- Popcorn should only lie in a single row in the bottom of your pot if you don’t want it fly all over the kitchen. Who knew? My previous experience was only with “jiffy pop” on vacation and microwave popcorn at home.
- Toddlers don’t steal tables. I spent the better part of 20 minutes thinking I’d lost a table out of the baby room in the chaos of Tea House only to discover it broken and waiting to be repaired on the back balcony. This story is the source of endless humor among my teammates
- Instant coffee should not be percolated with a filter. Enough said. When you can’t read the label in Greek, it wasn’t immediately obvious that I had instant coffee (to a non-coffee drinker).
- Eggs don’t have to be refrigerated. They sell them on the shelf, not in the refrigerated section here in the grocery stores here and you can buy cute wire baskets to keep them in for your counter top. I still keep mine in the refrigerator (not sure why), but they don’t have to be if you eat them fresh. How many chickens do you know with refrigerators?
- When you buy olives in bulk fresh at the open market, you bring them home and store them in olive oil. It makes perfect sense, but I just didn’t know.
- In Europe, as a renter you own your own light fixtures, carpets (and none of it is wall to wall carpet), appliances (including the stove and oven) and in some homes even the cupboards and closets. This explains so much about IKEA.
- Cookie sheets in Greece come with your oven and you can’t buy them anywhere else because every oven is a slightly different size. They slide in like a rack or broiling pan. Looking for something non-stick? You don’t need it. Parchment paper is cheap here and everyone uses it on the metal sheet and nothings sticks to the paper. You just throw it away when you are finished. If you are really good, you can slide the paper off the cookie sheet with the cookies still on it, to your cooling rack without ever touching a spatula.
- I should have paid more attention on how to convert centigrade to Fahrenheit in school and how to convert inches to centimeters. In Europe, everything is metric and in Greece all power outlets are 220 (and require a transformer to use most appliances you might bring from the US). Transformers are specific to the wattage of your appliance, there is no “one size” fits all.
- The whole Bible thing about “daily bread” means that most of the world buys their bread (or makes it) daily without preservative, just what they need, just what God provides. There is no need to keep one in your freezer, or to stock up at the grocery store because you can always get more fresh bread at your neighborhood bakery if you need it, 7 days a week warm and fresh. Why would you want old bread when you can have fresh? I’m getting good at slicing bread thinly and evenly. I’m getting even better at actually believing God is able to supply my daily bread….daily.
