky it was that she didn't ask me whether I liked mushrooms before she cooked it :) I love my host mom.

Last week I came home from class one night and she started talking about "Tomates verdes y fritos" and I couldn't figure out what she was talking about until she said "es un libro." Ah ha! She was talking about how she had read the book and seen the movie "Fried Green Tomatoes" and then that morning she was walking to the market and saw a bin of green tomatoes. She bought a bunch and then came home and made green tomato marmelade. I wanted to turn and run when she showed it to me and tried to give me some for supper. I tried a bit with a piece of bread because I've told myself I will try any food she makes me. It was actually amazing. It was a lot sweeter than I expected and tasted a bit like applesauce. It made me happy because as I can't eat apples and therefore no applesauce, this seems like a good replacement. Not if only I can get the recipe out of her.

The second week of March my host mom is going to Prague (Praga) with her friend who is in a wheelchair and she's really excited. She talks about it everyday and tells me that she knows I'll be fine alone in the house. However, she seems to be worried about me making food for myself. She's planning to have lunch made and refrigerated for me for the first 2 days and then one day I'm eating at my friend Leah's house, another at Marita's, her daughter is bringing me lunch 2 of the days and another I'll be in Toledo. However, it's supper she's worried about. Last night I came into the kitchen and she had a personal size frozen pizza sitting on the counter and she told me to make it. All I have to do is put it in the microwave for 3 1/2 minutes? Then she was telling me that she's going to be teaching me to make my own suppers which will consist of sandwhiches and pizza. I tried to explain to her that I love to cook and bake and that I've lived on my own for almost 3 years now and do all my cooking. She seemed a bit surprised but told me I'm going to have to cook for her sometime.

I think that's one of the hardest parts about living with a host family here. It's normal for people to live with their families until they're married (which the average age is about 30) and people just aren't as independent as we are in the US. The families seem to have a hard time understanding how independent we are in US and that we've been considered adults for a while. (Although my friends and I do call 18-21/24ish "fake adulthood"). It's also hard for us as independents to learn to live with a family in the same way as if we were back in high school. I'm lucky that my host mom has had so many host students before and it's only her so it's much easier than living with a family.