Zagreb Diaries

Bok bok, my sweet little pumpkins

2012-01-14T19:52:00.000+01:00

I knew this day would come eventually, I just didn't think it would happen so soon, and leave me feeling so empty. I'm talking about the day that my winter-supply of squash finally ran out. This evening I roasted and ate my very last squash. And it came out perfect: sweet, chestnutty, all yummy and delicious. I baked it exactly the way I like it...just a little browned around the edges, with a bit of sea salt. And after letting it cool to room temperature, drizzling generously with olive oil.

Back in September, we brought home 25 of these little beauties. All of them the Hokkaido variety. Each one eaten with gusto and gratefulness.

Now, I count the days until I meet my precious Hokkaido once more.

Just 240 days to go. May the autumn harvest be bountiful.

Gardening in January!

2012-01-05T17:02:00.000+01:00

Today I cooked cabbage and brussels sprouts picked fresh out of a neighbour's garden (with her permission, of course ;-) I cannot explain the incredible taste of such fresh vegetables. Sweet. Lucious. Tender. Crisp. So yummy that they don't even need salt. Seriously. Just steam and eat. What a concept!

Curly cabbage!

Yep, those are brussels sprouts....don't worry I didn't know what the plant looked like either!

New year of possibilities

2011-12-28T09:39:00.002+01:00

I often look to nature for signs of hope, and I found it in the Istrian sunset. Frosty air. Darkness descending; a sky bursting with ethereal colour. Entrancing. Gorgeous. Uplifting. And inspirational.

Happy New Year to everyone. May 2012 be filled with an abundance of good things for us all.

Merry Christmas 2011

2011-12-22T15:01:00.000+01:00

I cannot believe that it is already Christmas! Honestly, this year has flown by. I'm wishing everyone a very very happy holiday season, and all the best for the new year. May 2012 be wonderful for us all.

Thoughts on the language

2011-12-06T18:26:00.000+01:00

I get lots of questions from people asking what the Croatian language is like to learn as a new language. I tell them that it is a lot like the Energizer Bunny (from the TV commercial for Energizer batteries), the language just keeps going and going and going and going. IMHO learning to speak Croatian proficiently cannot be measured in number of hours or months or semesters. Learning to be proficient in Croatian is more like growing an expansive garden. Some plants will be fruitful almost immediately, some will require coddling, and some plants will take years to mature and bear fruit. Once the entire garden is well established, then the full bounty can truly be enjoyed.

My language is slowly but surely growing. No longer tender saplings. And not yet a fruit-laden orchard. But something in between. Filled with energy and great promise. Always reaching towards the sky.

Crisp Autumn Nights

2011-10-21T19:04:00.000+02:00

Oh, the days are getting shorter, and the evenings are quick to crisp up and get fresh. Chestnut-roasting vendors are in the streets, and curls of smoke drift out of night-time chimneys. Fall is upon us. Put a log in the wood-burning stove. Get out the tea cozy. And take out that crocheted zigzag afghan project from last winter, and finish it up by the fireside.

Autumn. Awesome.

Interesting wildlife...if you are squeamish, don't look at this post!

2011-09-29T13:08:00.000+02:00

Today's post is about scorpions. Yep. Scorpions. Who knew? They live up and down the coast in Croatia and I'm told they are the variety that can sting, but don't kill. Apparently their sting is as bad as a nasty bee sting (unless you are allergic). They are pretty small in the Istrian peninsula where I had the encounter with the fellow in the picture above. This one was about 5cm (2 inches) long and is one of the bigger ones you'll see around these parts. Most of the other ones I've seen are usually 1-2cm long, and for some reason they tend to be in dark, damp places like the shower door, or the shower floor.

You might think that your first reaction to seeing your first scorpion is to scream or maybe pass out. That's what I thought too. But weirdly, the first time I saw one I was dumbstruck, frozen, paralyzed, and it took about 3 minutes to recover enough to point in the direction where the scorpion had been (I'm guessing he took off so fast because he could sense my impending nervous breakdown). Then in a tiny whisper I said to my husband: I think I just saw a scorpion. Then I sat down. I think what may have happened is that my brain has never seen one of these things up close and personal, and thus it took my brain a couple hundred seconds to scan through my memory banks to first figure out what it is (not a spider, not a centipede, etc), then my brain had to figure out the correct response (run, scream, cry, employ flame thrower, etc).

The second time I encountered a scorpion, it didn't take a millisecond for me to react. Strange thing about scorpions: they are BOLD. They don't scurry away like spiders. Nope. They sort of sit there looking at you as if to say: yeah, you caught me red-handed, now what are you gonna do about it, eh baby? Then they will click their claws a few times and stare you down. Like the one I found in the shower today. He was a tiny little fellow near the drain, so I sprayed him with the shower head expecting him to run away or at least get washed down the drain. That did not happen. He slowly walked away from the water, then shook himself off, clicked his claws a few times (I think to dry them off and make sure they still worked) and then he sat there looking at me, and I'm sure he was thinking (in a John Wayne voice no less): you shouldn't have done that little lady.

Um, I'm not proud of what happened next, but it was me or him, and well, let's just say that a wooden clog took care of the situation. You may think the wooden clog was excessive force, but the other thing I learned about scorpions is that they have a rather hard shell. If you hit them with a fly swatter or a slipper they will simply laugh maniacally at you. The only thing that works is something really hard that can crush the shell. And (here's the squeamish part) it will make an awful CRUNCH sound.

Scorpions like to hide out in warm and dark places like: the cuffs on your jeans hanging over the chair at night, the socks you left on the floor and thought that maybe you'd wear one more day, curtains, shoes, slippers...I'll stop now. Before doing anything at all now when I'm in Istria or anywhere along the coast, I shake things out before using them. And I say a little tiny prayer.

Now, if you thought scorpions were bad, wait until I tell you about the Buick-sized grasshoppers that are so big people hire them out to help move appliances. I made that last part up. But they are big. I'm getting up the nerve to take a picture of one...but my screaming shakes the camera and the pictures end up looking like those smudgy Loch Ness Monster pictures...which I can only imagine were taken while a) screaming, and b) running away.

But all that is for some time in the future. Right now, there's espresso to be made and enjoyed. And hazelnuts to be shelled.

Ah, complete bliss, except for the scorpion part.

Dust in the wind

2011-09-01T09:42:00.000+02:00

Okay, I'm noticing a weird thing about dust in Zagreb. It is somehow everywhere. No matter how much I dust the furniture in our place, I will turn around and just 2 hours later there is a thin layer of dust. And if I wait just 2 or 3 days, it turns into a thick layer of dust. Where does it all come from?

I thought it was just my own little problem, but when I mentioned it a few people here, they also told me about their losing battle with dust. Some people swear that the dust starts to build just an hour after they finish dusting. And I believe them.

I'm starting to suspect the pollen. Zagreb is well known for its high pollen count. Some days you can walk down the street and see a thin layer of pollen coating the parked cars. And you can hear people sneezing and snuffling as the pollen works its way into everyone's eyes, noses, and lungs. And I'm guessing it is working its way through all my open windows, through my sheer curtains, and proceeding directly to pretty much every surface in our place.

I'd write more, but I've got dusting to do.....and do, and do, and do ;-)

Some beauties about town

2011-08-31T19:51:00.000+02:00

The hibiscus are in full bloom right now, and you can see them in all sorts of colours in just about every nook and cranny in Zagreb.

Here is a gorgeous deep coral coloured rose. This picture was taken at that magic time just before it gets dark, when the light does something ethereal with the flowers.

And a beautifully fragrant gardenia, just because. Ah, bliss!

Hot hot hot

2011-08-23T11:07:00.000+02:00

We are having a heat wave. The kind of heatwave that melts the sidewalks and makes the outside feel like the inside of a hot waffle iron. Pretty normal for this time of year. In just a few weeks we will all be complaining about the chill in the air, so I'm going to enjoy the heat while I can.

Here's my advice for the busloads of tourists taking walking tours in this heat:

1. get a huge serving of ice-cream (multiple flavours is recommended)
2. find a bench under a tree
3. sit on the bench and eat ice-cream until it is gone
4. repeat steps 1-3 as often as necessary

Enjoy the last few days of summer vacation!

Baby Olives

2011-08-19T14:44:00.000+02:00

The olives are growing nicely all over the country, and should be ready for harvest around November. I took some pictures of olives when they were just wee little babies back in June, and I thought I'd post the pictures now. These are slightly bigger than a Tic Tac!

I'll be sure to post some updated pictures of the mature fruits later in the year.

Lots-o-beans-n-things

2011-08-15T19:40:00.000+02:00

The city is empty. August is the month when pretty much everyone in Croatia goes on vacation. So Zagreb is quiet. Parking is really easy to find. And the few people out on the hot streets are more than likely locals like me, who love the city in the middle of August.

But I'm hardly lounging around. It is harvest season, and I've been busy loading up on veggies to preserve for the coming winter. It might be 33C outside, but inside there's work to be done. Over the last few days, I cleaned and packed 20kg (44lbs) of dried beans. In order to make sure the beans were absolutely gluten-free, I had one of the local farmers dry the beans for me on the stalk, then pick the beans with the pods intact. And I shelled all 20kg of them by hand. It took me 2 days in our little kitchen, but I did it! I got 13kg of dried beans out of the whole thing, and that will be more than enough to keep us going through winter and to the end of next spring too.

And that's not all. I also trimmed, sliced, roasted, vacuum-packed and froze 25kg (55lbs) of fresh eggplant. It took 2 days from start to finish. And I've got another 20kg coming tomorrow, so I'll be busy busy busy. In addition, I've got 25kg of tomatoes to prepare and freeze. And I'm planning on roasting and freezing 10-15kg of sweet red pepper.

The hazelnuts should also be ready in a couple of weeks, so I'm clearing a space in my pantry for 30kg. Those can wait in my cupboard for a couple of months to dry out. Then I'll crack each one, roast in a hot oven, and grind into hazelnut-butter goodness.

I'm hoping to get my hands on 30-40kg of fresh locally grown chestnuts this year. I haven't found a local source yet...but I'm looking. I'm willing to come out and harvest the little beauties myself if I have to...and will take them with the prickly shells still intact. My plan is to peel, roast, dry out, then grind the chestnuts into flour so I can make a host of gluten-free goodies with them.

There are so many things I want to grow and harvest and preserve and cook and eat. I can't wait!

Peka time!

2011-08-14T20:04:00.000+02:00

I've heard about peka. I've seen pictures of peka. I've had peka described to me. But for the first time in my entire life, I was able to enjoy peka this summer.

Peka refers to food that is slowly baked in a cast iron pan that is covered with a cast iron lid, and then covered in hot coals. The cast iron pan and lid is also referred to as a peka.

Without going into great detail, it is important to get fresh meat or fish, freshly peeled potatoes, some onions, maybe a carrot or two, and a bit of salt. And arrange it all in the lower part of the pan.

Here, I've cut up one whole chicken, and added a tiny bit of salt and oil, and some fresh rosemary. Then added potatoes. Then covered it with the cast iron lid (which weighs a ton). And then placed the whole thing in the outdoor bbq area (known as the rostilj here in Croatia), and covered it with hot coals. Then baked it for about 90 minutes.

Forgot to mention I also added some onion and garlic.

Really does weight about a ton.

Wood coals have been in the making for about 90 minutes. This ain't exactly fast food.

Yep. Looks done to me.

Wow. The meat somehow comes out roasted and crispy on the outside, but tender and juicy on the inside. And then there's the potato-alchemy that happens. They come out golden and crunchy on the outside and fluffy on the inside.

The chicken worked out great. So did the goat, lamb and pork ribs that we tried on different days. I haven't had the chance to try octopus in there...but you'll be the first to know when it happens.

Hope y'all are having a fantastic dinner tonight! I know I am :-)

Louise & Mickey..where are you?

2011-08-07T17:38:00.000+02:00

I don't usually do this, but I'm going to use this bit of space on my blog to try and find my friends Mickey & Louise who I seem to have lost. If you are out there, send me a message so we can reconnect. The e-mail address I have (the telus.net one) does not work anymore :-(

All is well on my end of things. Hope the same is true for y'all....

Figs are fine

2011-06-28T10:13:00.000+02:00

The figs are starting to ripen. Hallelujah!

This little fellow below isn't quite ripe yet, but I took a picture just to show what the inside looks like at this stage. The fruit is actually the flower turned inside out, if that makes any sense at all.

And here's what a tree looks like:

Interesting Fruits

2011-06-27T17:17:00.000+02:00

Now that grammar classes are done for the summer, I can get back to what matters most to me: food! I've had the wonderful opportunity to visit the Istrian countryside in June and couldn't help but be amazed at the bounty of fruits growing everywhere. I took some pictures of things that might be pretty everyday for people who live in these parts, but are amazing for someone like me who comes from a much colder climate.

