Don't feed him blue cocktails!

A taste of home in the middle of Kosovo

Romain's Serbian colleague recently had a baby boy so we were invited over this week to meet him.  We didn't realise that this would also involve a lot of drinking and eating, although after living in Kosovo for as long as we have, it really didn't come as much of a surprise.

What did come as a surprise, however, was that the "traditional Serbian food" they served us had a distinctly Australian vibe about it:  rissoles for dinner, followed by lamingtons for dessert.

The evening began with, of course, the obligatory oohing and aahing over little Jovan (John in Serbian, who is a cutie) and the discussions about sleep or lack thereof.  Then the dad, Ivan, cracked open a bottle of Rakia (the alcohol of choice in the Balkans, kind of like schnapps) and served it up in little potion bottles.  Because I was pregnant and not allowed to drink alcohol, they offered me wine (??), but I opted for juice instead.

Romain looking like he has already had quite a few 'magic potion bottles'.

To go with our drinks we were offered "sweets & water"  (I can't remember the Serbian word for it).  It is a jar full of preserved apricots pitted with hazelnuts and covered in syrup which you dig out with a spoon and then wash down with water.  It is apparently a tradition to kick off any celebration.  It was pretty good.

Julie, Cailean and the new 'big sister' being served their 'sweet and water' thing.

Then they brought out a plate of rissoles!  They called it pljeskavica, but they looked and tasted pretty much like good old Aussie rissoles to me.  We ate them with fetta (of course!), fresh tomatoes and fresh bread.

Pjleskavica

It's a rissole, folks.

I desperately wanted to load all mine into a burger, so I was very happy when I saw Ivan do exactly that.  It was almost like being at an Aussie BBQ.

Then we were served a slice of very dense and not particularly sweet cake with bananas in the middle and unsweetened cream on top.  After stuffing ourselves with 'rissoles' it was a struggle to get through.  But we dutifully munched it down.

A big slice of banana cake.  Oiy.

AND THEN they brought out a plate of lamingtons!  I was so shocked!  And thought for a brief second that all this had been done in my honour to give me a taste of home, because lamingtons were the last thing I was expecting to find in the middle of nowhere in the middle of Kosovo in the middle of the Balkans.

The Serbs are even more Aussie than the Aussies, they serve their lamingtongs with beer, mate.  (Lav is a Serbian beer).

A coconut cube cake by any other name would taste just as sweet.

But as it turns out, lamingtons, which they call 'coconut cube cakes' (boring!) are something that is traditionally served by the new mother to visiting guests.  Because of course a new mother has nothing better to do with her time than bake sponge cakes, cover them in chocolate sauce and roll them in coconut all day long.

So beside the fact that I was full to the point of explosion, I still managed to squeeze in a 'coconut cube cake' for old times sake.  They decided they liked the name lamington better and so that's what they are going to call it now.

There is a fancy new bakery that has opened in Gjilan that I have been meaning to visit, so now I'll be disappointed if they don't have cabinets full of finger buns, cream buns, vanilla slice and neenish tarts.

In terms of other weird Serbian birth traditions, here are a couple:

Apparently as soon as someone finds out that a Serb has become a father they are customarily obliged to tear to shreds the shirt he is wearing, leaving him walking the streets or corridors of the hospital with a pile of tattered cloth on his back.  So around the due date, Serbian dads-to-be are well advised to wear their oldest and daggiest shirts around.

A photo of Ivan, taken by his daughter.  He said he wore a shirt with the flag of Serbia on it to the hospital, hoping that would deter his mates from ripping it apart.  It didn't.

There is an old Serbian/Balkan saying 'to be as drunk as a mother' and apparently this comes from an old tradition, not practiced so widely today, that a new mother was not allowed to drink water but only Rakia for the first 40 days after the birth of the baby.  Rakia is extremely potent and I suppose new mums spent their whole day blind drunk, which probably helped to cope with the lack of sleep and other chores of looking after a screaming baby.  And maybe breastmilk loaded with alcohol proved to be an effective way of stopping the baby screaming in the first place.

Little Jovan with his mum and sister.

26 Weeks

Pic taken yesterday after I took me and the baby for an evening walk through the forest.  Probably the last one before I head back to France to begin my 'period of confinement' because night is starting to fall early here.  Our nocturnal vision hadn't quite kicked in as we made our way down from the mountains so I was very gingerly picking my way between the stones and tree roots.  But it was good to get the circulation going and as a result I have ankle bones again today!  yay!

My belly button is so far refusing to be an 'outtie' so it kind of pulls my stomach in at the middle, much like a tufted button on a plush leather couch.  So I don't have a perfectly round belly yet, just kind of a lumpy one, even more so when the baby performs its hourly acrobatics.  I'd like to know what the hell is going on in there.

