We moved to Colombia over a year ago, and I have had to make a lot of adjustments and changes in my cooking. It has been challenging trying to cook without some of the ingredients that I consider basic (like lemons), but I have also learned how to cook with regional items that I'd never used before (like plantains). I love to bake, and now with the extra time that I have, I bake 2-3 times a week. Sometimes it's simple things like cookies, sometimes it's more involved, like artisan breads. And I like to cook a lot of ethnic foods, since we can't get that here (Indian, German, Mexican, Asian etc). I use some recipes that have been handed down from my Oma, for some labor intensive German cooking. My oldest (who's 4), loves to help me cook, so now everytime I make pizza or cookies, he's there with me. Probably the most challenging things I have baked were a "Zopf" (German braided bread), and baguettes. They tasted great, but I'm still working on the presentation. Also, I recently made a really wonderful Indian meal (naan, tandoori chicken, dahl, basmati rice, and kulfi), using recipes from this website. It turned out incredibly delicious. I have been cooking for a long time now so I don't usually have "tragedies" since I have a feel for how much of what goes with what. But when I started cooking, sometimes my cookies would pool, or I'd put too much of some spice in, or oversalt something. The only real "tragedies" I can think of are when my dogs (whose heads are counter level) snag food that I want to use, off the counter!