First up: pomegranate. This tree is about 4 or 5 years old and is covered in gorgeous saffron-colored blossoms:

A flower that has started morphing into pomegranate fruit:

And one tiny perfectly formed pomegranate fruit that needs about 4 more months before it is ready to enjoy in October.

Here's the one picture I have of a persimmon tree. These fruits are about the size of a crab-apple right now, and will grow to the size of a grapefruit and turn bright red/orange in November/December.

Here's another interesting fruit: the quince, a sort of cross between apple and pear. This quince tree is about 12 years old and the fruits are hard and fuzzy right now. They will grow quite large to the size of a very large potato, and they will remain quite hard, and will turn a golden yellow color. Quince needs to be cooked and makes great compote.

Fruits amongst the lush leaves:

And a close-up of the fuzzy fruits:

I'm off to take pictures of the figs and olives right now. However, if the early figs are ripe, I will put the camera away and help myself to some figgy goodness!

I made it!

2011-06-01T16:03:00.000+02:00

So I wrote and passed all my exams. Whew! What a relief. Now, I'll take a bit of time to let my brain relax.

Ahhhh, it feels better already.

Thanks to everyone who sent along their good wishes!

Exam logjam

2011-05-20T18:26:00.000+02:00

So, I passed my midterm exam with an admirable grade. But there's hardly time to take a short breather because the next exam is just 10 days from now.! And this is the final exam which covers everything from the entire course. Can you hear that weird noise... it sort of sounds like the noise those long skinny balloons make when the street busker guy is twisting them into balloon animals? Well, that squeaking is coming from my brain which is stretching to accommodate the mountains of new grammar and vocabulary that I take home every day from class, and which need to be studied, memorized and understood for this exam in 10 days.

Everything is on hold for the next 10 days (including blogging) while I study and study and study and study, with small breaks for eating, sleeping, weeping, then back to more studying.

I'm praying that the jingles stay out of my head for this one. These last few days of studying have been rudely interrupted by my brain singing Strangers In The Night (Sinatra version) in an endless loop over my dative possessive pronouns. Why can't my brain sing instrumentals?

Pronoun purgatory.

2011-05-10T17:25:00.000+02:00

I have to write my midterm Croatian exam tomorrow. I'm studying hard to keep my cases straight, and learning new vocabulary at the speed of light, and trying to remember when k changes to c and when a singular masculine noun is alive vs not alive, etc. I can store most of this stuff nicely in my brain, but I've got a block when it comes to pronouns. Seriously. Don't ask me why I can't remember these things. The pronouns in Croatian are a bit of a handful. In English they are pretty easy to keep straight: I, me, my, theirs, them, his, him, etc. Simple stuff. And I study them in Croatian. Really really study them. And I feel super confident when I sit down to write a test...and then it happens. Whammo-bammo, the pronoun section of my brain goes out for coffee and leaves something useless in its place, like a pop tune or an old jingle.

So here's what's going on in my head as I'm trying to write the pronoun section of the exam:

Me: Alright pronouns! I know this stuff like the back of my hand. Let's see, second person plural locative.
Brain: we're sorry, all our operators are busy; please hold the line
Me: okay don't panic, I'll just go to the next one. Hmm, this one needs third person singular masculine in the accusative. No problem. I know this one, it goes like...
Brain: YMCA, it's fun to stay at the YMCA
Me: oh help! come on, I know this stuff. How do you say 'with her' in Croatian?
Brain: I'm a Pepper, you're a Pepper, he's a Pepper, she's a Pepper
Me & Brain: wouldn't you like to be a Pepper too! Be a Pepper, drink Dr. Pepper!

It's grammar-jingle-dyslexia. With flying monkeys and hula hoops.

If the teacher only knew what was going on in my head......

Squid for my sister

2011-04-23T16:12:00.003+02:00

I'm posting a picture for my sister who has a special place in her heart for squid. Especially big huge squid with eyes like jawbreakers! Like this one, which a fisherman caught on a hook in the Adriatic Sea past Porec, and which then made its way to my kitchen. This fellow was about as long as my arm and weighed about 2kg before I dressed him for dinner. The suctions on his tentacles kept sticking to the cutting board and to my hands...de-suctioning them from my hands produced this weird SHLOOP noise. As per usual, we ate every last morsel of this meal before I remembered that I needed to take a photo :-( But trust me, it was very yummy :-)
Note to sister: you can double click on the photo for a huge close-up view.

Second note: next time you're swimming in the sea and you think that's seaweed brushing up against your ankle...think again!

Channeling my inner Nancy Drew

2011-04-08T17:27:00.000+02:00

I've been going over lots of the fiction I've written over the years and I've noticed that everything eventually turns into a mystery. You might think there's nothing wrong with this, and you'd be right. Mysteries are great to read and I myself have enjoyed reading countless mysteries in my lifetime. The weird thing is that I never set out to write a mystery. I start out with something completely different in mind, and somewhere along the line BAMMO! A mystery emerges.

Think of it this way. Imagine that every time you get in the car, you end up at the dry-cleaners. Even if you intend to drive to the grocery store, or to work, or the dentist's office or the emergency room at the hospital. You end up at the dry-cleaners. And unless you are living in a Stephen King novel, at some point you'd get a little weirded-out. Yes? So, I'm a little weirded-out about it.

Come to think of it though, I did spend an inordinate amount of my childhood with Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, The Three Investigators, and my most favourite of all: Encylopedia Brown! I even thought about an awesome TV series where Nancy Drew and Encylopedia Brown grow up, get married and have kids who are...(get ready for it) crime-solving teenagers!

So, I guess I should just recognize the pattern, and go with it. I'm going to take my current work-in-progress (working title: The Hypatia Curse...but don't worry, that won't be the real title ;-) and turn it into a true mystery. But no angels or werewolves or psychics or vampires. Okay, maybe one vampire and one psychic. We'll see how it goes.

I feel better already. Whew! Mystery solved.

Cherry countdown begins.

2011-04-01T16:34:00.001+02:00

The cherry tree behind our building blossomed last week! As you can see in my picture, the cherry has white blossoms. Thousands of them. And in just 30 days, the tree will be covered in dark red, sweet, fat, huge, juicy cherries.

Strange but true. Honest.

2011-03-29T16:39:00.000+02:00

Do you know what Croatians call the "@" symbol? In English, it is referred to as the 'at' sign. So we'd give our e-mail address as: myname AT something.com. Well, around here, they don't call it the 'at' sign. Nope. If you ask someone for their e-mail address, here's what you'd get:

myname MONKEY SIGN something.com.

I didn't believe this at first because I thought people were just trying to pull my leg due to my obvious foreignality (I just made up that word). But apparently it is true that they call the @ symbol, the MONKEY SIGN and I'm told it's because the symbol looks like a monkey.

Now I've been described as a pretty creative person, but I can't make out the monkey. Maybe a whale eye, a sort of snail, a squished bagel or a strange donut. But the monkey remains illusive for me. I'm guessing it'll all become clear to me once I get a handle on some more grammar (?)

It is definitely more fun to speak e-mail addresses out loud using the monkey sign. Try saying your e-mail address out loud right now using the monkey sign.

Tell me that didn't make you grin from ear-to-ear :-)

Granny Square Blanket: Done.

2011-03-23T10:28:00.000+01:00

I finished my granny-square blanket a few months ago, but forgot to post the picture. In case anyone is interested, I used a J-crochet hook. Final blanket measures about 1.5x1 metres, and contains 24 squares.

Nice and warm. And washes easily in the washing machine!

Front View

Back View

Homemade Nut Butters---- YUM!

2011-03-16T17:41:00.000+01:00

I fully intended to provide a picture of the lovely golden hazelnut butter I made yesterday. I had the camera sitting in the kitchen. I put the nut butter into a nice white bowl so it would photograph beautifully. But then I took a tiny taste. Then another. Then another. And, well, pretty soon it was all gone. All that was left was the bowl. And I licked that clean, so there really wasn't anything left to photograph.

I don't make nut butters often because it is a long process, and I usually eat the entire thing in one sitting. So I make it as a treat. Around these parts, nut trees grow all over the place. Hazelnuts, almonds and walnuts grow in places like parking lots, parks, backyards. So getting fresh picked nuts is quite easy.

Making nut butters is simple. Roast the nuts. Cool. Blend in a blender until smooth (I like mine kinda crunchy). Add a bit of oil to make it blend smoothly. I like mine plain, but you can add some vanilla or honey or sugar. That's it.

The biggest nuisance for me is cracking the nuts. I've got a nutcracker that cracks exactly one nut at a time. It takes me two hours to crack one kilo of nuts. After separating the shells from the nut-meat, I end up with half a kilo of shelled nuts. Half a kilo of nuts will make about half a litre of nut butter. That isn't a lot.

I only made 200 grams of hazelnut butter yesterday. So I don't feel too horrible about eating the whole thing in one sitting. But I wish I had more...so I could take a picture.

Croatian Saffron anyone?

2011-03-07T10:43:00.001+01:00

I watched a show on television last night about saffron. Saffron is the world's most expensive spice at about 3000-5000 euro per kilo. It is made up from the three thread-like stigmas found in the middle of the purple crocus flower. It takes something like 225,000 stigmas to make a kilo of saffron. Each flower must be hand-picked, and each stigma must be gently pulled out of the delicate flower by hand. Lots and lots of work. But worth it.

I'm writing about it here, because they grow saffron in parts of India, Greece, Morocco and Iran. But it is also grown in Spain, and interestingly in Sardinia and the Abruzzo part of Italy. This last part is very interesting to me because there are many parts of Croatia that would be well suited for saffron cultivation, and yet I don't think it is being done here. Of course I'll check this out, but as far as I know it isn't being done. Maybe I'm naive about this stuff, but it seems like an awesome cash crop that could probably be grown nicely on many of the Croatian islands, and pretty much anywhere along the coastal regions.

I've never actually tasted saffron in my entire life. I'm planning on trying some soon to see what all the hoopla is about!

Curly hair challenges

2011-02-28T11:23:00.001+01:00

Ok. I have curly hair. If you've got curly hair, then you'll know what I'm talking about when I say that it is difficult to find a good hairdresser. You can't cut curly hair the way you cut straight hair. Honestly. Because curly hair, well, it curls when it is dry. So you can cut wet bangs perfectly straight across. But they ain't drying that way. And no two curly people are the same. Actually, each individual curl is unique.

I had the incredible good fortune to find possibly the world's best curly-hair hairdresser back when I was in highschool in Canada. Tony had two great things going for him: he loved to cut hair, and his wife (and business partner) had curly hair! What a combination! Tony always knew exactly what to with my hair. Long, short,...it didn't matter. Tony made magic happen each and every time. And that's why he was my hairdresser for over 20 years.

Jump ahead to Croatia. Tony still makes magic happen at his Salon Profilo in Canada, but I'm about five thousand kilometers away. I hope Tony is not reading this because I'm going to make an admission that would make him cry (and laugh a lot!) I haven't been able to find anyone who knows how to cut curly hair yet. So for nearly 3 years....I've been cutting my own hair. Folks, it ain't pretty.

Here's what I've learned about cutting your own hair:

-cut it dry, because you'll always cut it too short when it is wet
-trim off a tiny bit, then wait a day, and trim again. Don't try to do it all at once.
-don't cut your hair when you are in a bad mood.
-don't cut your hair when you are in a really good mood either
-cut it when you are in a sensible, logical mood.
-buy several nice hats for all the seasons...you'll need these until things grow out a bit.

Note to self: gotta change that profile picture of myself...there's a lot less curl now, and hair in general. Or maybe I'll just photoshop a hat onto my head!

I made it!

2011-01-24T11:21:00.000+01:00

Update on my exams......

I made it through with flying colours and can now proceed on to the next level. I'm happy, but totally exhaustified (that's a new word I made up...it consists of exhausted + horrified = exhaustified. It means: to be horrifically exhausted.) There's another week of classes, then a very very early spring break, and then back to hitting the books.

Danas, nema sunce (today, there's no sun). And it is cold. And might snow. As a Canadian though, I live with the eternal hope that the cold weather won't arrive tomorrow and instead will be replaced with sunshine, warmth, blooming tulips, green trees, and heck...maybe even wild strawberries popping up in the grass. A girl's gotta have dreams.

Final exam!!

2011-01-14T09:03:00.000+01:00

Hard to believe, but the end of the first semester of my language class is just around the corner. I'm studying hard for the final exam that takes place over two days next week. Day one will be the written exam, and then Day two will be the oral exam. If all goes well, then the second semester begins in February and goes right through to the middle of June. I can tell that the language is starting to settle into my brain and I'm able to think a little bit in Croatian. I can even make out the newspaper headlines most of the time, and reading signs on the street is becoming a little more clear. I try my best to read the subtitles on TV...but they talk too fast!

All in all, it feels pretty positive!

Okay, back to studying. I'll post test results as soon as they are available.

Fingers crossed....

It is 2011

2011-01-03T13:41:00.004+01:00

Happy New Year 2011 !