AND!  this is my hair full of sweat and after 4 days without washing!  Not bad!  After having to wash my greasy locks every day for the best part of 34 years, this particular spin-off almost makes up for all the other crap that comes with pregnancy.  Almost.

Canadian Brekky! Again!

On our trip to Rugova Valley Cailean - our resident Canadian - again whipped up his famous Canadian brekky for us all - French (Canadian) toast, with real maple syrup brought back from Canada, bacon cooked in maple syrup and fresh bananas.

Good job Cailean!  The baby thought it was top notch.

The Making of Flia and other food in the Rugova Valley

So!  Remember Flia??  That delicious yet most unattractive of Kosovar treats?  Well on a trip to Rugova Valley two weekends ago I got to learn how it was made.  I chose to sit out the 5 hour hike that the rest of the group went on  in favour of some down-time with the village ladies.  Except the down-time ended up being filled with flia fun.

And it takes a ridiculously long amount of time for something that really doesn't end up looking like it was worth all the effort.

My prediction that it was constructed of several layers of pancake smooshed together with oil wasn't too far off.

The thing that astounded me was that it so unbelievably time-consuming.  It took us about 4 hours to create a wheel of flia that was scoffed by 7 people in about 10 minutes.

To make flia you need a wood fire, a massive metal dish about 8cm deep and a couple of dome shaped  lids that get layered with coal from the fire to cook the flia paste as it sits on the ground.  You also need a huge pot of unsweetened pancake batter, another pot of cottage cheesey type stuff, upper body strength worthy of a Chinese olympic swimmer, thigh muscles and knee joints that are supple enough to see you performing about 200 squats, and a lot of time.

You start by oiling up the base of your pan.  Then you dollop a few ladles of pancake batter in the pan and cover the top with a dome shaped lid and wait till the batter sets, but doesn't burn or brown.  That takes about 2 minutes.  Then you remove the lid with a massive forked stick, spread a very small amount of the cottage cheese stuff (kind of like curdled cream) over the pancake, and swing the second dome lid (which has been warming on top of the stove) onto the pan to melt the creamy cheese.  In the meantime you lift the other lid (which I suspect weighs a tonne based on the grimace on the lady's face everytime she lifted it) onto the fire so that it can be warming up while the other lid is on the pan.  Then you take the lid off the pan, ladle some more pancake batter on top of the thin layer of melted cream cheese, making sure it is spread right to the edges, put the hot lid on top and let it cook for another 2 minutes.  Then more cheese, then more pancake batter.

And you do this about 60 times over the course of 4 hours until you pan is full and you slump exhausted onto the grass.

The daughter-in-law of the owners of the house where we were staying, on pancake batter duty.  In foreground you can see the pot of batter, the creamy cheese stuff in the small pot, and a wooden spoon in the pink jug for spreading each layers.  The flia pan is behind that, and then at the back are the two lids covered in coals and ash, one sitting on the stove warming up.  If she looks grumpy, it is probably because she is at about layer 8 of 60 and she still has a loooong way to go.

Me stepping in to relieve her - looking a bit unsure of the whole process. I had about 4 ladies watching on and helpfully offering unintelligible tips.  But I think I got the hang of it.  I only sat in for about 15 rounds until I figured I got the point, and happily handed the ladle back to the other lady.  And yes, I am wearing socks with thongs.

The flia fire lady - using the massive stick to lift the lid onto the fire.  Lucky she is a sturdy sort.   It seems to be the done thing that one person watches the fire and does all the heavy lifting while the other is on batter duty and repeatedly squats up and down.  So I guess you take on whichever duty your body shape or fitness routine dictates.  I was definitely a squatter.

The flia - about half way.

The old grandmother watches on.  Apparently the whole business is very entertaining.  I'm sure she's made a fair few flia in her time and now enjoys it as a spectator sport.  And note the socks and clogs.  See - I was just trying to be culturally appropriate with my footwear.  ....or maybe she put hers on after seeing mine, in an attempt to make me feel less ridiculous.

In between rounds there was time to chew the fat and gossip about the latest goings on in Drelaj village - population of about 30 people. 

Then you divide it up in this beautiful snowflake pattern (not always the way it is done, but it sure looks pretty) and give it a final toast under the ember-laden lid, before delicately arranging it on a plate to be quickly devoured by unappreciative gluttons.

The finished flia, being expertly carved up.

I found this step fascinating for some reason.

And ta-da!

