Since Wednesday isn’t yet over, most of these photos are from Tuesday. This morning we went to the weekly market, so I’ll have more photos to post tomorrow. In the meantime, let’s start with comestibles, in particular last night’s dinner:
The remains of the wild-mushroom soup, with a bit of cream:
A more Polish meal: roast beef, potatoes, and the national beet/horseradish condiment. And a piwo (beer).
Making cherry pie with walnut crust for tonight. Professor Ceiling Cat cracked enough local walnuts to make three cups of nutmeats. Malgorzata does the rest:
Now this is a cookie! A mid-morning snack, Polish gingerbread cookies (piernik) covered with chocolate. The gingerbread is soft inside, like cake rather than harder American gingersnaps:
And of course there must be Hili the Rationalist Cat. Here she is playing with her favorite toy, sent by Miranda “Chill Girl” Hale, whose posts are often published on Racjonalista:
Hili: noble and then recumbent with teeth bared
Self portrait in a small market (more pictures tomorrow):
Today’s lunch: sausages, ham, tomatoes, chicken, cheese, bread, and a freshly-baked plum cake. I’m surely going to gain back the weight I lost during The Great Gastric Disaster:
Mmmm!
I remember the first time I went to central Europe (Slovakia), where I stayed with my then-girlfriend’s family. I put on 12lbs in 2 1/2 weeks. Fantastic!
OMG those gingerbread and chocolate treats look divine! Soft gingerbread! I love soft gingerbread!
I love Hili’s teeth when she reclines – like a happy little furry vampire. 🙂
I like the term “Great Gastric Disaster”. I found I permanently lost my appetite with my gastric issues. Meh. I once had really bad flus where I thought I was going to have to go to the hospital over New Year’s in 1999 & 2000. I called them the Armageddon Flus (which I mistakenly call Agamemnon flu which is okay too considering what happened to Agamemnon). Pro tip: if you have the flu, don’t eat cranberry sauce as a replacement for jello. You’ll get sick and think you’re dying for sure.
Looks like it’s chilly in Poland right now. It’s 33 C here today!!
Nice photos, thanks! Looks like it must be cool in Polska now — you are wearing a jacket! I haven’t thought about wearing a jacket since June when I was above 12,000 feet in the mountains!
I wore a jacket in May. 🙂 But I wore a parka in Hawaii when I visited Mauna Kea at 14,000 feet. I handled that thin air like a pro! 😀
Judging from the remains of sliced mushroom caps, they were fresh ceps (a.k.a. “penny buns”), Boletus edulis. The best mushroom soup in the Universe!
The first mushroom I learned to like as a child.
Am I the only one who is getting the impression that Jerry is formulating a plan to kidnap Hilli and bring him back to Chicago?
it so yummy with all the lovely sweet and nice food prepare on the table and over there must be cool. i can see you wearing heavy jacket .
It sure looks like you are having a dream vacation over there. The food, weather, felines, hosts, landscape, bonfires. Cheeezus chocolaty chingerbread, I am green with envy!
I could really go for some of those cookies. And soup. And pie. And sausage. And cheese. What else you got?
I am not big on sweets mainly because here in the US most sweets, including pastries, are just way too sweet. I fondly remember from my time in Europe, Germany mostly, how pastries of some sort where served with virtually every meal. Heck, a typical breakfast was two or three different kinds of cake with coffee and tea. But, everything was considerably less sweet, and much better for it in my opinion.
Too sweet? There’s such a thing as too sweet? I actually had to ween myself off so much sugar. I put 2 1/2 teaspoons in my coffee at one point. In my defence, I grew up with a lot of very close Dutch friends of my parents and their kids. 🙂
My wife and daughter are that way. They would be perfectly happy eating brown sugar, or especially maple sugar buy the chunk. Of course my wife is Quebecois so, that probably explains it. (Her family traditionally produced maple syrup and sugar, among other things.)
I have eaten brown sugar by the chunk in my days of having a lot of sugar. 🙂
My Quebecois friend (who is named Diane & everyone mixes us up – we worked in the same department for a while and got each other’s mail & email all the time) also grew up eating lots of butter and cream (that makes up a big part of French cooking). She is bad for eating candy but she moderates herself better than I. I tend to want to finish a whole bag of candy in one sitting as if it must be done.
I love the way Hili sleeps, so completely secure in her world!
Yum!
And does Dobrzyn mean something like “Good village”?
It’s actually Dobrzyń, with a palatal nasal at the end. It’s an old name (attested since the 11th century, when the place was a borderside fort), and it looks possessive, from the personal name Dobrzyn, which in turn could be a pet form of any Slavic compound name with Dobro- or Dobrze- ‘good’ as the first element (Dobrogost, Dobromir, Dobrzegniew or the like). They are structured like the Germanic names with *gōd- (Godfrith, Godric, Godwin, etc.).
I’d love the recipe for that beetroot condiment when Malgorzata has the time. 🙂
Oh, I have to admit that this one was bought ready from the shop. But it is not difficult to make at home:
Boil 1 kg beetroots (not peeled) in plenty of salted water for about half an hour. Peel them and grate (the finer the better). Add two-three tablespoons of grated horseradish, two spoonfuls of lemon juice, one teaspoon of sugar, salt and peppar. (You can always take less horseradish so your eyes will not water too much.)
Now it’s ready to eat.
Some peple like to add also cream.
(You can always take less horseradish so your eyes will not water too much.)
Or take more horseradish, so your eyes AND your nose will water a lot 😉
My parents used to like horseradish, but of course it is too strong for a child & now I hardly ever eat beef. I prefer mustard, but the I grew up in Norwich…! http://www.colmans.co.uk/about-colmans/our-history/
I was afraid of that! But thanks for the recipe. I will probably add cream.
Cheers
Food porn!
Unfair 🙁
I’m *so* glad that Hili the Adorable Rationalist Cat is enjoying the present I sent. Yay! 🙂
(& Thanks for the awesome shout-out. Heh)