I hope that everyone had a very good holiday season. And I'm sending out wishes that 2011 is awesome for everyone. I mean awesome in a good and healthy way. I've definitely got resolutions for the year ahead. I know that lots of people hate resolutions, but I love them.

Resolutions:

1. Get fluent in Croatian. I mean FLUENT
2. Start writing my cookbook
3. Take more pictures of the food I'm cooking (instead of eating the food before I get the camera ready ;-)
4. Eat more figs.
5. Find a steady source of good olive oil (the mellow kind that I love)
6. Spend more time at the seaside in the summer
7. Find a place that carries shoes in my size (story about shoe sizes in Europe to follow later)

And that's it! Well, for this year. Looks like a very do-able list to me.

Onwards and upwards!

Happy Holidays 2010

2010-12-21T08:42:00.003+01:00

May your days be merry and bright....

Have a lovely holiday season y'all!

Grammar exam

2010-12-12T17:04:00.003+01:00

I just realized that I haven't updated this blog since mid-November, and it is almost mid-December! I've been busy. My language class and studying is taking up most of my time, along with cooking and catching a big cold :-( That's the problem with getting glutened; it isn't just the immediate resulting illnes, but the domino effect of illness that just keeps going and going. I don't usually catch colds, but I caught this one and it ain't pretty. I also have a big grammar exam on Monday, and have had to study while shivering under a blanket and drinking copious amounts of tea. Hopefully the worst is over, and my ears and sinuses will be clear and happy by the time the exam rolls around.

I have to say that I can't wait for the Christmas break so I can just catch my breath! We get 2 weeks off school, then back for more intensive lessons until the end of January. Then the ginormous final exam. Then we'll see what happens.

By the end of this level I'll be able to speak in simple present, past and future. SIMPLE. So anyone out there hoping to talk to me in Croatian, please keep to short simple sentences, and then give me lots of time to think my answer and then let me slowly say it all out loud. It'll be slow and awkward at first, but it'll speed up quickly.

That's it for now. I've got to spend a wee bit more time on some irregular verbs in the past tense, and gotta get more vocabulary in before bedtime.

Send lots of good grammar vibes my way!

Another Nano come and gone...

2010-11-29T12:06:00.002+01:00

Okay, it looks like I'll be a little bit short this year on my nanowrimo challenge. How much short? Well, you need 50,000 words to cross the finish line, and the finish line is November 30th. Today, one day before the finish line, I'm 40,158 words SHORT.

I only made it to a bit under 10k because I got the glutening of a lifetime 3 weeks ago. I'm just starting to feel normal today. To anyone out there who thinks that just a wee bit of gluten won't hurt someone with celiac: let me tell you YOU ARE CRAZY. Okay, now that I've got that out of my system, I feel better. It is freezing cold outside, but sunny. There's a blue sky, and a pot of hot orange pekoe in the kitchen.

Bliss.

Nanowrimo Midpoint

2010-11-13T14:40:00.003+01:00

I'm almost halfway through Nanowrimo and I only have a bit over 9,000 words. Eeeek! That's around 700 words per day. Not a good pace. To help myself get motivated, I did what lots of writers do when faced with the need for a writing jumpstart: I headed to the office supply store! There's nothing like browsing through aisles of pens and pencils, sharpeners, erasers, ring binders, markers, file folders, sticky tabs, white out, rulers and office chairs to make a writer's heart sing. I bought two gel-ink pens (one fine tip, one medium tip) and whistled all the way home. In the olden olden days before I knew I had celiac, I would have also grabbed a chocolate-almond croissant and a hot chocolate. But these days, I have to stick to treats without the gluten (or sugar). So gel-ink pens are it.

Now, back to writing, and maybe some doodling in the margins. These gel-pens are awesome for cartooning......

Finally Farinata...

2010-11-11T18:45:00.006+01:00

Finally, I am getting around to posting my recipe and pictures of the farinata I've been making all year. Farinata, which means 'floured' in Italian, is made with gluten-free chick-pea flour. I grind my own beans into my own flour....but you don't have to. Just buy some finely ground chick pea flour from your grocery store, and go from there. Note that it may also be called: besan flour, ceci flour, garbanzo bean flour, or chickpea flour. If you want it gluten-free, then make sure it says gluten-free on the package...not all of the types of chickpea flour out there are gluten-free.

Okay, here we go:

The first thing you need to know is that the batter needs to rest for 2-3 hours. This resting period is necessary to let the flour ferment a little bit so that it is easier to digest.

The second thing you'll need to know is that you'll need a scale to weigh the flour. I know this sounds like a pain, but different flours have different weights. A cup of wheat flour does not equal a cup of bean flour.

Third thing: do not skimp on the amount of olive oil.

What you'll need:

-a shallow baking pan...like a jelly roll pan (it needs to have a lip around the edge at least 2 cm high)
300 grams finely ground chickpea flour
1 litre water (not hot water, cold is okay, room temperature is okay too)
2 big pinches salt
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
plus about 5 more tablespoons olive oil (or enough to coat the bottom of your baking pan)

Method:

Put the flour and salt into a big mixing bowl, and make a well in the flour like this:

Then using a whisk, whisk in the water. Whisk for about 2 minutes making sure there are no lumps. The batter will be rather thin and have lots of bubbles forming on the surface. Like this:

Cover the bowl of batter with a towel and let it rest.

After the resting period is finished, and you are ready to bake, preheat the oven to 200C.

Take a spoon and skim the bubbles off the top of the batter. Then whisk the batter one more time for about 30 seconds, and then skim those bubbles off too.

Now add 4 tablespoons of oil to the batter and whisk again.

When the oven reaches 200C, pour the rest of the olive oil into your pan enough to cover the bottom. And then place the pan in the oven for about 2 minutes. Watch the pan carefully, as soon as you can smell the olive oil, take the pan out and be careful because it will be hot.

Whisk the batter one more time, then carefully pour the batter into the hot pan filling it to about 1 cm

Carefully put the pan in the middle of the oven, making sure not to spill any.

Bake for 40 minutes and it should then look like this:

It should be golden brown and crispy.

Use a spatula to remove the farinata. Cut into squares, and eat immediately drizzled with olive oil, salt, and your favourite herbs such as thyme or oregano, or with ground black pepper.

Enjoy!

Got glutened :-(

2010-11-09T11:16:00.003+01:00

Just need to vent and be grouchy:

I got glutened 4 days ago. If you are not familiar with the term "glutened", then consider yourself a very very lucky person. For the uninitiated, 'glutened' is an unofficial verb created by us celiac sufferers to describe the act of being unwittingly exposed to gluten. So, it is okay to say: I got glutened, I think I got glutened, that sounds like a glutening to me, etc.

Getting glutened is a big deal for me because it takes 10 full days to feel better. And a full 3 weeks until I'm back to normal. Yup. 10 days. And three weeks. In the meantime I feel like crud-on-a-stick. Plus I've got bruise-coloured bags under my eyes that scare people off because I look like I've got the plague or something.

I'm in the middle of nanowrimo, and this glutening is slowing me down considerably. Bah-humbug is all I can say.

I'm the most careful of eaters. The most careful. I can't stress this enough. I'm one of those people who is super-sensitive to the tiniest traces of gluten. So trust me when I say I'm careful about what I choose to eat. And yet I still get glutened. It is rare. But it happens. And there's nothing I can do about it. Except to endure.

So that's what I'm doing right now. Enduring. And trying to nanowrimo at the same time.

Bah-humbug again........

Nanowrimo Day 1

2010-11-01T18:08:00.002+01:00

Being a writer is a lonely endeavor at the best of times, but being a writer in a country where I don't understand or speak the language makes it doubly difficult to be a writer. Why? Because it is near impossible to go out and get writerly support in person. Oh, there are writers in Croatia. Tons of writers. Lots and lots of writers. Good ones too. Deep thinkers. Smart writers. But, they write in Croatian. And they have writer groups in Croatian. And they support eachother in Croatian. So the problem is all mine. Until I can fluently communicate in this language, I'm on my own.

It is day one of Nanowrimo. And I've got no write-ins to attend. There's nobody to meet up with at a coffee shop to compare notes, have a word war, or complain about not having enough hours in a day to do all the writing. I know that none of this should matter, and that a real writer writes and gets through this. Normally I'm pretty okay at pulling up my own bootstraps. But during Nanowrimo, I get to feeling a little isolated. Like Tiny Tim, with his face pressed up against the window of a house where good food and good friends and family and laughter are being served up. Only he's on the outside looking in.

Luckily I have online support. Lots of it.

Okay, enough moping around, I've got about 900 words to go to make my daily goal. Onwards and upwards!

Grammar indigestion

2010-10-27T11:44:00.002+02:00

My language class is in the thick of learning verbs and verb cases. We don't use cases much in English, so this stuff is MIND-BENDING for me. I mean brain-twisting-gray-matter-sizzling-help-me difficult. Lately, I get a stomachache at around the 2.5 hour mark of class. Like I've eaten too many verbs, or ingested too much grammar, and that one more noun or possessive pronoun or weird exception-to-the-already-bizarre-rule will make my insides explode. Pop! Kapow! Bang!

And I'm not the only one having difficulty with this stuff. Sometimes I swear that I can actually hear other students sweating. But, apparently it gets better. I'm guessing it is probably just like the G-force and anti-gravity training that astronauts go through. Sure they've got to black out and throw up a lot, but only until their bodies adjust, and then they get the sweet reward of being able to float around in space.

For astronauts and learners of new grammar....it is all worth it in the end.

Nanowrimo 2010

2010-10-26T09:52:00.005+02:00

How did an entire year go by? Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month) starts next week on November 1st. I haven't touched my Nanowrimo 2009 project AT ALL! Not at all. Not even one word. As a matter of fact, I can't even remember what story I was working on. How did the time go by so quickly???

I'll be digging up my old project this week and taking a cold hard look to see if it is worth re-jigging, or if I should learn from it and try something new. It seems that life in Croatia is different than my old life in Canada. My old life was consistent, predictable. And thus I could work on my writing in a consistent and predictable way. My world was not changing much inbetween writing sessions. But here in Croatia, my life changes minute by minute. Not much is consistent and nothing is predictable. So when I put down a writing project for even a couple of weeks, I return to the project which is in the same condition when I left it. But I'm not in the same condition. I've changed. My life has shifted. Things are not the same. I'm not the same person I was 2 weeks ago. So taking up an old writing project becomes difficult because I am a different person.

Ever heard of that old telephone game where one person whispers a sentence into another person's ear, and that person whispers it to the next person's ear until 10 or 12 people later the last person says the sentence out loud and it resembles nothing like the initial sentence? So, something like: Barney has a grocery store, comes out as: Aliens make good traffic cops.

That's sort of what's happening with me and my stories right now. Hopefully a month of Nano will help.

I'll keep my fingers crossed, .....

Crochet anyone??? Da da da!

2010-10-10T22:45:00.005+02:00

It seems that studying Croatian grammar makes me want to crochet. A lot. Don't know why this is, but it is true. I yanked out a granny square afghan I started last year and have been obsessed with getting it finished. I made 25 of these squares last year, but have been struggling to crochet them all together because it is a tedious, unforgiving task. Thus, I put the project aside.

Until now. Maybe, just maybe, crocheting 25 squares together is less tedious than memorizing verb cases. Hmmm, could be. I remember back in my university days that whenever I had to study for a major exam, I would suddenly take a keen interest in cleaning the toaster oven, or defrosting the freezer.

Lucky for me, studying and crocheting can be done in unison. Sort of. Well, not really. Never mind. Enough procrastination for now, and back to the books for me.

Vidimo se (see ya later)

Language school number 4

2010-10-05T20:58:00.004+02:00

Today was the first day of a brand new language course at a new school for me. I decided to go to the Croaticum language school run by and at the University of Zagreb Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences.

After a few hiccups with the registration process (long story short: they sort of forgot to enroll me), I finally got things settled and am now ready to learn more grammar. This is another intensive program (they love these things over here!) and goes 5 days a week, for 4 months.

I'll keep you posted on how things progress....

If the grammar fairies are reading this: please sprinkle fairy dust on this whole experience. Thank you.

Do bugs think?

2010-09-09T15:34:00.004+02:00

There is a giant bug flying around the apartment today. I'm pretty sure that it is one of those jumbo-sized bees because it has a sort of bee-like buzzing sound. The sun is out and there's the most lovely late summer / early fall breeze blowing through the leaves on the tree across the street. So I opened all the windows and am now enjoying the sight of my white sheer curtains billowing from time-to-time. I'm guessing the giant bee got in through one of the open windows, and since we have no screens here in Croatia, the odd bug flies in on occasion.

It isn't weird for a giant bee to be floating around here. What is weird today though is that the bee seems to be trying to get outside and it keeps bumping into the glass on the windows. I keep pointing to the open window and saying out loud: just turn left a little and then go straight. And this bee keeps following my instructions. It turns left, then flies straight out the window.