The flia takes centre stage on the dinner table - surrounded by other farm produce.  We had a type of thick fresh cream soup with roasted capsicums, salads with sweet green cabbage, tomatoes, cucumber and cheese, and yoghurt with honey.

Shiny, happy, flia-eating people.  What a wholesome scene!  You would hardly believe that we all got involved in a drunken game of nude twister with the hosts just after dinner.

I made sure that everyone who ate a piece heard the above story so they knew to be extra appreciative.  I also tried to make everyone count the layers to prove the point, but because each layer is so thin, it ends up looking like there are only about 9-10 layers max.  And I highly suspect they didn't really care that much and were just humouring me.

I was happy, however, that I was able to convert everyone over to my way of eating sweet flia.  Except there was no lemon and sugar available on our host's table, only delicious honey from their hives, so we used that instead.  Much to the horror of the hosts, I'm sure, who sat patiently by while we ate like pigs.  I'm pretty sure it is a gross Kosovar faux pas to eat your flia sweet.

Or maybe we have instigated the next Kosovo culinary craze.

25 Weeks!

 

 

Trying hard to look chic at 25 weeks.  A photo taken yesterday on my way out to a dinner at a super fancy restaurant in Pristina called Legere.

 

We were invited there for a birthday dinner for one of Romain's colleagues.  It was hard to believe we were in Kosovo - we could have been at any chic joint in any European capital.  They even had Australian wine on the menu (although it cost $85 a bottle of Katnook red.  Is that normal??).  I had spring rolls with spicy honey dip for starters and then hazelnut crusted lamb ribs with steamed seasonal vegetables for main.  And it would have only cost me around $15 (but the generous birthday girl picked up the tab).  Pristina sure is the big smoke, and nights like last night make me realise our culinary limitations here in Gjilan.  But!  then again, it is these limitations that inspire meals like cockroach pizzas and zombie brain sundaes, so I guess we are lucky in a lot of ways.

Anyway, the pic doesn't really give a fair idea of my actual size because the bubble dress kind of hides my true form.  In fact, I looked pregnant in this outfit even before I was, and I think a lot of people last night missed the fact that I was expecting.  Until I polished off six spring rolls and my enormous main meal without blinking and eyelid (portion sizes are astounding in the balkans).

And I was right about the green dress.  Temperatures have plummeted in the past week and I am now madly scrounging through my winter wardrobe to find stuff that still fits.  I suspect a trip to a nice french maternity boutique is in order (or a couple of Etsy online purchases) if I don't want to spend the rest of my pregnancy in yoga pants and men's jumpers.

Rock On!

 At 24 weeks my baby is as big as a rockmelon.

24 Weeks!

I'm a bit late posting this one - nearly 25 weeks now.  But better late than never.  This might be the last time I wear this green dress because the weather is getting chilly.  I had to wear a winter jacket over the weekend and could barely zip it up - so time to start thinking about warm maternity gear.....

Camille the Cowboy Cake

While I'm writing about party food, I thought I should include some pics from a while back, when our friend Camille turned 28 (or maybe 29, can't remember).

Anyway, I had some Aussie friends in town and with little else to do (we had already done the grand tour of Gjilan which takes about 20 minutes!) we took it upon ourselves to construct a birthday cake for him.

I sure know how to show visitors a good time!

This is Ali in the kitchen preparing the cake.

We were expecting around 20 people at his dinner, so we decided to make a big 'un.  Three cakes in total - you can see the production line in the photo.

Camille had decided to have his 'party' at a place called Vali Ranch.  Now, if you've read any postings from my other blog about Kosovo (http://ko-so-vo.blogspot.com), you'll know that Kosovo is a country that takes bizzaro to the extreme.

Vali Ranch is a case in point.  It has been set up by someone who obviously has more money then they know what to do with, again, in the middle of nowhere.   It is about a 20 minute drive from Gjilan, which is already in the middle of nowhere so I really don't know what he was thinking.

But!  Crazier than its obscure location is that it is a restaurant that features an 18 hole mini golf course AND a herd of llamas.  Llamas!!!!  In the middle of nowhere in Kosovo.  It is super weird, but of course, great!

So in honour of his venue choice, we decided to dress for the occasion.  Holding little hope that we would find anything that resembled a cowboy costume hat in Gjilan I was shocked when I went in to one of the supermarkets to find they were selling fantastic cowboy hats for 80 c a piece.  We bought them out.  As well as all their toy guns with suction cap bullets.  Although I did feel a bit guilty that some poor kid had probably planned a cowboy party for that weekend and would be going without any props.

But we had fun!

The llamas are in the shed behind us.

Cowgirls.  I'm about 12 weeks pregnant here so you can't really tell.
Fat chance I'll be fitting into any of those clothes anytime soon now though!

