On the fourth of November I moved in with my fiance, only to find that
he had no kitchen supplies or equipment whatsoever...also no food,
spices, or the other basic requirements of human life for a cook -
only a fridge and a microwave, which was all he needed to live off
bagels and lunchmeat and reheated takeout. It was a world away from
what I was used to in Australia...

Our first purchase was a $3 frypan and knife set from Walgreens, which
let me fry us up some eggs and ham for breakfast. Then we took a trip
to Target and got a 12-piece set of basic pots and pans by Bialetti.
They weren't the cheapest but far from the most expensive ones in the
store. So far I'm very happy with them. We also got a ten dollar
toaster that I'm not thrilled with, but it does the job. The first
meal I made us was a carbonara with ham, parmasen cheese and milk. It
wasn't anything fancy, but John thought it was! Then we went shopping
again and got a few more 'cooking' ingredients, and I made us a
tomato-based risotto with mushrooms, and the next day I improvised a
fried rice. Note to self - arborio rice does NOT make a good fried
rice, especially when you don't have a colander to drain it in! The
end result was very gluggy and more like 'dirty rice' than the Chinese
version. It was so gooey that I tried an experiment, and made a bit of
it into rice cakes that I fried in olive oil. That wasn't really a
success - they fell apart and absorbed too much oil. But the gluggy
rice tasted nice...

Last night I did some 'real' cooking - I cleaned out the oven and
made us a meatloaf dinner, with all my usual seasonings in it, only I
had to use hot sauce instead of worcestershire, because we haven't
bought any yet. Pork and veal meatloaf is my favourite but it's almost
impossible to get in Australia, so I was delighted to see trays of
'twinpacks' in the market. The smallest pack they had was almost two
pounds of meat, so I divided it into two and froze one cooked loaf,
while the other disappeared into our tummies, accompanied by roast
potatoes, roast sweet potato, and some incredibly tasteless carrots.

Now I want baking equipment to go with the $5 roasting dish and cake
pan, and a basic pantry setup. Then I'll really feel at home... I
can't wait to be able to bake a cake or cookies so I can get some real
treats!