About three minutes later, he is back in my livingroom, bumping into the glass again. I've told him about five times now to turn left and get outside. It got me wondering about what's going on. Maybe it isn't the same bee each time. maybe the first one told all his buddies that my place is a great rest-stop. And maybe the original bee is a little dyslexic and told the other bees that to get out you need to turn RIGHT, then straight.

I'm going to go with that explanation. Because the other explanation (one with more of a Stephen King slant) involves giant bees that speak English and who have the ability to turn humans into their slaves. Or something along those lines. They could even be alien bees from another planet. Or tiny vampire bees. Or tiny vampire bees from outer space.

Or they could just be a little dyslexic (and who isn't?)

New language vs Music Theory

2010-09-01T17:48:00.003+02:00

It is September, and that means a return to some sort of Croatian language lessons. I'm searching, searching, searching for a class that runs once or twice a week, for maybe 1.5 hours per class (that means 3 hours per week), and a class that takes its time. I have no need or desire to learn ten new concepts per class. I have no need to rush. What I need is to be taught one concept at a time, thoroughly and given enough time to go home and practice before I come back to learn a new concept.

This is how most people, (who are not of the child prodigy or genius variety), learn to read and play music. Music is a language. A foreign language to everyone who comes to it. Music theory is much like learning grammar in that the rules and guidelines will enable you to read, compose and play more and more complex music in an eloquent way. And it takes time, lots of time to learn. Grade 1 piano generally takes an entire year to accomplish at a pace of one hour per week of lesson coupled with at least one hour of practice every single day (more of course is better). Lesson five can only begin if lessons one, two, three and four have been understood. Trust me, there's no use trying to learn to play with two hands at the same time if you still can't remember where the notes sit on the lines and spaces of the staff.

I vividly remember my first year of music class in highschool where I was given the clarinet to play. Without one word of exaggeration I will confess that it took 2 solid MONTHS for me to figure out how to hold the thing comfortably. Just to hold it. And balance it. The first entire year was clumsy. Year two was better. Year three was really good. Year four was pretty awesome; I could play Sleigh Ride like nobody's business. But even after four solid years of playing..I was nowhere near good enough to play in a professional orchestra. I probably would have needed another three to four years of full-time solid study to get good enough for anything beyond the basics. (check out this video on YouTube of Sleigh Ride. Pay close attention to the clarinet around the 2 mintue mark ;-)

Thus I believe languages all over the world would be learned better if the teachers and course writers were all forced to learn to play Sleigh Ride on the clarinet to the level of awesomeness and given a short time to do so. Like a month.

Hmmm, that actually sounds like it would be a pretty fun reality show to watch!

Blueberries. Just because.

2010-08-25T12:21:00.005+02:00

Blueberry season ended back in mid-July and lasted only about 2 weeks. I took a picture of these beauties that came in all sorts of shapes and sizes and levels of tartness and sweetness. I wasn't sure what to do with the picture, so I decided to put it here. A picture will have to do until they come back in season just 11 months from now!

On storks and salami-corn

2010-08-23T13:30:00.003+02:00

Did you know that storks build huuuuuuuuuge nests on top of telephone poles? No really. I'm serious. I didn't believe it either until we saw these two teenager storks flying around and then landing in their nest. This picture was taken about 30 km outside of Zagreb. There were stork nests all over the place. And these huge young storks flying around learning to get the hang of their wings. I of course made sure NOT to stand underneath the flying storks or under that nest.

It is harvest season around here, and I've been busy getting food from the farm and freezing it all. I've got one of those vacuum machines that sucks all the air out of freezer bags so that the food doesn't get freezer burn. I ran out of big bags, and so was left with a bunch of long skinny bags that are normally used to store things like salami and sausages. So I decided to freeze my corn in the salami bags.

I just took the fresh corn. Peeled off all the outer leaves and corn silk. And just stuck them in the salami bags and then vacuum packed and froze them. In the winter months, I just have to take the corn out of the bags, and stick the entire frozen cob into a pot of boiling water for about 15 minutes for farm-fresh corn-on-the-cob in winter!!!

It worked so well, that I packed my tomatoes the same way! Here are my salami-tomatoes:

Okay, gotta wash, chop and bake about 100 eggplant. Haven't figured out what sort of freezing bags I'll use yet.

Summertime...and the living is restless....

2010-08-19T20:28:00.004+02:00

Sometimes my limited diet makes me a little bit crazy. And sometimes it makes me really crazy. I'm usually okay with this life of eating like a tree squirrel. But sometimes it gets to me, and today was one of those days. A perfect summer day. Lots of folks coming back to the city after their holidays. Everyone out in their white pants and yellow shirts to show off golden tans. And everyone eating ice cream cones, slices of pizza, french fries with ketchup, drinking frothy cappuccinos, eating tall pieces of chocolate torte, or lazily stirring a cocktail. They all look so free, and easy-going.

Nobody is having a conniption fit because someone touched their ice-cream with the scoop that touched the cone (and thus got gluten all over everything). Nobody is sitting there licking strawberry sauce off their fingers and wondering if the strawberries were grown locally and organically as promised or if they were actually trucked in from unknown parts, sprayed with all sorts of anti-fungals and antibacterials and rodentcides and pesticides to make them look fresh and thus making a trip to the ER a real possibility sometime in the night. No one gets alarmed when the guy making the espresso is also eating a sandwich (crumbs in the cup). No one slurps froth from their powdered-mix-made cappuccino while nervously reading the teeny-weeny-font of the ingredient list from the packaging to scan for additives, colorings, and preservatives that will require some sort of antihistamine concoction to prevent hives within 15 minutes.

Summertime and I think Christmastime are the times when my food restrictions cause me a wee bit of grief. Convenient food is such a huge part of these times of the year, that it really can make a person who is unable to eat those foods really feel like they are not a part of it all. Like someone on the outside looking in.

I know this feeling is silly because there are so many other problems out there so much bigger than this. But I'm just being honest. I know global warming and economic crises and wars and injustices and all sorts of bad stuff is going on. But today, I got to feeling sorry for myself because I couldn't have a regular ice-cream cone from the regular ice-cream place with all the regular people. Boo-hoo-hoo.

I think I'll treat myself to a nice ice-cold bottle of Italian mineral water that I left chilling in the fridge. What's this? Hey, who left the cap slightly unscrewed and let all the bubbles out?!!!!!!!

Eating figs instead of blogging

2010-08-16T15:50:00.002+02:00

I haven't been writing many blog posts lately because it is summer, it is nice outside, and because the figs are in season. Fresh figs are really sticky and juicy and there is no neat way to eat them. It is necessary to get fig juice all over your hands and then have it drip down your arms and drip off your elbows. That's just the way it is. Which makes it really hard to type on a keyboard and get a blog post written. So, I just want to say that I'm not blogging right now...but it is not because something untoward has happened. Quite the opposite actually. There are figs to be eaten, and that's what I'm doing with my time. Bliss!

I hope y'all are doing something equally or even more delicious with your time!

Bully for you......

2010-07-27T15:34:00.003+02:00

Okay, grammar classes are over for a little while, and I can actually get a little bit of time to write. I'm working on a newer story that involves bullying. I got to wondering where the term 'bully' came from and how it evolved, so I went researching on the internet and discovered that nobody really knows. How strange. There is one main theory that the word bully actually started as a term of endearment! Here is how it is explained at The Online Etymology Dictionary (http://www.etymonline.com)

Bully. noun. 1530s, originally "sweetheart," applied to either sex, from Dutch boel "lover, brother," probably dim. of M.H.G. buole "brother," of uncertain origin (cf. Ger. buhle "lover"). Meaning deteriorated 17c.

Oh, how bizarre. I'll definitely be working this naming concept into the story. Too good to pass up.

But if anyone knows how bullying got its name...I'd be mighty appreciative if you'd send along any references.

One more grammar class....

2010-07-22T15:51:00.002+02:00

Yippee! Just one more grammar class and then I am done for the summer. While I have been really enjoying my classes, I have to admit that my brain stopped taking in new information sometime on Tuesday. It just got filled up, and now I need to go back and revisit all the information I learned over the last 3 weeks. I won't lie about it...learning Croatian is difficult. It makes learning calculus look like a day at the beach. And having to take classes during a heatwave only adds to the drama. The temperature has been hovering around 36C for much of the past few weeks. I'm already tired and ready for a nap when I get into the classroom at 9:30 am!

Hopefully, things will go smoother...and a wee bit cooler in the upcoming Fall session. For now, me and my genetiv, lokativ, instrumental and akusativ cases will be getting to know each other up-close-and-personal over the next few weeks.

Chewy brain

2010-07-19T14:34:00.003+02:00

Have you ever chewed a big piece of bubble gum for sooooo very long (like 2 hours) that it eventually got really hard and almost unchewable? Sort of something like road tar, or elephant skin?

Well, that is exactly what my brain feels like today after my Croatian grammar class. And tired too. So tired that when I finally hobbled down to the Dolac market, I couldn't even remember my own name, or the names of things like meat, potatoes, hello, thank you. So I sort of pointed at things, nodded my head, and took home whatever the vendor put in the bag.

Me at the market:

Me: (pointing at veal)
Butcher: (points at beef intestines and a grinning sheep head) You want these?
Me: (nodding in agreement for some bizarre reason. Oh yeah, now I remember, I wanted to cry)
Butcher: Ok. 5 cow colons and I throw in sheep skull for free!
Me: the lamp is on the table
Butcher: Thank you. Bye Bye.
Me: I am, you are, he is, she is

Okay, I made all of that up. But that's what I was thinking in my head. I'm too tired to write anymore because I can actually feel individual neurons trying to pluck verbs from the language centre of my brain.

And it kind of stings a little. Ouch.

You have to admit though that cow colons is pretty funny, yes?

Waiting for God to smile...

2010-07-08T14:52:00.004+02:00

Back in my radio college days (yup, did you know they actually had college classes for radio broadcasting?), we had this great instructor who taught announcing. This was a class where you learned how to talk on the radio. You might think that talking on the radio is pretty easy and natural, but it is actually a skill that takes quite a while to get right. Trust me, in the beginning EVERYONE sounds dorky on the radio.

Anyway.... there is a particular skill called 'hitting the post' which refers to the act of talking over the beginning of a song, and then ending on a beat in the music (like the introduction of a new instrument or on a drumbeat), or ending right before the vocals start up. If you did it just right, it was called 'hitting the post.' If you got it wrong and ended your talking in the middle of nothing in particular or worse, if you talked ontop of the vocals, then this was called "stomping the post."

All of us newbies regularly stomped the post. It was awful. And though it sounded easy to do, it was really hard to accomplish. Our brilliant instructor told us this magical piece of advice which is the secret to 'hitting the post.' He told us that we would try and try and try, and still get it wrong. And then one day, out of the blue, God would smile on us, and we would get it right. Just like that! And believe it or not, the instructor was right. Suddenly, one by one, each of us students would just start getting it right. We would just walk into the classroom and declare: God smiled on me!

Why am I bothering with this long tale of my days of yore in radio-land? Well, because it actually relates to the learning of Croatian and I think also the the learning of any language. The beginning of learning Croatian is really wobbly for the student. I am currently having difficulty with the most basic of things, and feeling much like a newborn giraffe struggling to stand up on thin shaky legs. My pronunciation is rough. My grammar is backwards. My brain feels like it is made of lead. And no matter how much I practice, it just ain't happening.

But I have faith. And patience (well, a little bit of patience). I will just keep on doing my best, and I expect that God will just smile on me one day, and it will all come together.

As I try to conjugate some reflexive verbs, and try to memorize hundreds of new words in both masculine, feminine and neutral form.....I gaze up at the heavens every once in a while, just to see if maybe that magical smile is heading my way.

Save your eyeballs. Get kitchen safety glasses.

2010-07-07T18:00:00.005+02:00

A couple of months ago, I decided to try out a new recipe I found on the internet for deep fried rice-flour dumplings. The recipe called for rice flour to be mixed with water into a wet paste. The wet paste then had to be made into little balls. Those balls had to be deep fried until golden and crispy. Sounded so easy. And gluten free!

Well, to make a long story short, the recipe didn't go exactly as described in the recipe. But I later learned that the problem I encountered is a nasty possibility and that each year hundreds of people are maimed and sometimes blinded by what I did next:

The rice balls were sticking to the bottom of my pot of hot boiling oil. The recipe said to be careful not to break up the balls because they would come apart in the oil. So I carefully leaned over my pot of oil, leaned my face right into the top of the pot and using a teaspoon, I gingerly tried to dislodge the rice balls from the bottom of the pan. What I didn't know, was that the rice flour had formed an incredibly thick crust around the dumpling...but that the inside was still wet and steamy. So when I moved the balls with my spoon, it caused the steam and/or moisture to escape the balls and make contact with the hot boiling oil. So BAM! Everything exploded. Big time. Like a firecracker of hot oil went off....directly into my face which was looking directly into the pot. So the oil burned my neck, my chin, my cheeks, my face, my eyebrows, my brow, my eyelashes. And my eyelids. And under my eyelids. And into my eyes. I was blinded.

