Ciao from Debbie!

 When I was 2 years old, our family moved to French West Africa where my parents worked for 40 years as missionaries.  In the 60s the country we lived in was called Upper Volta and today it is called Burkina Faso. It is a landlocked country just south of the Sahara.  The people are quite poor in material goods but rich in culture and relationships.  The country is not famous for its restaurants and its chefs...but our home-cooked meals gave me a wonderful foundation in basic cooking skills.  The smell of sticky buns baking during our siesta, fresh sugared doughnuts still warm from the frying pan and light cheesy souffle right out of the oven fill my childhood "memory bank".  My entire family loved to eat and meals were a highlight of our day.  I don't know how my mom did it with four hungry kids living in such a remote area.  In our little village, very little was available besides sweetened condensed milk and tomato paste, since the Africans ate only a type of "millet-polenta" each day.  We ground our own meat, raised our own chickens and collected our own eggs.  No running down to the store if we ran out of anything...the closest grocery store was a four-hour drive away!  One benefit that came out of learning to cook in that environment is that I find it fairly easy to substitute ingredients that are not readily available.  

At the age of 2, I visited Italy while my parents were studying French in Paris.  Some say I was looking for my husband, Larry, who grew up in Naples.  I didn't visit Italy again until 1989, this time with my husband and children, but the Italian influence had already affected my kitchen.  My mother-in-law showed me how to make strouffoli and gnocchi while a dear, second-generation Italian in Rhode Island gave me hands-on cooking lessons in roasting peppers and making fresh pasta.  These remain some of our family's favorite foods even today.  While living in Italy for several years, cooking had an important part in helping me learning language and in developing friendships.  One day a week I helped cook in the Italian Bible Institute kitchen to give me opportunity to learn cooking skills while also practicing my Italian.  We shared many meals in the homes of Italians and invited them over to ours.  Students from the Bible Institute would often ask us to fix them an "American meal".  But what is that?  I realized how eclectic and varied our "American" cooking was!  Several times we had Italians over for an American breakfast--which in many ways is very different from their cappuccino-and-cookies type breakfast.  

What took us to Europe, you might ask?  In 1999, we moved to Rome, Italy where we worked with the Italian Bible Institute for 3 years before transferring to Kandern, Germany to work with Greater Europe Missions' new initiative of distance learning.  Our ministry is called eDOT (electronic Discipleship, Outreach and Training.  We are helping to build the church in Europe in a variety of ways, using technology. In addition to helping with graphics and editing Connect! eDOT's monthly eNewsletter,

     In August 2008, we moved back to Italy, to the Torino area. We continue our work with eDOT, but are also getting to know Italians with whom we share God's love and truth.

     I love to share my love of cooking with others. I've taught some Italians how to make American Apple Pie and enjoyed an afternoon of bread-making with several young America girls living in Torino. (You can read more about it by reading my blog.)  I've found cooking to be a common interest with women all over the world!  Europeans enjoy our brownies and chocolate chip cookies as much as we like their pasta!

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