A Month Without Internet Access

Well, it's not quite true. I have internet access at work, and when I go to my parents' house, but when I'm at these places it's usually because I have things to do... Things that are not blogging.

But oh, have I ever been doing things worth blogging about! And if Mal's going to get back into it, then I suppose I can, too.

At the end of December I started moving into my new apartment. I've been having tons of fun setting things up, decorating, putting my kitchen utensils in appropriate drawers and so on. With everything just about in order (for now), I threw a little housewarming party last weekend to garner some compliments and give myself an excuse to cook excessive amounts of appetizers.

The Menu
Pita chips with hummus and almond-eggplant dip
Stuffed mushrooms
Broiled polenta rounds with tomato-bean sauce
Corn & feta filo purses
Felafel stuffed with goat cheddar

Reasons Why I'm a Fool
1. Forgot to take any photos
2. Completely forgot to fry and serve the felafel

...So in addition to a housewarming party, I also had a lovely felafel dinner earlier this week with zero prep.


The point: Without internet access I've been (a) wildly productive on cooking, decorating, and making things. But (b) terribly incapable of blogging.
The goal: Continue part (a); rectify part (b).

colorful food for fall

So, I'm living in Poland right now--perhaps you've heard me mention that.
We like to eat cheaply, and we do almost all our grocery shopping at the Old Market (Stary Kleparz), which is about five minutes' walk from our place. What this means: we eat a lot of cabbage, onions, bread, barley and button mushrooms. White foods, in other words.

Lately we've been trying to incorporate more color into our culinary lives. It's really a perfect time to do it, too, because fall makes me want to put color everywhere, but especially on my plate! Our number one secret weapon against colorless food has been salad, and I think we've been pretty successful.

Top five colorful ingredients that we can get at the market, while staying frugal:
1. Avocado (definitely our biggest salad-splurge item at approx. $1 a piece)
2. Spinach (about $0.80 for a tremendous bunch, usually takes three meals to get through)
3. Yellow Lentils! (we've taken to soaking and cooking dry lentils rather than using canned, which is cheaper and tastier--the texture really does something for a spinach salad, and, of course, the color compliment is lovely)
4. Red Cabbage (delicious change of pace from white cabbage, slightly more expensive at about $0.50 for a good sized cabbage head)
5. Tomatoes (about $2/kilogram, less for the smaller, sweeter varieties)

And I recently learned to best absorb the lycopene in tomatoes, you should eat them with some fat. That's the best reason for a light oil-based salad dressing that I know of, after the obvious (delicious).

Considering all the pierogi, naleśniki and zapiekanka we eat, the right colorful salad can be positively refreshing, not to mention vital to our health.

Weekend Getaways

Today is election day. Maybe you've heard? Every blog I read posted something about it.
Here in Poland we won't know the results until 7 or 8 or 9am Wednesday morning -- and I have the mimosas ready and waiting.

Meanwhile, I spent the weekend in Wrocław (with my boyfriend and his father, who is visiting us) and Poznań (with one of my very best friends). It was a really nice getaway for a few days, and I got to see two lovely cities I'd never been to before.

I did what you might expect from me -- went to the cinema to watch a foreign film, drank tea and mulled beer in tiny dim cafes, bought (somewhat) old maps, went to a John Coltrane tribute concert and, oh, yeah, I took some photos!

Here are the main market squares of each town -- you can compare for yourselves.
Wrocław:



And Poznań:



And for good measure, here's a snap of the amazing breakfast spread courtesy of my dear friend Asia:


Wonderful! I particularly liked the blood sausage with barley -- I can't help but wonder, though, what my seventeen-year-old self, the vegan, would have to say about that. Not to mention my dear co-blogger, also vegan. Mallory? Thoughts?

Ciasto

Today was my last day at my internship. In general I'm excited about the upcoming onslaught of free time, but there are always a few things to miss about leaving, even after such a relatively short time... The Center was a great place for me to practice languages--people came in speaking Polish, English, German, French, and plenty of languages I don't know... I even got to try out a little rusty Yiddish a couple times; I also loved it when the orchestra rehearsed in our concert hall, right next to the reception desk, though talking on the phone over some of Beethoven's louder swells is a trick. The best part of my days was the building staff, though.

Today the doorman, who must be one of the most friendly people I've ever met, said goodbye to me in the universal language: cake.


Of course, goodbyes are always bittersweet, but this one was definitely on the sweet side.

Series: Things I love about Poland, Part I: Milk Bars

Remember the psychedelic black-and-white Milk Bar from A Clockwork Orange? The one that serves several varieties of milk, and nothing else?
Well, it's real. Sort of.


The milk bar (bar mleczny) does exist, but I've never seen any actual glasses of milk at one, let alone a table in the shape of a woman. The milk bar is essentially a cafeteria selling really decent polish food at really decent prices. They're usually poorly decorated and there is always, without fail, an aproned woman behind the counter, holding a soup ladle.

My personal favorite items are the most basic things on the menu: pierogi ruskie, or "russian" pirogi, which are filled with delicious potato and cheese; naleśniki z serem, or cheese-filled crepes, which can be sweet or savory; and placki ziemniaczane, potato pancakes. I also love the barszcz z krokietem (borscht with a croquette), in particular because it's usually considered an appetizer, not a full meal, and thus rarely costs more than about a dollar fifty. Beautiful.

The milk bar pictured above is located in the Nowa Huta district of Krakow, a city built as a "worker's paradise" in 1949/50 for the workers at the new steel mill outside town. This milk bar sits in Plac Centralny, or Central Square, which, in 1984, was renamed in honor of Ronald Reagan.
Seriously.


This infatuation with Ronald Reagan is not going to make it into this series of posts on things I love about Poland, I think. Sorry, Ron.