Baking Around goes to Italy

Since I couldn't be here for Kyles actual birthday, I made him a cake today instead! Today was the first day I went out on my own. I accomplished ordering a cappuccino and going to the market all by myself! Such an accomplishment. I loved going to the market and looking at everything. I'm pretty sure I was asked like 10 times if I needed help because I would just stand there and stare at all the packaging. This is what I bought to bake a cake with, they even had candles too! It took me about an hour to figure out how to use the oven though. I pretty much took the whole thing apart (not the first time I've taken an oven apart) to find out that you need to light it with a lighter. Luckily the internet was working today so I also went online and searched for the manual for about 30 minutes. Once I decoded that I was ready to bake a cake! Now baking in another country, not terribly difficult...but baking in Kyles kitchen?! Thats another story. The poor guy doesn't really have much so I improvised a lot.

Since everything was in Italiano, this is what I was working with:

"Prepare 1 terrina, 1 sbattitore elettrico con fruste, 1 tortiera preferibilmente a cerchio apribile con il solo fondo imburrato ed infarinato. Togliere dal frigorifero il burro, le uova e il latte mezz'ora prima dell'uso."

Try translating that! Its actually pretty easy, with my knowledge of baking its a lot easier for me to read about baking things than it is to read the newspaper or something, I surprisingly did very well in the store with buying things. This is what it translates to:

"Prepare 1 bowl, 1 electric mixer with beaters, 1 cake pan preferably in a circle opening with the bottom buttered and floured. Remove from the refrigerator butter, eggs and milk half an hour before use."

The Italians are very descriptive here, half of those things are just assumed in the states, where here they lay every detail out for you so even someone...say Kyle...can bake this cake!

I was out on the balcony painting my nails and taking in the day when he came home, he was so excited that I had baked him a cake! I also had dinner ready to cook, he had bought steaks the other day on base so I had been thawing them all day and seasoned them. Kyle has a charcoal grill, which I've never used. So I did wait till he came home to make dinner since I knew I would probably just ruin things if I tried using the grill without him. He started working on the nightstands we got the other day while I Skyped my dad. Nick came in to say hello for a bit too. I lost track of time when I was talking to day, typical, and had to let him go because I needed to start dinner and it was getting late. Kyle successfully finished one nightstand and started on the other one before I came in to tell him I was attempting to grill for the first time on a charcoal grill. He jumped up instantly and came out on the balcony to teach me.

We are having steak, potatoes, salad and Italian wine + birthday cake tonight, Dad said he'd be here in an hour so I better go finish dinner! ;)

♥ Mae