Piteå cooking!

21 Oct '10

Achievement for the day was to gather the necessary items for cooking dinner and having a bathroom. Headed down to one of two big supermarkets in town, I chose the one called “Coop” rather than “ICA”, which is about 30 minutes walk. Had to limit myself to absolute necessities since I had to carry it all home! 

I bought:

  • 1 bathroom mat
  • 1 shower curtain
  • 8 AA batteries
  • 1 electric jug
  • microfiber cleaning cloths
  • self soaping dishwashing sponge thing
  • Nice teabags
  • Nice instant coffee
  • Pasta
  • 2 x instant noodles
  • nice pasta sauce
  • beef mince (I think it’s beef?)
  • frozen vegetables
  • salt
  • biscuits
  • gladwrap
  • shampoo
  • laundry powder
  • tissues

and some other stuff I can’t remember.

Then, since I had all the ikea cooking stuff, I should be able to make dinner right?

Wrong.

Since I’m in Sweden you have to make dinner the Ikea way, i.e., Step 1 is “Build your saucepans”, so I had to build and wash all the saucepans etc (see photos).

Luckily the Ikea kit came with a colander and a big pasta spoon thing otherwise I would have been in trouble.

Anyway, dinner was successful.

Wondering what other stuff I need? Probably some more varied food, and fruit, etc, but I like keeping it simple. There’s waay more room in the fridge than in the rest of the kitchen and there’s particularly heaps of room in the freezer, so I can keep lots of frozen stuff on hand. 

Is a microwave necessary? Particularly for defrosting meat, cooking frozen vegetables, reheating yesterday’s food? I wonder how much one is. I think they have them at Coop as well.

Next thing I really need are:

  • Proper sheets—as much as I love my (Christina’s) sleeping bag sheet, I should probably buy regular ones that are easier to wash. Coop has them, but I don’t know the words for different sheet forms (i.e. pillow, fitted, regular..) and it was too hard last night to work it out.
  • Dustpan and brush—Coop didn’t seem to have them
  • Microfibre mop thing—my whole flat has a lino floor which is still dirty. I made a valient attempt with one of my microfibre cloths, but a mop thing would be waay easier. Need the dustpan first.

Posted via email from charles martin