I'll let that image sit with you for a bit.

I won't describe anything more because it still gives me the heebie-jeebies to even think about it. Fast forward a few weeks, and by a miracle that the doctors still can't believe, my eyesight is all okay. The burns all healed up more or less and I only have some very faint scars that are mostly hidden in my eyelid folds. I was lucky, lucky, lucky. Lots of people who experience what I experienced do not come out so lucky.

It got me thinking about safety eyeglasses for cooks. When you think about it, cooking is quite dangerous. Steam, hot oil, bacon grease, all spattering or boiling over at one point or another. Sure, there are oven mitts out there to protect your hands. But there's nothing out there to protect your eyes! I couldn't believe it. So I went looking for a good pair (or two or three) of cooking safety glasses. And I couldn't find any. Nothing specifically made for cooks. Nothing that I could find that is made for the home cook.

I wrote to a few cooking publications to find out if they could recommend any brands. I heard nothing back from them. I tried writing to the Martha Stewart folks to see if she had her own brand, but I couldn't figure out how to contact the appropriate person from their labyrinthine website. I even wrote to the folks at the Jamie Oliver website, who actually got back to me telling me that Jamie Oliver doesn't deep fry his food, and therefore they couldn't offer me any sort of assistance(???!)

With no guidance from the world of celebrity chefs, I grabbed a simple pair of safety glasses from the hardware store. Cost: about 4 euros. So cheap. I couldn't believe that I had never thought about wearing safety glasses while making all of my concoctions in the kitchen.

Well, I wear them now. All the time. If I'm cooking, then I'm wearing my glasses. And that's all I wanted to say on the subject.

Oh, and as for those rice dumplings: after literally scraping their remnants off the ceiling, I lost interest in ever making them again.

And one more thing: the shock from the accident gave me an instant white streak in my hair. Overnight. Just like that. Guess I'll have to update that picture of myself at some point ;-)

Language miracle answered

2010-07-06T14:58:00.003+02:00

A couple posts back, I was asking for a language miracle to occur so that I could start learning Croatian properly. Well, a language miracle happened along, and I'm now enrolled in one of those intensive language classes. The class isn't the miracle. The teacher is the miracle. She has tons of energy, is really animated when she is teaching, and is super friendly. Grammar is still hard, but the teacher is making it as painless as possible.

I'd like to write more about the classes, but I have an avalanche of homework to do.

One last thing though.....um, if the universe is listening...I am also in need of a great real estate/property miracle. And a great-health miracle too. Oh, and I'll just sneak in a request for a great publishing miracle. Hope I'm not being too greedy...

I love my yarn!

2010-06-17T16:47:00.007+02:00

I know I am a yarn-a-holic. I can't get enough of the stuff. Everywhere I go, I haunt all the little knitting/sewing/yarn shops looking for gems to take home and make into something special. Back in Canada, finding fantastic yarn is a breeze. There are incredible shops everywhere selling the most magnificent knitting goods imaginable. I used to buy yarn with such abandon!

The yarn situation in Croatia is, how shall I say this: elusive (can a situation be elusive?) Thick and hearty wool (real wool) is pretty simple to find. But where to find those gossamer beauties that make knitting such a joy? I don't know. Haven't been able to track down a source. Yet. But I'll keep looking.

Mind you, knitting isn't exactly a big hobby here. I still haven't found ANYBODY to start a little chicks with sticks group. NOBODY. So it is just little old me. I hide my yarn and crochet hook in my purse, and drink a lonely espresso at a local cafe while crocheting my (gorgeous) granny squares on my lap. One square=one coffee. Then I leave.

I'm thinking that maybe I'll take my crochet projects outside to the main square. There I can sit on the sidewalk next to the guy who plays the extra long flute, and the mime guy, and the music box guy and his dog. I'll just knit and crochet, and listen to the music, and watch the people go by. And feel like an artist. Hmmmm, doesn't sound like a bad idea.

More language learning tools

2010-06-16T17:57:00.004+02:00

In my quest to learn the Croatian language, I've slowly collected just about every workbook, text book, CD, dictionary, phrase guide, and grammar guide on the planet. Why do I need so many different books? Well, only one or two are written in English. All the other books are written in Croatian....which presented a problem for me, since I couldn't read the directions, and the waiters at the cafe quickly tired of my pesky requests to "please tell me what this says" while pointing to some phrases in my book.

Everyone I talk to who is trying to learn this language is pretty much in the same boat, and often we compare language learning tools. I thought I'd provide a quick list of the books that also come with CDs which aid immensely when trying to figure out pronunciation. There are particular sounds that are hard for an English-speaker to handle gracefully. Here are some city and town names to illustrate: Hvar (um, let's see, it would sound sort of like hhhh-var), Cricvenica (t-s-rick-ven-itz-ah...and roll the rrrr), Oprtalj (oh, never mind ;-)

I got all these books through a bookstore in Zagreb called Algoritam. You can find them at: www.algoritam.hr. See if there's a location near you, or call the main bookstore and see if they can order any of these for you.

This first one is written in English, and comes with 6 audio CDs, plus a good coursebook. It is called: Spoken World Croatian, A complete course for beginners. By Living Language. Cost was around 290 kunas.

The second one is also in English. Called Beginner's Croatian , Hippocrene Beginner's Series, by Aida Vidan & Robert Niebuhr. It is a workbook with 2 audio CDs. Cost, around 240 kunas.

The third one is a workbook that is written in Croatian....but it has a CD that goes along with it. It is called: Ucimo hrvatski, skolska knjiga, by Vesna Kosovac & Vida Lukic. Can't remember the cost...and it might only be available through www.skolskaknjiga.hr

This last one is kind of special and I highly recommend grabbing a copy. It doesn't have a CD and deals with grammar....but it is a book written in English meant to explain Croatian grammar for English speakers. Now that might sound weird...but trust me, if you are an English speaker trying to learn Croatian grammar, you'll know what I mean. The book is called Croatian Grammar, by Vinko Grubisic. It is supposed to be available at Algoritam. They couldn't get me a copy, so I wrote to the author, who directed me to the The Croatian University Press. You can e-mail them to request a copy of this book at: hrvatska-sveucilisna-naklada@zg.t-com.hr

If anyone knows of any other books/CDs/DVDs...available anywhere on the planet, please let me know..

Where are all the English-Croatian blogs?

2010-06-10T17:24:00.005+02:00

I'm always interested in reading about English speaking people in Croatia and their over-all experiences on a day-to-day basis. So I've been combing through the internet looking for blogs that fit this description. Strangely, there are a tiny handful of blogs, and most of them are either outdated (as in: the people went back to their home country), or they are not updated very often.

This is sort of weird. I mean, do a search for blogs by English-speakers in any other country on the planet: Italy, France, Germany, Argentina, Portugal, Greece....you name it, there will be dozens and dozens of active blogs. But try searching for blogs in Croatia, and very few pop up. Why??? I can't figure it out. Is it because English speakers coming to Croatia don't like to blog. Or maybe they are not very tech-savvy. Or maybe they are too busy eating cevapi and kremsnite and drinking espresso out on a cafe terrace? Or maybe instead of blogging they are planted on Facebook where mostly friends and family only know about them. I just don't know what the answer is. But I'll keep on searching and see what comes up.

The cherries are here!

2010-06-07T13:53:00.005+02:00

The cherries have finally arrived. They are about 6 weeks late, and not as sweet as they were last year due to the not-very-sunny and not-very-warm spring we've had here. So the cherries are a bit more tangy, firm, and lovely.

Here's the evolution of the cherries on the tree in our backyard:

The first little cherries look like small green olives.

Then just about 10 days later, they start looking like not-quite-ripe cherry tomatoes.

Until another 10 days goes by, and then they are big, juicy and this gorgeous burgundy colour. At this point, they are ready to be eaten right off the tree!

Need a language miracle...

2010-06-04T16:33:00.002+02:00

It seems to me that Croatians are generally in a hurry. They walk fast, talk fast and drive fast (really fast.) In fact, they are so much in a hurry that they don't have time for VOWELS. Seriously.

Here are some typical Croatian vowel-less words: vrt, trg, krv, s (that's right, 's' is a word!) and crv. Then there are words with hardly any vowels: mrkva, trznica, brdska, etc.

Also, the letters 'z' and 'h' and 'j' seem to be extremely popular. In English, you've pretty much got zoo, zebra and zero. That's it. So seldom is 'z' used in English, that when you do get to say a 'z' word, it feels like a special occasion like Christmas or your birthday. 'You're at the zoo? And you've seen a zebra? How special!"

But in Croatian, there's at least one 'z' in every third or fourth word. So you get to say 'z' all day long. No vowels plus all those 'z' words is the easy part of learning the language. Everything else is quite complicated. Not crossing-a-busy-street-at-rush-hour-complicated, but more of a got-caught-with-a-provolone-and-entire-prosciutto-in-your-carry-on-luggage-at-Pearson International-complicated.

I've tried a few lessons at a few different places, and I self-study at home with my CDs and DVDs and language books. But the going is s-l-o-w; like trying to open a can of tuna with a safety pin. I had hoped to be conversationally functional within 12 months. . As it stands, I can sort of get by with my basic vocabulary + waving my hands + sometimes drawing pictures.

I'm actively seeking out a language miracle that involves some sort of language angel popping into my world to gently whisk me through the 7 declensions and beyond.

Until that day (which I hope is soon), it is malo-pa-malo. Mic-po-mic.

Steamed meatballs: low fat, gluten-free, casein-free, yummy, versatile and they freeze like a dream.

2010-05-19T16:20:00.010+02:00

I've been experimenting with steamed dishes lately, and got to wondering what would happen if I steamed some meatballs. What happened was some tasty magic. These meatballs steamed up beautifully, and tasted so delightful that I couldn't stop eating them as they came out of the steamer. The first time around I made only 40 meatballs, and they didn't even last until suppertime. So here's the recipe and method for making about 110 meatballs. That's enough to eat as many as you like as they come out of the steamer, enough for soup later on, maybe a few for breakfast, then freeze the rest to be popped into soup at another time.

I tried this recipe using various kinds of meat. The recipe below calls for 1.5kg of pork, but you can use chicken, or any combination of pork/beef/lamb. It also calls for cooked rice, so it is a good idea to cook some rice the night before, or at least a couple hours before you need to mix everything together.

Before getting started, wash and trim enough cabbage or romaine lettuce leaves to completely line your steamer.

Ingredients:
-1.5 kg raw boneless pork with fat trimmed off
-2 medium onions finely chopped
-3 medium carrots finely chopped
-1 extra-large egg, or 2 small eggs lightly beaten
-400 gm cooked white rice (arborio or other risotto-type rice is good)
-2 tablespoons dried and crushed thyme leaves
-1 teaspoon salt
Optional: 20 large leaves of swiss chard (blitva), washed (I'll explain later)

Method:
Get your butcher to coarsely grind your meat. I don't recommend using store-bought pre-ground meat because it tends to be too fatty and too watery. But if that's all you've got, then give it a try. If your butcher doesn't grind meat, then cut your meat up into small cubes, and in small batches, finely chop the meat in your food processor.

Put the meat in a large mixing bowl. Add your chopped onion and chopped carrot, salt and thyme. Add your beaten egg to the mixture. Mix thoroughly with a large spoon or with your hands. Then add the rice and use your hands to thoroughly mix the rice into the meat mixture.

Cover the bowl and place in the fridge for at least 30 minutes (2 hours is better) to let the flavours blend in.

Preparing your steamer:
Add hot water to the bottom of your steamer pot, then place the steaming basket on top of the water. Using your cabbage or romaine lettuce leaves, cover the steamer basket (this will ensure that your food does not stick to the steamer basket). Place lid on steamer, and allow the water to boil.

Remove meat mixture from the fridge, and using a teaspoon, scoop a bit of meat into your hand, and use the spoon to fashion a 2-3cm ball in the palm of your hand. Put the ball on a platter, and continue making balls until all of the meat is used up.

When the steamer is ready, place as many meatballs in the steamer basket as you can, making sure that none of the balls is touching the other balls. Put the lid on and steam for 30 minutes.

Optional: if you like swiss chard (blitva), then you can trim the swiss chard leaves like this:

Then add a meatball to the centre of the leaf,

and roll

Place these little swiss chard rolls in the steamer basket. It is okay if they touch each other. Put the lid on, and steam for 30 minutes.

Here's how it all looks when it is done.

Here's what the swiss chard rolls look like when you cut them open:

And here are the steamed meatballs added to my homemade minestrone and cabbage soup. Add a wee bit of salt to taste, and a generous drizzle of olive oil, and you've got an entire meal in a bowl. Healthy. Tasty. Really tasty.