Someone had kindly painted me into one of the murals - a nice touch, I thought.

And this is the cake we made him.

There seems to be no such thing as food colouring in Kosovo, so to give the cake the necessary colours, we bought about 15 packs of snack-sized M&Ms, sorted each into different colours and decorated the cake that way.  Phew!  Ali constructed his glasses out of alfoil.  It took us a while to get the hat and boot shapes right.  Lucky we had a mountain of cake to work with.

The final cake was enormous!!  Much much bigger than necessary - it must have been my pregnancy hunger that made me think that everyone was going to need a slice of cake as big as a dinner plate.  We had to remove one of the shelves in our kitchen cupboard and wrap it in alfoil just to present it.

This is the cake with candles.

We had forgotten about Camille's fuzzy beard when we were decorating it - so at the last minute before we were leaving the house I quickly grated some chocolate over his face.

I can't find any of the photos we took with Camille and his cake.  But this is a photo of him from Lake Ohrid.  I think you'll agree that the resemblance is uncanny!   We even gave him his favourite green shirt.

Zombies

The latest thing going in the hood is to get together to watch scary movies.  I'm not such big fan of being creeped out or frightened.  I don't much care for gore either.  So I was happy to sit it out last weekend when they all got together to watch some horror/thriller called Mama about some deformed mother ghost who raises devil children or something like that.  Even though I suspect the choice was partly made with me in mind.

Last night the choice was zombies.  I figured I could probably handle zombies better than spooky stuff, so I opted in.

And developing from a (highly sophisticated) joke about suitable zombie movie food being eyeball soup and pus sandwiches, we decided to actually give some zombie themed food a crack.

I LOVE theme parties/dinners/dress-ups so I was more than happy to take on the challenge.

I was aiming for more of a Heston Blumenthal take on the whole zombie dinner theme, but really, what we ended up with was a menu for a kids' halloween party.  Which was quite okay by me and my fellow diners.  Good training for down the track too! 

This was the menu:

Zombie fingers with blood and guts sauce

Scab snacks

Sludge soup with eyeballs

Pus Pizza with cockroaches

Brain Sundaes

Zombie fingers with blood and guts sauce (aka gherkins with almond fingernails and ajvar - I'll tell you about that another day)

Scab snacks - made in honour of Julie who recently stacked it on a jog.  For these I made a mixture of hemp flour, eggs and water and baked it in the oven.  Blood is tomato paste.  Pus is sour cream. 

These especially unappetising appetisers actually tasted pretty close to what I imagine scabs would taste like.  They were revolting.  Success!!

Then we had sludge soup with eyeballs. 

Sludge soup again tasted pretty sludgy - thanks to me being a bit over zealous with the spinach.  Other ingredients were zucchinis, potato and broccoli.  At least it was super healthy.  The eyeballs were just your regular italian meatballs with half a stuffed olive jammed in.  Genius!

The guys looking pretty zombie-fied eating the soup.  Unfortunately they weren't hamming it up for the camera.  This is what they normally look like.

Next, pus pizzas with cockroaches.  After scrambling through the recesses of the pantry in search of suitable legs to add to my kalamata cockroaches, I hit gold when I found some wild rice.  Perfect.  Feelers were parsley stems.  Pus was bechemel sauce.  And some poppy seed poo for good measure.  Delicious!   Going into the oven.....

And viola! toasty golden pus:

But the piece de resistance was surely dessert.

Brain sundaes.

As I listened to this week's lecture recording for my uni subject, I studiously carved 5 brains from apple halves, happy to think that there was probably no one else in my course doing the same thing while they listened along.  

These are the fresh brains, browning up nicely on the windowsill before I baked them in the oven with a bit of lemon and brandy.

And this is them ready for eating.  With some cherry sauce gore for extra effect, and whipped cream and ice-cream.  They were scrumptious!!!!

Bon appétit!

23 Weeks!

The weeks are starting to skip by now.  And yes, I know you aren't supposed to tuck things into the waistband of pregnancy pants, I've just done it on this occasion to show my bump.  My maternity wardrobe is down to 2 pairs of pants, a skirt and a couple of dresses now - which is why these blue pants are featuring heavily lately.  There are not maternity shops in Gjilan and based on the other things I've seen in shops here, I'd be frightened to think what might be on offer if they did exist.  Something spangly and animal print probably.

Sunday Brunch

You have got to be happy to wake up to a brekky like that.  I sure was!

Scrambled eggs, garlic mushrooms, home-made baked beans, tomato, lettuce, buttered brown bread, homegrown herbs, even a home grown cherry tomato! a glass of ice cold juice and a cup of (decaf) coffee.