new
Monday, November 16th, 2009Brasov, Romania
New apartment.
New neighbourhood.
New market.
New prices (surprisingly more like Germany than Poland)
Leo and Lili organised an apartment for us to rent for our month here. We said we only needed a small one, but this was an impossibility. No-one was willing to rent a small apartment to someone with eight kids. So we have ended up in a very spacious two-storey, two-bathroom sprawling mansion!! Just the entrance hall alone is bigger than the living space in both our motorhomes put together! Then there’s another hallway (even larger) upstairs, not to mention three double bedrooms, a kitchen bigger than we have at home, an ENORMOUS lounge and dining area and a balcony.
To call it two-storey is perhaps a little misleading. We have two floors, but they are both within the context of a six-storey building – up near the top. The rest of the block is occupied by offices, which are a hive of activity during the day, but quiet at night. There’s a 24hour security man and a view across a busy main road (bus stop right at the door) to apartment blocks.
Right on our street are small supermarkets, kiosks, pizzeria, petrol station, hair dresser (who also does manicures, pedicures and something we don’t understand), travel agent, light shop, second-hand clothing store (there are five of these within ten minutes’ walk in one direction), and, of course, a gazillion apartments.
One block over is a big supermarket – no, let me rephrase that. It is not big by French Carrefour standards, neither is it big by even Kiwi standards, but it is bigger than the more frequent little mini-markets. There is also The Market. A huge high-roofed affair, it has small shops around the outside – butcher, baker, cheese-ery, random-goods-store, and in the middle are rows of high wooden tables. Mostly fresh fruit and vegetables are displayed on these, but there are also hand-hacked wooden spoons, baskets, a great stack of dark grey dinner-plates and other miscellaneous items. There are four shining milk dispensers – bring your own bottle and go home with fresh raw milk!
Generally speaking the produce lacks the finesse of the Polish market – most probably because far less of it is imported. There ARE grapes and bananas, but not pineapples or avocadoes or mangoes. In contrast, there is plenty of horseradish, bunches of dried herbs, jars of pickled everything – in fact there are metre-high tubs of pickled gherkins and whole pickled cabbages – and there are parsnips, beetroot, carrots, potatoes, turnips, garlic, beans. Soup will definitely be on the menu. In fact, it already has been. Our favourite pumpkin soup has turned all the tastier with the addition of Eastern European sausage and sweet peppers. YUMMO.
The bread is delish. It’s reminiscent of South Italian semolina bread – crunchy crust, doughy inside, fairly solid. White, but not fluffy. It comes in big loaves – two kilos worth, but you just buy as much as you want. There are other breads too (brown, plaited, plain fluffy white, batons, rolls), but this big round loaf seems to be the main bread of choice. It’s certainly become our favourite.
Our sweets-ectasy of Krakow, was always going to be hard to replicate. It would be difficult to do in New Zealand, and we get the feeling it will be impossible here. The Romanian range of cakes seems to be more closely related to that in Bulgaria than Poland. In the shops, that is. At Lili’s apartment we had a divine pumpkin cake, and tomorrow we’ll make scrumptious cinnamon and apple rolls at our place – but, thankfully, we will be spared the temptation of putting on weight here!
New Recipes.
CINNAMON ROLLS
1/2 C warm water
1 packet yeast (about 1t, I guess)
Dissolve
1/2C scalded milk
1/3C butter
1/4C sugar
1t salt
1 egg
Add in that order, allowing the butter to melt before adding egg
2C flour
Add to milk mixture and mix until smooth
Then add yeast mixture
1 1/2-2C flour
Add a little at a time, until not too sticky
Knead
Set aside in a warm place (yay for radiators!) until doubled in size (~1 1/2 hours)
Roll out into a large rectangle
Cover with any of the following:
butter, sugar (brown is nice, but we could only buy white), cinnamon, grated
apple, chopped nuts (it’s walnut season here), chocolate chips (we didn’t!)
Roll up tightly from the long edge and slice into as many pieces as you’d like
(maybe about a dozen)
Place spirals in a greased oven dish and set aside to rise for another half hour
Ours rose so much that there was no room to pour over the syrup and we just had to add it when serving, but if there is space in your dish, it’s really yummy to pour over a syrup made with 1/4C sugar and 1C water – goes nice-n-gooey.
Bake for 30 minutes, probably at 180*C, but we had a temperamental gas oven!
And LILI’S PUMPKIN CAKE (note 1C=150ml)
4 eggs
2C sugar
Beat together
2C milk
1 packet vanilla
zest from one lemon, grated
2C oil
Add
1T baking soda
pinch of salt
flour
Add until the dough is no longer pourable, but not too thick
In a greased oven dish, spread out half the dough
~1kg fresh pumpkin, grated
1C sugar
Combine and spread over top of dough
1t cinnamon
~1C chopped nuts
Sprinkle over and top with remaining dough
Bake at 200*C for one hour
For a big oven dish, use six eggs and change the cups to 200ml!!!
LILI’s CHILLIES
Take about a kilo of chillies, chop them up and pack them into (probably four) jars.
Heat 1/2l vinegar, 1/2l water, 2T sugar, 2T salt, 1t peppercorns and 4 bay leaves. Pour over the chillies and seal the jars.
Cover with a towel and blankets for 24 hours (really, truly)
We added these to the soup Lili served the day we arrived.
She thought it hilarious that Rob then also added them to his layered potatoes.
Lili offered more with his coffee. This time he declined.
But we did eat more the following morning on eggs.
rayres