Spring has sprung...finally

2010-05-11T14:29:00.006+02:00

Winter was rather loooooong, cold and wet. Spring took its time getting here. It was late by about 5 or 6 weeks. Fresh local lettuce and swiss chard is just starting to appear at the farmers market. But as they say: better late than never. In the meantime, the spring flowers have bloomed and are staying fresh longer due to the cooler weather. I thought I'd post some pictures of the types of flowers that just sort of grow EVERYWHERE. Above are giant boughs of purple wisteria that smell just like pink bubble-gum. Honestly. The bees LOVE this stuff.

Below, some more wisteria with wild chestnut tree in full bloom in the background:

White hydreangea:

Intense pink magnolia:

Jumbo pink peony bush. Unimaginable fragrance!

Homegrown Hazelnuts

2010-02-26T19:36:00.004+01:00

I've been wanting to post pictures and a little bit of information on my hazelnuts for a few months now. There are lots of hazelnut tree/shrubs all over the place---in backyards, in parking lots, along the side of the road. Harvest time is around October. I managed to get my hands on a few different varieties that were grown locally. The round and fat ones are really nice when they are rather freshly picked and haven't dried out yet. The longer ones are stupendous when they are dried out and then roasted. I tend to eat these just a few at a time. Once, I shelled a pound of hazelnuts so I could roast them. It took me an hour to do the shelling with my little sad nut cracker. The nuts roasted up beautifully! And we ate them in 14 minutes. I never roasted up a bunch again because I think I gave myself carpal tunnel syndrome ;-)

Round-fat ones:

These are the longer drop-shaped ones. Lovely!

Squash that bakes like pie.....

2010-01-22T11:07:00.003+01:00

Here's a picture of a type of squash that is sort of like a big giant pumpkin. They call it bundeva. You don't have to take chances on buying one that is under-ripe or over-ripe, because the vendor at the farmer's market cuts the squash into giant slices so you can see the colour, feel the texture, and smell the pulp for freshness. They should be bright orange, firm, and smell like fresh cut pumpkin.

There are all sorts of things you can do with bundeva: make soup, chop and fry in butter, roast alongside your chicken, etc. But the way I like it is to just wash and dry the entire slice, then just stick it into a hot oven for about 20-25 minutes. A crust will form on the outside of the squash, and the inside will bake up creamy and delicious. It is almost like baked pumpkin pie!

I don't have pictures of the baked bundeva for the same reason that I don't have pictures of lots of my cooked foods (I eat them before I remember to get the camera out). I'll try and remember next time!

Winter market bounty

2010-01-21T18:20:00.004+01:00

The farmer's market runs right through the winter months. There's lots of local produce by way of cabbage, squash, pumpkins, onions, potatoes, garlic, and things like dried beans and dried figs and plums. What is in season right now is grapefruit, oranges, lemons, and a variety of apples (my picture above is from last October and features a local tomato which is not in season right now).

Plus these incredibly sweet miniature little mandarins, which are soooooooooo tiny that I allow myself to eat 6 in place of one orange!

And lemons too!

Chestnuts & Xmas trees

2010-01-20T16:55:00.004+01:00

So here are my long-ago promised pictures of chestnuts. These are a local variety that grow around these parts. They are not too big, and they are kind of a mellow-yellow colour inside. I roasted up a few in the oven and really meant to have pictures of them all toasty and golden, but I ate them before I could take a picture. One of the great winter treats around here though is to go to one of the chestnut roasters on the street and buy a cone filled with these fresh roasted wonders.

Here's a picture of the chestnut roaster on one of the corners the week before xmas. If you look closely, you can see a stack of white paper cones to the left of the cart. This is how they serve the chestnuts. You can't see, but on the top of the cart is a metal roasting pan that sits on top of hot coals. Of course, you can't tell from the picture, but the aroma coming from the chestnuts is incredible.

By the way, this is how they sell Xmas trees in Zagreb. About a week before Christmas, trucks arrive from everywhere and deposit Christmas tree vendors on corners throughout the city. They've got trees of all kinds.

You just pick out a tree, pay for it, then a guy (like the one to the right of the picture below), puts your tree through this big tube and wraps the tree in a tight netting so you can carry the tree home.

Yup, for real. You just carry the tree home like this:

It is a great system: first you pick out your tree, then you have it wrapped, then you stop and buy some chestnuts, eat the chestnuts, pop into the coffee shop and have an espresso, then work off the calories from everything while you carry your Christmas tree home.

Grab your defibrillator, it's CVARCI time!!!

2010-01-12T18:30:00.010+01:00

There is a special snack eaten in these parts around this time of year that is made from pure pork fat. Yup. Just plain old fat. The snack is called CVARCI (Čvarci pronounced chvartzy) and involves pork fat getting cut into cubes, deep fried, pressed, dried out, then eaten usually at room temperature with a bit of salt. Normally, people add a bit of milk to the hot oil to give the cvarci their golden brown color, but I can't handle the milk, and often can't eat cvarci prepared by others because there's a great chance of gluten cross-contamination due to the incredibly delicious pairing of crusty bread with the cvarci. So, if I want to eat these yummy snacks, I need to make my own (no bread for moi.)

Here's the recipe. Method. And pictures.

Ingredients:
Pork fat

Equipment:
Big pot
Slotted spoon
Potato ricer (also known as a squeezer)
Big bowl lined with paper towel
Large pan lined with paper towel

A special note: DO NOT EAT these in large quantities. There's a seeeeeeerious amount of fat and cholesterol in these babies. One handful is good as a serving. Also, DO NOT add salt to these until you are about to eat them because the salt will make them rather rubbery and kinda mushy. Only add salt to the handful (one handful) that you are eating.

Here's what the pork fat looks like. These pieces weigh about 2 pounds or 1 kg each. I bought 5kg for my session. Make sure that the skin has been removed.

The fat is about 1 inch or about 3cm thick.

Slice the fat into strips about 2 inches or 3 cm across. Then cut those strips into cubes about 2 inches or 3 cm. Don't worry if some are slightly bigger or smaller.

Put all the cubes into a cold, empty big pot. My pot holds 8 litres, and I filled it to the 6 litre line. Don't over-fill because you need to leave quite a bit of room for the fat to render out, and bubble up.

Once you have all your fat cut up into cubes, and you've put all your cubes into your pot, move the pot to your heat source, and put the heat up to about medium. You'll have to watch the heat constantly and adjust accordingly to keep this to a medium heat. Don't let it get too hot or else everything will burn. Using a large spoon or spatula, keep turning the cubes so that they don't stick to the bottom. It'll look like this:

Keep turning them, and after about 15 minutes, you'll be able to see the fat bubbling up like this:

Keep turning the cubes. They will start to brown. And they'll look like this after just another 5 or 6 minutes:

Until finally they will get really golden brown (but not burnt!) and they will float to the top like this.:

Using a slotted spoon, carefully scoop out the cubes and put them into a big bowl that is lined with paper towel to soak up some of the oil.

Now, you've got to scoop 5 or 6 cubes into the squeezer. Hold the squeezer over an empty bowl, and squeeze out as much oil as you can. Be careful because the oil will be very hot.

Then open the squeezer, and using a fork, loosen the flattened cubes, and shake out onto a large pan lined with paper towels. Remember DO NOT salt these.

In batches of 5 or 6 cubes, squeeze the oil out of all the cubes. Shake all your squeezed cubes onto the paper-towel-lined pan, leave the pan out on a table and let everything cool down and dry somewhat. You can eat the cvarci at this point...however, it is best to let them cool right down to room temperature for best results. In about an hour, they'll look like this and be ready to eat:

Once all cooled down (after a couple of hours), put the cvarci in a ziploc bag or in a container and keep them in the refrigerator. I've kept them for 2 weeks in the fridge with no problems.

Enjoy!

Nano final tally

2009-12-01T16:37:00.002+01:00

Official tally for Nanowrimo 2009: 32,580 words. Okay, not quite 50,000 but still quite respectable. Now, on to more writing and editing.

Nanowrimo 2009 update

2009-11-27T17:20:00.003+01:00

With three days to go, I'm just squeaking past 23k words in the November race to 50k words. So in the end, I'll make it half-way. This is a victory of sorts for me because I made it quite far, and this time around the quality of my writing was at a much higher standard. I went back to using the old pen and paper and somehow my writing was free, easy-going, more natural. So in years past when I made it to (or close to) 50k words, most of it was pretty bad and got lost in the ensuing edits. This year it is different. Maybe I'm finally making it past that mythical 10,000 hours of writing needed to get the hang of this thing. I sure hope so.

To anyone else riding the Nanowrimo train: I salute you. And see y'all again a year from now.

Nanowrimo 2009...time to prepare....

2009-10-11T17:02:00.005+02:00

I can't believe that Nanowrimo 2009 is just around the corner. I'll be participating this year and am planning on winning. I think I have a great idea to start with...but I'll know more as November progresses and I get past that magic page number 50. Until page 50, I don't know if I've got a novel or a short story on my hands. I don't know if the characters are interesting enough. I don't know if I have enough of a story to last another 250 pages. Yes, it can be heartbreaking to reach page 50 and realize there isn't enough there for an entire novel...but it is much easier to handle than to reach page 200 and realize there's nowhere left to go.

So, I'm looking forward to a month of butt-in-chair, fingers on the keyboard, creative marathoning.

Long time no see....

2009-03-04T08:23:00.004+01:00

Merry christmas/new years/valentine's day to everyone! Okay, so it has been a while since I last posted. I'm finding it tough to keep up with all the web-based things I've got to update: blog, facebook, knitting sites, meetup groups, etc. I'm going to pare it all down somehow so that things don't get left dangling for too long without attention!

Anyways, I'm learning the fine art of eating fish whole. This beautiful branzino was fresh caught, then grilled over a wood fire. Served up with olive oil and a side of swiss chard and potatoes. It weighed in at about 3.5 pounds...and I ate HALF of it!

Before:

After:

No local chicks with sticks :-(

2008-12-16T21:02:00.003+01:00

I've been trying to get a knitting group together in Zagreb. I've only found one person who likes to knit and who thinks it is cool. But she's not a local gal; she's actually from California! We meet up at the bookstore cafe about twice a month and we spend a good 2 hours chatting and knitting and drinking really good espresso. It is really great fun, and relaxing and so creative. But we're having a hard time attracting new members because knitting is not cool here. Nope. Nobody believes me when I tell them about all the knitting groups throughout North America, and all the knitting cafes and knitting shops, and well just everything knitting related that is so popular over on 'that' side of the big pond. And while smoking is still legal here in the cafes, I'm not so sure about the knitting. I've taken my projects to various cafes, and am met with looks of bewilderment, raised eyebrows and sometimes a wee bit o'curiosity. I'm hoping that I inspire people to go home, take out their old knitting needles and knit up a nice hat or something....and rediscover the joy of knitting. Seriously!

Skinny Pigs

2008-12-01T13:24:00.002+01:00

Something strange is happening with the pigs. First...let me explain a bit about a tasty snack food they have here called Cvarci (pronounced chvartzi). Cvarci is made from pork skin that has a layer of fat and a bit of meat attached. They cut the skin up into little squares, then they fry them up in a hot pan, add milk to the whole thing (don't ask me exactly how), then they take the crispy fried pieces and put them through a press to get out the excess oil. Then they set them aside to dry up. When they are nicely dried, you add a bit of salt and then eat. And eat. And eat.

Cvarci normally is in season when it is sausage and prosciutto-making season (which is the cold months of November, December and January.) So everyone waits for this time of year to enjoy the cvarci. Except this year.....there are signs up everywhere that there is NO CVARCI. I kept thinking that this just meant that they had run out of cvarci, and that there would be more coming. So I kept coming earlier and earlier to the market to get my share.

Finally, I asked the butcher(s) about the missing cvarci. Did they run out of pigs? Well, to my utter shock and dismay, the answer was: Yes...well, sort of yes. A few different butchers explained that this year the pigs were TOO SKINNY. They all had thin skin, and too little fat under the skin, which made it close to impossible to make the cvarci. By the time the little pieces of skin were fried up and then pressed, there wasn't much left but some crumbled bacon bits.

So why are the pigs too skinny? Well, the lowfat phenomenon has made its way to this part of the world, and now they are breeding lean pigs. Really lean pigs. I'll try and get a picture at some point and post it here so that you can see how lean they are. Lean, lean, lean. They sort of look like muscles and bones covered with a thin bandaid for skin.

I'm saddened by all of this because I have a feeling that they'll be doing here what they do in other parts of the world when they start breeding lean meats. First they make the animals too lean. Which results in a tough and dry meat. So then they start having to extra-process the meat by adding things to make the meat tender and juicy. Which usually makes the traditional way of smoking and drying meat impossible because of all the added moisture, so then they have to extra-process the smoked and dried meat to counter the moisture. Then inevitably this leads to the need to add anti-bacterials, and anti-fungal agents, and all sorts of other anti-things.

