What to bring on a mission?

How do you know what to bring on a mission? Can't you just buy everything in your new city? Well, there are a few things that I can't live without in my kitchen. If I'm going to bake or cook, I'm going to need my trusty tools.

Danika gave me a special vegetable peeler from Germany before we left. While she was in the store, the proprietor asked whether I was right-handed or left. She told him that I was right-handed, but pushed away the peels instead of carving them toward me. (I assume this was all in German.) He announced that I was doing it wrong. So she asked whether she should get a left-handed model so the blade would be positioned correctly. No! She was to instruct me how to do it properly. And so she did. At 50 years old, I learned to peel by carving and if we ever serve in Frankfurt, I won't embarrass myself.

A cookie disher is really a luxury, but I like making cookies and the uniformity I get makes baking easy. Teaspoon and cup measurements don't weigh anything so I throw in some cheap versions into my luggage. I love this dollar bench scraper from Ikea. How was I to know there were 4 Ikeas in Hong Kong? It just goes wherever I do. I lost my heart cookie cutters in some country, so I bought these in Hong Kong. They are great for cutting up pans of brownies or sugar cookie dough for Valentine's Day.

The Microplane is for zesting lemons and oranges (especially for orange rolls). It's very hard to get one of these at short notice. The loaf pan is my favorite for bread and bakes a perfect loaf every time.

Although I have all my recipes in the cloud, I like having paper copies. My friend Mony McDonald from El Paso gave me this bread recipe in Lubbock in 1991. I've used it for all these years. And the traditional clam dip recipe from my Grandma Dorothy Jackson is in there for the holidays. Unfortunately, I haven't found any minced clams here yet.

My friend Merry from Mount Vernon made me a pair of hotpads in 2019 and I love them! They've traveled all over the world. The mini-cupcake pan is perfect for bite-sized cupcakes and brownies. Both Ecuador and Hong Kong have paper inserts for this size, too.

Cotton towels are extremely difficult to find. Everything is polyester here, so if you try to dry a dish, nothing happens. As easy as kitchen towels are to find in the US, you might as well bring a few with you. And grab a plastic oil bottle for the stove.

I have yet to find butter wrapped like the United States, so I have to weigh it out every time. Inexpensive food scales are easy to find online. Ad instead of a stand blender, I pack an immersion blender with a mini food processor. It all breaks down to a manageable size. In Ecuador, the granulated sugar is very coarse, so I need to grind it for some recipes. Plus, brown sugar does not exist here. So I tracked down a bottle of molasses and make my own. Paul likes to make his own hamburgers, so we bought this little press on Amazon. Not pictured is my food thermometer. Great for checking chicken and making caramels.

In Hong Kong we could get most items off Amazon, but here there is no mail service. If we need something shipped here, we would have to hire a mule in the US and have them bring it to us.

One thing I can't bring is my big dutch oven. Tauni Beck gave me a beautiful red one and it just weighs too much to bring. It's sitting on a shelf waiting for me to return.

*Not pictured: A Danish whisk which is currently inserted into a curtain rod to make it long enough to reach the wall bracket.