I think the best indication of the not so american roots in my family has to the inssesent quest for baked goods here. My mother grew up in Germany and came to America to complete her masters degree. There she met my father and stayed on to work in Washington DC. Since living in America for 25 years she has had one large and to this day unsolved problem: the baked goods offered in this country suck. My mother was raised on a regular diet of freshly baked breads, cakes, and pastries that came from the multitude of bakeries in Germany. Here there are no backeries. So even though I have been raised in America my mother still passed the need for good baked goods onto my entire family. My father has become so indoctrinated by my mother that he can’t go a day without sitting down for “Kaffee und Kuchen”, or coffee and cake, in the afternoon. My mother bakes cakes on the weekends to try and replace the hole left by American baking, and we have gone so far as to buy a bread maker and make our own bread to try and fight off the bad bread blues. All of this is inconvient and time consuming though so we have to resort to buying sandwich bread or the overpriced, flimsy rolls offered at some grocery store. On the trips my family has taken to Germany to visit my mothers side, we always gourge ourselves on freshly baked rolls, pretzels and cakes from German bakeries. We have however not been discouraged and my mother is now rejoicing that a Lidl (a German grocery store) will be opening not far from our home. Hopefully their in-store backery will finally state our quest for good bread. 

– AL.

Relationship:  Im/migrant Im/migrant