Sad. Sad. Sad. So I'll try and enjoy the last moments of traditional food while I can. Because I know from experience, that when it is gone, it is gone. I hope I'm wrong about all of this. But right now, the writing is on the wall......

Calamari season

2008-11-07T15:26:00.005+01:00

It looks like calamari season is in full swing. You didn't know there was a season for calamari? Neither did I. But it is here, and runs from now until about January. I don't have a picture of how they look raw (mostly because I didn't think to take out my camera). But I have a picture of them cooked.

What I did was slice up some fresh white potatoes, and wash the calamari. Then I layered potatoes, calamari, chopped parsley, chopped garlic, olive oil and a bit of water. I layered until I ran out of ingredients. Sprinkled it all with salt, and popped it into a hot oven for 30 minutes.

It came out so nice. And tasty. We ate the WHOLE thing in one sitting.

Boo!

2008-10-31T12:38:00.001+01:00

Croatia does not celebrate Halloween....so I just wanted to say "Happy Halloween" to myself and to everybody!

More food files to come.....

Italian tippy-tap shoes

2008-10-21T10:14:00.007+02:00

I have been on the lookout for a pair of black and white ladies oxfords since my tap dancing days of yore. Imagine my delight when I discovered that: a) oxfords are back in style, and b) black and white oxfords are in style! How righteous is that?!!

So I got myself these puppies. They are Italian. And quite shiny. And they make me wanna dance! The shop girl told me that the tippy-tap dancers wear these. Tippy-tap. How cute is that term. So I have tippy-tap shoes, minus the taps. Although, I could imagine myself tap dancing my way down to the coffee shop for some nice espresso. Now that sounds like a great idea!

No chestnuts :-(

2008-10-20T17:13:00.003+02:00

I have been dreaming about chestnut season all summer long. And this past weekend was to be the highlight of my autumn because it was supposed to be the weekend of the giant chestnut festival in Lovran, which is near the beautiful seaside town of Opatija. Imagine my surprise when we drove all the way to Lovran only to find that there were NO CHESTNUTS! I don't mean that they were all eaten, or that we were too late to have any. NO. The story all up and down the coast is that it was too dry this summer and resulted in the chestnuts failing to grow.

So I don't have any wonderful pictures of giant yellow chestnuts roasting over hot coals. Or pictures of chestnut puree balanced beautifully on a spoon with a puff of whipped cream on top. Nope. Nope. Nope. I only have hope that Mother Nature will apply a bit of her green thumb to the chestnut harvest next year.

Nanowrimo 2008

2008-10-14T20:41:00.002+02:00

I just signed up for my third National Novel Writing Month (nanowrimo). In the month of November, the goal is to write 50,000 words of a novel. Sounds a bit crazy, but it has lots of merit because it gets you to put pen to paper. If anyone else is interested in giving it a try (free) just go to:

www.nanowrimo.org

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

2008-10-13T17:23:00.002+02:00

Hmmm. Kinda forgot it was thanksgiving. Therefore forgot to purchase turkey. So I went to the market rather late in the day and most of the butchers were closing up. So I manged to get 4 chicken legs. With thighs! And some roasting potatoes. And as I type, the chicken and potatoes are roasting in the oven with lots of olive oil, sea salt, thyme and rosemary. In about 45 minutes, we'll be having our own little Canadian Thanksgiving in Zagreb. Then afterwards we'll hunt down one of the street vendors cooking up some local chestnuts.

Cheers!

Butter cream buildings

2008-10-09T09:48:00.010+02:00

The old part of Zagreb, filled with historical buildings and cobblestone roads, is going through a transformation even as we speak. All of the buildings are being restored. The results are sometimes just breathtaking.

So for example, a building like the top one, will be painstakingly restored to its original glory to something like the building below it. Note that I'm saying 'restored.' It can take a year to carefully bring the facades, the masonry work, the bits and bobs back to their original form.

The following building is almost finished. I walk by this building site everyday on my way to the market and I've watched the guys doing all sort of things by hand...like smoothing and forming the texture on the outside of the building. Even mixing the cement by hand! They've gotten to the point where they're choosing the paint colour. If you look closely, you'll see they've painted several stripes of yellow on one of the blocks. I really like the yellow on the furthest to the right. I've seen it in the sun, the shade, on a grey day, and in the rain, and it always looks buttery. Usually when they go with a yellow, they'll use white for accents. The result is what I call 'butter cream buildings' because the buildings look like they've been iced with creamy dreamy butter cream frosting! As soon as this building is unveiled, I'll post a picture.

I LOVE the butter cream buildings. But they also have lots of other great colours. Here are just a few more colours:

So, in a couple of years, all of the old town will look like this. In the meantime, I'd say it is about 60% of the buildings are done. Another 30% are in the process of getting done. Wow.

My daily stairs

2008-10-08T17:58:00.007+02:00

I do lots of walking. I mean lots and lots of walking. On purpose. And much of that walking is done going up stairs in various parts of town. Here are just some of the stairs I go up and down every single day at least once. Most days I do these two, three and sometimes four times.

These are the ones going up to the house:

And these also go up to the house:

Followed by these: (and I'm not making this up. I want you to imagine me carrying bags of potatoes, apples, onions, etc. from the market UP all these stairs!)

These next ones are special stairs that go up to the upper part of the old town. I couldn't fit all the stairs in the picture. This is about HALF of them!

And these last two shots are very special to me. I have named them the "Krumpir" stairs. Krumpir is the Croatian word for potato. If I ever eat french fried potatoes, I make myself climb these stairs. It usually takes care of keeping the old blood sugar in check ;-)

Whew! I have one more set of stairs that I do pretty much every day. They are called the Salata stairs and there are 146 of them. My picture didn't turn out. So I'll post them on another day.

Stairs: good for the body. Good for the soul!

Don't name your spiders...

2008-10-06T19:10:00.004+02:00

I know. I know. You want to name them. The spiders. Well, not all of them. But the big giant dark brown one with long legs and eyes that dangle off of those antennae thingies...and the same one who has been coming to sit on the outside of your bedroom window every night to get a bit of heat off the glass. Yep, that's the one you'll first be horrified about. Then you'll be less horrified. Then, like me, you'll start looking for him each evening (because he disappears every morning). And it'll feel natural to think of him as a sort of pet and give him a name. A human name, like Harold. That's what I called my horrifying spider. And it made him a little less horrifying. I never let him into the house, but I accepted him staring through the window each night.

Except Harold has been missing these last few nights. And it has been cold at night. And I'm feeling guilty for not letting him come inside to warm up a bit. Poor Harold. I hope he's actually off to Ibiza for the winter. On one of those all-inclusive trips. He'd like that. Especially if he hooks up with some of those monstrously huge spiders they grow in tropical places. Yep. If Harold is indeed in Ibiza, then he's going to be okay. I'll look for him to return next spring.

Go Harold!

Buckwheat is beautiful...

2008-10-06T15:49:00.004+02:00

I came across an interesting tidbit of information when I was surfing the net while looking for polenta recipes. I discovered that polenta was not originally made from corn. No. Up until about 150 years ago, it was made from Buckwheat. Apparently buckwheat is way more nutritious than corn, easier to grow, and easier to digest. But it won't grow in a high nitrogen soil. Corn and wheat grow insanely well with high nitrogen fertilizers. So when farmers figured they could grow more corn or wheat per acre with fertilizers, they quickly put buckwheat on the back burner. There's quite a bit of history attached to the whole transition from buckwheat to corn...but if you're interested in that, you can just do a search on the net for more info.

I was amazed to learn that it was buckwheat porridge, or polenta, that fed the ancient Roman soldiers, and millions more people over the last few thousand years. How cool is that!

Until recently, I really didn't know what buckwheat was. I can't eat any kind of wheat, so I guess the word 'wheat' in the name is what turned me off. But I learned recently that buckwheat isn't a wheat at all (so why the heck don't they change the name???) It is actually considered a fruit! Well, it is the seed from the buckwheat plant and the plant is related to the rhubarb plant.

Anyways...buckwheat is nutritious, simple and fast to make and it tastes terrific!

Here's what it looks like when you buy it dried and whole. They call these groats. You can get them raw or roasted. Roasting them intensifies the flavour. I like mine unroasted. Notice how they are like little tiny pyramids. I included a pen here just to show the relative size.

And here they are, just 10 minutes later, all cooked and soft and ready to be eaten.

You cook them just like rice. I usually rinse the groats and drain off the water. Then I boil water in my tea kettle. Then I add about the same amount of water to the buckwheat in a pot. Put the pot on the stove and let it boil for about 2 minutes. Then turn off the heat. Add a pinch of salt. Put on a tight fitting lid. And leave it there for 10-15 minutes. Then just fluff with a fork. It comes out all soft and delicious. Ready to be used like rice. Or...instead of cooking in water, you can cook it in hot milk. When it is done, add brown sugar and a bit of butter plus some cinnamon, raisins and a handful of nuts, and you've got a quick, nutritious and delicious hot breakfast cereal.

Yum. Yum. Yum.

The Simpsons in German

2008-10-05T19:00:00.004+02:00

So I was watching some TV...a rare thing for me for many reasons. There isn't much in English here, and lots of American shows are dubbed in either Croatian, German or Hungarian. I came across an episode of The Simpsons and it was hilarious what types of voices they chose for the characters. Marge sounds like a man. And Homer sounds just like Yoda! Which kind of makes him sound intelligent....and it makes for one bizarre viewing experience.

Crochet time

2008-10-02T12:31:00.004+02:00

I forgot to add these pictures to my last entry about our trip to Hvar. Since the chilly weather would be soon upon us (this was happening in late September), I took my latest knitting/crochet project along with me. I was the only one on the ferry with a crochet hook. But many women walked by and looked at me with that "now-why-didn't-I -bring-MY-knitting-project-with-me?" look on their faces. The ferry is quite big, holding about 100 or more cars, and probably about 300 people. It has a big indoor deck with a cafe bar and food, and also an upper deck that is open to the elements.

Here I am on the ferry with my beloved zig-zag afghan:

And here's a shot of my afghan, as I was sitting by the pool. The day temperature was about 24C, but by late afternoon, when I took this picture, it was getting a little chilly at about 17C. People were coming out of the pool shivering and looking at my wooly afghan with longing in their eyes.

Hvar pictures

2008-10-02T12:10:00.009+02:00

Hvar. In case you are wondering....yup....it IS that pretty.

Here are a few pictures from our trip to the island of Hvar, a beautiful and rugged ancient island covered with olive trees, grape vines, stony houses, and crystal clear lagoons. For hundreds of years, people have traveled to Hvar for the health benefits of the lavendar-perfumed air and the crystal clear waters. You can see clear down to the bottom of the sea. While standing on the rocky shore, I caught sight of an octopus nestled down in the rocks. He was trying very hard to look like a rock, but when I started talking, and threw some pebbles in the water, he sort of started changing colours...first white, then grey, then white and grey, then he went back to being stone coloured. How COOL is that???

Now, one of the things that makes Hvar so incredibly incredible is that it is a 3 hour drive from Zagreb to Split, then a 1.5 hour ferry ride from Split to Hvar. That's it. Really accesible. Stunning how close it is.

The water is so clear that the boats look like they are floating in the air!

Portrait of the artist...fuzzy hair and all...

View from our hotel room at sunset

Ahhhh, that's it for now.

New book idea!

2008-09-26T17:37:00.003+02:00

As a bit of a diversion from all the new and yummy foods available here... I thought I'd write about writing. I'm working on a novel, but I might have to take a bit of a break to write a much needed piece of non-fiction. I was thinking I'd call it: Appliances for Foreign Dummies. A manual for non-Europeans who are living in Europe...and having great difficulty with the appliances. The idea came to me this morning when I was vacuuming with what I thought was a normal vacuum cleaner. But NO. It was not normal at all...a fact I discovered when I sucked the curtains right off the wall. You might be thinking that's not such a big deal, but our place has 14 foot ceilings. And the curtains go right from the ceiling to the floor. So sucking 14 foot curtains off the wall is a very big deal.

See, the vacuum has only 2 settings, from what I can figure: something I call the butterfly setting, and the turbo setting. The butterfly setting is so light that you could actually catch a butterfly that's loose in your house, and gently, with a poof of light air, deposit the butterfly all safe and sound outside. Then there's the turbo setting, which resulted in the above mentioned curtain incident. I think maybe the vacuum is made by Ferrari or something. Because it is quite powerful. Powerful enough to suck dust bunnies from clear across the street. And here's where I'd put the section in my book about insects. Because with such a great huge suction force, it is quite logical to this non-European that this is a great tool for dealing with those pesky huge spiders and centipedes that seem to come with all oldy-worldy European villas. Except it isn't a good idea. As I learned. Oh sure, the vacuum cleaner will neatly and efficiently slurp up those giant black spiders. And suck the centipedes right off the ceiling or right out of the bathtub. But that's not the end of those bugs. Oh no no no. Because the vacuum cleaner does NOT kill them. No. It just holds onto them. Puts them snuggly into a warm and dusty place where they can thrive. Growing bigger and bigger. And then only God knows what they do. Hmmm, giant black spiders marching OUT of the vacuum cleaner. I think that'll make a great picture for the cover of the book.

