Seeing that I come from a family where my mom does almost all the cooking, I never learned how to cook all that well.  Yes, I currently live on my own in Germany, but I don’t need to cook that well.  The reason is that for breakfast, I cook the easy breakfast food like eggs, bacon, and sausages.  For lunch, I eat at the cafeteria at work.  All interns get a discount there.  Lastly, for dinner, I usually just eat a sandwich.  I keep my dinners light since I sleep quite early and it wouldn’t make sense for me to go to sleep right after I eat a huge meal.  Although I got every meal covered, I need a little variety.  In a way, I started to learn how to cook.  For starters, I figure cooking potatoes is a nice way to start.  I guess I took quite the plunge when I decided to live on my own without knowing how to cook.

All I had to do was peel the potatoes, cut them up into little blocks and throw them on a frying pan.  I know some people use onions, but I’m not a fan of them.  Sounds straightforward, except I had never peeled a potato in my life.  However, I’m not that clueless in cooking and I knew that I needed to use a peeler.  I took the peeler out and got started.  Either the peeler had a dull blade or I just lacked peeling skill, but for the life of me I could not peel the potato.  I quickly gave up on the peeler and looked for a knife.  I remembered that’s how I peeled apples in my childhood, when I was curious about those things.  Unfortunately, the only knife I could find was a giant steak knife.  Better than nothing I guess.  I got started peeling the potato skin, while carefully ensuring that the skin stayed together as one long strip during the peeling. Peeling with a giant steak knife just didn’t really cut it (lame pun I know).  I took out my Swiss Army Knife instead.  Holding the knife with my right hand and the potato with my left, I began to peel the potato.

However, due to a pure lack of skill, the knife plunged into the tip of my left index finger.  The knife probably went in about a few millimeters before I was able to react.  With blood gushing out nonstop, I went and looked for some tissue to soak up the blood and stop the bleeding.  While this happened, I refused to lose to this tiny potato.  I continued to peel the potato while trying to stop the bleeding at the same time.  A minute later, I finished peeling the potato and began to fashion a tourniquet using the tissue, cloth for eyeglasses, and a rubber band.  I wrapped the tissue around the wound, then tied the cloth into a knot around it.  Fearing that the cloth wouldn’t be tight enough, I put a rubber band around it.  Fifteen minutes later, I managed to stop the bleeding. 

Undeterred by the injury, I continued to peel the rest of the potatoes and continued with my plan.  I cut up the peeled potatoes into little chunks and threw them on a frying pan with some butter.  A while later, I finished cooking the potatoes and began to enjoy them.  I guess if life gives me potatoes, I should cut them up and throw them on a frying pan without injuring myself.