Of course, then I'll have to add the section on dish washers (um, that liquid soap isn't foaming because it isn't soap...it's rinsing liquid). And the whole thing about being sure you're using soap in the washing machine...and, um, not just fabric softener. Don't ask how I know these things.

Polenta dangers....

2008-09-22T18:06:00.003+02:00

I have figured out a way to make polenta so that it is the consistency of tapioca pudding. This is not a good thing, because I LOVE tapioca pudding. And now I can't stop eating the polenta. It came out tasting so good, that I actually had to leave the house to prevent myself from eating the whole pot. Of course I returned later in the day and cleaned up that pot, so I guess leaving the house only postponed the inevitable.

I must figure out how to handle delicious foods now....before chestnut season gets into full swing. Did I mention there is an entrie MOUNTAINSIDE filled with special chestnut trees that produce something they call Marrone...these giant, yellow, sweet, indescribably delightful types of chestnuts that burst with goodness when they are ROASTED OVER AN OPEN FIRE. And they come into season in mid-October. And there's a chestnut festival to celebrate their arrival. And I'll be attending that festival. Save me!

Carrots & caffeine

2008-09-16T12:26:00.002+02:00

I know this'll sound stupid, because I feel stupid just writing it down.... but that's never stopped me before. I'm in love with carrots. There. I said it. I love carrots. You must understand I've always hated carrots. Their rubbery texture. That horrid sort of metallic taste. Blechhh!

But it turns out that's not how carrots are supposed to taste. I got carrots this morning at the market. They had been pulled out of the ground not more than a few hours before. They still had the leaves attached. Some dirt on them. But my goodness....they looked tender, and young, and they had this aura that can only be given off by natural, homegrown vegetables. So I bought a half kilo. And now, sitting here in the living room, I'm so overwhelmed with the joyful taste of these carrots that I had to write about it. I've warmed up some espresso that I made earlier this morning, and am enjoying the oddest yet most down-to-earth taste combination possible: coffee and carrots. But let me be specific here: really good coffee and really good carrots. Weeping tears of joy over carrots.

What's next? Well, it could very well be: crying over calamari. We're headed over to the island of Hvar tomorrow and I'll be investigating the seafood situation. Investigation notes to be posted soon!!!

Chew warning on figs...

2008-09-12T17:16:00.003+02:00

As a public service, I'm mentioning here that if anyone is planning on eating the dried figs available here at the market...they should take note: it is very very important to CHEW them. Oh, you'll want to just swallow one down after another. I know. I sympathize. Been there. Done that. Got the t-shirt. But I had to discover the hard way that all those sweet nectary pieces of joy go down easy enough. But each of them will re-hydrate into a full-blown WHOLE fig in your stomach. Or as in my case, in the intestines. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.

So, be sure to chew. Or, if the figs are just too tempting, um, make sure you've got stretchy pants to wear. Pyjamas will do nicely actually.

Dried figs & pomegranates

2008-09-09T11:30:00.003+02:00

It is hard to complain about anything when there are so many delicious and exquisite foods available to be eaten every single day. This morning I got a very early pomegranate. Inside, the juicy seeds are more of a rose colour than red. But bursting with sweetness.

Then there's a new favourite for me: dried figs. I've never liked dried fruit. Actually, I hate dried fruit. I spent many hours as a child diligently picking all the dried fruit out of fruitcake each Christmas. So it took some cajoling for me to even try a dried fig here. And what a surprise. These figs were grown down south, picked ripe, then dried a bit, then washed in salted sea water, then left in the sun to dry again. They are rather soft and the skin is a bit chewy. And the inside is a brilliant red colour. And the taste is indescribable. Just let me admit here that I ate 15 of these beauties in one sitting. Yup. Don't recommend it. But I did it. And if my stomach didn't feel like it was bursting...I would have eaten even more. I figure if I wait about 2 hours, I can probably have 5 or 6 more!!!

P.S. they are quite awesome when eaten together with fresh roasted hazelnuts.

Notes on making polenta....

2008-09-05T17:11:00.004+02:00

It is hard work making polenta the old fashioned way. I'm making up a batch that is extra thick so I can slice it up later. So I have to stir it for an hour and it is really really sticky. Difficult! My arm hurts. Boo-hoo!

Here's a shot of my polenta that is almost done. Note how the spoon is standing on its own!

But here's an important note on making polenta (I didn't read this ANYWHERE). Use a big pot. Like three times bigger than the amount you are cooking. Because when you add the dry corn meal to the boiling water....the whole thing foams up and rises way way way up and will spill over if the pot isn't big enough. It'll spill everywhere. Over the side of the pot. Into the burner. Under the burner. Under the knobs. Down the counter top. Down the front of the oven door. And then onto the floor. And inevitably stepped into...and then tracked all over the house. And all of it sticky. Oh, and it dries harder than diamonds. So it must be removed by razor-blade.

Do not ask how I know all of this.

Arghhhhh!

Ouch!

2008-09-05T14:07:00.003+02:00

So this morning I learned the hard way that it isn't a good idea to try and cut the hard rind off a small piece of cheese using a sharp butcher knife that is longer than my arm. Took a rather big slice out of my thumb which now needs some time to heal. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Luckily I can still stir with my hand...and therefore the giant cut on my thumb will NOT prevent me from making up another batch of slow-cooked polenta tonight.

Yum.

p.s. Did I already mention OUCH!

New grain mill!!! Polenta!!!!!

2008-09-04T20:56:00.007+02:00

Europeans are pretty wild about fresh food. And fresh-ground grain is no exception. I've never heard of counter-top models of grain mills, but they are incredibly popular here, especially in places like Germany and Austria.

I haven't been able to eat any grains over the last few years because most of the commercially prepared ones are processed in places that also process wheat and barley. So I just avoided them altogether because of the chance of cross contamination.

But grains are back on the menu now that I've got my own grain mill!!!! It is the cutest thing you've ever seen. Very heavy. With a serious motor, and two grind stones made of, well, stone! The particular model I got is hand-carved in a beautiful wood, and it all comes from a company called Waldner (http://www.waldner-biotech.at/en/produkte.asp).

I also went to my friendly grain lady at the farmers market and requested some special corn they use for making polenta. She'll have it for me on Tuesday. So in the meantime, she gave me some of her popping corn and I milled that today and cooked it into a creamy, delightful, and unabashedly simple and delicious polenta.

Fresh milled grains must be prepared immediately because the milled grain starts to go bad as soon as it encounters oxygen. So the idea is to mill it, and use it immediately.

Here's a picture of my beautiful mill actually grinding corn.

And here is a picture of the milled corn. I mixed very fine corn flour with a heavier grind.

Then I cooked it the old fashioned way into polenta. Basically I put 1 part corn meal into 3 parts boiling water, then stirred for an hour. Yup. A full hour. The corn gets creamier and creamier. And gives off an aroma that is something like a cross between sunshine and happiness. Comfort food at its best.

Here is the finished polenta. Afterward, I put it all into a dish and let it cool so I could cut it into wedges and then put it into my homemade chicken soup.

Wood-fired pizza

2008-09-03T15:52:00.006+02:00

There's a little pizza place with a real wood-burning oven (wood burning inside the oven). And they make pizza all day long. I of course can't eat pizza with all that gluten in it, but my hubby heroically stepped in to help, once again.

Here's a shot of the fire coming out of the oven.

And here's the pizza (about 16 inches/40cm across), which took EXACTLY 2 minutes to bake (and yes, I timed it).

Peaches and pears...

2008-09-02T13:55:00.003+02:00

I have never in my whole life tasted anything as good as the peaches and pears that are currently in season here, and available at every market stand. It is so hard to try and describe these things without being able to offer a taste and a smell of the perfume-like fragrance from these fruits. Honestly, it is just unbelievably good. So I'm including a picture of the peaches which are about 8 inches/20 cm around. Big. Along with some branches of fresh rosemary and bay leaves that are in plentiful supply right now as people go about canning the summer harvest for enjoyment into the winter months.

I'm also including a picture of the local pears. These are Williams pears which they also use to make a particularly fine brandy called Wiliamovka. Can't explain how it tastes here, because I have NO METAPHORS that do it justice. Anyways, back to the pears. I washed them. Sliced them, and put them in a bowl. I had this wonderful bag of fresh-roasted hazelnuts that I bought from a woman who grows them in her backyard. Using a very sophisticated method, I took a handful of nuts, put them between some plastic wrap, then crushed them with a bottle of olive oil. You don't need to use a bottle of olive oil though as this is one of those rare times when a bottle of cola can be used instead of olive oil ;-)

Then I took the crushed roasted hazelnuts and sprinkled them on my sliced pears. And, well, I had planned on taking a picture, but I'll be upfront here and admit that I pretty much inhaled the entire thing. So you'll just have to imagine the whole thing.

Yum!!!

Day 2, Rice is still nice...

2008-08-29T17:47:00.002+02:00

This is day two of my new rice integration program. And it is going swimmingly. This morning, being Friday, the fish market was brimming with fresh-caught loveliness from the sea. We bought some gleaming fish called Oslic and I brought it home to make (drum roll please) soup! I can't get enough of soup for some reason. The fish soup came out incredibly delicious. Aromatic. And quick too. It took only about 20 minutes from start to finish. I added a bit of rice at the end. I meant to take a picture of the whole thing, but I couldn't wait to tuck in.

Rice is nice.

2008-08-28T18:19:00.003+02:00

It was a big night for me. Because last night, I ate rice for the first time in many years. Yup. Rice was one of those things that I just couldn't eat in Canada. Don't ask me why it bothered me so much, but it did. And I tried them all: different brands, different cooking methods, organic, conventional, etc. So I had to give it up.

Until last night. I heated up a bowlful of turkey soup that I had made earlier in the day. And I added about 2 tablespoons of cooked arborio rice...a Croatian brand that is produced in Italy.

I added some olive oil to the soup, and stirred in the rice. A touch of salt. And I hesitated. I breathed in the beautiful aroma of rice (yes, rice does have a beautiful aroma). And I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to eat it. But I was brave and had a spoonful. I waited for 10 minutes. Nothing happened. So I ate a bit more, then a bit more until the bowl of soup was done.

When all went well overnight, I had another bowl of soup with rice for breakfast this morning. And again for lunch. And I just had another bowl for dinner.

And it is all okay. Better than okay. It is great. Fantastic. Wooo-hoooo!!!!!

Angel breath cheese

2008-08-27T16:17:00.003+02:00

Ok. I wasn't planning on doing multiple entries today, but I just had some Italian ricotta cheese, and I HAD to write about it. I was at one of the grocery stores buying rice and salt and I came across a refrigerated section of Italian cheese. Mozzarella, gorganzola, pecorino, mamma mia! Then I spotted one of my most favourite cheeses in the world: ricotta. Except, as I explained earlier, I couldn't eat ricotta or any other cheese in Canada.

I took a chance and bought a small container. Brought it home, and I just ate a spoonful. It was fluffy and pure white and tasted like puffy clouds blended with angel breath. It was that good. So good that instead of eating the rest of the container, I had to sit down and write about it while the taste was still lingering beautifully on my tongue. And now that I've written it all down, I will head back to the kitchen and take my time with the rest of that Italian goodness.

Bliss. Oh bliss. Oh bliss. Oh bliss. Oh bliss.

Side of vitamins......

2008-08-27T10:14:00.004+02:00

I've been eating these little snack-sized plates of veggies, fruits and cheese. But I think of them as little dishes of vitamins. Tiny tomatoes bursting with taste, dewy grapes from Dalmatia, and tender young apples with a rosy skin. And that ain't cottage cheese. That's fresh cheese, made this morning by the wonderful woman at the market. And that cheese is mixed with that same wonderful woman's fresh sour cream. Then I snipped fresh-picked chives into the mixture and added a pinch of sea salt. You can't beat it with a stick!!!!

I added a fork to the picture to give a sense of size. These are small plates of yumminess. But eaten several times a day.

and one more writing space...

2008-08-26T09:43:00.002+02:00

This is around 9am and the light coming through the windows is soft, along with the late summer breeze fluttering the curtains. Birds are chirping. Coffee is brewing. I tried to show the height of the ceilings (around 14 feet). Ahhhh, I could certainly get used to this....

My writing space

2008-08-26T09:40:00.004+02:00

I just have to post a picture of my writing space. It is a dream come true. We are renting the main floor in a grand old villa with a beautiful terrace that overlooks a lovely garden. After so many years of having views that consisted of apartment building ventilation systems and garbage truck pickup areas, this is just incredible.

The room is massive and has very high ceilings. That monitor sitting off in the corner looks miniature....but it is a 32" screen!